AdamH.us

Beginning Friday, July 2nd, I will be away from the computer for 9-10 days. I may occasionally check email, but don’t expect much. I’ll be back the night of the 10th, but may not be online until the 12th. So leaving Friday morning, coming back the night of the next Saturday, and may not be on much that Sunday. Look for me on Monday. I’ll definitely be posting pictures when I get back. We’re heading to Nauvoo, IL! Gonna spend a week in that area before coming back.

Update: I got a new UPS this last week so both computers are now backed up on battery. I’ve also been able to upgrade my new machine to a full 4 GB of RAM…

At the end of my next class (begins on the 5th of July) I will be considered a sophomore! Yay! And I think it’ll start going faster now that I can take more classes at a time.

I’ve also upgraded WordPress to the new 3.0. And so far I have to say – it’s nice.

For Entropia Universe players in the US, TheScripters.com is building systems that match Entropia’s system requirements. Contact us if you need a new computer.

© 2010, AdamH.us. All rights reserved. Please link back if you use it!

Windows 7 – Tail-Waggin’ Fun « Worldstart Blog.

Gotta love what this guy says about Windows… I’ve noticed much of it myself… I used 95 a little bit, but not much, mostly stuck with DOS or 3.1 until I could run 98… ME? BAH! Vista? Media disaster…

I guess at this point I’m looking good at every other version of Windows. I used 3.1, 98, XP and will be using 7 in a few weeks (as soon as I finish building the computer to run it on, that is).

Anyway, I love the whole “Dog and Hydrant” analogy he uses here… It’s great!

© 2010, AdamH.us. All rights reserved. Please link back if you use it!

I’ve been wondering for some time how to use avatars on this site… I finally figured it out some time ago. But haven’t done anything with what I learned. Anyway, if you would like to use an avatar, go to www.gravatar.com and get one set up.

WordPress uses Gravatar by default and I haven’t really found any other way to do it. But it works. I added all three of my main email addresses, and now whenever I want to comment somewhere, my avatar will show up automatically.

True, I don’t really care for some of those online services, but it works!

© 2010, AdamH.us. All rights reserved. Please link back if you use it!

Due to the fact that Google and YouTube (among others) are beginning to phase out Internet Explorer 6, I think it’s time the web begin upgrading. So, beginning in the next month or two, websites designed or maintained by us will no longer offer support for IE6. TheScripters.com already incorporates a warning to those using IE6 on XP or later. These users will be unable to view thescripters.com, and are provided a message to either upgrade to 7/8 or move to a "better" browser like Firefox, Chrome, or Safari. Moving to browsers such as Avant or Maxthon isn’t really an option unless you’re willing to upgrade to IE 7 or 8 because they use the base IE that’s already installed on your computer. You will get the exact same results on those browsers as on Internet Explorer itself.

Microsoft has ceased support for IE6 and soon will be for 7. New computers are coming with Windows 7, which has IE8 incorporated into it. XP is being phased out, which is the last OS to default to IE6. Vista ships with 7.

There are simply too many new technologies we use that IE6 just won’t support. Some of our PNG-heavy sites (like thescripters.com) will provide this same warning, but may incorporate a way to view the page anyway. If you have questions, you can contact us.

This move is simple logic from a design standpoint. Internet Explorer has always tried to change the rules and still doesn’t display certain pages quite right. It has issues matching image colors and background colors. So from our vantage point as designers, we can no longer support those who choose to stay behind with an ancient browser.

I may personally include such a message here on AdamH.us as a warning, but probably not to the same extent as on thescripters.com. I don’t know yet.

© 2010, AdamH.us. All rights reserved. Please link back if you use it!

Okay, it didn’t really take a whole lot of thought… Just a matter of finding enough open source software to do everything we need to do. Here’s how it’s going to break down:

1. Slackware Linux on our test server (our production server already runs Linux)
2. Filezilla FTP client for FTP access (Filezilla server for Windows FTP)
3. GIMP/Paint.NET for graphics
4. OpenOffice.org for documents (uploaded to site as PDF)
5. Firefox Web Browser — that’s what we’ll be designing for
6. PHP programming — no ASP or other commercial language
7. SciTE for script editing (at least in Linux — in Windows I have a freeware)

Note: This is only what we’ll use for production of websites. This is what we’ll use as The Scripters. As web applications (such as blog or forum software) we’ll use open source applications for those applications that we don’t create ourselves (such as WordPress, phpBB, or osCommerce).

Much of this software will also be available on systems we build for clients. It’s going to be quite a process to complete this haul-over, but we’ve got to start somewhere.

Comments are welcome. If you have other suggestions, we’re fully open to them.

© 2009, AdamH.us. All rights reserved. Please link back if you use it!

Mission_Kim_Possible : Message: Has Mission_Kim_Possible outlived it’s usefulness?.

So what do you think? I think it’s time to pack up. It was said well in this message. The show’s over, Disney’s never going to make more… So what’s the point of having a group around that’s not doing anything but collecting dust?

