as the dust settles...
March 22, 2007 - 7:20
- Splash 8 - Discomentary - Rome - LOST
After about 2 weeks of site downtime, I am happy to report that the war against my old domain registrar has ended. I have emerged victorious. Due to the fact that I have deemed this website "The Official Homepage of Seth DeSantis", the official public record of everything me, I periodically need to blog about topics few would find interesting. This is one of those times. In the future, you likely will not get such a bold warning, instead, you will have to learn to identify a potentially boring topic, and skip it on your own. However be warned, as with this responsibility comes great risk, failure to correctly identify which topics are truly "un-interesting" will result in you missing out a potentially life changing idea. Proceed with caution.
My adventure through the process of changing registrars began on Sunday, February 18th, of this year. My reason for changing the registrar that has hosted this prestigious site since 2003 was simple; I was unable to upload files via PHP from the browser to my server, the fundamental step I needed to accomplish in order to proceed with various functions I will be writing to do an assortment of things but most importantly uploading pictures to this blog via the blog editor page I wrote a few months back. I also liked the idea of having all of my sites hosted and registered with one company. I began using godaddy.com about a year ago, as my portfolio of domain names and hosting packages grew, so did my confidence in their ability to provide long-term/reliable service to my sites. I initially attributed the problems I was having with my old registrar, registerfly.com , to the fact that they would likely hide the option to transfer your domain name to another company deep within user options. As I searched and searched, I realized I needed some help, so I started a support ticket with registerfly. After a week of it going unanswered I wrote a follow up to my ticket, inquiring if anyone was going to help me. No one responded, another weeks goes by, so I start exploring their support section again. This time, I found a letter from a third party administrator stating registerfly has been experiencing some major problems, and they are working around the clock to answer pending support tickets and apply account changes. About another two weeks go by, weeks filled with tons of calls that rang to busy with registerfly and a handful of calls made to godaddy. Even though the problem wasn't with godaddy, I figured it wouldn't hurt to run the problem by them for any possible advice. It turned out that their tech support staff had been getting emails about issues with registerfly and possible solutions to remedy them. After a few different conversations with godaddy, it was determined the only solution was for me to email ICANN and ask for their intervention. As I wrote an email to the organization in charge of "the internet", I started to have doubts. I am just one humble man with a humble site, who is ever going to read this email within the next decade, and when they do, what are they possibly going to do? Much to my delight, I received a personalized response the next day. The person told me that if the problem wasn't resolved within the next 2 business days, to email her back. Surely enough, 2 business days later, I get an automated email from godaddy stating that the transfer has completed. Still having doubts, I typed in sethdesantis.com and the parking page changed from the horrible advertisements the rats at registerfly had put up, to the pleasant yet dull godaddy "Oops" page. The internet goddess who responded to my email performed some crazy ICANN magic and saved the day. Now here we are, chatting about the one month drama that shook life as I know it.
Sooo...here we are, I have a ton of ideas and a site with a ton of problems. Sure, you don't see the problems, you look at my site every day and put it up there with greats such as ESPN.com, FOXNEWS.com, DIGG.COM, and APPLE.com...but you don't see what I see. I have folders upon folders of files filled with pages that will never again be included. Pages of functions who's glory days are just a thing of the past. My unwillingness to perform mandatory housekeeping on my root directory has really done a job on my ability to efficiently add and update this site. If you saw what I saw, you would be so disgusted, you would likely never speak to me again.
So, I got the site back 2 days ago. Primarily due to a softball coaches meeting that took 2 and a half hours too long, I have only been able to get the site to it's "previous state" (with the exception of a new header image indicating things to come...). I have re-transferred all of the MySQL databases from the old host to this one. I have updated all of (I think) the code to access my new databases. This adventure through tons of different included files spread in many different folders has confirmed that it is near time to start re-writing the site from the bottom up. Luckily though, few to none of the major functions that make up the behind the scenes backbone of this site will need to be re-written, rather, I need to re-write the pages that call these functions...which can actually be considered fun to people as dorky as myself. With all the nasty code out of the way, I can focus more on the aesthetic aspects of the site, something the kids like to call "the eye candy". One would think that after painting such a horrible picture of the "state of the site" this re-writing would be for my first priority. Well that one would be wrong. I have WAY too many things I need to do before I can even consider aesthetics!
-Did you know users can't change their passwords, they can't even choose nicknames!
