News - 2008

Just FYI for anyone who reads the front page:

There will be a major site change starting January 2nd, 2009.

I won't go into great detail at this point as it'll be easiest to just make the change and continue on. Needless to say though, this should be a positive change for everyone, so nothing to worry about.

For now, please just be aware that there will be a change in a few days.

Thanks,

Hi all,

I realize I haven't posted recently, however I never expected to be so busy either.

I have high hopes for the year 2009 in terms of free time, but I'll state up front that I doubt I'll have much time until March or so. I may be absolutely wrong though as things have progressively been getting better for me in terms of organizing my time and such.

Again I must state what an incredible year this has been. I've been to the highest highs, the lowest lows, but I have learned so much that I wouldn't trade any of it for anything else.

Again, I have high hopes for 2009, so please stay tuned.

Thanks,

— Terence J. Grant 12/20/2008 17:20

Ah, yeah, so…

Another busy week/week and a half for me.

I should have the weekend free somewhat though.

It has been a very interesting year so far, many experiences to say the least.

There's a few updates I'd like to do with regards to this site:

• Some of the software needs attention
• Apparently I'm a version behind for DokuWiki on this site, so an update to that will be in order
• Remove or re-arrange some things, add some things… won't go into this too much now

I'm still looking to do a "re-launch" of the site, which although I think will go well, might be somewhat jarring for current visitors… which is part of why this hasn't happened yet.

I guess it's safe to say the "vacation" I announced earlier is over at this point.

At any rate, I'm playing "catch-up" in other areas of my life right now, but luckily I'm almost completely "caught up" at this point.

…And I thought I'd write an update so at least you know I'm still here.

Alright, so at this point, the consoles themselves have been sold, but the game development devices are still available. I'll post some details later this weekend.

Ok, so if you haven't heard, I'm selling some Homebrew Game Dev hardware, to you, if possible!

So check it out!

Alright, another update, the for sale page is here now.

Hi all,

Getting back to software updates is taking longer than I thought, primarily because there's a lot of documents to scan (due to spring cleaning), errands to run, that kind of thing.

At this point I need to take some kind of unofficial hiatus from the DokuWiki software.

October should be a less busy month for me, but it'll take a week or two to sort everything out that I still need to do here.

So I plan on going on vacation from the DokuWiki Software from essentially now until roughly October 31st. I will probably return before that, but at this point I'm still buried under a lot of tasks that I really can't walk away from.

(One of the things I'll be doing is eBaying some Hardware, so please stay tuned for announcements of that.)

Once that's done, I see no problem getting back to updating the software, but for now, it's just unfeasible to focus on that and neglect the bigger tasks I need to deal with here.

I've removed the Adblock Settings project as I see no real point in keeping it up to date anymore. (I haven't used it myself in months.)

Update 2:

Hey all,

Continuing in my spring cleaning fashion (even though now it's officially fall), I'm selling most of my books and nearly all of the video games I own. Fact is, I need to become more fluid in terms of "owning less stuff" and "needing to travel easily" and most of this has been sitting in the closet for a while anyway.

Go ahead and visit my Amazon.com storefront, and note that I've marked most things down at least 50% if not more (there's nothing there over $45.)

If you live in the Orlando, FL area, I'll refund your shipping (by physically handing you $4) as long as you can set an appointment to have it delivered in person.

*(Please note that at this time I can't ship anything internationally.)*

Thanks,

Wow, time sure has flown recently.

I'm going to be fairly busy this week (away from technology), and unfortunately I was busy most of last week…

So… if you've emailed me recently and I haven't responded, I should be getting back to you at the end of this week at some point– Saturday or Sunday.

I believe this only applies to two people, but still… just know I haven't forgotten… I'll get back to you soon.

BackupTool for Dokuwiki has been updated, here's what's new:

• New backup method: "Lazy and Quick" method. This method runs in O(1) constant time rather than the other two methods that run in O(n) linear time. This method should be used for folks with big sites to back up, but is only available if the GNU Tar method is supported.
• For folks with installs on Macintosh based servers, files named ".DS_Store" and files beginning with "._" will be excluded from PEAR and GNU Tar methods now.
• Some minor tweaks to the language files.

I've removed the SVN pages as I plan on using a local svn server from here on out.

Major update for BackupTool for Dokuwiki!

