The last week has been pretty busy, and I wanted to bring everyone up to speed with the latest Jamroom releases - thus a larger blog post rather than the smaller forum post in Announcements.

Here's what's new:

- Jamroom Core 5.1.6 - this is the latest update to the JR core, and contains several fixes and tweaks to make things work better.  One of the big changes is that modules should load in the correct "order" now on all systems, which could have caused some "subtle" bugs to appear.

- New Smiley Support module - this is turned on here on Jamroom.net now, and it's a free module that gives you full control over emoticons on your system.  This is available right now for free to all subscribers, and will be coming to everyone in 2 weeks:

https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/networkmarket/107/smiley-support

- New Blank Skin Jamroom skin built to help skin designers create new skins for Jamroom 5 rapidly.  The Blank Skin is licensed under a 100% Freeware license - this means you are free to use the Blank Skin as the base for any free or paid skin you would like to develop!

https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/networkmarket/106/blank-skin

- Image Galleries update - the Image Gallery module has been updated with new sales support for selling individual images as well as "bundles" of images (requires FoxyCart and FoxyCartBundle modules):

https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/networkmarket/28/image-galleries

 - The Google Analytics module has been updated with full support for the new "Universal" Analytics:

https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/networkmarket/80/google-analytics

 - The free Item Ratings module has been updated with a new Global Config option to allow users who are not logged in the ability to rate items:

https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/networkmarket/73/item-ratings

 - The FoxyCart module has received more updates with new ledger, transactions and resend receipt options:

https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/networkmarket/70/foxycart-ecommerce

 - The Email Newsletters module has been updated with new “open” tracking and a new Newsletter Stats tool to see how well your Newsletters are doing at reaching your users:

https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/networkmarket/63/email-newsletters

There's been a lot of work going on here as we continue to refine the JR modules, with A LOT more still in the pipeline!   If you’re not a Jamroom subscriber yet, now is a good time to join - for only $29 per year you can get immediate access to all new modules and skins:

https://www.jamroom.net/subscribe

If you’re already a subscriber, thank you - you’re helping keep us in the Jamroom business

We hope you enjoy the new releases, and have a great holiday!

For those of you new to Jamroom (and even Jamroom veterans who are new to Jamroom 5), I wanted to post about a new "Udemy" course that Michael has been working hard on building over the last month or so:

Start Your Own Online Community

This is a video course that covers many, many different aspects of running and using Jamroom - everything from using FTP to upload the initial files to your site, to customizing a skin to suit your needs.

It is broken up into smaller "Sections", and within each section are "Lectures" that are just the right length even if you're busy - you don't have to sit through everything at once, and can even jump around and pick and choose those topics that interest you.

With Jamroom 5 we've been doing a lot more video guides, so make sure and check out our YouTube Channel :

https://www.youtube.com/user/jamroomdotnet

With dozens of video guides online, there's surely something new for you to checkout

We hope you enjoy the videos, and thanks to Michael for all his hard work on putting these together!

- Brian

This is only going to run through Sunday - once it is gone it is gone!

Make sure and check out the Black Friday Promo announcement in the forums:

https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/forum/announcements/2814/jamroom-black-friday-promo-code

Get 25% off any Jamroom Network item , and use it up to 3 times!

We hope you all have a great holiday weekend, and we look forward to seeing you online!

- The Jamroom Team

I know a lot of our customers have been asking for a detailed, step-by-step guide on running Jamroom on your own server or VPS (Virtual Private Server), and I have just wrapped up work on an in-depth guide to creating, configuring and running your own VPS server on DigitalOcean called:

High Performance Jamroom on DigitalOcean

This guide covers everything from signing up on DigitalOcean, to creating your VPS (called a 'Droplet"), to installing and configuring Apache, MySQL, PHP, email and more.

So please feel free to provide feedback via the comments on any page you might have questions about and I'll do my best to help, but please do not post questions about the guide in the Support Forum, as it is not something provided by the Jamroom Team or "officially" supported.  The guide is geared towards intermediate to advanced users, as it does require understanding how to use SSH, etc. - make sure and checkout the intro for all the details:

https://www.jamroom.net/brian/documentation/guides/1188/high-performance-jamroom-on-digitalocean

Note that this guide is on my personal Jamroom page - it's not part of the mainline Jamroom documentation.  Running your own server is really not in the realm of Jamroom, so it's more appropriate to be on my profile.  With that said I'll do my best to respond to comments and questions, but it's not something that is "officially" supported by the Jamroom Team.

I hope you enjoy the guide!

- Brian

With our recent rollout of the new Jamroom.net website, we also have rolled out a new feature - something new for the first time in Jamroom's 10+ year history - premium subscriptions!

Right now we currently have 2 different subscriptions available , and both are being offered at an introductory price:

• VIP Member - only $29 per year
• VIP Premium Support - only $29 per month

The "big difference" between the two different subscriptions is that the VIP Premium Support subscription gets you access to the 24 hour Support Tickets section - the Jamroom team will answer your tickets in 24 hours or less, which is our highest level of priority support.  VIP Members do not get access to Support Tickets, but can still get help from the friendly User Forum.

Both subscriptions are currently priced $10 below their normal price while we get the ball rolling and include the following:

• Early Access new modules and skins - you get access to new modules and skins 14 days earlier than everyone else .
• Access to the Backstage Profile - unlike the Jamroom 4 "Backstage" access (which was just a private forum), Backstage on the new Jamroom.net is an entire profile - our plan is to offer exclusive downloads and extra content all centered around helping you run a successful Jamroom site.
• Whatever other cool stuff we can think of to throw in there and say thanks for subscribing!

The whole subscription thing is new to us, so we anticipate adding and tweaking things as we see how it grows, and based on feedback from everyone.  One thing we won't be doing is requiring a subscription for any development documentation or other items needed by all Jamroom users or developers - we want the subscriptions to be that "something extra" - not required, but who doesn't like having something extra?

Let us know if you have any questions about the new subscriptions, how we can make things better, or any feedback or suggestions - it's really appreciated

Thanks!

p.s. we want to personally send out a huge Thank You to @ilovehousemusic for being our very first subscriber! You Rock!

Welcome to the new Jamroom.net!

We've been working really hard over the last month to update Jamroom.net to run on Jamroom 5, and we're happy to finally get everything working to the point where we can go live.

The new Jamroom.net offers a lot of new functionality, with our goal to make it easier than ever to use (and get help using) Jamroom.  This includes:

• All new Marketplace that makes installing, updating and keeping up to date a breeze.
• New Support Module making it easy to find documentation and get help with specific modules and skins.
• New Developer profiles with dedicated forums, issue tracking and documentation.
• New Jamroom 5 Core (version 5.1.0) with dozens of updates, tweaks, and bug fixes.
• Hundreds of updates to dozens of Jamroom 5 Modules.
• New server powering Jamroom.net.

We'll be working hard over the next month to make sure everything is running smooth as can be on the new system, as well as working to make sure the site is functioning as efficiently as it can.  We want to make it easy to find what you're looking for!

If you run into any bugs or issues, make sure and post to our Jamroom Network Support Forum:

http://test.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/forum

and we'll followup right away.

Our plan is to move the existing Jamroom.net system over to archive.jamroom.net - the old phpBB2 based forum will be left in read only mode so the forum posts will still be accessible, and Jamroom 4 (and older) modules and files will still be available there.

If you have any questions, feel free to post in the comments below and I'll do my best to answer.

We hope you enjoy the new site!

- The Jamroom Team