-Did you know that there is an album in my photo albums with MULTIPLE vertical pictures, being displayed horizontally!
-Did you know that all of my blog posts have Tags, yet there is no where to play with these Tags?
This is just a sampling of countless flaws of this site. These are the reasons I can't write an email to everyone I know to tell them to check it out. It would be like inviting the world over to my house after a Christmas Party! Come on, we can get crazy, but let's not be stupid here.
In closing of this chapter, filled of despair with just a hint of hope, I ask everyone to calm down and take a deep breath. This site will prevail. The functions will get written and the directory will get cleaned up. Someday you, the modest user may be able to upload your very own content! Far fetched you mumble to yourself, but you don't see what i see. I am sitting in a pretty sick office with a lot of really cool new equipment. I feel very confident that this site will progress nicely over the next few weeks, months, and years.
**Almost done with "un-interesting" talk...
The period of site downtime actually came at a rather convenient time. I have had the pleasure of working on a few other projects for some other people. It has been mostly web sites, but I did get to work on some video and audio stuff. I am very excited about really digging deep into some video projects in the near future. I have thus far transferred 8 DV Camcorder tapes to the computer. While it is unfortunate that some of the best footage is "too good" to ever be made public, I do have a few second here and there of my friends doing funny things, that wouldn't get anyone arrested, fired, or divorced. Look for Discomentary Volume 1 to hit shelves within the next few months.
**OK, done, please start reading again...
-ROME: I am saddened to say that one of the best television series ever created has only 1 episode left. This Sunday it will all come to an end. I would like to propose that rather than mourn the loss of such a good gladiator themed drama, with tons of naked people having sex and killing each other, we celebrate the good memories we have been provided with over the past few seasons.
-LOST: It continues to proceed strongly. It appears the two weeks of weak episodes a little while back was a fluke. The story line is strong and my curiosity is peaked.
-In conclusion, I would like to once again welcome everyone back to the site. I look forward to writing more about nothing for a very long time to come. From the inside, out, good night.
almost 2 weeks later...
March 7, 2007 - 8:50
- office - Lost - Rome - Heroes
This is the first blog post from my office. The new iMac arrived today, and the data transfer between my old Mac Book Pro and this new monster concluded approxamitely 10 minutes ago. Needless to say, I am very excited about checking out everything this machine can do.
First thoughts:
-it appears all my old programs transferred great. I was wondering if I was going to have to reinstall any of the Adobe CS programs, but they appear to be working much faster than ever.
-24 inches is a ton of workspace, it's going to take a little getting used to.
...and that's it! like I said, I just started using it about 10 minutes ago!
Second Thoughts:
-AWESOME win today by SU vs uconn in the first round of the Big East tournament. I'm very excited for the rest of this toruny and then Selection Sunday.
-LOST: kind of slow the past 2 episodes. Honestly, when I see Hurley and Charlie in a van together, all I hope for is that black smoke to come and eat them. They just aren't even close to my favorite characters...however, I must say, I like them a ton more than the new characters the show is trying to introduce, who is that random dude and stray chick? Where were they the first few months after the crash? Well enough complaining about my favorite TV show...I am sure we will all be delighted in just under an hour when we get to see tonights episode!
-Rome: AWESOME, AWESOME, AWESOME... last weeks episode was great.
-Heroes: I've never mentioned NBC's "Heroes", which is a shame, because it is a very clever series. I just got all caught up last night via DVR. It takes the mutant idea from X-Men but adds an entirely fresh plot...can't go wrong there.
And in closing...
-I am about to wage war on my current domain name registrar, I have been laying low over the past two weeks, just waiting for everything to be complete with the office and now I am really, really mad at the fact that I can not pursue my efforts at uploading files via PHP because I can't get this domain transfer complete.
-but on a good note, I am VERY excited about all of the things I will be working on in the very near future. I have a few projects I am working on and there is a lot I have planned for this site.
Good night and enjoy LOST!
Bona Territory
February 23, 2007 - 14:0
- etc - My Office - Rome - Lost - Bonas
Greetings from inside the "Bubble". I'm on a top secret mission which took me to the Souther Tier, so please understand my lack of communication to people who live in these parts. I took the train into Rochester yesterday, but was only there for about an hour before making the trip out here (hence why I didn't get in touch with my pals in the Roch-cha-cha...next time for sure).
