The Instinctive Coder

MyTwitterBB 3?

noreply@blogger.com (ThornPhoeniX) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 19:59:00 +0000

Well over the weekend i was without the Supa Blogg code so when i had a chance to do some coding i was not able to get on with that. I have however perfected RSS Feed Reading, and i have been thinking about MyTwitterBB, this new code means that MyTwitterBB can work a lot more efficiently now and do its job properly. The only downside is that everything that i wanted to add into version 2.4 is going to take a long time meaning that its going to be far more efficient to just start from scratch and build in the functions and functionality of the original 2 versions into Version 3 with its improved code. So i may be moving onto a newer version of the code with that.

So i will be drawing up the plans for the new version of MyTwitterBB in order to improve its functionality and features. If there is anything that people would like to see in the new version please comment and i will see what i can do about it.

If you are looking for some easy PHP Class for RSS/XML file reading then i suggest you give my class a try, you can find the information about it right here.

Also in other news, i have been testing Supa Blogg pretty much none stop. This program is coming nicley along now, a lot of the early bug fixing is just sorting out the background and loading functions which really only need to be fixed once meaning that bug testing and fixing is going to speed up from section to section.

Also i went to see UP in the cinemas yesterday, it was a good film and i enjoyed it. We saw it in 3D as well though which is mega awesome. I recommend that if you have to see a film and have an option between 2D and 3D then see it in 3D it is just mind blowing how awesome it is!

Stuff

noreply@blogger.com (ThornPhoeniX) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:04:00 +0000

Sorry that this post is just a copy and paste of the one on Supa Comix but i'm so swamped I do not have time to do both right now:

So i eventually got around to fixing the forum. It was running a test version of MyTwitterBB that wasn't working properly. I have just removed the plugin since i do not have time to fix the bug properly. Speaking of not having time:

I have now finished the first version of Supa Blogg, it's not available to anyone to use right now as I'm testing it after coding and everyone who codes knows how many first time bugs they find when they test a program for the first time. I do not unit test with large programs, i would rather code in the flow of it and then bug test in one go. It means that everything is kept going and im not breaking flow to see whether it's showing the right time or not. I am continuing to test Supa Blogg and i hope to have it running my personal blog very soon. It won't be out for Public use until after i have released the new Supa Comix website later this year (hopefully).

MyTwitterBB Version 2.5 has not had anything done to it just yet. I have started University and i have to do that, SupaBlogg and the Survivors Diary so getting things done is a slow process right now. I have so many things that i want to do but cannot do alot of them because i have to prioritise what I'm working on. I was just making a post to make sure that you did not think that we were dead or anything.

I do not know what's happening with Is it Because I'm Green or Virtually Reality, Adele has also started uni and has more work than me so she's also very busy. But from what i've seen the scripts for Season 1 of IIBIG are coming along nicely.

Updates

noreply@blogger.com (ThornPhoeniX) — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 02:39:00 +0000

I have been meaning to write a new blog post for a while but never really had a chance to do it. You will be glad to know that this is down to the fact that i have been very busy coding Supa Kode modules, specifically Supa Blogg. It is not completed yet but it is nearing a state which can be tested.

I intend to get a very basic version working and test that, and then add to it to a point where i think that i can move onto the next section of the Supa Kode major modules.

Other work involves developing the newest format for the Survivors Diary podcast, we have decided to return to a Left 4 Dead podcast rather than anything zombie-ish podcast. This is due to the fact that we realised that we were getting to be a review podcast rather than one which had content generated like we had in Left 4 Dead. We have had a lot of awesome support from the community and intend that this be the best format for the show that we've ever had. I am going to start work on implementing the theme that adele has designed for the new website over the next few days as well as record the next podcast.

With regards to MyTwitterBB and MyWikiBB, well MyTwitterBB is not really being developed just yet, i am still trying to fully understand the XML feed reader that comes with PHP and i am unsure whether it works to a level that i can truly feel comfortable with. So i may be starting to work on my own XML feed reader and see if i can use that to run with MyTwitterBB. MyWikiBB has had nothing done to it, i have deemed this the least priority at the moment due to everything that is going on.

I was planning on doing a Blog post about WMG and how they are shit with Youtube videos but when i was going to actually type it out i wasn't fully feeling the emotions for a good post about it. I had an idea to talk about Content Management Systems but I am too tired to do that at this moment, that may be coming soon though.

University term starts in about 2 weeks, it's not overly busy for my schedule and i have a whole day to work on coding for other things so i hope that i can keep on top of the projects. Especially because we purchased the domain name of the major secret project that me and adele have been working on. And i do not want such an awesome deal (£4.99 per month for unlimited bandwith, freespace, emails @ Hostpapa) to go to a waste!

So more coming soon!

