I spent the evening helping Buffalo Rising get their website up and and running so that it would be ready for the official launch on Monday. Here you can see the counter on the front page that I put up.



I also created a custom WBFO NPR RSS feed parser for the site which is based on moveable type. I am not a big fan of moveable type which is perl based. Too bad Jesse wasn't there. I just fixed everything with PHP mods. I just don't understand why everyone uses prebuilt CMS systems. Especially other programmers. There is just way too much overhead and I would rather spend my time programming than reading through the million page manual of some else's API. I seriously would go nuts working on a project like that full-time. It was so frustrating to want to make a change to the underlying system but only having access to the very surface through some sort of gui web interface. I like more direct access to my stuff.

At one point zack had to read a 104 page manual to set up an ad server. I could make one in less time than it would take to read through that manual. Maybe I should focus my time on making a CMS system.

I also fixed the search tab javascript. It was a sucessful evening that will hopefully pay for my cell phone bill which is way over my budget thanks to the million and a half fees from cingular. they promised a bill of $44.99 but the first month it came to $111.00 with setup fees and service charges. What a ripoff.

Little did I know that I would be near a dog. For some reaosn even in its mega fluffiness this dog did not make me very allergic.



Here is George and Zack working hard on a plugin.



Here is one of my student's Mike looking very tired after a 16 hour day. I tried to tell him that was the life of a programmer.

The day started out with shaving.

::DOWNLOAD MEDIA::

(e:lilho), (e:mike) and I went to fowler's and it wasn't very yummy, not to mention they were out of both chocolate icecream and rootbeer pop.





While we were sitting there eating we saw (e:drchlorine) on his way to buy cigarettes.

If you haven't seen the PBS special with Helmut Lotti, you are really missing the best in russian folk music. He is pretty freakin hot.



Luckily, he doesn't just do Russian music.

::DOWNLOAD SOUND::

He has a latin hits album, a pop song album and many others.

::DOWNLOAD SOUND::

His web site sings to you I wish I had the Helmut Lotti version of Kalinka. I think I might do a Helmut Lotti (e:radio) show.

If you don't know the Kalinka song, here is the midi version. It makes me want to play tetris. We played it at the party last night.

::DOWNLOAD MEDIA::

Ironically, I was asked to help work on the Buffalo Rising website to get it ready for it's launch this week. Nothing like more work to throw in my ridiculous schedule. I already helped with it before by helping the designer who is one of my favorite student's. At least this time I will get paid!

Today after taking a shower I looked at myself in the mirror and I really need to develop an eating addiction, lol. No more work before food.



I wanted to put this here so I would remember it. (e:buffalopundit) and I emailed back and forth a bit Buffalo rising last week. He seems like a pretty cool guy.

Paul,
I saw your posts about BRJ [inlink]paul,3832[/inlink] [inlink]paul,3835[/inlink]

I don't know who's been touting their _current_ design as being innovative and revolutionary, 'cause I haven't heard it. You're right that it's just an adaptation of a blogger template.

The design that's going to be pretty badass is the one they're working on rolling out in the next few weeks. When I saw it, I was gobsmacked at how innovative and revolutionary it is. Sure it, too, is based on existing code, but they've adapted and customized it to within an inch of its life.

I saw that you're bitter that they won BoB blog. The thing is, your site isn't a blog, per se. It's a blogging community, sort of like a localized LiveJournal. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but ArtVoice should have had one of the actual journals on your site nominated, and not the whole site itself.

My site is written only by me. It's a blog in the classic sense of the word.

BRJ is written by a team, but everything that gets written goes right up on the front page and is viewable in a linear manner. It's a group blog in the classic sense of the phrase.

Elmwood strip is more like a hosting service. You provide the software and tools (innovative as they are) to enable individuals to write their own blog/journals. I have to say that it's a bit of pain for me to navigate. Far be it from me to tell you how to do your job, but you should better highlight and categorize the actual journals on your site. Generally, I'll click on the "recently updated" ones, but the major part of your homepage is devoted to an "about us" recitation. I'd rather see what sort of discussions / posts are happening on the site right now, with links.

There's room enough for everybody around here, and Artvoice's best of Buffalo blogs award is just about the most meaningless thing that ever existed. I'm glad BRJ won, and I'd have been glad if you won. Because it doesn't mean anything.

Artvoice has totally squandered what could have been a pretty vital local internet presence. You say they're doing up a Mambo site. I don't like Mambo. They'll look like Altpress, which uses (I think) phpNuke. All those phpNuke content management systems look alike, and I'm not crazy about any of them. Scoop, Mambo, phpNuke - it's all the same to me.

I don't know what the mission of elmwoodstrip.com is, but mine is to try and shake Buffalo out of its complacency and try to communicate to people what's great about our region, and wake people up to what sucks and needs changing. And I throw in some car lust and TV shit on the side.

Just stick to your mission and don't worry so much about BRJ.

Keep up the good work.

Alan
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MY RESPONSE

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Hey Alan,
Thanks for reading that, I am sorry it was so rant-style. The designers from the new Buffalo Rising site (zack and Matt @ Schneider Digital) are former and current students of mine. I am sure they did an excellent job as they were really top notch.

