Category Archives: Website

Getting better

A week off to rest, finishing the last of the things that needed done with the  new car, and coming back today to reduced hours ( should be back down to around 40-45 for a while ) has me in much better shape.

I have the last story of the Devan trilogy for the Web Shorts page back from editing, and I’ll be posting it soon.  I’m going to try to finish my Earth Day story, even though the contest is closed to new entries, because it isn’t quite Earth Day yet.  I really hated missing last year, and I’d like not to repeat that.  I’d overcomplicated the story a little, which is what kept me from finishing it in time for the contest.  Now that I’ve pared it down, I’m hoping I can get it done in time for Earth Day.

Naturally, I’m going to try to get the next chapter of SOTM moving again, and try to get frikkin’ Lowborn finished so I can post it after all this time.

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Starting Vacation

I’m on vacation next week, and I’m going to try to get back on track.  Even though my hours at work have dropped a little, the last month or so have seen an exponential increase in daily aggravation.  So, every hour feels like two or three.

Ugh..

Anyway, with a week off, I hope to rejuvenate and try to get back to writing and working on the website.

I upgraded a lot of the underlying software today.  Appears to have gone off without a hitch.  Keeping my fingers crossed.

Have that first draft of Devan:Deflowered ready for editing.  I’ve just been too tired and beat down to do it.  Should be able to finish that and get it posted next week on the Web Shorts page.

Otherwise, my focus for the short term will be the next entry in the Magic of the Wood series.  I really hated missing Earth Day last year, and I’d like to avoid repeating that.

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And another section done

Just finished all the back-end utilities for the “Danica Info” section of “My Worlds”

I just remembered that I used to have a “monsters” section up on the old site, and I want to restore that as well.  Fortunately, I can make a very minor modification to the database for characters and tweak the back-end utilities and front-end display for same, as that database will easily handle all the data I used to have up for the monsters.

Then, I’ll either add a second dropdown menu to “Danica Info” or add an option for “Monsters” to “My Worlds”  Haven’t decided where, yet.  Either way, there won’t be much coding involved in it.  I’ll need to edit the old monster listings and gather up the images, but otherwise, the meat of the work for the addition of Monsters is already complete in the Characters section.

Ticking off my “to-do” list at a pretty good clip, here 🙂

Now, with a little time left before I need to crash, I’m going to chill and see if the young one is actually going to go to sleep ( looks like it )  If he does, I may try to get some writing done tonight.  I don’t feel overly drowsy, so it may be possible.

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While I was at it…

In the process of coding the listing order for what stories characters appeared in for “Characters”, I figured out a slightly more elegant way of editing that.  So, I went back and applied that method to numerous other list sorting sections of my back-end utilities.

Likewise, I’d long ago figured out a way to reduce some annoyance when entering multi-paragraph data on the back-end, but completely forgot to apply it to the shorts, maps, and characters databases.  Went back and applied that method to those sections as well.

All the easier to add new content to the website, which means a lot less time doing that in the future, leaving me more time to write, and making me more likely to feel like adding content, since I know it won’t be a pain in the ass.  It’s leaps and bounds beyond having to edit several html pages every time I want to update the site.

Eventually, I’ll be adding another section of new content to the website that I haven’t mentioned as well.  With this one, there’s no coding involved, because I’m using another out-of-the-box module from the makers of the forum.  ( Another module from them powers pretty much the rest of the website, other than the mailing list and this blog )

I should also be able to utilize this new module to add some additional functionality to LST3K donations and auditions in the future as well.  Might even be able to utilize it for some of the planned URiff features.

Fixed a few more maps and added them to the database as well.  I’ll likely update all the floor plan maps before launch, as those are easy.  The overland maps will be a little more difficult, because I plan to start those from scratch and enhance them with Campaign Cartographer.  Odds are that there will only be a couple of overland maps at launch time of “My Worlds”.

I have found some info about how to get Neverwinter Nights running on my new computer, and a look around actually shows that the latest bundled releases ( necessary for compatibility on Win 7 ) is reasonably cheap now.

With any luck, either my graphics card won’t be powerful enough to handle NWN2, or I won’t get caught up in playing it *laugh*  It’s part of the bundle.  If it is powerful enough, I might be able to use that toolset to create even better floor plan maps.  Only way I’ll know is to see it when/if I get it.

I’m aiming for at least a dozen characters from Danica’s World and at least a half-dozen characters from other stories for that section at launch.

Most of the docs for Danica Info are already written.  They just need edited and polished.

The Misc. section isn’t going to have all that much in it to begin with, so whatever I have will probably be done and ready for launch.

I’ll quit babbling now.  Need to chill out for a while, because my last two hours at work today were some of the most frustrating I’ve had in a while.  I had to fix a massive screw-up that should have been caught and corrected by two or three people ahead of me in the line — all of whom could have fixed the problem with little to no effort, where it took me two hours of intense physical labor because they’d allowed the idiocy to come to full fruition.

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Saved myself some trouble

I constantly find myself in my back-end utilities, ready to update something, only to realize that I forgot to hit the ftp and upload an image I’m getting ready to link to something.

So, I sat down tonight and wrote myself some utilities to upload files from within my back-end without booting up the ftp, as well as some other useful viewing utilities in case I forgot what the name of an image was.

I’ll go through later and add links to pop-up that utility from all of the places where I’ve found myself going “crap!” because I hadn’t uploaded an image yet.  That way, I don’t even have to lose any data I’ve already entered or open a new window and navigate to the main back-end menu.

I can pass data to the links as well, taking me directly to the section where I need to go so I don’t have to navigate through the menus of the file management utility either.

It’s a lot of work up front, but it’s going to save me a lot of headaches and frustration later.

You may have noticed that the website is running like crap — when it’s running.  For a few hours today, it was completely dead.  My host is having some issues.  They didn’t want to admit it was a problem on their end for the last several days, though.  Only today did they acknowledge the server I’m on is wonky as all hell.

That frustration is what kept me from writing today ( and why I ended up coding instead )  I was so irritated about the website that I couldn’t do anything creative.

Now, after the victory of figuring out upload, I’m going to relax and get ready for bed.

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