[PHP] Removing Trailing Slashes from Decimal Points

noreply@blogger.com (ThornPhoeniX) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 11:55:00 +0000

Have you ever had a problem with code when your dealing with decimal points in maths or something and you get the output of 0.10 or 0.00200000 and find that the trailing zeros would be better off gone? Well the code below is a function that sorts that out, it will turn 0.00100 to 0.001.

In PHP some functions such as bcdiv/bcmul output such values and if your code relies upon the proper formatting of the output then this function is the thing for you. Otherwise if you just want to use the outputs of such functions for maths then i don't really see it being a major problem.

Anywhere here is the code, if you can think of improvements for this code then please let me know in the comments section.

function remove_trailing_zeros($intNum)
{
 if(is_numeric($intNum) && preg_match("/\./", $intNum))
 {
  $intLen = strlen($intNum);

  $bolStart = false;
  $intCutFrom = 0;

  for($i = 0; $i <= $intLen; $i++)
  {
   $strChar = substr($intNum, $i, 1);
   if($strChar == ".")
   {
    $bolStart = true; 
   }
   elseif($bolStart == true)
   {
    if($strChar != "0") 
    {
     $intCutFrom = $i + 1;
    }
   }
  }

  return substr($intNum, 0, $intCutFrom); 
 }
 else
 {
  return $intNum; 
 }
}

Formatted Using formatmysourcecode.blogspot.com

Blog Evolution

noreply@blogger.com (ThornPhoeniX) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 08:51:00 +0000

Supa Enjin is slowly progressing into a properly working php class. With all of the work that i do that require its use i get plenty of oppourtunity to perfect the code and fix some bugs. The major problem i have right now is that the Microsoft SQL Version of the code remains properly untested. I do update that version of the class when theres a problem with the actual code of the MySQL Version, but if its query specific then theres nothing i can really do. But the good news is that i will be setting up Microsofts stunted child version of MySQL on my computer so that i can test the code.

Still I have started to read a lot of blog posts about writing better and more engaging blog posts as well as how to develop your blog into a more impressive being. I do writing for my university course so I have a basic concept of writing it's just that i need to work on the writing process a little more. I am more accustomed to scripts and fiction stories then actual non-fiction content. So it's something that i can learn.

Along with the blog development i have started work on Supa Kodes blogging software, Supa Blogg. This new blogging code is something that will be used throughout the Supa Comix website and will contain many awesome features that someone people have done but not done the way i think about it and even some features that some people never think of. I will be developing more information about that at a later date as i am still working on the basic code for the blogg software. I intend that this blog will be the first one to use the new code, as when i've used it i will upload it to the Supa Comix website to test the code in a more direct way so that i can add new features onto the code and perfect it in real time rather then just the boring tests that i get my code to do at home. The code is not particulary large but it is something that needs a lot of work and testing, i am working towards a more secure version of the code where users are safer from spiders and bots as i have found that spiders and bots are a big problem for many blogs so there are many ways of filtering them out.

MyWikiBB has come to my mind a bit more right now, i have an idea for one last feature to add to it before i release it for a beta version to anyone right now. MyTwitterBB is something else that needs a new version released so that it works a lot better then the previous versions and takes use of some features in Twitter that i knew about but didn't consider when programming the code. I will work more on them next week!

I hate to have to be very obscure about what i will be doing in more information but everything is changing and i want to keep you in suspense. Perhaps next time i write a blog post i will have to read it through and actually plan it before i write it. I just let the writing get away with me sometimes. Anyway thats for next time... promise.

The progression of all things..

noreply@blogger.com (ThornPhoeniX) — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 11:39:00 +0000

Hey everyone, I am very very busy right now. Still working on the Supa Comix website. I have now completed the code for Supa Enjin as well as that i have a good draft of the wiki for it up on this website.

I am currently just re-configuring Supa Kode to work with the new additions to the Supa Enjin, i am mostly working on adding some changes to supa user and the administrator whose wikis are being written as i go along. These are other major contributing factors to Supa Kode and so will be continuously updated and stuff as i go along.

With regards to my other coding projects such as MyTwitterBB and MyWikiBB (thanks to Lily for reminding me to post an update). I will eventually be getting around to updating the code for MyTwitterBB, weapy has posted some updates for the code to get it to work for him. I am yet to properly go over it and see how it works before i begin to add it into the next versino. I am aware that sometimes the tweets do not update quickly. But that is one of the major features of the new update. I will also be moving the Global box into a template to make it easier for editing.

MyWikiBB has not seen any major development recently, it is up and working on the Supa Comix forums as well as the Survivors Diary forums. The basic concept appears to be working i just need to think about how to make everything a bit easier to use and clearer. I hope to get around to doing some more for that soon but as you can see i have a busy schedule.

