Site maintenance
February 17, 2007 - 13:50
- site design
User registration and user comments are temporarily off line. Additionally, anything utilizing a database will likely experience down time. This includes , comments, registration, blog posts, photo albums, and tags. Things will be back to normal very shortly.
- In more detail, I am switching hosts. I have currently uploaded a mirror image of all site files, including site databases (so this post isn't included(. This switch will allow me to consolidate databases, which is something I have been looking to do for a while. Code throughout the site will need to be updated, once the majority of it is modified, I will proceed with the final stages of the switch and update the name servers. This should all be complete by tomorrow evening. In the meantime, as previously stated, no "new activity" will count until further notified.
The most significant reasons for the switch of hosts include the major issues I faced in file upload using PHP (which is the cornerstone to the way I plan to insert graphics and images to blog posts), my lack of confidence in the longevity prospects of my current host, and my desire to consolidate hosting companies I currently have plans with.
quick site update... photo album
February 5, 2007 - 10:3
- site design - Photo Album
I've been spending almost all of my site development efforts on the photo album page. I've made the current version I've been working on for the past week "live". It is a very early rendering of what will end up likely being the final version. I've developed a rotating gallery, that the user can navigate forwards and backwards. The selected picture is a little larger, with the previous/next albums pictures decreasing in size. There is much more that I am going to add to this album selection/preview bar, but I am happy with what has been completed thus far. On a side note, I doubt this bar displays as intended in Internet Explorer, I will find out for myself tomorrow at work.
In regards to the actual photo albums I've uploaded; I have uploaded a few new albums, and will continue to do so as times go by. One project I need to work on prior to uploading many albums is the different display needed for photos that are horizontal, and those that are vertical.
In regards to the Super Bowl, I was cheering for the Bears, but didn't loose any sleep over their loss.
In regards to SU loosing to uconn tonight, I am disappointed about this loss, but I still hold high confidence in a very strong Tournament showing.
In regards to this Wednesday at 10pm... I couldn't be more excited for LOST to begin!
members?
January 26, 2007 - 7:21
- site design
Much to my surprise this morning, I noticed an increase in user registration and photo album browsing. Membership nearly tripled, as the site now proudly has 16 members. It's exciting for me to see some of the projects I've been working on over the past few months be used in real world browsing scenarios. I feel that the site is at least another month away from being at a point where I'm going to send a BCC email to every person in my address book to tell them about the site. Hopefully sometime around then I will also be at a point to blog about something more interesting.
I'm glad that the basic framework I built for the site appears to be holding steady. The back-end functionality of the site allows me to get a decent idea of whether or not users are able to navigate around things such as photo albums and comment posting with problems or not. Some areas/projects that need attention in the very near future include:
-user preference/information management. ie: allowing users to change their info.
-message board: I have a few different ideas about this. Something I have been thinking about is to give users the ability to post comments in a few different areas of the site, including a message board area. The comments would appear in the respective section where they were posted, but also on the message board. Since in reality, there will likely be very few comments ever posted, it seems to make sense to accumulate all that are posted in one general area (ie: message board)
-the photo album page is still in a very early design stage. Upcoming functionality include a much better user interface for navigating albums. Outside of additionaly functionality, I haven't even begun to touch the asthetic part of the album/photo pages; I am waiting to see which final navigation items I include in that part of the site, before I work on the look.
-the final version of this site will likely use "tags" a good amount. Currently, they are being associated with blog entries, but I'm not doing anything worthwhile with that data. It is not of the highest priority right now, but I will do some work on it soon.
-a blog section is on the horizon, as right now every entry is being displayed on the main page (not very practical!).
...bottom line, the items listed above as well as countless other projects need to be completed before I will be satisfied with the site. I look forward to working on them, and then not having to work or blog about them :)