Big news at vBulletin.com...

The link he posted has a querystring parameter: http://morallybankrupt.vbulletin.net/?adminAction=quickConfig

 

Thanks, yes, that link is to the the quick admin setup page. Unless you're a complete newbie to administration, I don't think its very valuable.

But I can't find any other way, other than using the quick admin setup page, to upload an image for the forum logo.

 

Thanks Joe. Is the Cloud version another version or are they the same when 5.1.0 is released.

 

Wayne did take the time and answered almost all my questions.

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/foru...ulletin-cloud-questions?p=4017312#post4017312

Actually I like some things about it but dislike other things about it. But I will let you read Waynes answers and decide for yourself.

 

Cloud will get 5.1.0 and future updates, not sure exactly when.

You cannot use 3rd party modifications.

There is no FTP access.

Style changes are limited to style-variable changes. No access to edit the templates themselves.

You own the data, IB owns the structure.

There is no way to import or export data at this time but they are planned in the future.

No SSL support at this time.

PHP direct execution module not present.

You can run your own ads, no plans for there to be any forced ads from vBulletin.

 

Speed is so so for a site that has only a few people on it. Its taking about 4 to 5 second for a page to pop up after I click on it, and thats on my 100 meg connection.

Looks like in the admincp missing is Addons and Plugins.

They give you 100GB of space but don't let you FTP things to it? How do you change your graphics and styles if you cant upload them?

I also see they make an unalterable admin account on each site as well. Must be used for updating... or removing any IB posts.

 

This one will hurt:

 

The scariest answer on vBulletin forum provided by Wayne Luke:

You can maybe guess why this answer is scary the only answer here should be "We respect our customers privacy and all IP on the vBulletin Cloud installs we will never look in the database unless asked to do so". The answer given now is something that the might look i say might look not that they will look.[/quote]

 

Speed is slow for me to and i know that Netflix is using AWS and the speed is good with them for me so its not an connection issue.

Yep you can't alter the Style our locked in with the default style and Plugins are not allowed in the cloud.

So much for some control i do not see that larger boards would want to run in the cloud solution.

So they have an admin account if that is true i would never ever host with them.

 

Well, something just got borked on morallybankrupt.vbulletin.net

The CSS won't render now, the files are missing. Can't do much of anything logged in. Tried to refresh browser cache, cleared system cache, nothing seems to work.

No styles can be uploaded, and there isn't any type of add-on implementation function, and no MySQL query functions.

 

There is an option at the top of the page to place a header ad, but for whatever reason, I don't have permission to create one.

 

Well, don't know if I can get support for the CSS problem, as I didn't buy the $49.99 a month support package, and I'm banned from the vBulletin forums.

But anyway, this is the dashboard that vB gives you that shows bandwidth usage.

I've already consumed 13meg of bandwidth in just a couple of hours of being live.

 

Support have to do this for you atm, there is no charge Im aware of.

 

So why pay to run a forum that you cannot export the database from without IB's permission to do it, LOL You might as well go run a ProBoards for free... I mean, you don't own vBulletin 5 included with the hosting you pay for. If you leave them, you can't take the forum software with you - it's only rented same as Proboards is rented on their free hosting.

So what exactly is the big gain from this, apart from you paying - for what can be got for free? And I would at least expect if your paying for it, then manual database export feature would be there to do automatically, should you decide to buy vB5 later and host it yourself using the database from the board you ran with them beforehand.

They want their cake and eat it, it sounds...

Well, I guess time will tell on that one, you obviously don't know. But who's betting there's a catch 22, or a fee.

 

No third party plugins? Way to take away the one advantage the likes of vB could possibly have over free forum hosts. I mean, you're paying for the site. Shouldn't you be allowed to install them? IPB lets you at least import add ons and what not...

 

Look at end-to-end cloud solutions by other companies. Wordpress VIP starts at $3,750/mo. IPS doesn't even list prices for their SaaS solution which leads me to believe it's up there price.

Meanwhile IB starts at $15/mo. They're clearly shooting for the bottom of the barrel here. They're actually diluting the value of their flagship product; vBulletin 5. Sales must really be in the chitter. Why would I shell out $250 to license the product; when I can kick the tires for $20/mo if after a couple of months I don't like it, oh well I only threw away $40 not to $250 on an nontransferable license.

Like most hosted services I've seen you run into limitations with custom plugins and/or styles in the name of security. Even Wordpress.com only has vetted themes and no plugins. Their VIP service only allows limited plugins that have been pre-vetted. The lack of plug-ins / customization is really no big surprise on a hosted service like this.

For novices, who don't know any better and just want to get a forum up and running on the cheap without all the technical worries this is a decent solution. Personally, I'd buy a $10/mo hosting plan and run myBB before I'd run vB 5 or entrust my community to a company who's servers were recently hacked. My guess would be the same people who run the dedicated servers for vB.com also manage the AWS servers. That's doesn't do much for my confidence.

That's just my .02.