So stay tuned, i hope to be getting around the Mybb plugins soon.

Back and Busy

noreply@blogger.com (ThornPhoeniX) — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:41:00 +0000

Hey everyone. I am back from my three weeks of awesome holiday and ready to get back onto work. Over the holiday me and Adele did a lot of planning and talking about the new Supa Comix website. There have been come minor changes intended but we are working through them and you won't see them come into affect for a while.

My main focus of work, especially for coding, is that for the Supa Enjin. This is a class that is used to connect to a database and run queries. I am updating it from its original as well as writing a wiki for it, this is something that i have to do as i have some actual work that is based upon this as well as some future personal projects, including the Supa Comix website, that needs this to be done before i can continue. So everything else is currently on hold.

I have been wondering a lot about interesting updates, i read a number of personal blogs (including Garrys from Garrys mod, and First Person Shouter). I am intent on discovering the method used for making interesting blog posts, i have been thinking about doing the same with my twitter feed.

Perhaps i need to talk more about stuff that people care about, perhaps even just stuff that interests me in some way. Well it's something to think about.

Away Time

noreply@blogger.com (ThornPhoeniX) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 00:42:00 +0000

Right then everyone, it's time for me to say cya for about 3 weeks. I will be upating my twitter feed (to the right) so if you want to stay tuned on that then please do.

I will try to reply to emails as often as i can but its no certanty, (spelling?) so if you have any questions please email me if you know my email address. Otherwise post on the Supa Comix forums and then wait for me to be able to get online to them.

See you on the 26th!

Nick

What's been happening?

noreply@blogger.com (ThornPhoeniX) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:53:00 +0000

Well despite there being loads of activity last week on the Blog this week we have had very little. This is down to many reasons, one of them is that i am working hard on the Supa Kode minor module: Supa Enjin. I have been building the documentation area of the Supa Kode wiki with the functions and information as i work towards writing it for Microsoft SQL whilst also improving some of the functionality of MySQL version of the class. There are a lot of functions in the class but i am getting through at a steady rate and i hope to get a lot of it done before i go camping. As well as that i also have an OU course to finish off before i go away.

Speaking of which, from the 5th July to the 26th of July i will be camping over the south west side of England and Wales. So there will be no updates in the way of podcasts, coding information, website updates or anything. I may update my twitter if i can get some internet using my PDA but other than that it's no internet time.

I hope to get some more stuff done before i go though. I promised something about MyWikiBB but i have not going around to adding in some more functions that i was planning. As already explained i have a lot to do and so MyWikiBB is on the back burner at the moment.

The good news is that i have now finished the basic structure of Project Submission for the Supa Comix website, the major problems with this is that i have to try and make it so that new projects can be easily added and that i can write code for one project and hope that i do not have to make code custom for each project. But that has it's basics down right now and i will be moving onto Group submission shortly, there is a lot left to do to the website and i will not have it done by July 1st as promised. With major changes in how Supa Comix will work and other things i could not keep to the schedule.

So that's all for me for today, i may be posting a news post on the Supa Comix website later. So stay tuned.

MyWikiBB

noreply@blogger.com (ThornPhoeniX) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 10:43:00 +0000

MyWikiBB is a Mybb plugin which allows users to have a very simple wiki section added to their own forum.

MyWikiBB only introduces one new user page and that is just used to display the wiki, there are no new user input pages that require you to use and get used to create your wiki.

I am aware that there already exists another Wiki plugin for Mybb by StefanT, this is a very good plugin and i invite you to use his Wiki if it fills your needs. I coded this plugin because i wanted to try and do the same thing just slightly differently, including some of my own features that i think that the plugin needed that his did not support. I invite you to try both plugins and see which one fulfils your needs more accuratley.

You can see a live version of the Alpha version of this plugin here.

Current Version: Alpha 2 (Unreleased) - This version is currently being tested on the l4dpodcast.net/forums.

For a full list of features as well as more detailed information please go here.

PHP Naming Conventions

noreply@blogger.com (ThornPhoeniX) — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 12:55:00 +0000

Wow some major coding things have been happening over the past few days since my last blog post. The major reason for this is to announce that i have moved the SupaKode wiki to wikidot.com as i found that their services seemed to fit with more of what i wanted compared to wetpaint. (Wetpaint was good but we wanted to do something else with it). The new wiki can be found here. Hopefully this one will be a lot more used than any previous one that i have set up.

I have been having problems with writing code, a lot of it becomes instantly confusing when reading and the comments have not been very clear. I have also found that functions become repeated with different names meaning that i just have way too many functions on the go and it's just taking up space and power. So i have decided to write up some guidelines of how i intend to code things in the future, these are PHP Naming Conventions which apply for variables, functions and even some files. The intention is to maintain a level of consistency with which i can write my code, these coding practices will be applied to all future Supa Comix coding projects (other than those within the Mybb Plugins area). I am in the process of making these gradual changes to the code as i go along with some of the older modules seeing some function renaming to start to fit into this new style of naming things. Read my article on how i lay them out here.

