AdamH.us

Over the next couple of days, The Scripters local servers (where client websites are posted for testing) is going to be up and down as I am changing computers.  The way it is right now is that my personal computer is also the server. That is going to change by the end of next week. I have finally built my new machine enough to start running it. and so the server will become more of "pure server" and will only be running one operating system. Right now it semi-triple-boots. "Semi" because I don’t actually go into the third OS very often.

The server will be running Slackware Linux 13.0 with Apache 2, MySQL 5, and PHP 5. The system is an AMD Athlon XP 2400+ with 1 GB RAM. It has one 80 GB HDD and one 160 GB HDD.

My new system is an AMD Athlon II X4 630 2.8 GHz. I’ll put in the new 320 GB SATA HDD today and then install Windows XP on there. I’ll also be moving the video capture card to the new one.

Point is, there are a few changes coming and servers are going to be a little back and forth for a few days while I get everything set up.

The main website (www.thescripters.com) will remain unaffected, but local.thescripters.net will be offline off and on. I will try to upload client websites to clients.thescripters.com before anything goes down so that are available.

Side note: Congratulations to me. AdamH.us has its 100th post and 100th tag now!

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

I’ve been toying with the idea of creating a blog for The Scripters where we can post updates and news more than just major news on the main page. It’s a possibility. I don’t know yet. If I do, the first thing I need to do is create a skin for WordPress that would match the design of the website.

There’s a lot of logistics to consider. Don’t know if it’ll get done or not. But it’s in consideration. I guess we’ll see.

Any thoughts from the readers? Probably not. I’ll probably just get a bunch of spammers trying to sound legitimate. But they don’t always make their comments match the topic of the post.

Anyway, I’ll post up any updates if we decide to go forward with it. I think it’d be a great way to increase traffic, but I’m not sure yet if it’s a good idea or not.

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

WordPress › Blog » Menus, the Merge, and a Patch Sprint!

I know… three posts in a single day… crazy… But anyway, it’s all great stuff. And I know this one was posted back on the 23rd of February, but WordPress 3 is on the way! Early May is only about 2 months away. You can bet I’ll be ready for it!

I don’t know everything that 3 will include, but I do know they’re merging the single and multi-site editions into one. So that’ll be cool.

So… Two months to go…

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

WordPress Blog — BuddyPress for One (and All!).

Many people were excited about the idea, but were unable to experiment with BuddyPress because they ran single installations of WordPress rather than the multi-site WordPress MU. To those people, good news! A little over a week ago Andy Peatling, founder and lead developer of BuddyPress, announced the release of BuddyPress 1.2, which can be used on single installations of WordPress. Congratulations, BuddyPress! And congratulations to all the people who’ve been waiting with bated breath for this to happen.

Check the link for further information. I’ve considered having WordPress hosting on TheScripters, but haven’t really figured out all of the logistics as yet.

If any readers have any ideas, post them in the comments area or otherwise let me know. If we do set it up, I would probably install this for it.

© 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!

2010 Open Source Design Plans

2010 is the year we dive into open source design. We’ve dipped our toes in this pool before (icon contest, graphic design component for Trac tickets, header refresh contest, etc.), but this year we’re going to cannonball and make a big splash. Here’s what you need to know if you want to get involved. A list [...] […]

Link to article

Sounds intriguing… The core of the WordPress application has always been open source, but now it appears that the basic included interface will be as well… Or at least the default…

So, enjoy!

© 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!

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!

Well, it’s another week, another possibility. Today I found skin maker for Winamp and made a Scripters-themed skin for it. It looks kinda cool. You can see it here.

School’s going well. Coming up on week 7/8. Yes, it’s a simplistic course. It’s Computer Applications for Business. It’s basically Office 2007. Piece of cake. The next class is what I’m looking forward to: Architecture and Operating Systems. One more slot on the way to a degree in Computer Information Systems.

Well, I guess there isn’t much else right now… There are more plans in the works for TheScripters. So be on the lookout for those. Not sure how soon those will come, though.

© 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!