vanderwal.net

Tweaking begins again

I have been tweeking the code in the weblog and modifying the CSS too. I have the whole of my CMS running on my Mac, which gives me the ability to tweek and update the code. Having Jaguar behind the scenes made adding the MySQL component much easier than in previous builds. In the past it was similar to a Linux or Solaris compile and build. The Mac build was much easier and worked seemlessly with PHP and Apache. The downside was the Data Load element is not available so I used cat to import just the each table's data.

The CSS I started tweaking tonight as the pages were rendering very small on Mac IE 5.2 and oddly in Mozilla 1.1. Last night's updates to the weblog code have it a little closer to validating 4.01 transitional, and fixed a few font oddities of class clashing. I am using a body with 12 points and using percentages in to size the elements in the pages. This is giving me an adjustable font size in IE on Mac, which I will test tomorrow at work on a PC

One of the next steps on the tool side is building a RSS feed and making a few needed changes to the administration tools to ease editing submitted entries.

Temporary Leave

Things will be very very quiet around here over the next few days to 10 days. We move in the morning and will have very little connectivity for a week or so. Not even a phone line until Monday evening. Enjoy your selves and take in some items I find of interest over on the vanderwal net links. I have added a few new ones recently. Of most interest of the new links have been Pixelcharmer and Mike Lee's "Visual Lee". When we get settled all of you will have to come by and just say hi. See you soon.

Correcting a downfall

The vanderwal.net Homepage has been brought back to life. Thanks to those that noted this problem and reported it. There are actually two homepages with different names. One is just a copy of the other. I know it is not the best way of doing this, but there were many links to a hosted site that used the Microsoft default.htm as its poor option, while the rest of my hosts have used index.html (which is the the most common way). I was playing with Dreamweaver MX the other night while eating dinner. I did not check to see that the files were being save for Linux/Unix and found really goofy oddities in the markup. I have lived in a hand-coding world with only minor GUI help for years and having the default server code defaults set was a step I had set in MX, I guessed wrong. A little regex and the "cp" command and all was right in the world. I guess it is time to make all local links only point to index.html.

Down in the bits

Thanks to all who e-mailed yesterday and called to say the site was having problems (barfing MySQL connection errors). The site hosts corrected the problem relatively quickly and we are back in business again. This did get me thinking that maybe the front page of "Off the Top" should be baked (static and not dynamically generated with each hit, which is fried). This would require an XML processing for the page to keep the number of comments (those things you are not using) accurate below each link. This would be some recoding on my part and that will be a little bit off in the furture as my development time and non-work brain time is allocated elsewhere for the next short little bit.

Find friends at IWeb Graphics

Some new additions to the link page including Web Graphics, which I found a few folks I know are posting their finds.

Monthly update

The beginning of a new month usually means a few changes here at vanderwal.net. Each month I tweak the site slightly. One of the elements that you will notice is opening a new full window from the comments links. This helps me and I hope it helps you. I will be providing more options to you so you can make the choice what you want to do, but not this month.

Things may be a little quiet here for a few days or more due to the need to get some things done. If I am posting normally or more than normally I must be ahead of scedule.

Prepare for turbulance

Things may be a little bumpy around here at vanderwal.net for a few days.

Updates at vandwal.net

The about page has been updated with new employment information. Finally! Links has been updated with the addition of First Mondays. The 404 page was finally updated (no more change this page garbage.

So you want to build your own weblog tool like the one here? Start with PHP and MySQL with a little Apache and a sprinkling of arrays and script code. Yes, this is basically what is under this puppy.

A few minor changes here at vanderwal.net. The comments link has been put on all dynamic pages of the Off the Top section. The only page that had the comment option was the main page (/random/index.php).

The CSS has also been modified to unbold and underline for the underblog links to categories, perma link, and the comments. I have found many users come straight into the categories with out a referring page (meaning they have it book marked). Google dumps users directly into categories, but that is understandable, based on their algorythyms. I had also been hearing from some users that they did not know they could click on the categories. Sorry about the confusion. You can go directly to view the categories used here.

Comments ahoy

Ah, the comments are running is a decent manner. I do not have a preview running yet, but that will be coming. Some other backend elements will be on their way too, but that is behind the scene stuff. Test if you want. The comments open the way for the next step, which should be posted in an hour or two. Then it is getting tax info together.

Where Metaphors Breakdown

I have very intrigued with understanding where metaphors break. At some point they all break, but a metaphor that lasts would be nice. We may get to play with one in the near future. I would like you to play with it, but to make it useful for all of us, it would be good to have comments to share thoughts. The comments are coming and may be posted in a not a perfectly usable state as getting the info out and commenting running is my goal.

Comments in common

Too funny!!! I have been developing the comment tool for this site in a very special place that is not in a very public place. Some folks have found it. I have been posting test comments, all very truthful, and some folks have found them and commented. ;) I suppose I will not clear the database before turning the app live.

Comment tease

Yes, the ability to comment coming. The reason the comments are coming finally will be posted on Saturday or Sunday. I am working on coding and three articles at the moment.

Minor site updates

This evening the left navigation bars have changed. They have moved to left aligned and to a fixed font size (I am not a great fan of fixed font size, but there are a few exeptions to that rule here). The home page was modified (more change is coming to the homepage). I have also modified the orange color in the H2 headers so that there is greater contrast with the navy background. Also in the works is a comment system, which should debut in the next day or so. I am getting closer with the comments. Had I not got a flat on my way home this evening I think I would have knocked them out completely.