MyWikiBB has not really faced any alterations since last week, the intention was to wait until i had uploaded to the l4dpodcast.net website and make a lot of the changes to the code there. I have begun filling it in at the Supa Comix forum and writing the wiki of it about the actual plugin. It's some good practice in the way of using it and i find that it's working pretty well so far. It's just the installation and uninstallation process that i have to work on.

Speaking of Supa Comix websites, i am starting on the create projects section of the website and working from there on. I will be inserting each project into the new website and having the code written around the demands of each project as well as any considerations for any other project that people may submit. At the moment i'm working on comics so that i can submit Adele's Is It Because I'm Green and our Survivor Comic to the website.

MyTwitterBB has also been showing some signs of bugs since i last updated it. I will be workign towards the change log as i spot the bugs.

I think that raps up everything for now. Back to work!

Upcoming new mini project: MyWikiBB

noreply@blogger.com (ThornPhoeniX) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 12:08:00 +0000

Well i have just updated MyTwitterBB into version 2.2 so i will be awaiting bug replies on that one soon. But the Survivors Diary website is soon to be undergoing an update and that includes the implementation of a wiki system. This is something that i've been looking at for a while. I have looked at many ways to do it:

MediaWiki seems to complicated and although i've found ways to link it to mybb it's not something i'm really after.
WordPress Wiki is not something that i found to be what i particulary wanted, i reasoned that i wanted it to be on the forum so that users can interact with it a bit better.
Wiki for Mybb, there is a nice little plugin i found for Mybb which was alright but i think that it still was not particulary what i was aiming for with this. It has some aspects which are interesting but i wanted to go for something simpler and a lot more adjustable.

And thus i was left with the only option of coding it myself. So i have begun development of my new mini project: MyWikiBB. This will:

Use .htaccess to allow proper linking like real wikis, i will also provide an update for the current mybb .htaccess file incase people use that.
Use a forum category as its information background whereby only Administrators and Wiki Editors can view and create threads for it.
Everything in the way of styling and creating articles will be done like normal threads only within this hidden Wiki Forum category.
It will use its own display functions however and also allow a choice between a strutuce commonly employed by Wiki's like Wiki Pedia as well as the option to be displayed like the normal forum.

There is a lot in the way of development and coding left to do. I am also coding it so that updating it to the next code standard will be easier and does not involve the removal of a lot of database information. At the moment i have coded in the install, activate and deactivate code. This will soon be tested on my home server and so i can get it all coded in properly. Though i may have to write a script to remove all of the inserted data if it goes wrong at some point as it usually does.

Stay tuned for that and a page about that which should be coming out soon!

Now normally i would be updating the Supa Comix website but beings as this code is needed in two weeks i think that i had better focus all of my home personal coding time on this project rather than Supa Comix until it is done. I will re-continue with Supa Comix once this project is at least in some form complete.

Upcoming MyTwitterBB Changes and more

noreply@blogger.com (ThornPhoeniX) — Wed, 27 May 2009 10:14:00 +0000

Hey everyone, so i have some stuff to role out now.

Firstly MyTwitterBB will soon start to move onto Version 2.2 as i have some more revisions to add into the code in order to support some extra things within the website. Such as:
- Support for multiple linking on the Global MyTwitterBB, for some reason it only does it once
- The option to remove or link with hashtags on the Global MyTwitterBB code.

I will also be updating the plugin information on the forum and the MyTwitterBB thread that i have on the MyBB Forum as some of it is out of date. But do not expect that to be out for a while as i have other things to focus on and i do not want to submit the updates too soon since the last one, something to do with mybb addon policy or something.

Anyway, i have been working on the Supa Comix website, it features a lot of code that i am globalising (making it so that other people can use it as well) so that it has greater support, there is less duplicated code and if there are any fixes for code then i only have to update it in one place. The Supa Comix website is going to be taking full advantage of Supa Kode and Supa Kode is going to be one day available to the public for their use. This is turning into an interesting project and something that i hope will make things easier for everyone who uses the internet to manage forums, blogs, podcasts, comics, etc. I hope to start updating the Supa Kode wiki soon as well i think thats fallen out of date again as well.

I have also created a Supa Comix twitter feed and i intend to be posting my blogs like this on the twitter feed for that rather than my personal profile. So head over to twitter: www.twitter.com/SupaComix. I am going to be adding images soon but for some reason the website isn't loading on my computer so i will have to sort it out later.

