Category: Development

The Site Shall Rise Again!

I know, it’s been a while, but on the bright side I’ve made the changes I promised last year. Dynamic pages, powered by PHP with a MySQL backend. Cruft-free URLs. A new look and layout. A complete reorg of the writing section. Oh, and a new host. I didn’t promise that eight months ago, because I was still hosting the site on my own iMac. Experience has taught me that that isn’t the safest route.

Yes, I’m back!

I know, it’s been a while, but on the bright side I’ve made the changes I promised last year. Dynamic pages, powered by PHP with a MySQL backend. Cruft-free URLs. A new look and layout. A complete reorg of the writing section. Oh, and a new host. I didn’t promise that eight months ago, because I was still hosting the site on my own iMac. Experience has taught me that that isn’t the safest route. Dreamhost offers me oodles more services, space, bandwidth and better stats than my previous hosting solution, and at a lower price. Can’t beat that. My photo galleries aren’t finished yet, but I’m putting the rest of the site back up because, damn, it’s been too long.

No new content yet, but that’s coming up soon. I’ve still got some old comic reviews to update. I hope my writing muscles aren’t too rusty.

What I’ve Got Cooking

I’m currently in the middle of a big site redesign. The ball got rolling last month when I changed the index page to add a little PHP script. Nothing too fancy, but it got my feet wet. So here’s what’s going to happen:

I’m currently in the middle of a big site redesign. The ball got rolling last month when I changed the index page to add a little PHP script. Nothing too fancy, but it got my feet wet. So here’s what’s going to happen:

  • No more static HTML. It’s PHP/MySQL all the way! It’s more work initially, of course, but in the end it’ll make maintenance ever so much easier, and open up tons of design possibilities.
  • A slightly different layout. The main menu will go below the header graphic, and breadcrumbs will disappear (and be less important anyways, since I’m flattening the site structure somewhat). To replace them there’ll be a small bit in the sidebar to indicate the page’s location within the site. Speaking of the sidebar, it’s been sitting pretty empty on most of the pages, hasn’t it? Now it’ll contain more material: a short “about” bit (similar to what you currently find on the main page), copyright info and the validation links (moved from the footer), most recent posts, etc…
  • As long as I’m changing the file extensions, I might as well do it intelligently and have cruft-free URLs.
  • Some reorganization of my “writing” section. My comics reviews will be merged with my regular posts. Logical conclusion of the steps taken in the present design. My old articles and poetry will stay online, in their own sections as before.
  • A new look. Obviously. No details yet, I’m still working on it.
  • Content: all of my old comics reviews to be revised and updated. I’m already most of the way there: The only big one left to do is Sandman. Then, just a few Vertigo miniseries. And then I can go on to new reviews. But I need to take care of this unfinished business first.

I want to have all this done by the 10th anniversary of my site: September 26th. Gawd, I can’t believe it’s been ten years already… Meh, we’ll get misty-eyed and nostalgic later. Right now there’s work to be done.

Point Release

So I’ve been fiddling with the site’s styles a bit. Partly to clean up the stylesheets, removing redundant definitions and adding more comments so I’ll have an easier time maintaining them in the future, and partly to deal with some of IE’s frackin’ display issues. Stupid IE.

So I’ve been fiddling with the site’s styles a bit. Partly to clean up the stylesheets, removing redundant definitions and adding more comments so I’ll have an easier time maintaining them in the future, and partly to deal with some of IE’s frackin’ display issues. Stupid IE. Also, I’ve been worrying about the best way to display the breadcrumbs; I haven’t been totally happy with them for a while, especially since I’m thinking of moving the top menu under the header graphic. Or maybe I won’t. Maybe I just want change for change’s sake. We’ll see.

But, you ask, are there any actual changes? Oh, yes: the home page now has an image and quote rotator (adapted from here) which adds just the right touch of class to an otherwise boring and static site. This is my first shot at PHP coding, and it won’t be the last.

And finally, a picture of me.

Host

I control the horizontal. I control the vertical.

Ladies and gentlemen, as of this weekend, I am self-hosting my site. Hey, I’ve had the hardware and the software for months now. In that time I’ve been reading up on what I need to configure and run my own Web server, and I’m finally ready to take the leap.

I control the horizontal. I control the vertical.

Ladies and gentlemen, as of this weekend, I am self-hosting my site. Hey, I’ve had the hardware and the software for months now. In that time I’ve been reading up on what I need to configure and run my own Web server, and I’m finally ready to take the leap.

What will it mean to you, the reader? Not much right now. Okay, I guess my site will be more vulnerable to power failures and such, but I’ve got lots more space to play with, tons more than I had with my old hosting service. And I’m backing up everything, so barring an act of Gawd on my computer itself, we’ll be okay in the long run.

As for me, well, I’m not paying for hosting anymore. And, for the first time ever, I’ve got complete control over the server side of things: configuration and access logs. That was something I’ve wanted for a long time: my old hosting company provided daily stats which were kind of useful, but not terribly informative. Now I’ve got access to everything, every possible bit of information. I installed the excellent (and free) AWStats package for a good overall view, and the raw logs are there for when I need just a bit more detail.

Just yesterday all of that came in handy, when I found out that another site was hotlinking to one of my photos to use as a background image. I wasn’t mad, really, just annoyed (and, I won’t name names: I’ve emailed the author, and it turns out it was just an honest newbie mistake. However, I have taken some precautions to prevent future bandwidth theft. (Because I’m not a bad guy, I chose to just send back a 403 code. I could have been a bit meaner but I guess that would have been a tad extreme.)

