Posts Tagged ‘eFiction’

Layout Complete

Tuesday, March 20th, 2007

I guess this layout is as complete as it’s going to get. I need to move on to the rest of my project.

I don’t think I can take another 3am bedtime tonight, so I’m going to call it quits. There are still some things that need to be finished, like the blog comments, but I’ve been chasing CSS bugs for most of the day.

I also added screenshots of my eFiction skins and moved a few of my eFiction mods to their posts here. Next thing I have to do is figure out how I’m going to display my portfolio and other items in that section. I wonder if links to DeviantArt would be appropriate? I tried nearly every gallery plugin and they were so buggy, I didn’t want to mess with them anymore.

Next up, I need to format my resume so it will work in an online format. And finally, I think I should be done.

Yeah, I know this whole rush is partially my fault. I slacked off over at Gaia Online’s Official Naruto thread for most of this class, instead of working ahead so this wouldn’t happen to me.

Oh well, I guess. Someday, I’ll learn.

My PHP epiphany

Friday, March 2nd, 2007

Excuse me while I “squee!” in geekish glee/delight.

One problem in eFiction is that the display order for the categories occasionally gets messed up. I gave up trying to fix them by hand a long time ago and just had Jasson give me a cheap and dirty work-around.

Well, tonight I came up with a solution all on my own. Sorry, this gets pretty geeky from here on out.

I made a query to the database, asking for all the subcategories in alphabetical order. I then created a while loop that took those 337 results and wrote SQL update statements for me. I offset the count by 9, since I don’t want to reorder the main categories since they’re okay right as they are.

And boom! 337, neat little MySQL update statements that reordered the categories for me. ^_^

There are times where I look at all the designs other people are doing and feel decidely inferior. This just suddenly made me realize just how far I’ve come and how much I’ve learned.

And it feels very good. ♥

To Do List

Wednesday, December 6th, 2006

Okay, since I *think* I’ll have Christmas break to get some things done, here’s my tentative to-do list.

  1. Finish eFiction Skinning Tutorial.
  2. Finish Luna’s copy of Shuriken
  3. Help Jass fix the Pink skin
  4. Help Jasson program the new features.
  5. I’d like to do something with my blog here.
  6. Maybe do another new skin for Luna if I have time.

I’m just not sure how much I’m going to get done. Some of these projects are going to take a while. eFiction 3.0 is still awful buggy, though. We might push the upgrade and programming back a while to give the live version a chance to settle down. I don’t think Jass or I have the time anymore to redo our mods a million times like we did for 2.0 when it came out.

Since I’m directing more and more people here to pick up eFiction stuff, I really should redo the blog with my career in mind too. I’m going to have my resume and portfolio here, so I need to redo. Even though I made this layout for my final, I never quite finished it.

Jasson, though, has started to redo the Pink skin to address all the graphical bugs. If he and I worked diligently together like we did on Shuriken, we could have it done in a day. Ah, decisions, decisions.

My own layout

Wednesday, November 29th, 2006

I’ve been making layouts for eFiction for a couple years, but it suddenly occured to me just how many fanfiction sites there are that look exactly like Luna because I’m using the same layouts I’ve released. XD

We need a fresh, creative, and distinctive look that strictly belongs to Lunaescence. No release or sharing, it’s ours in the biggest sense of the word. Pink really doesn’t count, because it’s too girly (and glitchy, sorry Jass) to be a primary design.

Sure, I’ll keep my other skins available, but there’s several hundred sites now that have some combination or derivation of Shinigami Blues, Marauders, and/or Zenlike. Shuriken is starting to make the rounds too. Don’t get me wrong, it’s thrilling seeing so many people using my designs and seeing them translated into so many different languages.

I just suddenly realized we don’t have a look of our own. And that bothers me.

Even though I probably can’t claim it on a resume, this site has been a huge education for me. I want it to succeed and thus, I’m going out of my way to learn things they aren’t teaching me in college.

I guess the problem is, I’ve started researching area companies and realized that I’m about to enter the big picture. Some of these design firms and agencies I’m looking at blow my mind by how cutting-edge they look, especially compared to my sites. I know I simply have a bad case of artist’s vision and inferiority complex, but I really need to up the ante.

I’m just not sure where I’m going to find the time to do that! XD

My summer so far

Wednesday, July 12th, 2006

So far, my summer seems to be going well. I’m partipating in the eFiction Project actively for the first time in a long while, though probably not as much as I could be. (Actually, I’m probably being downright annoying.)