Some stuff to note

noreply@blogger.com (ThornPhoeniX) — Wed, 13 May 2009 16:07:00 +0000

Man it has been a busy few weeks, finishing of Year 3 of Uni but getting other stuff done as well. I have fallen behind with the coding for the Supa Comix website but there is very little i can do about that as i am still working something else out and that needs attention first.

Secondly i have released MyTwitterBB Version 2.1 to the public for download, it fixes some strange bug that i noticed on my forum but i think that i might not have got it but without knowing what actually causes the error i cannot attempt to fix it properly.

I am moving along with what i am working on but there are many things still taking up a lot of my time including the Survivors Diary Community with the podcast and comic but thats fine i enjoy that. I am going to press on with the website later today in the hope to get some more stuff fixed as well as start to upload some bits to the current website just to get everything properly tested online and everything.

I keep falling into idea areas where i imagine some projects that i want to get working on in the future, Zombie Stress 2, Hamster Fight and Gal X but they are a long way away for now. Still i can still dream and hope to get around to them eventually.

MyTwitterBB and other stuff

noreply@blogger.com (ThornPhoeniX) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 16:16:00 +0000

I promised a blog post so i thought i'd better post. Firstly my current focus was recently on eating a hell of a lot of chocolate for Zombie Jesus Day. But i have also been working hard on my new mybb plugin called MyTwitterBB. This is something that i have been beta testing for a while whilst updating the code and as far as i can tell it's coming along pretty well.

It should be out in a couple of days i just want to test the code a bit more and fix some really small bugs that i've noticed on it. The other good news is that i can add loads of more stuff to it if i wish to. So i have plenty of major updates to add into it if it becomes popular.

I intend to be writing some informational articles on how to use it properly and about it as well soon so that people get the most out of it. But that's something that will appear on the Supa Comix forums. That reminds me i still have the readme to update.

I'm glad i didn't release it when i was planning to as it was well crap compared to what it was now and quite buggy.

In other news i am still on target for the new Supa Comix website, everytime i use facebook (yes i have an account now... it's still just a shit as it was only it looks like twitter now) i see how bad it is and i want to make something better. Supa Comix will be something like that but more for those who are creative than just for anyone.

There is a lot going on for the Survivors Diary Podcast its coming along nicely now and the stuff that is happening and that we are doing for it is exciting i never realised it'd do this well! Episode 18 was out yesterday and less than a day later its got 73 downloads! OMGZ

I will be updating the Supa Comix website with some news soon but i've started on a part of the website for the forum and this bit is going to be the most fun ever!

MyTwitterBB

noreply@blogger.com (ThornPhoeniX) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 00:22:00 +0000

I have moved the MyTwitterBB page to the forum of my home website. So please head over there right now to check the new version (2.4) and get some more information about what's changed.

Go now!

Progress Update

noreply@blogger.com (ThornPhoeniX) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 13:42:00 +0000

Well the good news is that i am currently (sort of) on schedule with the Supa Comix website. This and next week i am working on the projects folder of the website which contains pages where you edit and maintain as well as view the project or even create some. Though that are 6 pages, one of them is proving to take longer than normal. This is due to the fact that it is a big page, the edit/ create new project page, it has about 5 steps and i am working on them slowly.

With my new approach to the website it doesn't take long to create simpler pages such as the list all projects page, that took me about 10 minutes. This one has a lot of stuff that needs creating for it so it does take a long time. I am currently on step 4 of 5, and with me doing the actual project page today i can get both that and step 4 of the manage project page done.

In excellent news i have now completed my Dissertation for university, i just need to hand it in. Now i am intending to move onto my creative writing course which i intend to have all of the work done by April the 13th. Though i was meant to do one of the tasks this morning i had to work on printing my dissertation. So hopefully i can get both the tasks i've set myself for today done during my hour of work on uni stuff.

In other news me and adele have been working hard on the Survivors Diary, we've recently purchased some more bandwidth as it was proving very popular and we needed an upgrade. We are planning to work on a side project for it which shouldn't take too long to do and will hopefully allow people to enjoy more left 4 dead content.

Progress Update again!

noreply@blogger.com (ThornPhoeniX) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 22:49:00 +0000

Well i have been busy but i have been also busy with Supa Comix stuff. I am currently on schedule for the Supa Comix website, so fear not its coming together. I intend to start testing some of the basic parts of what i've done this weekend and hope to get that done. It is a harder task when you have a dissertation and a lot of uni todo, i also have the Survivors Diary podcast to do as well but i enjoy doing that!

Anyway, im posting due to my own musings about Zombie Stress 2, for those who don't know. Zombie stress was a half life 2 mod that i made and it did pretty well, it currently has 4241 downloads from my home website which is good. I was working on its sequel earlier last year but due to the amount of work that was beginning to pile upon me i have shut down the production of the project for now. But this doesn't mean im not going to return to it or even stop me thinking about it. Zombie Stress 2 will be the first project that we return to when we've finished the new website.

