Posts Tagged ‘lunaescence’

Newer Entries »

Pruning?!

Monday, May 1st, 2006

My message board is just barely a month old and I’m already being driven crazy.

This evening, Smallgod (Arametha on the archive) decided to give my board a pruning. He deleted and moved topics that really needed no attention. In fact, some of my forums barely have 3 topics in them.

I appreciate and realize that he was trying to help, but now I do feel like my toes have been stepped on. No topic on my board is older than 4 weeks and some of the topics he decided were “old” were last replied to on Saturday! If they were 24 hours old when he decided to get rid of them, it wasn’t by much. It wasn’t a mistake, “hmm, I wonder what this button does” type thing. He actually posted that he was pruning to get rid of old posts. What old posts?!

I made everyone moderators just so we could have the Admin and Veteran forums available to talk. I specifically said in the admin area when I created the board that we really didn’t need moderation right now — just watch out for idiots and we’re good. So far, everyone is college-age or older so that kind of moderation isn’t needed.

Yet again I’m questioning whether my choice of making Ara a mod was a good one, since he came out of nowhere to volunteer. But I was impressed with his credentials. English major and all that, plenty of experience writing. He can be pretty cool, but…

it’s no mistake I’ve let him believe I’m married to Jasson. There have been times where his e-mails have creeped me out. I haven’t gone out and lied, but I haven’t corrected him either.

While he’s been almost stellar on the archives, but this makes three times I’ve had to speak to him about his behavior on my message boards since we opened. (Unless you count him damn near flaming one of Bender’s stories, which Benny politely asked me to remove.)

I probably am over-reacting, but I’m tired and PMSing. I’m more than happy to allow my site to be a democracy, but that just goes only so far.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Forums | Comments Off

Indecision

Sunday, December 4th, 2005

I keep hashing over the idea of making some people Moderators over at Lunaescence.

It’s not that my archive is getting out of control — hell, it runs itself most months. I’ve somehow lucked out and gotten some of the most awesome people there.

The problem comes with the fact that we’re graduating within the next 6 to 9 months. And the internships will happen well before that.

I’m already beginning to get stories for anime and manga that I don’t know. I’ve never been able to get into Gundam Seed or Yu Yu Hakusho. FMA and Inu Yasha is awesome, but I don’t know the fandom. I don’t have time to look them up anymore either or lurk for a week or so. So I’m letting stories through that I probably shouldn’t, albeit dubiously.

But I’m not sure I want to go into Mods. I have rules for quality, not for elitism. I don’t want to see people turned completely away because they have issues with their writing; I want them to edit and try again. At the same time, I can see where someone more familair with the fandom might be a better judge of a story’s quality.

I’m running out of time, so I need to be deciding soon.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Web Design | 1 Comment »

Life and all

Sunday, December 4th, 2005

Well, as you may have gathered from Jasson’s journal everything is still more or less going okay.

I really need to find out why I’m so quick to panic. I have two weeks where I’m fine; the picture of calm. And then suddenly I find myself either panicking or pissed off for absolutely no reason whatsoever. >_> *sighs* Basically, if I write a post where I’m super panicked, please don’t take me too seriously. You’ll know if it’s serious if Jasson says something.

….

We’re almost done with fall semester and then we have a bit before Winter semester begins. I’m passing my graphics class with flying colors, though relearning HTML has been a bit of a challenge. I haven’t done any nested table layouts in years… which means I am seriously out of practice. In my final assignment for that chapter, I couldn’t figure out how to get one of the inner tables to align properly. I’ve never been particularly skilled at forms either, so that gave me trouble too. The most forgiving chapter yet has been frames (wow!) and CSS (duh.) XD

However, my absolute lowest moment came when I had to make a CSS map. It was supposed to have little boxes that would appear on top of the map when you moused over the corresponding landmark. I would get one part working and then everything I’d done before would die on me. I finally got it working in MSIE, but the damn thing wouldn’t work in Firefox. Only after I turned it in did I find out I was one character away from making them work.

I wrote:

#point01
{ CSS goes here }

but I had to write:

#point01 A
{ Same CSS goes here}

I forgot to put that “A” at the end of the CSS declaration, which tells browsers that the spot is also a link. >_< Since Firefox is a bit more strict than MSIE, it didn't understand what I was doing.

Other than that, school is going pretty well. I'll be glad when this semester is over, but I'm not looking forward to next semester either. I'm going to have about $400 - $500 worth of books I'll need to purchase for just four classes.