Here's what's new:

• I've made an effort for all run-time errors to be handled.
• I've replaced shell_exec with just exec, since this is more appropriate for the command line version.
• PEAR is now supported as an alternate to exec, thanks to Andreas Wagner for this.
• The list of files to backup is much improved, again thanks to Andreas Wagner.
• Backups will not archive existing backups, again thanks to Andreas Wagner.
• I've added auto-detection of PEAR and/or exec availability, since not all users will have access to these.
• You can choose between PEAR and exec if you have the option of both.
• All files entries for the exec version are relative instead of absolute now for exec, thanks to Uwe Koloska for this.
• Both backup methods generate the same file structure now as well.
• Backup file names have changed slightly, files now start with "dw-backup-".
• Backup options selected are now saved as defaults for future sessions.
• Compression options are chosen based on what's available, in the order of bzip2, gzip, and no compression for both PEAR and exec.
• Backup files are created directly into the media directory, so no moving is necessary.

Monobook for Dokuwiki has been updated, here's what's new:

• Fixed an XSS vulnerability, thanks to Remetic Vladimir and Andreas Gohr for reporting it.

This is one of those "higher priority" updates, so I suggest you update if you're able to.

If you need to do a minimal update, just take "context.php" from the new archive and replace your current context.php file with it and you'll be set.

I've finally gotten time to check the new ACL compatibility.

As it turns out, I was mistaken– ACL file names and structure have not changed, simply the interface to modify ACL has, and this does not affect BackupTool for Dokuwiki at all.

Therefore BackupTool for Dokuwiki will work regardless of the DokuWiki's version.

So in other words, the April 7, 2007 version will work, and is safe to use.

I've been setting myself up a better environment for web development for the last week or so, and I've learned some interesting things…

• Apparently apache 2.2 and PHP 5 are installed by default on OS X 10.5…
• MySQL was actually a breeze to set up on the system.
• I had some issues with apache's configuration, but I've got it under control now.
• Apparently Apple's XCode 3.0 comes with built in subversion support.
• And apparently Apple has separated the iPhone SDK from the rest of XCode…

The XCode items were surprising to me, I'm sure I just missed them.

But the most interesting thing to me is that I had started installing all of the above (apache, php, mysql) on the Windows side of the machine, however I think I'm at the point where I wouldn't need to boot that side up at all for web development. (I had been more accustomed to web development on a PC.)

On top of all of this, OS X is essentially a usable *nix type system (yes, BSD, I know.)

Essentially, this is my perfect web development testbed as it matches this site's hosting server the closest. (As in, it's closer to linux than windows.)

And it makes me think… this might actually be the perfect dev machine I've always wanted… and I've already had it for a year.

Crazy!

Added what_i_have_installed, which is essentially a list of things I install on my machine whenever a I do a fresh install of the Operating System.

Google Analytics for DokuWiki has been updated.

• Fixed bug with tracking code
• Added better check for admin users (removed old 'superuser' check)

Thanks to David Ordal for these fixes.

You might notice some changes to the site starting today, and continuing on through the end of the week, possibly into the weekend.

These are just some content-shifting experiments I'm doing to get the site better organized before the "relaunch" I've talked about before.

No worries though, these are good changes.

As a side note, I'm looking to do an update to Monobook for Dokuwiki, look for an new version coming before Monday.

Google Analytics for DokuWiki has been updated. It now uses the Google's "New Tracking Code" instead of the legacy style. Thanks to Geoff W. and RJS for this update.

Good news, everyone!

I've done some compatibility testing with the newer versions of DokuWiki, and I'm glad to report that everything is working to my expectations except for BackupTool for Dokuwiki.

This is due to the way account management (ACL) has changed this year in the DokuWiki core. I will have to investigate what has changed and make the appropriate modifications, and I expect to at least start this today.

Also, I have received a few updates via email for the DokuWiki plugins, and I'll be starting to make those changes soon.

More updates to come as I have time.

Spring cleaning time!

I've been putting a lot of my vintage books and video games I know I don't really need on Amazon.

I've already sent out five shipments, and there's a vast and varied (heck, even interesting) assortment to choose from.

You can visit the storefront here.

Otherwise, yes, I've been getting your emails– for the folks I haven't responded to recently, I'll talk to you soon.

Also, I'll be doing kind of a site "relaunch" of sorts at some point…

Stay tuned guys and gals, and in the meantime, help me clean out my bookshelf and order some good stuff!