But i am constantly thinking about the project and the mod, i want it to be great and encompass a lot of fun with it. I have been having ideas of doing many different ports for it including Half Life 2 Death Match, Left 4 Dead and Garrys Mod adaptions. The last two will probably more like maps than a complete mod but its just in the thinking stage. I intend to do a really good job on it and im wondering whether we can call it something else other than Zombie Stress 2. A lot of it is still in the thinking steps at the moment and a lot of it is subject to change.

Also when the project re-opens i will actually post the winners of the caption competition shortly afterwards.

Anyway off to do something else!

Time is of the essence

noreply@blogger.com (ThornPhoeniX) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 01:01:00 +0000

So now its the week of major Dissertation writing. I intend to get such a lot done before its time to hand the smegger in. I have planned my day and check the todo list and time left to do it in and according to all calculations i should get it done so long as i am not hindered in any way.

But with regards to Supa Kode. It's coming along niceley the new and improved supa phormat is starting to come together thought it is yet to be tested. I want to get the basics in before i test it as i need a live test page in which to test it. But as soon as that is working and everything i should be able to quickly finish up the admin section for Supa Kode and then hopefully be able to get on with the other major tasks of the Supa Comix website.

The problems i had with the old supa phormat kode was that it took too long to really do anything, some of the instructions were forgettable and some of the patterns were not really global. It was easier to code html then use the old style supa phormat, the new one hopes to fix this with new functions, a built in class and many other things. It should hopefully speed up the creation of simple kode and everything. I have also done a write up for the Supa Kode wetpaint website.

15 minutes out of my busy schedule

noreply@blogger.com (ThornPhoeniX) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 10:47:00 +0000

So today i have taken a new approach to getting things done. I have noticed that i get things done if i know what im doing. I have a todo list now where i write everything down, i remember what i am meant to be doing now and for some reason i also take a bit of delight out of checking an item off.

But still my apathy gets the better of me, so today i have planned out my day time wise in order to allow me to fully try and get a lot of things done. Every hour or half hour is dedicated to a certain task and then when i get that task done within that time limit i get to do whatever i want until the next slot comes around. So far its 10:49. Meaning i have 11 minutes until i have to move onto my next task and i think its going well. I've got everything i set myself to do earlier.

For Supa Kode i have finally gotten the design template for the pages down and now with me re-writing Supa Phormat i can now actually get that on the way to outputting what i want from it. I am yet to full finish off the CSS for it but once i get a fully working template page i will probably post a picture about it.

Well its gonna be time for me to move onto my Creative Writing hour that i've set. I might post later about how today went.

So What's Happening?

noreply@blogger.com (ThornPhoeniX) — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 23:25:00 +0000

Well things have been slowly moving along here. This week is a big work week for me, today i actually managed to get my presentation done which is a big plus. And it's pretty good if i do say so myself. Pity I only get pass or fail on it, anyway with that out of the way i have managed to get a lot of Supa Comix, especially Supa Kode done.

The new version of Supa Kode is a major improvement on the last 2 revisions. A lot of things work easier and use some simpler yet more affective code. It now starts with SQL databases and needs one to run when previous versions did not. I choose to add this in due to me actually needing to do a lot of functions that are best set using a database rather than just the re-writing/creation of files.

I have also begun work on re-coding Supa Phormat, my PHP to XHTML output class/function. This means that the documentation that is on the Supa Kode website is currently out of date. However i will be shortly moving on to actually removing most of the content from their in favour of some more informative code. When its released i will begin adding in some developer content for those who wish to use it but for now its just going to be used as support files for other major projects.

So expect some large advancements with the Supa Kode wet paint website in the near future.

The Link Counter

noreply@blogger.com (ThornPhoeniX) — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 18:14:00 +0000

This mini little collection of pages will allow you to track how many people come to your website and where from. It uses a basic amount of PHP and MySQL code and takes advantage of the $_GET array. Meaning that anylink is something like http://www.yourwebsite.com/?ref=theirwebsite.com

Installation

Installation of this mini set of code is very simple. As soon as you download edit "config.php" file so that the settings it asks for are filled in. And then upload all of the files to your website, then run the install.php script and then delete the file.

Now this is designed to go to your website and then forward to an actual area. Usually it is based that the user goes to the index file and then onto the actual website. But a lot of people have their website within their index.php/.html area anyway. But this is simply remedied, just rename the file to something else or stick it in a folder and then you can continue to use it.

If you renamed the file to link.php then your link is: http://www.yoursite.com/link.php?ref=theirsite.com

Or if you stuck it in a folder called link then it would be http://www.yoursite.com/link/?ref=theirsite.com.

