Sports site I set up for a fella
 

Please take a look and tell me your thoughts, ideas and suggestions.

Dude didn't want v4 and wanted a retro theme. I have already contacted JacquiiDesigns for a custom header - the one there now is only temporary.

Go! ---> http://www.dallascowboysforum.com

Note: site is down for a bit, they had to change the IP for it, there was a issue with the existing one.

Whatever they did cranked the SPEED up even more than it was!

I noticed it seems rather fast for vB3.

I've always noticed the v4s are rather slow, especially compared to my own v3. And that's been a knock against v4 from Day One.

This one I set up here was fast out of the box, but got faster with the IP change today for some reason. There must have been some kind of loop or conflict with the original IP assigned, I dunno. It's greasy fast now.

I think that might have more to do with the excessive number of forum home modifications and additions you find on vB4 forums. A clean vB4 board has already run rather smooth for me, whereas even a clean vB3 board has an ever so slight noticeable load difference. But, that could just be some performance tweaks and the fact that so many of us used to (and still) have shared hosting packages back in the day.

Gosh that seems just like a old style Christian from vbdesigns.de did in the past (don't bother googling it the site is now gone) it just brings back memories is all :p.

Edit: Actually that is a vbdesigns style, "Radio vB" it took me a minute but I found it! Quick ? though... if vbdesigns.de is now gone how did they get a copy of said theme?

That's actually vbdesigns.de style there. Resurrected.

A big board I helped with a annoying problem had it and gave it to me as a fee for helping them out of their jam. It was quite fun porting that version 3.0 style to 3.8.7.

Erm... me does noth thinketh theyeth caneth doeth thatith!

Roughly translated, even back when Christian's site was up he was just like any other style creator i.e. license agreement/can't redistribute and most certainly had to enter in URL of site being used on. So with all that being said I would not use that style (I'm not 100% on this as I'm no lawyer) but seems copyright infringing to me and also well it was not theirs to give, payment of "fee" regardless...

:(

Very old style, defunct company. But if he contacts me I'm happy to pay.:)

Max I like you bud... wife told me to quit raining on peoples parade but LOL that was not my point!

The point I'm trying to make is, this is not right, you just can't take for example Adobe Photoshop from a Windows XP machine and update it yourself even if you know C++ and C# then make it work on a Windows 8 machine... to sum it up it was licensed to them and them alone - like I said above it was not theirs to give at all nor yours to port over. *Only way you could port this over is if the current dallascowboysfan owner already had it and had paid in the past for it but not when "someone gave it to me as fee payment then I made it work for new client" etc etc.

I fully understand you. I would love to pay the fella for his work, do you have contact information you can PM me?

This is all I could find, it was available publicly so I see no issue sharing it here:

Christian Reuter
Klusser Damm 46
D-23970 Wismar
GERMANY

Edit: Remember though the site is down, I have found a thread on vbelletin-germany.com where they mentioned the site sorta falling off the face of the earth/lack of support etc so not sure if the above contact info is current or not best to contact and ask permission to use the style imo.

Thanks Superman I will make all effort.

Good effort but are you serious? :down:

Everything I do for folks is free of charge, and what matters is if they like it.

You could give a informative review ya know.

Hey hey now just a quick comment to say that while I don't think this is the right way to go about the style and feel it is wrong I do not believe Max intentionally did anything wrong, if anything it was an honest mistake. Max is a very helpful member on here to many and overall a good sport in my opinion. So please do not let this thread get our of hand w/ comments here or there, that is why I "beat around the bush" initially trying to input my point of view. Depending on input from fellow staff still yet pending the thread may stay (and all my posts be deleted to keep it clean etc) or be deleted, I don't always make the calls around here "don't'cha know" ;).

Regardless of this all keep it clean folks no insinuations and face-slapping while staff is not online ok? :p

My wife wants to watch our recorded episode of The Mentalist and Patrick Jane is now working for the FBI so I'm antsy to see it too - off I go faster than a speeding bullet! Night all :D.

I like it. The colors are bang on.

I also like the way it shows members online/offline - I would assume that is a custom placement and not where 3.8.7 usually has the status?

I like it, get a nice Logo and it's spot on for me.
Good work mate..

I think that's a function of the style, it has alot of little differences like such.

Glad you liked what you saw and thanks for checking it out!Thanks Joe!

I think there's some leeway here, considering it's a ported 3.0 style from a company that hasn't been around since....when, exactly? Was it 2006-07? I guess it would matter if the other site is still using it, but if they've essentially treated it like a license transfer, I know I wouldn't pursue the issue over one of my old, outdated styles. I mean, if I can say "you can have my board" and I turn the licence over to someone for free (not counting the transfer fee), I think that should, in spirit, apply to styles, as well.

Yes the issues they were having were due to upgrade from 3.0.1 I believe, to 3.8.2 so I asked them, "where did you get these dinosaur styles?"

One of the greatest sports franchises of all time - and this has to be one of the ugliest vBulletin skins of all time. It's nearly 2014, this looks like it was made in 2002. Sorry for the harsh words, but it's an honest review - it's a quality domain name and the site should look great. I bet the bounce rate is well over 75%.

I'd be surprised if the forum continues to operate for more than a year before there is a C&D letter from the Dallas Cowboys. The one thing you have going for you to prevent that is that you're not displaying ads anywhere - so you're not technically profiting off of their brand. But when you do = trouble, soon enough.

Good luck!

I definitely appreciate your views and insight and am pleased that I was able to accomplish exactly what the customer wanted, a retro look. Although I am sure they would disagree with your characterization of the style as "one of the ugliest vBulletin skins of all time" that covers alot - ALOT - of really terrible ones out there. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. :D

I tried like hell to find a web skin or look that might have been around the last time the Cowboys were relevant, but alas it's been too long - almost 20 years since they have won anything at all significant. Bill Clinton was still president the last time Dallas was in the Super Bowl and Al Gore wasn't quite done putting his finishing touches on his invention, the internet. There existed such things as pay phone booths and tune-up places too!

The owners might be ahead of you and me, because I thought initially that Dallas Cowboys and NFL properties would be all over them like a Haitian on a ham sammich - and still might be - but when they take one look at that old broken down, late 90s skin and total lack of adverts and donation links... they probably just laugh and walk away.

This all might be a reason there's not alot of such boards out there, outside of the big corporate ESPN ones and such, and might be the reason such a great domain name was available to start with.

Good insights!

If you look back over some of the previous posts, you'll see that it actually was made circa-2002. And that it was kinda the point.

They probably won't get a C&D letter.

Of all the problems with the site, the one that catches my eye first is hiding of the required vbulletin link at the bottom of the page.

You sure Gary, I see the link just fine.

It is black type on dark blue background, not hard to fix thanks gary.

Dark on dark is hardly visible to me.

http://www.computervitals.org/attach...2&d=1386695050

In the Main Gate forums the last post area has expanded out to twice what the rest are.

It simple, clean, and neat. It doesn't hurt the Mark II eyeballs to look at and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to navigate it.

Is that IE 10 you're using?

Thanks for the vibe! By the way the site is also a guinea pig for DigitalJedi's development of a better mobile-friendly skin for vB3... It's called "Mobility" there and also, "CowboysMobile" as a child of the main style.

Yes IE 10.

For me it looks a bit techie, and not sporty at all, I appreciate the colours are there for the team colors, but the techie style doesn't suit it.

Also the banner needs a bit of work, too much glow on the text, and the blue text fails to stand out.

On the C&D issue, I think big teams have more to worry about than an internet forum where copyright is concerned.