I swear these publishers must be bandits. That much money for books is simply outrageous. Though I suppose I should be happy; since once I walked out of the bookstore at CMU once with $800 worth of books and supplies. All the same, I'd really prefer not to have to pay that much or tack that much onto my student loans.

I also recently discovered that I'm probably going to need to either buy more space for Lunaescence or simply buy another space for my graphics. I released two skins for the eFiction script last month and the downloads are simply killing my bandwidth. It took me a bit to figure it out, since I kept having hack attempts all last month. (More on that below.) Now that the chaos has calmed down, I can clearly see the suckage is coming from those two files. >_>

It seems strange (and almost flattering) to see hits coming from Web sites in Germany, France, Italy and know they’re using my eFiction skins. Seems even stranger when I look at my inbox and see all the requests for custom layouts and advice on how we did some things.

Part of me really is amazed by the reaction, but the other part of me keeps thinking “What in the world have I gotten myself into?”

Anyway, yeah… hack attempt. Last month, a guy in Italy released a full disclosure of eFiction’s security vulnerabilities and how to exploit them. I mean right down to the scripting they should use. Fake gif images, SQL injections, and remote scripting — oh my. So I had several hundred attempts to find “suntzu.php” in my non-existent author image folders, plus attempts to create directories, strange e-mails apparently generated by my script, and more. Lets just say the archive only looks the same. On top of the security patches Tammy released, I damn near changed the archive’s entire file structure.

All while trying to get all this homework done. XD I’ll say one thing, if those people did any service it was teaching me how to multi-task better. Though I just wish I could whittle down the modification requests, layout requests, and question e-mails so I could do a new layout for my blog and get the Christmas layout done for the main site.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in College, Homework, Web Design | Comments Off

Habits may die hard

Tuesday, October 25th, 2005

… but they still go pretty quickly. ^_^;;

I’ve just kind of slipped into lurker mode myself lately. I just haven’t felt like I really have anything to really rant or talk about. The weeks go by, all pretty much the same as the last, living in-between paychecks while trying to get the bills paid. I pretty much only pay attention to when the next homework assignment is due, and that’s it.

The new Halloween layout for Lunaescence has stalled. I just can’t find anything to actually do. I think I’m almost saving myself because I have a massive redesign to do once the new fanfiction script comes out. We’re merging the gallery with it too, so I’ll have all sorts of new features I have to somehow integrate into the layout. I think with my schedule, a holiday layout might be as far as I’m willing to push things for now. Jasson has a series of mods he’s going to be making too, but again, it’s waiting until the script comes out. But those are going to be his problem.

So far no takers on that challenge, but I really haven’t had time to announce it that well. Oh well. ^_^;;

Rowen’s back! ^__^ Not sure where he’s been or what’s been going on, but I know better than to ask. I’m just thrilled to see him online again. Last time I spoke with him, he seemed downright hyper. Not sure what to make of that, except it’s kind of contagious.

Anyway, Mom doesn’t have to be to work until after noon but doesn’t get out until damn near midnight, so I think I’m going to go out and watch some TV with her. (Provided she isn’t asleep. XD)

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Life, Web Design, Web Life | Comments Off

New Layout

Wednesday, June 22nd, 2005

Well, we didn’t go to the hearing. Turns out either we weren’t supposed to or didn’t have to. *rubs her face* I don’t know anymore… I really don’t. So I’m just going to concentrate on school and not try to think about anything. Hopefully God will come through and let us stay here until we can fulfill our promises. My head just hurts trying to go over everything that’s happened in regards to this park.

So, I spent all day yesterday and today working on a quick 4th of July layout.

The title, Magnalium, is a fireworks term. It’s the most common chemical mixture used in modern fireworks (Aluminum + magnesium for those interested) and makes their colors more vibrant.

Since I really didn’t like my original floral layout, I used the same technique I used there to blend five different photos together into one unit. (A cookie to anyone who can find all five. ^_~) I made those damned stars by hand, since I couldn’t find anything I really liked to make them for me.

I’m going to start offering my sets for download once I’m done with them (Poison Paradise is already available), so my actual blog title is on a separate graphic. That way I can delete all mention of “Stone Circles” when I go to distribute it.

