"The rebirth of the userpic cropper" written by News on estrip.org

Category: toys

04/07/07 06:28 - 26ºF - ID#38790

The rebirth of the userpic cropper

I re-wrote the userpic maker as a surebert app. If you want to crop userpics from images you found on the internet, you may find it useful. Click on the image below to test it out.

Permalink: The_rebirth_of_the_userpic_cropper.html
Words: 40
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: estrip

04/06/07 10:04 - 23ºF - ID#38771

We Hit 4,000,000 Words

Looks like (e:decoyisryan) wrote (e:strip)'s 4,000,000th word last night. I can't believe it has gotten this far. When I first wrote (e:news,29677) back in 2003 I never dreamed so many people would be so interested and pour out their emotions, hopes and frustrations. I definitely never though it would be going strong in 2007.

Thanks for making estrip a rewarding and meaningfull experience. Now if we could only turn each one of those words into dollars, just kidding.

--paul

Permalink: We_Hit_4_000_000_Words.html
Words: 80
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: estrip

04/04/07 02:45 - 42ºF - ID#38737

Some updates

next prev 10 buttons work again
date select works again

public/draft mode eyeball icon at the bottom of each entry works again

sorry mobl posting via email is still under devel (e:dragonlady)

I need to tinker with the email server.

Lots of other backend updates that you will never know the difference about other than the site being snappier.
--Paul

Permalink: Some_updates.html
Words: 61
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: estrip

03/22/07 08:06 - ID#38563

Work, work, work

I updated lots of the backend code today. The site should be even faster to load journals now, not that it was particularly slow. I added some more stuff to my caching routine so that it would be nice for the database. I really cannot wait for the day when I have separate web and database servers.

I have a whole bunch more tricks up my sleeve. I will update more after I get back from San Francisco on April 2nd. Either that or I will die in a plane crash and (e:strip) will exist like this forever!

The mobile site comments section now fits with the rest of the mobile site. Remember the mobile version of the site is not just for people with mobile devices but for anyone with a slow connection or really old computer should be using that.

I know the (past chatter) link is gone. It is because the past chatter page is going to get a makeover next week. Maybe tomorrow before I fly but I doubt that. You will have to live in the present, lol.

Wish me luck that I find an amazing job making a million dollars and never come back. Just kidding, I am not even looking.

--paul

Permalink: Work_work_work.html
Words: 209
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: notification

03/20/07 11:29 - 37ºF - ID#38527

Network was down for a bit last night

It should be all okay now. Just got a message from Jake at artvoice.

Hi Paul,

I was working on our router last evening. One of the T1 serial interface cables still seems to be faulty, but I think connectivity should now be stable until I can get that fixed. I'll let you know in advance if I expect any further downtime.

-Jake

Permalink: Network_was_down_for_a_bit_last_night.html
Words: 63
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: estrip

03/19/07 08:15 - 36ºF - ID#38523

Updates and problems

I updated a bunch of back-end stuff today. I also fixed the search and the surebert multi-file upload button glitch (e:imk2) was talking about. should be set to go now. If for some reason it cannot create the new multi-file upload it will automatically go back to the traditional file upload.

There was another problem with the server connection today but that wasn't my causing. I also couldn't ping artvoice for a while. I wrote them an email. Hopefully, it is resolved.

Permalink: Updates_and_problems.html
Words: 83
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: estrip

03/16/07 07:30 - 23ºF - ID#38494

Updates

I have ported over a bunch of changes from a port of the site I am working on at work. 99% of it is backend and security changes.

Fixed the RSS feeds too.
Message me if anything is out of the ordinary.
--paul

Permalink: Updates.html
Words: 42
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: estrip

03/12/07 12:22 - 31ºF - ID#38426

Couple Updates

There has been a change in the system that required me to change the ID of journal entries. Each journal has a new id that is longer, 20000 longer to be exact. The old ones will forward.

The estrip lite chat has been redone to optimize it for mobile phones.