Usage

You just need to make sure that the end part of the address is ?ref= and then their website address. The code will remove the http://www. from the address and then add it into the database.

Essentially everything website that links to your website needs to have the link updated. It does not detect it or add it if there is no "ref" variable. It will just forward it to the website.

Viewing Your Stats

If you have php my admin then you can use that to read the stats but the script comes with a file called "stats.php" which allows you to view a list, in order of most clicked of all the people link to your website.

Bug Reporting and Suggestions

If you find that you are having some trouble with the code or you have some improvement ideas then comment in the area below and i will see what the problem is an attempt to fix it.

Why Twitter is better than facebook and myspace

noreply@blogger.com (ThornPhoeniX) — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 22:55:00 +0000

Opening Points

Better than Myspace: No Emo Bands inviting you all the time.

Better than facebook: Simpler, more useful and not full of shit applications and useless groups which people join to let others know their own political or social beliefs.

Most of this is directed towards facebook as i quit having a personal myspace account a long time ago.

I have been getting pretty annoyed with facebook since its popularity boost recently. At first i didn't want to join it, but when i did it was simple easy, very private and allowed me to keep in contact with each of my friends in a simplistic way.

But when it becomes popular it seeks a new audience and a new technique of making itself go shit. It added the application ability, a good idea in theory but there are only like 2 or 3 at most good applications on there. Most of the others are quiz programs or things about xmas or something shit like that. For reference, the two applications i found useful was the twitter plugin and the blog plugin where i can join my blogs onto facebook.

But the one thing that annoyed me most was the kind of myspace attitude to things. The attempt to prove how popular by adding random people so that you get a high number of friends.

I do not aim to achieve that, i recently joined facebook again in an attempt to actually join with people who are actually going to be using the communication ability of it. But most people have very little to say and most conversation becomes exhausted easily. So the main scheme of communicating now is down and people fail to talk on it. So what do i discover?

Twitter: All hail it!

For twitter is the simplest tool ever. It's basis is that people answer the question "What are you doing?" in 140 characters or less. People have no direct obligation to talk to anyone now but they just answer that question. There are no invites to "Who secretly loves you" application. There are no people being the fan of sliced bread or groups about how they hate the smoking bill.

Now when i joined twitter and up until this morning i thought that twitter was brilliant but it lacked photo support. That's the one thing that facebook did well was the photo system. It was complete and allowed people to easily find photos on each other. Well i recently came across twitpic and found that it now has that.

And for another thing instead of friends you have people you follow and people who you follow. And thus the whole idea of being friends is removed in a way. Instead of someone adding you to never really talk to you after the first initial addition, and mostly to get the friend count up you have people who will follow you. Which is great! Someone sees your feed but you do not see theirs until you follow them. Meaning that your not forced to see how people who add you are doing even though you don't honestly care. You add those who want to follow and everyone else can act at their own discretion and you can even block them.

So now we have a select friend system that in some way counts the whole adding friends for numbers, a photo system that's not perfect but pretty well implemented and a simple website what else is there?

Well we also have numerous applications unto which you can add to where-ever and update your stuff. I have twitterfox for firefox, which sits nicely in the bottom corner and lets me know when someone posts something new. This is what i use to follow my podcast twitter account. The other application is Spaz unto which i use my personal account. This is a nice little program that's nice to use very simple and keeps itself up to date. It doesn't drain a lot of power and sits quietly on your start bar.

Spaz uses less energy than iTunes, firefox, steam, msn and its even close to mysql database. Therefore its cheaper to run spaz on twitter than facebook on firefox!

What else? Well you can text twitter and it will update your twitter feed (costs depend on your phone providers attitude towards international texts for non-US users), and the twitpic website can be logged into using your twitter details and allows you to email photos to them from your phone to which they upload.

And so thus all these points allow me to truly consider the realities of facebook, which from what i heard is planning to sell your personal data to advertising companies and such. Read here.

This is all well and good but what about points FOR facebook/myspace?

Well this post is mostly anti-them but i wouldn't consider myself logical if i didn't argue the alternate point of view. Yes perhaps facebook is a nice little system which allows people to keep in contact with each other when used properly. It has its nice little things which people like and I'm not arguing with that, people can do what they want and enjoy what they want. The main point of this is really to show how facebook and myspace sold out.

Another point would be that twitter does not making communication easier really, if you don't want to chat someone it doesn't matter what social networker your on, they still won't say anything.

The groups, applications and stuff add extra things for people to do via the website, allowing them to spend more hours on it rather than doing any homework or dissertations that are due. People can get involved in things... oh and the event thing is quite clever to.

Things I've used in the past year are ticked, others are crossed. If twitter had something similar it'd be perfect.