For anyone who hasn't made it to the "Bubble" in a few years, I am pleased to report that the old stomping grounds are in good shape. The dinning hall went over a complete face lift and it is looking pretty sharp. I got to check out Dev, which brought back some crazy, albeit blurry, memories of the two summers I spent living there when I was doing web development for the universities different departments. I checked out the latest edition of the BV... a little disappointed to read about a very disturbing "hit and run" incident which involved some current (likely now ex) students; but we certainly won't let a few bad apples ruin this bunch. I was very fortunate to run into some friars I was close with when I was a student, as well as a few others who are still around campus. I was able to get some e-mail addresses, and will look to get/stay in touch from now on.
What else...what else, OK, I will jump right into a few talking points:
-LOST: Great episode. We saw Jack being put into the bear cages formally occupied by Sawyer and Kate. While he was there, he was visited by one of the stewardess from flight 815, who was with a bunch of children (almost certainly the children previous abducted by the Others). They were looking at Jack as if he was actually an animal on exhibit...pretty weird. We also saw Jack coming through big time for Julie. He promises to help Ben's infected stitches, if Ben agrees to intervene with the trial Julie was put on for when she asked Jack to kill Ben when he was "under the knife". Ben tries telling Jack that Julie does not care about him (Jack), but I'm not so sure about this. We saw some flashbacks of Julie's life prior to being put on the island, she seemed like a decent person to me there, so I am not convinced she doesn't care about Jack, or at least that she is incapable of caring about him. It was a nice "setup" episode, and I am looking forward to next weeks episode, where we will likely see some more drama regarding Desmond's fortune telling prediction that Charlies death is eminent (sorry Charlie, but you are a little to possessive over Clair for me to be sad about your upcoming demise).
-ROME: AWESOME episode. Octavian and Mark Antony destroyed Brutus, which is great. Worthy to note, Brutus finally "manned up", I was impressed with his decision to fight the newly combined forces even though he was outnumbered, as well as his knowingly futile decision to fight the approaching troops, 1 V all. He at least died with some honor, which seems to be a big deal to all those people back in the day. Poor Pullo is sad that all this fighting is going on with out his sword, which is great, he is definitely one of my favorite characters. On a sad note, no new Rome episode this week, likely due to the Oscars.
-my office: Two exciting developments on this front: A) my office furniture is being deliver Monday morning, which is long overdue. B) I finally ordered my new computer. It was a very difficult decision, but one that could not wait another day. There are so many rumors that a new Mac Pro desktop is underway, and that Os X Leopard is close to being released; I was trying to wait for one of these 2 things to happen before my purchase, but I just couldn't put it off any further, I have too many projects pending this much needed hardware upgrade. I decided on getting the iMac 24'' with 2 gigs RAM, upgraded video card to 256 mb, 500 gig HD. This is going to be my "in between" computer, just like this is my "in between" office. They are "in between" me having nothing, and me having a ton of money to get super decked out equipment. This computer will very likely be in use for no longer than 2 years, so not going with a Mac Pro seemed like the appropriate decision. I'm going to run Vista on the side, likely via Boot Camp opposed to virtualization, and it will only be to fool around with it and possibly for a few PC only apps. I tell you what I would really like to run in Vista, but likely won't be allowed to, is IE 6. I feel confident that my site displays properly in IE 7, but I know of issues with IE 6, so debugging would be made much easier with the ability to easily look at the problems in IE 6 (opposed to the way I do it now, I look at the problem at work, take a screen shot, email it to myself, and later, try to debug the display issue, just to see if it worked the next day, when I can use IE 6 again at work). I'm excited to test out the speed of the new Airport base station I bought, using draft N specs, I was doing some reading on the way draft n networks work, and saw where any device using G or B, will drop the whole network to that lower speed. I am curious to do some R&D on this exact topic, as the wireless printer I bought as well as this laptop, both use G. It is my understanding that the network only drops to the lower speed when the G or B devices are being used, if that is the case, then it shouldn't be too much of an issue, we will see what we will see! All of the office equipment was appropriately purchased under the new business I set up a few months ago, Disco Development. Appropriate because we are working on some crazy stuff here people, PHP, MySQL, etc... this isn't a game room, it's an OFFICE! I am worried that I will actually make the decision to purchase the upcoming Adobe CS 3 suite, in which case, getting a tax break on such a big purchase will definitely be welcomed!