I am going to update the inlines and elinks in the journal text this week. In the mean time they still link to the proper numbers because of the redirect system in place.

Permalink: Couple_Updates.html
Words: 82
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: 0

03/08/07 12:06 - 12ºF - ID#38391

Site Concerns

Well, the database got corrupted a bit today. I think it is fixed now but it makes me wonder if the databases hardrive is going to fail soon. I have backed up the database everyday for over a year. So there is not much to worry about. Nothing has really changed about the structure. Maybe the server itself is dying. I has been on 24/7 since 2003. That is a freakin' long time. It wa only rebooted a couple times.

I really need to have the server here and (e:terry) has finally allowed me to move it home soon. I would like to build a more environmentally friendly server. I figure it will cost me and additional ~$2000/year but it seems so worth it in terms of my time - which costs money. It will also allow me to host commercial projects of my own. I am wondering if FIOS or adelphia is going to be a better deal.

Having the server at home means I will be able to develop a lot more cool stuff and not have to worry about something breaking at 3am when it is locked far away. I can finally stop living my life over a ssh connection to a terminal prompt.

I just hope it survives until I go ahead and make the move.

paul writes at 12:48:24 05/20/07 - Comment #18633: There was actually just a bug that was causing the corruption at the time. The site is still being hosted from my server at the artvoice location - which they are not charging us for - you can't beat that deal.

The reason I wanted it at home was just because I was tired of not being able to just use the server as a desktop comp when working on the site.

I really prefer to have total control over the server because I have compiled everything in a very customized way and because I use it to do all kind of other online computations and conversions for me when I am on the go. It also is capable of handling a huge amount of new users, which I hope for as it is a dedicated dual 2.8 ghz xeon with 2GB of rambus ram and we share a T1 connection with artvoice. I am using centos as the OS.

We also had such horrible experience with shared server spaces for the first two years (rember (e:twisted)). Having it on its own server has resulted in about zero percent downtime (knock on plastic) which was a problem on every shared host we had before.

jsl writes at 11:28:35 05/20/07 - Comment #18631: Sorry about responding to such an old post but I was wondering if you had done anything about this. I'm part of a hosting cooperative called HCoop (http://www.hcoop.net) and we offer cheap hosting for members. We're not accepting new members for a while until our migration to a new infrastructure is complete (maybe in about a month we'll open up again), but when this is done we'll have much better bandwidth than you would find anywhere in Buffalo, and servers with SCSI hard disks in RAID configurations, etc.

If my intuition that your site uses PHP/MySQL is correct, it should run fine on what we've got. If not, I would consider something like Xen virtual hosting, but that would mean you'd have to do more work and monitoring than using our shared configuration that we've developed at HCoop. At any rate, sharing a physical machine should work for you, and cost less and be more environmentally friendly than having your site on a dedicated box.

paul writes at 11:32:44 03/08/07 - Comment #16396: Do you think this would be good enough? Is FIOS reliable?

20 Mbps downstream and 5 Mbps upstream (increased from 15/2), for the former 15 Mbps prices of $59.95 a month with a dynamic IP address and $99.95 a month with static IP address.

paul writes at 11:25:14 03/08/07 - Comment #16395: I guess this is not happening because I could never afford the bandwidth the server just reported it had. ;( someday...

Permalink: Site_Concerns.html
Words: 219
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: artvoice

02/20/07 12:22 - 34ºF - ID#38215

Artvoice Best Of Buffalo Contest

It;'s that time of year again when we lose the annual Artvoice Best of Buffalo Award ;(

Maybe this year we could win if everyone voted estrip.org for BEST LOCAL WEBSITE instead of half of the people voting for best local web site and the other half voting for best local blog. Estrip.org is not a blog, it is a blogging website. As I said last year, if you vote, vote best local website for the site and vote a specific user's blog for best local blog.

Both are in the "People you Know Category" In order for your vote to count you need to vote for 30 Best of Buffalo Topics. Voting is much easier this year. I like the new look of the voting interface ;)

To sign up go to