I came up with the idea of doing these interviews as a way to profile individual members of the PPCGeeks.com community. I am happy this week to be able to spotlight part of the backbone of PPCGeeks… Mindfrost82. As a very active member and admin of the forums, he is constantly working to make sure that the PPCGeeks family is able to have the best experience possible while visiting the site. From stopping spammers to implementing features suggested by all of us, Mindfrost82 is dedicated to providing a safe, stable and fun environment for us all.
Hi, thanks for giving me some time today. I just have a few questions, and then Cozboogie from PPCGeeks.com had a few questions for you also. First off, who is Mindfrost82? Tell us a bit about yourself.
My name is Robert (or Rob). I’m 27 and I live in northern Illinois. I have a Bachelor’s in CIS from DeVry (received in 2008). I’ve been married since 2005 and I have a wonderful son who will be 2 next month. We have 2 cats, a few fish, and are getting a dog tonight hopefully. I currently work for a small manufacturing plant as their IT Administrator as well as Inside Sales. While the pay isn’t the best, its been a great company to work for, and I usually have plenty of time to fill my PPC fix. In my spare time, besides messing with my Fuze, I enjoy playing and watching basketball and football.
Hopefully the dog won’t chase the cats, resulting in a knocked over fishtank. Chaos would ensue. So, when did you get started with PPCGeeks.com? How did you become an admin?
I joined the site back when I got my Sprint Treo 700wx, but at the time there wasn’t much activity with that phone, so I was more active at TreoCentral. I setup a few other vBulletin forums and managed my own for a while. One time when I came to the site I read a thread about all the problems going on with the current host. I talked to Mike (WideAwake) and told him about my experience and offered my services. He paid for a new server with a different host and I was responsible for moving everything over and tweaking the new server. So that’s when I became an admin, which was also around the time I got my Sprint Touch and started flashing ROMs.
What was your first PPC? How long did the stock ROM last after you got it home?
My first PPC was a Sprint Treo 700wx. Unfortunately the only ROM I flashed was the Sprint updates because there were no custom ROMs for it at the time. I didn’t become a flash addict until I got my Sprint Touch. I can tell you that when I got my AT&T Fuze, the stock ROM only lasted a couple hours!
What are some of the problems that you face on a day to day basis when trying to maintain such a large forum?
Spam! We have a great team of mods to help control the spam, so that helps my job a lot.We’ve also had some hacking attempts on the server, but the security setup is pretty good. Once we had a DDoS attack and I tightened the security even more and it seems to have helped a lot.The other problem is trying to please everyone. With such a large community there are many questions and suggestions from the members. Half the members might feel one way about an issue and the other half feel the complete opposite. In the end, I just try to figure out where the middle is and hopefully that’ll be good enough to please everyone. There will always be those members that are never happy though.
I was actually a member before that, but not very active. Mike made me an admin to do the server change. The site has grown a lot since then. We average about 800-1,000 concurrent users during the day, which is up from about 400-500 2 years ago. HTC has released quite a few devices, so we’ve added more forums. You can see the shift as people upgrade too. 2 years ago the Mogul and Vogue forums were the most active and now its the Diamond and Touch Pro. We’ve also had more development members. A lot of the software development was at XDA and we’re slowly getting more developers here.
Any features you would like to see added to the forum?
One thing that would be good for the community would be a front page news section. If we had some editors and writers, we could make a portal like Engadget with front page news, which would give us more publicity. Right now our portal isn’t really used as much as it could be.
Great idea, I think that would definitely draw more readers. What motivates you to volunteer so much time to PPCGeeks?
I have enjoyed working on forums for years now and I enjoy seeing it succeed. Even though Mike owns it, I know my hard work behind the scenes keeps it running. I enjoy helping people, but honestly I’ve never cooked my own ROM.
What are your thoughts on the future of the WinMo phones, as opposed to the iPhone and Blackberry?
Ithink WinMo phones will always have a place. There will always be iPhone fans, Blackberry fans, and even Nokia fans. I think WinMo is a good middle-ground between the iPhone and Blackberries though. It can work as a great business phone, but there’s also enough out there to make it fun. WM 6.5 is going in the right direction IMO, and hopefully WM7 will be even better.
Do you think that the carriers will eventually try to put an end to the modding community?
I don’t really think it would be up to the carriers. I think it would be more like HTC locking them down or Microsoft putting a stop to them. I don’t really see it happening in the near future.
What ROM are you currently using? What are some of your favorites?
I’m actually flashing my Fuze as I’m typing this! On the Fuze I like the RRE ROMs. They’re a little slow at bootup after a soft reset, but they have been pretty solid for me. I also like NotATreoFan’s ROMs as well. Da_G makes some great stripped ROMs too. From my Vogue days, I would have to say I liked OMJ’s ROMs.
Here are a few questions from forum member Cozboogie:
What is his most memorable moment/event from PPCGeeks?
I would have to say when Mike made me an admin and wanted me to help him run this great site. This is the largest community I’ve been an admin for and I really love it. Everyone makes it a great place to be.
If he could be any member of the Sweathogs from Welcome Back Kotter which one would he be and why?
I honestly don’t even know what this is lol.
Would he rather be a train whistle or dinner bell….and why?
lol. I guess I would rather be a train whistle because you get to be on the fast moving train rather than just sitting in one place waiting to be rung.
What is the future of online forums? How does he see them changing?
Ithink forums have their place online, especially specialized ones like the PPC forums around. I see the forum software evolving more into the Web 2.0 era with more profile options and things like Facebook/MySpace/Twitter. Newer versions of vBulletin are already moving in this direction.
I wanted to thank Mindfrost82 once again for agreeing to do this interview. Thanks also go to Cozboogie for the questions. Seeing how much time and dedication Robert puts into this site, and how much we all benefit from it, we should all take just a moment while cruising around PPCGeeks to “thank” one of his posts, or send a private message to say that we appreciate his time. A forum as large as PPCGeeks.com does not run on it’s own, and with the help of people like Mindfrost82 and others, we very rarely have to deal with the myriad of annoyances that can pop up and ruin our experience.
Until next time, have fun, be safe… and don’t brick your phone.
May 21st, 2009 at 9:28 pm
Great blog and interview!
~Courtney1985 @ PPCGeeks