Let me point out a few facts before anyone jumps in here to say that it’s not
true.. but numbers don’t line

When Kim Possible was supposed to end on April 8th 2005, the response in this
group was enormous with something like 2500 + Posts in a single month

But in the Months After the show ended on September 7th 2007, the numbers
statistically shows that people are not interested in renewing the show for a
5th season.

The bottom line is that because now so few people care (and the number of posts
show it), the usefulness of Mission Kim Possible I feel has come to an End.

So in order to get some feedback here, I’m not going to close off this group
until January 14th, 2010, the sixth anniversay of the creation of this Yahoo
Group.

So what do you think? Before you answer, I want to point these out… I’ve compiled the post statistics from the last 6 years into a couple of graphs. This is the lowest year ever… But I’ll let you decide.

OpenOffice.org: http://www.thescripters.com/hosted/MKP_Stats.ods (43 KB)
Microsoft Excel 2007: http://www.thescripters.com/hosted/MKP_Stats.xlsx (15 KB)
Microsoft Excel 97-2003: http://www.thescripters.com/hosted/MKP_Stats.xls (33 KB)
Adobe PDF: http://www.thescripters.com/hosted/MKP_Stats.pdf (223 KB)

So…. What do you think?

© 2009, AdamH.us. All rights reserved. Please link back if you use it!

Update: It’s coming up on 2010 really fast… Almost time to figure out my yearly outlook! Weird…

Anyway, still going through school… Introduction to Business and Technology is the class I’m in right now. Just finished the midterm… Halfway through the 8-week session. *Yay!*

Current projects I’ve found myself with, some website maintenance/updating, then a computer for a family friend, then a laptop for another family friend… Then if I can remember to go over to the Galloping Goose I’d have another potential web job. Good things come to those who wait!

The Scripters is really starting to get a little bit popular. Oh and we’re officially a distributor for OpenOffice.org… I just need to sit down and make a page for it on the site… Not sure when I’ll get to that, though… Hopefully before too long… Maybe during my break from school next month…

Oh yeah… Online at DeVry University, for those who aren’t aware… I should put that on my new main page… I’ll get right on that, too…

© 2009, AdamH.us. All rights reserved. Please link back if you use it!

Another week, another month. Time keeps on flying. Anyway, this week I’ve been working on a new “template” that we can sell on TS. When done it will actually decrease the customer cost for a new website. And that’s always a good thing for the customer.

If anyone wants to check it out (and provide feedback for it), it’s here: http://famsite.thescripters.net. Let me know what you would want. But remember it is in early alpha stages. I’m hoping that we would actually be able to install it as a family site, or a more generic group site and the like. I’ll probably write a modified version that would be able to be used for businesses (more professional looking like TS). A personal/family site is for fun, so it’s a little more fun looking. Does that make sense?

Anyway, also of note, I’m developing the new template site on the “local” TS network and therefore doesn’t really have all of the same functionality that the main website has. And sometimes it may be completely inaccessible. But I’m working on a dynamic RSS feed for news and information and a rudimentary blog (for news/updates). It may have a more functional blog in the future, but not at the moment.

So that’s it for me for now. More updates to come in the future!

Until then, enjoy!

© 2009, AdamH.us. All rights reserved. Please link back if you use it!

I can’t believe it’s been a month… I’m really bad at this whole write daily thing… Nothing ever happens daily around here…

Anyway, all is going well. For those who knew jm_pstar in the Yahoo! world, if you don’t know already, he’s gone for a couple of years. To be back September 2011. He’ll be in the Pocatello, Idaho area. Exciting, isn’t it?

More news from me… About me… I’ve begun making scenarios for Age of Empires. The original. Evidently they work in the Rise of Rome expansion, as well. But you can download the first one here. You’ll need to make sure you install it in the AOE folder, though. It provides the default, but if you’re like my brother, you’ll need to point it to the correct location.

Notes on the scenario: It’s probably not the hardest one out there, but it’s pretty close. I’ve added a few other things to it to make it harder to win and (mostly for my brother) keep the user playing for a while. Oh also… Be sure to read the readme BEFORE you play. I’ll probably modify it to have those hints and instructions in-game, but they’re not yet. And Build fast… They’re coming for you.

Anyway, enjoy!

Download scenario

© 2009, AdamH.us. All rights reserved. Please link back if you use it!

At least when you haven’t looked at it or worked on it for a long time… I’m talking about the base code for Kim Possible Fan World.I was going through some of the code today and realized just how complex it really was. Especially considering my lack of experience at the time. Wow!

I’ve considered releasing the base code after some modification, but I’m not sure if I want to go through the work to do the modifications necessary. I would have to change table names to be more generic, make the site title a little more dynamic, etc. And I’m not sure it’s worth it. I mean, it’s not the most complex program I’ve ever seen, used, or made… But it’s probably the biggest project that I’ve really been a part of. At least web-related, that is.

But anyway, if anyone is interested in using the code, let me know. I’ll see how much modification it will take.

© 2009, AdamH.us. All rights reserved. Please link back if you use it!