And, I know, if it had happened last week, I could have implemented this just as well with a .htaccess file instead of fiddling with the main server config, but my previous Web stats might not have told me (or not so obviously) that there was hotlinking going on, and they wouldn’t have led me to the offending page. And you know what? I’m thinking maybe I wouldn’t even have bothered to prevent it right away. But since the site is sitting in my computer, in my office, in my home, I’m a bit more motivated to defend it. It makes it all a bit more personal.

Maybe I won’t be able to keep this up forever; if/when my site becomes more popular, I’ll have to find another hosting solution. But in the meantime, with the relatively low bandwidth it’s pulling, I can easily afford this.

I’ve Joined a Cult

Rejoice, O my brothers and sisters, for I have seen the way. Yea, I have been reborn into the light, the truth, the pure effervescent joy of oneness with All That Is.

Three weeks ago, I became the proud owner of a G5 iMac and latest-generation iPod.

Rejoice, O my brothers and sisters, for I have seen the way. Yea, I have been reborn into the light, the truth, the pure effervescent joy of oneness with All That Is.

Three weeks ago, I became the proud owner of a G5 iMac and latest-generation iPod.

Out with my pokey old PC, with its boring beige CRT monitor and boring beige tower and boring Win98. In with a sleek, sexy flat-panel display and an equally sleek, sexy and powerful operating system. No tower underfoot. Oodles of software preinstalled; oodles more available on the Web. And how easy is that software to install? No messing around with installer software. No need to shut down all applications. No need to restart my machine. I couldn’t quite believe it the first time I installed something (Firefox). Just drag and drop the application icon to my machine? Is that it? Seriously? No, seriously? Damn. Seems almost too easy.

I’m still getting settled in, learning my way around, mastering OS X’s little idiosyncrasies. Also, getting used to this one-button mouse. I already knew most of the basics, from playing around with OS X a few times, on other people’s machines, and—way back when—working with the old 128k Mac at our parents’ place (bought in 1984 and still going strong 10 years later, with a couple of upgrades. Ah, those were the days). On the whole, though, the Mac makes things easy. It just works, and gets out of my way so I can work. And if I feel like peeking under the hood (which I do), there’s lots to look at and tinker with. I may one day get used to the pretty UI, but I don’t think I’ll ever take for granted what I can do with OS X.

As for the iPod, I only have two words: Click. Wheel. Forget the cool and stylish exterior. Forget the fact that not only can it hold thousands of songs (far more than I have right now), but it can also serve as a wee little hard drive with twice the capacity of my old machine. It’s the click wheel that I’m most in awe of. Seriously, that is a jaw-droppingly brilliant piece of design. Such a simple concept when you think about it—like the best ideas usually are.

I realize I’m still at the wide-eyed “gee whiz” infatuation stage, but right now I’m seriously smitted with my iGadgets, and I don’t think I will ever, ever get tired of them. The more I get to know my Mac, the more I love it. This is a cult I don’t mind being a part of.

Left, Right, Left, Right

So. 51 days into the redesign, and where am I at?

It’s going pretty well, actually. I’ve converted all of the pages except the photo galleries to the new (provisional) design, and even those should be done very soon. That’s the easy part. Now that I’ve got the styles in place, I’ll be able to shuffle things around much more easily. CSS-based layouts are a godsend, they are. I’ve still got a lot to learn (no duh), but it doesn’t look so intimidating anymore.

So. 51 days into the redesign, and where am I at?

It’s going pretty well, actually. I’ve converted all of the pages except the photo galleries to the new (provisional) design, and even those should be done very soon. That’s the easy part. Now that I’ve got the styles in place, I’ll be able to shuffle things around much more easily. CSS-based layouts are a godsend, they are. I’ve still got a lot to learn (no duh), but it doesn’t look so intimidating anymore. At first, I was going to stick to my trusty old table-based layout; but when I tried to get a little fancier I ended up with massively nested tables, so I said “Fuck that noise!” and took the plunge. CSS all the way, baby. Haven’t looked back since. In fact, a while later, I decided to move the sidebar from left to right. All it took were a few changes in the stylesheet, and boom, all my pages had their sidebar on the right. Seriously, how awesome is that? If I hadn’t been enlightened before, that would have done it for sure.

But like I said, that’s the easy part. CSS and HTML, that’s just… coding (I always code my pages by hand). The real struggle will be designing graphics, because it means using a side of my brain that just hasn’t gotten much exercise. Left brain—analytical, logical, language oriented? No problemo. Right brain—intuitive, emotional? Ah. That’s a problemo. I’ll need to learn a whole new language. No, not even that (just showed my bias, right there), but much more basic—primal, if I may use the word—ways to express myself.

I think I got that particular revelation while visiting Web sites on Paleolithic art a couple weeks ago. The people living 20 or 30,000 years ago had no written language, and maybe not much of a spoken language, but they still produced some seriously kick-ass art. I have to watch myself here; can’t fall in the trap of thinking “Ooo, Cro-magnons were primitive and brutish, they had no left-brain thinking at all.” Which, well, is certainly very condescending and probably very wrong. But they must have had a very different mindset, and that’s something I need to explore.