One of the large sites must have pissed people off again, my site has had a massive surge in visits and new authors. I keep checking my stats, but I can’t tell what site is referring them. I’m actually very glad I brought in all those extra moderators. I’m used to the sudden hush the RL/AR used to get; all this activity is a tab unnerving. ^^;

eFiction 3.0 is going to be very very cool, but I’m dreading switching us over. I’ve added so many extras there is going no easy way to upgrade. ^^;; But… ooh, it is awesome. There’s just so many new things in this release, it’s just going to be pure awesomeness. (Is that even a word??)

My Kiwi layout has hit a bump, since I don’t remember what I wanted to do with it anymore. I can’t find my original design sketch either, so I can check my plan. XD I might just trash it and work on Green tea instead.

While I’m thinking about it, I need up re-do my blog. I’ve begun posting my eFiction junk to it, which is kind of cluttering it. I also want it to have a more professional look, since I’m going to put a portfolio and my resume on it. (I probably should clean up the language too *grimace, laugh*)

For the first time in years, we have a garden. It’s nothing special, just some tomatos, strawberries, and some flowering plants that I’ve planted in pots so if I need to move again they can come with me.

Local news has me feeling a little more optimistic:

Google to bring 1000 jobs to Michigan

LANSING — High tech – and high-tech jobs — hits Michigan with Tuesday’s announcement that Google will open a facility in Ann Arbor.

At a morning press conference, Governor Granholm officially unveiled the project that will add 1,000 jobs to Michigan’s workforce.

The new facility involves Google’s AdWords unit, which handles “pay-per-click” advertising to Google’s users. To sweeten the deal, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation gave Google a high-tech business tax credit worth more than $38 million over 20 years. (more…)

I sincerely don’t want to move to Ann Arbor, that’s way too close to one of my mom’s aunts… who is just way too much like Sheba for my tastes. BUT if it means I can get a good job doing what I enjoy doing, then by the Gods of warfare — I’ll do it! (What Karla doesn’t know won’t hurt her me.)

Other than that, we’re holding on. Mom blew a tire last night on her way to work and had to get a ride from our neighbor, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. The local tire shop quoted her about $80 for a new tire plus installation, but then the owner decuded ti only charge her $50. ^___^

DTE Energy keeps calling, demanding their money. Maryann still wants her $600 back, plus we keep getting letters from collection agencies for some of the bills we incured trying to get out of Alpine Medows… so we’re not out of the woods yet. The pressure has just been let up a bit.

I’m trying to work with a lady who bought one of my books off from Amazon.com. There were 4 audio chapter review CDs that came with the book and I said they were included in my post. I remember putting them in the envelope with the book and so does mom and Jasson, but apparently the CDs didn’t make it there. The envelope was apparently intact, so they didn’t fall out. *sighs* Being good, I retraced my steps to see if I lost them on the way to the post office. Nothing in lost and found. I called the publisher and distribution center to see if could buy new copies, they’re only part of a bundle deal.

I’m more than a little dubious about the whole thing. First of all, she waited a month to e-mail me and is now taking anywhere from 5 days to weeks to write me back each time. She says she absolutely has to have those CDs for her class. I’ll admit that they were helpful in allowing me to study during the eviction and while moving, but they weren’t that helpful nor essential. I have no idea what’s going on. I finally offered her a refund and it’s going on about two weeks since I last heard from her.

Mom has come right out and wondered if she isn’t trying to weasel copies of the CDs out of me so she can have two. She’s also wondered if they CDs aren’t/weren’t in the bottom of the envelope. *shrugs* Her guess is as good as mine.

I swear, if I sell anything else on Amazon — they only thing I’m writing is the book’s condition. No information on infotrac or anything extra that comes with it. And then I’m going to mummify the damned thing so nothing falls out.

Anyroad, that’s my summer so far. Much love to everyone.

Damnit, leave me alone!

Friday, December 9th, 2005

My host is on the fast track to being fired / reported to the BBB.

In November, I had a bunch of hackers trying to break into my copy of eFiction. I managed to get the archive updated, patched, and remodified so it works fairly decently.

Now, I have some spammer using my domain’s catch all e-mail address for his spam campaign. He’s put it as the return address for his current campaign, so all returned e-mails are going to MY account.

I found out because my e-mail was slow and I needed to send a quick note to Bender. Thinking something was up, I opened up my browser and noticed my site was acting buggy. I went to my Webmail and BOOM. 7000 returned e-mails.

Thinking it was the hackers exploiting my site again, I deleted all contact forms. Nope, didn’t touch it. Put them back up. I managed to slow it down my installing some e-mail blockers and filters on my Webmail, but I still easily end up deleting 1000 e-mails a day.