I realize the artvoice awards are meaningless in name. But awards like that offer media attention that we cannot afford with our mini budget. I was just annoyed that a commercial entity won. If it had been you I would not have been bothered.

When I created (e:strip) almost three years ago I was trying to combat the dimishing sense of local community and at the same time provide an commercial free public sphere. I wanted it to be publishing tool for non-web programmers where local people could social network, exchange ideas, forge friendships and promote their local endeavors, clubs, etc. I also wanted (e:strip) to server as a sort of documentation for life in Buffalo.

While blogger and livejournal offered publishing solutions, they did not have the interjournal communication associated with (e:strip) and they did not offer new writers a dedicated local readership.

I intended to create a tool that over time depicts life in Buffalo. Unlike other blogging sites, users can add media files directly to their journals without having to pay for it or house them at some other space. We accept a multitude of publishing formats including wav, mp3, amr, swf, mid, jpg, png, gif, 3gp video. We even accept media and journal publication directly from cell phones via WAP, XHTML, or email. Users do not need any web space of their own, but if they want to publish their content somewhere else dynamically, they can use the (e:strip) api.

Because it was all word of mouth, the inital community that formed was quite close knit. My intention was to have it expand within the city but I did not want to sacrifice maintaining a commercial free. We tried a banner on elmwood, sidewalk chalk advertisement, we even had several giant parties, flyers, etc. It was pretty sucessful as last month we had our 10,000th journal entry and 6000th image uploaded but still the site is no where near as full as I would like it to be.

We used to have the homepage as you described. It may go back eventually.

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HIS RESPONSE

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Paul

I've been visiting your site more frequently recently. Keep up the good
work. It's really innovative.

I see you're meeting with Artvoice. I've found nothing but utter resistance
from traditional media to blogs. The News' Link section on mondays mentions
all kinds of blogs from around the country, but never a local one. Losers.

Alan

We are just slow getting to the party! Here is a video of us crossing the grand island brige. Sorry its so crappy but i'm afraid high quality mode is too big for my journal.

Can some make something gluten free for (e:matthew).

::DOWNLOAD MEDIA::

update -- there was yummy food for matthew to eat

Today (e:matthew) got a new giant tank. He is documenting the process of rebuilding the environment from the old tank to the new one. The new tank is moved to the den. Many of you saw the old ocean tank in living room, this one will get more use, because we spend way more time in the den.



While we were at Niagara Aquarium on Military Rd in Kenmore, I foudn these things called triops. They are some werid sort of prehistoric looking animal that lives in a state of suspended animation till you water it and then it grows. Kind of like sea monkey but they get to be up to 2 inches in length and live about 70 days. Appartently, they eat each other too.

Here someone else posted pictures. (e:mike) said (e:beast) had them. Maybe she could talk about it sometime. I am sure you will see plenty of pics of ours.



We also ate at Globe Market. It tasted yummy as always but the portions keep getting way smaller each time I go. I even have pictures of this over time to prove it. This time my half of a sandwich was really mini. Also there are always way too many flies in the windows. Where do they come from? It freaks me out.

I was tranferring data on my phone [inlink]paul,3782[/inlink] to the new memory chip and found some photos to post. It is such a cool phone. With the new chip I can store 12,477 images at 640x480 and over 2500 at 1.3Megpixels.

On Thursday night (e:sang) came to visit my office and to ride the subway home with me so he knew how to get to my house.



We got on the subway at Main and Humboldt and rode it down to Utica. As usual there was no one inside and we sat and waited about 15 minutes. When we did get on we were the only white people on a crowded train. It is strange how public trasnportation in Buffalo has such a race line. I think East Utica scared him. It's funny because he is way tougher than I am. I always wonder why more students don't ride it at night time, there were only a few others.





I love taking pics swinging the phone around. It is like painting with lights.



When I got home I noticed that the happy face ballon from (e:ladycroft)'s party looked like he was throwing up. He just kept bobbing his head up and down in a retching motion. I felt bad for him.

I am sad to have to part with (e:terry) for a couple days. It will be good for him to see his family and get a chance to be with his grandmother.



I would have gone accept it was expensive, I figured there would be a run in with cats and I have a feeling (e:matthew) would go crazy alone. Everytime I go to Saint George, I end up hanging out at the library while everyone else is at the house because they have animals. I really wish that someday I will have a job with real health insurance so I can just get the shots.

Tonight is (e:theecarey)'s party and I have a feeling it is going to be the same problem. Especially, if the weather is bad. I have had so many bad experiences where everyone else ends up going inside and I end up hanging out in the car for hours having to pee.

I don't think people realize how annoying it is to have serious animal allergies. I hate animals - they ruin so much of my life - well alergies to them do.

On another note, word on the town is that my father is considering buying a bakery. What a strange but interesting twist. I hope he does it.

Terry, I miss you already.


Okay back to sleep.

(e:terry)'s grandfather died yesterday and he is leaving for Utah so I don't know if we will be going anywhere this weekend. (e:ladycroft), this is what is left from the party - we finished the gin during cleanup. You can get it whenever, just give me a shoutout. I should be around most of the evening. If you email me I can get it form anywhere.