Integrate PHPBB login to your website

PHPBB is one of most widely used forum board system. Build on strength platform of PHP, PHPBB free yet stable and easy to configure. We can aware if a system using PHPBB as its forum board system, by its unique layout and themes.

For some website that doesn't have own member management system can use PHPBB for their user / login based system. PHPBB provide a solid member management system, sign up interface, also nice member profile interface.

For sign up, easiest way is using existing PHPBB signup form. More customization is required to match your website theme. Simply edit profile_add_body.tpl template under your phpbb/template/templatename/ folder. It's all in html + smarty code.

Next is to link a login form (on your main website) to phpbb login verification system. You need to create a form contain 3 main object : user name, password, and Login button


<form name="frmPhpBBLogin" action="your_phpbb_login.php" method="post">

User name : <input name="username" type="text">

Password : <input name="'password'" type="password">

<input value="'Login'" type="'submit'">

</form>




To get login info which stored in PHPBB session, simply get it from COOKIE data by
PHP Code snippet
-----------
$session_data = isset($_COOKIE['phpbb2_data'])?unserialize(stripslashes($_COOKIE['phpbb2_data'])) : array();
if (isset($session_data['userid'])) GetPHPBBMemberDetail($session_data['userid'])
function GetPHPBBMemberDetail($id) {
$myQR = "SELECT * FROM `phpbbdb`.`phpbbprefix_users` WHERE `user_id`='$id'";
$myRE = mysql_query($myQR);
return mysql_fetch_assoc($myRE);
}
------------
Note :
- Actual cookie variable name may vary, you can do a var_dump($_COOKIE) to find out.
- Change `phpbbdb` to your actual PHPBB database name
- Chnage `phpbbprefix_` to actual PHPBB table naming prefix
You must have mysql access to get all the data.

To log out simply hit PHPBB's logout url, normally at login.php?logout=true

Firefox 2 on Ubuntu Hardy Heron

Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron just rolled out from it's beta stage. For those ubuntu-lover, we just can't wait what are new features on this new release, especially that can be seen directly from its fancy desktop.

Firefox is one of among list. Even Firefox 3 offer lot of new browsing features, but unfortunately, I don't like beta softwares. Even it proved stable, but one thing is sure, it slow down my laptop, compare to previous version. Maybe you have same opinion with me.
Also, lot of my favorite plugin does not work with Firefox 3, including Foxmarks.

To roll back using Firefox 2 as Ubuntu Hardy default browser, simply uninstall firefox 3, get firefox 2 and change some shortcut links. Open a terminal session

$ sudo aptitute remove firefox
$ sudo aptitute remove firefox-3
$ sudo apt-get install firefox-2

Next is change default command firefox shell script to firefox-2, by type :
$ cd /usr/bin
$ sudo ln -s firefox-2 firefox

As bonus here is an article for you who love Internet Explorer, and wish to run it on your Ubuntu. Installing Wine, Internet Explorer and Visio 2003

Just like Asus tagline, now you can enjoy rock-solid heart-touching Firefox 2 :) and alternative IE on your Ubuntu.