So behold – well over 10,000 returned e-mails in 48 hours. ( I lost count after 10,000) My bandwidth is being eaten alive (I’m up to a whole gig) and it’s only the 9th of December. I’ve removed all downloads and extras to help protect my bandwidth, as well as further compressing my images to make them smaller.

On the 7th, I wrote a very panicked e-mail post to the Netbunch support forums begging for help in stemming this flood. Nothing. I send in a support ticket the next morning – nothing.

I repost a less panicked version of my post and bump my old one as well as submitting a new ticket with more information. I finally get a response: I get yelled at for spamming. My first support ticket is deleted, my first post is locked, my second post is deleted. It’s been 2 days since I heard from anyone and the e-mails keep coming.

I’m going to wait until tomorrow morning before I post a followup to my support ticket and inform them that I still need help. Then, if nothing else happens I’m submitting a complaint to the BBB regarding this shit. As soon as tax returns come back, Mom and Jass are talking very seriously about moving the site to a new host.

Sure, it’s a cliche, but I have to wonder when I became flypaper for freaks.

I hate banks

Thursday, September 15th, 2005

Well, my english class is finally over. So far I’m getting a straight A, but lets see what happens after my final paper is graded. I wrote my proposal about geothermal furnaces and suggested that more people got them for their homes – then maybe they wouldn’t pay so much to heat their home. (I’ll post it sometime, once my grade isn’t hinging on it.) I put WAY too many quotes and citations in it, but I’m not sure how else I could put in ALL those government statistics. Of course, when dealing with government anything there’s no easy way to do it. The names of their various agencies have to contain — at minimum — 5 words? 10 words? 12 words? And the various statistics you’d think would be in just ONE place will be spread out across nearly every office in existence. >_>

So ah well, at least I didn’t try to save the world in a 7 page paper like some of my classmates. ^_^;;

Tried to purchase my math book off from Amazon.com, but it looks like the bank decided our debit card didn’t exist anymore. Actually, we have no idea what’s wrong, only that we can’t check our balance or buy anything with it. So we get to call the bank tomorrow morning to figure out what’s going on. I’m really tempted to skip math this semester – I seriously didn’t want to take it anyway. The fact that it’s math aside, I really don’t want to burn $123 of my financial aid on a silly book. Not that I wanted to burn $45 on Amazon either. But darnit, just when we think we’ve finally found a bank we like, BOOM. *shakes her head* Anyway, I’ll let mom take care of that – thank you much.

Dropping math wouldn’t be too bad either, so far I’m holding a perfect 4.0, so it’s not like I haven’t made satisfactory progress. I would be taking the exact number of credit hours I took this semester, so I wouldn’t be short there either. Besides, that would leave me with a little more time and money to concentrate on my other classes . . . and well, life in general. Seriously though — I’m dreading math. I can’t pass it to save my life and I’d REALLY like to keep that 4.0 for as long as I possibly can. But I’m running out of classes that don’t need it. All the real Web design and programming classes have it listed as a prereq, so I’m going to have to take it sometime in the next couple semesters. I really thought I’d get it taken care of right away, but the more crap I go through to get this damn book, the more I’m dreading it.

*sighs*

Found an awesome program today, makes a wee calendar with a to-do list appear in the corner of my screen. It’s called Rainlendar – very nice program. ^_^ Taken by a sudden urge to be fashionable, I’ve been hunting for skins sets for my other desktop programs. WinAMP is easy and so is Rainlendar, but Trillian is a pain to find good skins for. Everything is either outdated or uses impossible-to-read fonts. Haven’t found anything I’ve really liked so far.

With finals, I haven’t had a chance to do much with eFiction other than read their forums on my breaks. I really need to edit my template so it uses HTML 4.0 Transitional instead of my usual XHTML Transitional and adhere more to their templates. I still haven’t gotten an answer back yet on how they want blocks done, so I’m going to assume they don’t want custom blocks and go from there.

I’m trying to be on chat more, but I can’t guarantee anything. I’m really not used to it anymore. Unless I’m talking with a very good friend, all I can think about is “Can’t I turn it off already?” Doesn’t help that people are just plain weird. How should I know why I’m on your contact list? You’re the one who put me there. Yeah, I went and wiped out most of my contact list. Broke my heart deleting my old Guide contacts, but I doubt I’ll probably hear from them. I rarely spoke to anyone outside EQ when I was participating, thanks to the old machine’s quirkiness. *sighs* But I miss everyone terribly. I don’t dare rejoin or even begin any new games until I’m done with school. I know myself and new games far too well.

Anyway, I think I’ve done more than enough rambling for tonight. Here’s hoping the bank didn’t just screw us over.