GBAtemp v4: powered by XenForo

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Costello

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We're back! So, how have you all been doing for the past week? It must have been difficult without your daily GBAtemp dose. Well, the whole team has been hard at work behind the scenes and we are proud to present you GBAtemp v4. Our forums are now powered by XenForo, a simple yet efficient bulletin board system. Before you begin using our new site I'd like you to read this entire thread as carefully as possible. [prebreak]Continue reading...[/prebreak]

1. Change your password!
Before anything else, quickly log in to your account (with your usual GBAtemp username and password) and immediately change your password. With the recent hack there is a chance that your account may have been compromised. The sooner you do this, the better. Once your password is changed, you're good.

2. Reinforced security
If you have read the unoriginal message left by the hackers on our site on the day of the hack, you've probably read the personal attacks against myself and how bad of a technical administrator I am, etc. At the end of the day, there is definitely a part of truth in that message, in that I failed to properly secure the server or our website architecture and it resulted in a hack. Now, I could easily find excuses (such as using third-party software that came with security breaches such as Plesk, IPB, etc.) but I believe the best attitude is to apologize, learn from your mistakes and get back to work. This is what we're doing.

We have formatted all our servers, reinstalled the OS from scratch, and we aren't using a single line of code from our old IPB forums anymore. We have added extra layers of security, which of course we won't disclose publicly. We will keep checking for info on security news sites in the hope to be able to fix 0-day security breaches before they get utilized by ill-intentioned persons. On top of that, we have blocked a lot of IP addresses from reaching our site. We've set up extensive blacklists; if you're accidentally caught in them feel free to contact us for unbanning. One last word regarding security: there is always a risk that we get hacked again. Just like there is always a risk for every website to get hacked. This is something that will likely never change, the best we can do is to continuously keep watching for security alerts and maintain up to date software.

3. Invision to XenForo
Tell you the truth: ever since the very first hacks years ago, we had in mind a forum software change. We were going to go for vBulletin but we remained unconvinced by the various security issues. So we've chosen XenForo in its latest available version, over the promise that it would prove to be part of the more reliable forum systems. Previous upgrades were prepared over months but we didn't have this kind of time here. We've quickly brought you this new version so there's currently a lot of missing features; however rest assured that we will be progressively bringing them back over the next few weeks.

4. Missing features
I am going to attempt a quick summary of the currently missing features of GBAtemp v4:
- Previous IPB add-ons: blogs, picture gallery (though pictures are still present), calendar, arcade
- Game release box on the homepage and the release posting form
- Some of the best features from our former portal haven't been ported to XenForo yet
- Editorial content is still here except for the game reviews from the Review Center
- Site pages such as contact, chatroom, the tutorial listing and more
There are many more missing elements, please make sure to keep them centralized in this thread! And remember: we will bring back -nearly- all of the missing features, it's just a matter of time. Also URLs and links from the former board should still be valid thanks to the redirection script we've created.

5. New features!
Now this is the best part. Not only will you get the missing features back at some point, but you're also getting new stuff right now!
- Live updates: my personal favorite. Alerts (formerly known as notifications) and PMs are now refreshed in real time! Whenever someone sends you a private message you will be notified almost instantly, in less than a minute.
- Post edit history: post versioning is now supported. If you edit your post, the original version of your post is conserved and can be viewed or restored.
- Never lose a post again: if you accidentally close your browser window or tab while writing a post, simply go back to the page from which you were writing: the text will magically re-appear in the text box!
- Homepage customization: from the 'Customize this page' link in the menu bar, you can completely redesign the way the portal shows up for you. If you liked our former 3-column layout, that's something you can get back by designing your own layout... with simple drag & drop manipulations.
- A bunch of small improvements: a lot of new options for PMs, large quotes are collapsed by default, more media tags, etc.

That is not all. Not only will we be bringing back the old missing site parts- we will also be setting up new functionality as we go and announce them on our homepage.

6. Mario Kart 7 Tournament
The tournament will resume soon. We will keep everyone informed as early as possible, by PM and/or email. Check our homepage daily and you'll be fine! At least you've had time to practice your racing skills with all the time that you didn't spend on GBAtemp ;-) ! Good luck to everyone who is still on board and may the best racers win.

7. Site donations
You may have noticed a Donation Box on the homepage at the bottom of the right column. As much as we hate asking for donations, this week has been a bad blow for us financially: aside from the obvious loss of earnings, we're also likely to suffer from a drop in SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) which results in decreased traffic and thus decreased revenue. We've also had to purchase new software licences for XenForo, its add-ons and a couple of security apps that are now running on our servers. Any help is appreciated. I'm not going to bullshit you- any money you donate won't be going to charities, it'll be going towards paying the software licences, to paying the server bills, and more importantly to rewarding the people who worked their ass off to bring GBAtemp back as promptly as possible.

8. THANKS
First, thank YOU for coming back to our site and reading this far- that was a long-ass post indeed. I would also like to thank everyone involved in the rebuilding of the temp: shaunj66 for designing our new forum skin, tj_cool for helping with the software and add-ons, as well as all the moderating team for their support during this crisis. None of this would have been possible without the help our fantastic staff. Kudos to them!

Costello
 

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shaunj66

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Welcome back, everyone! Thanks to all staff for making this comeback so speedy and so awesome :)

Edit: Keep in mind that the skin is still work in progress. I'll/we'll be continuing to improve and edit it for a while. We thought it would be better to make the site live ASAP as it's not necessary to take the site offline to make amendments.
 

Wizerzak

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Awesome new site - Thanks a lot Costello, shaun and tj! If anything this hack was a good thing judging by the final outcome. :)
 

signz

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I love the new theme and layout already. But then again, I'm in some other Xenforo forums already, but still.
Great work, Costello and team. :)
 

Langin

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Welcome back! :') Nice to see this site up again, you've done some great work Costello, I really appreciate it and I see you have a 'donate' button now so I might donate some money soonish! ;)
 

Gahars

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What is this? Everything is so nice and spiffy and new, it's horrible. I don't like change!

Seriously, though, great to see that the Temp is back. I was afraid I'd have to start heading outside soon.
 
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The Real Jdbye

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I was hoping you'd change to XenForo, I like all its improvements over other forum software and it has a nice intuitive design as well as a good default theme.
Liking the new theme so far, can't wait until all the missing features are restored.

May I suggest you install the Tag Me mod if you haven't already? It's incredibly useful.
 

WiiUBricker

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You guys know that XenForo deals with a lawsuit and could be dead after the trial in January? Development of XenForo is also halted for months plus there are private issues between the staff there.

Also I wonder if this is related to the security breach.
 
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