The textbooks haven’t arrived yet, so we’re sweating it out. The classes they’re starting us out on look like they’re going to be tough. We already have homework due on Saturday, which needs at least one of the books. -_-;; I’m really tempted to go back to Amazon.com and see if I can’t order another copy of my textbook and place it on express. Otherwise, I’m going to have to bluff my way through my homework. (That should be fun…)

I’ve done as much promotion as I can for now on my website. I’m partially hoping they’ll give me HTML programming next semester so I can MAYBE learn how to write PHP. I’d like to customize and consolodate the archives into three coheasive units, instead of having to watch and maintain the library, gallery, and oekaki separately. But, the promotion has been working. This month I’m up to 2500+ unique visitors and a gig of bandwidth. I’m probably going to have Jass get his own Photobucket account, so we can stop using our bandwidth for our LJs and forums.

Anyway, with promotion for Lunaescence as complete as I’m going to take it for now, I’ve moved on to promoting Arise. It’s hard, though. What do you say about it? What do you put when a directory wants a short description and then a long promo? For my domain, I just peek at my source, cut, and paste my site’s decription into the short one. Then, I just go into the site in depth for the large. So, I dumped Arise in a few directories and called it good until it gets going again.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in College, Drama, Homework, Web Design | 1 Comment »

Mirror, Mirror – On the Wall

Friday, October 8th, 2004

Taking a cue from Jasson, I decided to make a mirror site for my blog here. ^_^ Pretty quick I’ll link it up to my Bio page or something; since I really should fix all the links to my friends pages and well, stuff.

And in other news, back to work on the site redesign. I’m beginning to plan out the new look for the Library. Actually, I’m contemplating my rules again.

I’ve been spending quite a large amount of time trying to advertise Lunaescence, and I am getting more traffic. However, the Library has pretty much ground to a halt.

I’m honestly wondering if my rules are simply too strict for my audience. On the flip side, I really don’t want my page becoming a haven for garbage and ego stroking – plus, from feedback from some of my authors, they want my rules to remain in place or else they’d stop posting. I feel like I’m stuck between Scylla and Charybdis, in some ways.

I know I should be patient, but – seriously – I am not a good one to wait. What patience I had evaporated waiting for the house to sell. Despite the fact that I’m moved (and have been for almost 2 months now) I’m finding myself stuck in high gear.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Fanfiction, Forums, Moving | 1 Comment »

New Home Purchased

Wednesday, August 18th, 2004

Ick… I’m sorry to hear that, Theresa. I was hoping my bad luck had just passed, not passed on to someone else – especially not you. *hugs tight* After we’re hooked back up for internet and stuff, I’ll try to catch you on MSN. *super big hugs* Give everyone a hug from us!

Oh, and before I forget…. The ice-cream is Ben & Jerry’s “Vanilla Heath Bar Crunch”, Mom and Jass got “Brownie Batter.” ^_^

We purchased the manufactured house today! $22,000 later, we were given the rules for the community we’re moving to and were told the house should be ready to move into on Monday. ^___^ That includes Deposit, Lot Rent, and Pet Deposit so we should be all set for a least September. They have to finish a few repairs and get the Gas company in to connect the gas and it should be all set. We’re going to be calling Two Men & A Truck tomorrow and setting up the move for the 24th or 25th. Packing is almost complete, but I feel like we’ve reached an impasse. The prior owners here [not new house] left tons of junk around and we’re required to get rid of it before we leave. Fortunately, bright and early tomorrow morning the trash is being hauled away. Later tomorrow we’re also going to be looking for a new car. After that point, we should be just about set, aside from getting jobs when we get there.

I promised myself I wouldn’t begin the Lunaescence.com redesign until after the move was complete, we were well settled in, and I had a job. I’ve never been good at waiting. ^^;; I made out a rough sketch for each section (Main, FanFiction, FanArt, Forums, etc.), suddenly I was in Paint Shop Pro forming the images, and then I was in Notepad laying the dumb thing out.

I don’t think I’ll ever get positioning in CSS, though…. For the index, I have two menus on either side of the page and then the main content between them. I got the menus placed beautifully, but then the center section wouldn’t work. When I got it to work it didn’t want to move up where it belonged vertically, but when I fixed that, it was no longer where I wanted it horizontally. :-P Frustrated, I gave up and made a set of nested tables that I nudged down where it belonged using CSS. Now that solution worked. A few more hours more work and the layout should be ready to put up… only to be benched until I finish moving, have internet connected, and settle in. XD

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Housing, Moving, Web Design | 3 Comments »

Newer Entries »