Boonex

I have tryed Dolphin for a Month. Befor i Buyed a licens the Support was ok. But after the Paiment was done,, the Support changes to a sellsman. You want to make changes? Then the Support will try tu sell you a Module. Be care of Buying a monthly license. I didnt want a second but after i told the Agents that i dont want to buy a new, thei booked a second one. The Cancelation over the Boonex Webseit was not Posible. For me thats nearly criminal.

Why boonex is a scam?
Boonex problem nr1. No coding standard

Boonex is writen by several people using different technologies. Its main base (Dolphin) is writen in pure php with its own template engine and forum (Orca) uses xlst. That has large negative impact to integration of forum in site and site in forum. When coding, please use single technology and template system.

Whats even worser, different parts of dolphins code itself is writen by completely different people, and very in the hurry. So everyone has its own imagination how to interact with different parts of the code. It is very tricky to modify code that way to suit site needs.

Boonex problem nr2. Template engine and separation of code/design/database

This problem in dolphin/boonex needs a point on its own. Boonex uses custom template system ( that should be called layout system). The blocks of generated html code are pased to specific places in the template. That creates a big headache for programers as they need to search through code for the place where some box is generated. It might be generated in template, or in specific function in one of numerous includes. And so on. Even pligg has better templating than this.

It is very tricky to rip boonex templating apart, as whole coding is based on such poor programming practice. They would be better off using existing template system like smarty or similar one.

This leads to problem nr3

Boonex problem nr3. Crapy use of Database

We saw serveral other competing sites launched on boonex, but we did not care much. Why? Becouse when they reach 500-1000 daily visitors they will break apart. The reason for it is very bad programming and use of database.

For example, boonex uses profile builder which assigns fields to profiles. So the output of profile uses more than one table and is quite inefficient.

Also, there is a nice 20-30 query overhead on each page display to fetch all the configuration values from table. Silly, isn't it? They would be FAR better of using a file for configuring sofware or caching it in php file like it is done in most of the systems.

Another simple problem. When boonex wants to display a profile being online it additionally check database for its status. But that data was pulled from database already. So 20 useless queries again.

Resume

I would not suggest using boonex if you want to keep your programmers sane. We have have changed the code almost completely for now, and you will need to do that too. Boonex is a scam.

BOONEX DOLPHIN ARE FRIENDS OF SKADATE ALSO KNOWN AS SCAMDATE AND KYRGIZ SCAMMERS! Andrey Sivtsov is a famous Kyrgiz scammer. Boonex states that it is a US-based company, which is A TOTAL LIE! (If you are a man who somehow still haven't heard anything about Scamdate, read http://www.topix.com/forum/who/scam/TCS27T4P67FRVPBB9 just to be in the picture).
Let us look at the whois info, to start with: http://whois.domaintools.com/aedating.com (it is one of the Boonex major sites).
Registrant:
Yulia Sivtsova
Mikroraion Asanbay d. 2 kv. 54
Bishkek *******
Kyrgyzstan
Nice, is not it?:-) (Cowards usually use the name of their wives to register domains by the way). If you go to http://www.aedating.com you will be redirected to Boonex.com, the main scam site of the scammer Andrey Sivtsov who now has changed the name to Andrew Boon, you can see it here: http://www.crunchbase.com/company/boonex, after registering an offshore in Australia:-)
You may ask, well, the script is "free", how does he scam people? It is very simple: to have the copyright removed, mods added, bugs (which are numerous) removed, you will have to PAY, PAY, PAY, and pay for a very long time. You will pay a lot of money. You will also frequently see such messages:
Product is available for contributors only
And so you become a contributor how? Thought you'd never ask!
"You can become a contributor by donating $40 a month to ExpertZZZ. Nice scheme, eh?:-) There is a lot to learn from Kyrgiz scammers Boonex Dolphin.
If you did not know the script Boonex Dolphin has bugs, you can check this link: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&newwindow=1&q=boonex+vulnerability&btnG=Search
It will show you the real state of things.
Please be warned, Boonex Dolphin is a buggy product made by a Kyrgiz scam company. Do not repeat my mistakes.

It was a tad daunting simply because of the sheer amount of features it offers however, once getting used to navigating the Admin panel, it all came together rather seamlessly.

After searching for the software to run our new low cost social network I decided to give Boonex (Dolphin 7. X) a try.

I've had the site up an running for a couple of days now. Got my graphics all constructed; set my boilerplate "about us", "privacy" etc. and got the basic navigation all set up... and now I find out why this is such a cheap program.

The $99 fee to have the logo removed didn't turn me off, per se. Nor did the fact that you have to pay for support. (However, the $1000 all inclusive support package does piss me off.)

It wasn't until after I spent three days getting to know the program and doing all my setups that I realize - I have a really nice looking DATABASE. And that is really all it is. A nice looking screen to show off the members profiles.

Of course, no-one would actually join if they knew that once registered - you can't do anything other than look at other peoples profiles. Basicly, as a stand alone - it's worthless.

UNLESS, you start adding "modules" and "themes". Then the site can start to come together. First - find a theme for about $60. You will probably want a module for Groups, Classifieds, Video, etc. - you name it and you can probably find it.

The only problem is that these modules cost from anywhere from $25 - $75 each; they are made by third parties; and most are single-site licenses only. (Yes, there are a few freebies out there. But overall, expect to be spending a bunch of money.)

By the time you add up the cost of all the stuff (that's needed or worthwhile), you will easily hit $500 or more.

If everything worked great, and this was a stellar program it might be worth the money. But let's face it, at best it's a mediocre program.

To be honest, I'm not sure what I'm going to do next. I will certainly give SocialEngine a try first. Are they any better? I don't know yet. But considering that the cost of Boonex will surpass them anyway - it's worth a try.

That's my 2 cents.

I must admit, from first glance, and for those who are used to geocities, and angelfire, Dolphin would present several problems. I have personally been using dolphin for several years now, not only a user of dolphin http://terabyte-hosting.com and http://dolphin-techs.com but i am also a hosting service provider who hosts this application.

The problem most have is that they think they are going to drop an app onto a $2.00/month hosting environment and compete with facebook and myspace. Well that simply is not going to happen.

It is clear that those who would complain about an open source app, rather than utilize it for what its worth, have absolutely no clue what they are talking about. The deal here is this, yes they charge to remove the branding, big deal, many open source developers do the same thing. If you had something even remotely similar in functionality custom built, you are talking about spending somewhere in the neighborhood of $300k. So you spend a few bux for branding removal, you spend a few bux on some custom mods, that by the way, you were incapable of producing yourself, which lead you to the point of needing to purchase the mods.

Lets look at this on the grand scheme of things. Do you go around bashing ford or gm, because their vehicles are $30k+, and you have to keep paying and after you finished paying the car off, because you failed to maintain the vehicle.

I think not.

Boonex is a good company, not the greatest, and all who provide a service to the community at large, are going to always have one or two complaints. Based on the number of downloads, compared to the number of complaints, i would say that boonex is doing really good. You can find slander across the board about any and every open source application that has ever been released.

Put on your big girl panties and quit your sniveling.

Regards,
DosDawg
Terabyte Hosting Solutions