And the counter-argument to those points?

Well counter-arguments include the fact that perhaps facebook does have a lot more to it than twitter but with twitter you can log on and see whats been happening and then do something else. Something constructive, i know of people who waste hours reading peoples twitter posts (Stephen fry may be one of them) but come on, there's even a group for wasting time on facebook. Twitter is simpler, less in your face, and much more friendly than the cold dry and mostly boring style of facebook.

Twitter may also be nothing more than one of those social networking websites that plague the internet, but it does it so brilliantly and differently.

Most of this is about twitter and facebook... what about myspace?

I have been mostly addressing facebook. I do have a myspace account for my website, SupaComix but i hardly log in any more mainly because:

A: I have lost the log-in details

B: It's become so commercial and over the top with emos and their shite bands that that's all its really good for. Finding some amateur bands and listening to their music, but you don't need to be a member to do it. So its pretty much pointless unless you consider yourself deep and meaningful...

Plus most of myspace is just a direct rip-off of facebook anyway.

Why should i care?

Logically your caring is based upon your own reaction. I see way to many people going on about facebook and stuff and how they look down on your if you don't have facebook. Like your an outsider, and it's like that's not needed. Twitter is superior, it fills my demands more accurately and I'm not plagued by other peoples attempts to draw attention to themselves. It's time that people started making points against them and for gods sake if you are one of those people join twitter and add me, because your gonna be one of those awesome people to twitter with.

So what now?

I for see the removal of my facebook account at the end of the week. This time i am not returning to it. If you want to add me to your twitter feed please follow the link on the right of the page.

Also there is an application, as i mentioned above which allows your twitter feed to update your facebook feed... so if you wanna keep em both then try searching for that.

Links:

Finally a blog post

noreply@blogger.com (ThornPhoeniX) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 02:42:00 +0000

Well i keep returning to this blog to try and post something except that a lot of the time i get about three sentances in and don't complete it. Now i finally have the time to actually write it.

I keep coming up with things to write about, such as gaming, projects or life philosophies that people might consider interesting. But a lot of the time i cannot be arsed to type it all out in a way that people can understand it.

But here i am, feeling slightly dizzy for unknown reasons with my toe bandaged up (as it's broken - meaning that i could not get my blue belt on sunday :( ).

Right now i am planning the style of Supa Kode. I am looking around at other similar types of web applications and seeing how they do it for some kind of simple inspiration. I want to keep it simple and yet not over do it or copy someone either.

Either way i think this dizzyness is sleep related so im going to bed now. This blog post was not amazing but i just wanted to start trying to get into the habit of doing it for now. I think i might do a blog post each week if not more. It's nice to write things down now and again.

Random Survey

noreply@blogger.com (ThornPhoeniX) — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 00:50:00 +0000

I was linked and thus it was completed.

2008 Interesting Survey

You- real quick
Name: Nick
Age: 20
Bday: March 24th
Occupation: Student
Sum yourself up in 1 word: Quiet
2008
What was the best thing that happened to you this year?: Lots of stuff, the question has a large scope for something that has 365 days in it!
What was the worst thing that happened to you this year?: That house thing
Overall, rate 08 from 1-10 with 10 being the best: 9
Name one way in which your life changed in 2008: I began to hate uni
Name one goal you reached in 2008: Got my green belt
Whats the most important thing/life lesson you learned this year?: Don't poke the crying girl
Would you go thru 08 again?: Yup
Name one way you helped someone in 2008?: Official policy to arrest the vigilante known as pants man on sight
Did you save anyone's life this year?: Official policy to arrest the vigilante known as pants man on sight
Was your life saved?: Indeed
What was the nicest thing anyone did for you this year?: Official policy to arrest the vigilante known as pants man on sight
Did you discover the meaning of life this year?: If i did that i would not be answering this question
Name one reason you cried this year.: I don't think i did
Did you become closer to anyone in your life?: Yes
Name one illegal thing you did this year.: Pants man... vigilante... arrest...
2009
What's your new years resolution?: Its more of a jedi code then a resolution
Do you believe in new years resolutions?: Yes, if people feel the need to see a new year as another attempt to try and make a difference in their life then sure... why not?
Whats something you want to accomplish in 09?: To stop getting arrested...
Do you feel like anything bad might happen in 09?: It is as inevitable as it is with every year gone, and to come... even those that come with free postage and packing
What do you think will be the best thing to happen in the world in 09?: Barack Obama taking office
Whats your biggest fear in 09?: A jedi knows no fear, for this is the path to the dark side...
Are you generally optimistic for the year ahead? Why or why not?: I hope im optimistic... why? why not?

Take This Survey | Search Surveys | MySpace Surveys
Survey found on Bzoink