-Site Hosting: well, ignore my previous post about not signing in, signing up, or posting comments... The transition from one domain registrar to another is not a smooth as it should be. My current domain registrar is not being very cooperative during this transaction. I currently have a "support ticket", inquiring why they have yet to give me my authorization code to finalize this transfer, but it has not been answered yet. Due to this lag in transfers, I will certainly make another transfer of the current DB to the new one, once everything is set. I will keep everyone posted.
-Judge Larry: has anyone else been watching the ongoing Anna Nicole Smith trials? The Florida court has been very entertaining. From the judge doing much of the interrogations to the unusual speakerphone conversation with the coroner, this trial has been interesting, to say the least.
-The Office: I watched a lot of episodes from season 2 last night...soooo funny, I can't even get into it now!
OK, that's all I got right now, from inside the bubble, out, have a good day.
a quick shout out from my couch
February 12, 2007 - 7:22
- Products - Rome - Lost - site
Good stuff everyone. Although this site is still in a very early stage of development, I have enjoyed a steady flow of traffic over the past 2 weeks. I have been doing a good amount of work on the photo pages. Today was my first opportunity to test it in Internet Explorer 6, and not to my surprise, it did not display as intended. The problem is likely with my the margins,so the fix shouldn't be too difficult. This is yet another reason to USE FIREFOX!
Now on to some quick talking points:
LOST - I will not be a spoiler to anyone who has not seen the season premier (is it the season premier, or is this still considered season 3?). If anyone has missed any of the LOST episodes, since the pilot, then you can watch them for free at:
ABC
The quality is pretty good, and you can double the screen size by clicking a button in the lower right hand screen. I did encounter some choppiness but it's free, so no use complaining. For myself, I've been downloading the episodes from iTunes...but sometimes this makes me nervous, because ultimately, I hope to own a HD version of the series, which iTunes does not yet have.
ROME - are you kidding me? ROME is so awesome, it is right up there with LOST in my top 5 TV shows of all time. Now that Octavian and Mark Antony have joined forces, I can't even imagine how sick they are going to get when they fight Brutus, who sucks in my book. I think the son Pullo had with Cleopatra, which everyone thinks was conceived by the late Julius Caesar, is still going to play some kind of role in the future. I suppose I could just catch up on some Western Civ...but then I would really spoil the show for myself.
7.1 - I purchased a Onkyo 7.1 surround system that got delivered Saturday. First off, I am very happy with the system, I got the silver HT-S790 system, it is exceeding my expectations. Origionally, I planned on only 5 of the 7 surround speakers with the sub, but after I spent a full day drilling holes and hiding wires, I realized the two additional side speakers could easily fit into the current set up. I have everything in place now and video games, music, and videos sound awesome. I can't wait for more things to be in HD, as audio quality almost always improves when video does.
Ping Pong Anyone? - To carry on the tradition Bard and I started in college, I ordered a Ping Pong table like a week ago off overstock.com. The web site said it would ship in 4-6 weeks, but I got a call today that it will be dropped off tomorrow. AWESOME. I am going to approach Ping Pong like Canasta, something I dabbled in during college but mastered in life. HOLLA.
Digital Camera - I ordered the Cannon Digital Rebel XT last night. It's an entry level digital SLR. I am excited to learn how to take better pictures. Currently, all the pictures in the photo albums were taken with a Sony 5 mega-pixel T something or anther camera. I am very happy with those photos, but that camera is more suited for parties, than landscape/etc shots. So, hopefully there will be some cool photos being posted in the coming months.
In closing, I have a soccer game in an hour...better than 11 but I would still prefer earlier. Softball sign-ups are March 12! Very excited about that, but also sad, because our captain got a great promotion to work for the company in NJ. Him and I started playing in this league 3 years ago on some random team, and then started the Magic Stick the following year...2 years and a lot of history later, we are a force to be recked with in the Coed B Division...double HOLLA. Any other quick shout outs?...hmmm...some for the site fans for sure, my Ketchup loving friend in B-Lo and the brothers that roll
almost as deep a Johny Cash in the 'Cuse def deserves some love this Monday evening. A shout out to user "101", Bdel, our most recent member, who as always, delivers good feedback on site usability... "Your either building bridges, or putting up hurdles". An finally, to my best friend Pugsley, because he found out today his esophagus is too big, or too small, or too something, and when he runs up and down steps he will likely puke :-( poor little fella :-(
From the inside out, good night.
ps - logging in under the "comments" section does not appear to be working. You need to log in at the top, right "log in" box.