Yahoo Groups Conversion & Integration...

[websissy]

Hello, I am on the verge of licensing vBulletin version 2 and then immediately upgrading to the latest Beta for version 3. Several of the features I am looking for are only available in v3. However, I have a couple of known areas where I'm going to need either a hack or some custom programming support... and I'm not quite ready to start trying to hack in PHP/MySql yet.

So, here are my questions...

First, in addition to planning to convert a limited amount of Forum activity from Ikonboard, my site also hosts a good sized Yahoo Egroup. The message board in that group currently has about 4,500 messages that I'd really like to convert to vBulletin before I shoot my Yahoo group in the head and put ME out of its misery.

I've done some experimenting and have satisfied myself that with a few hours of work I can manage to create a straight text file out of Yahoo that will contain all of my group messages in numerical order. Each message begins with a line containing the message number, followed by a couple of lines that have the "From", "Date" and "Subject" information. Those lines are in turn followed by as many lines as necessary of text representing the orignal message that was posted. Then the format repeats again for the next message.

What I'd LIKE is to find someone who can write a script for me that would take a document in that kind of format and load it into the database of a single vBulletin Forum. It would be nice if the program could detect most threads using the "Re:" in the subject line as a clue to tell it that this is the continuation of a previous topic... But that's not strictly necessary if it's too hard to do.

I'm looking for comments suggestions or helpful advice... Or as an alternative, is anyone here interested in discussing taking on that project for a fee? I gotta believe the script involved would be saleable to LOTs of other Yahoo egroups Moderators in the future.

Next question, I am simultaneously in the process of picking and installing SEVERAL new apps as I upgrade my website into what I have begun thinking of as a true web portal. The products I'm installing include a new Free Email manager (Perl/MySql), a new Image Library Manager (Perl), a new Member Profile Manager (PHP/Flat File), New Java Chat room software, vBulletin Forums Software (PHP/MySql), a new Java-based Instant Messenger product, and a new Yahoo-style search engine (PHP/MySql?).

Needless to say, most of those products require some kind of user registration. But for MOST of them that's pretty simple involving username, password and an email address. Again, I'd like to find someone who's willing to write the code to integrate their registation and log-in functions so that my users only need to register one time and log-in once per session. Obviously, I'm looking for someone to whom such integration isn't rocket science... Someone who has hopefully been there and done that before.

Again, I'm looking for comments suggestions or helpful advice... or better yet someone who might be willing to take on these projects.

Any help you can offer would certainly be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
WebSissy