Four Island

In response to yesterday's post, I think I've already found a solution. You don't want to anonymously comment? You don't have to. Now, if you have a Fourm account, it serves as a Four Island account too.

The Login link in the NavBar goes to the login module in the Fourm. It wasn't too hard integrating except for all of this cookie strangeness. It was pretty difficult with the cookies as phpBB3 seems to store a lot of session data in the database rather than the session files.

Note: Because I had to change the cookie path to get cookies working with the root of the website, you may have to clear your cache and/or delete all of your cookies to be able to log in. It did that to me and it was annoying. Just letting you know.

For those not in the know, in Firefox, to delete your cookies, you open the Tools menu, click "Clear Private Data", check off "Cookies" and click "Clear Private Data Now". Thank you. :)

EDIT: For those other browsers, here's how to delete your cookies:

Internet Explorer

1. Open Internet Explorer and click on the "Tools" menu.
2. In the "Tools" menu, click on "Internet Options".
3. Under the General Tab select the "Delete Cookies" button.
4. Delete cookies by clicking "OK".

Safari

1. Choose Safari > Preferences.
2. Click Security.
3. Click Show Cookies.
4. Click Remove All.

Opera

1. Select Menu > Tools
2. Click Private data
3. Click Delete cookies

Ok. As I mentioned in my yearly goals, few people comment on my site. I've asked around and a big reason is that they don't like commenting anonymously (Timbo94). That is why blogs such as Color Pencils and Dream Weaver get comments and I don't (along with the fact that their content is good), because they use IntenseDebate so their accounts are centralized.

Hoping to please my readers, I decided to try to implement IntenseDebate on my development computer. At first, it went pretty well. I replaced the comments on all commentable pages with the IntenseDebate JavaScript. It looked great and seemed to work.

However, it all went downhill from there. First of all, the main index page shows the number of comments next to each post. I was able to emulate that nicely by hacking some of the special JavaScript included in the Wordpress IntenseDebate plugin. However, while the post at the top of the page said "No Comment" happily, the rest all said "undefined" and the link didn't even point to the right place. Strange.

More importantly, there's the topic of my sidebar widgets. Since I would no longer be in control of the data, I couldn't access it freely. IntenseDebate does provide "Top Commentors" and "Recent Comments" widgets, but there's a catch. First of all, it's more JavaScript. You have to use the HTML it provides, no changey. There is limited CSS customization support, but it didn't help. The widgets looked terrible in my sidebar. Second, Recent Comments showed an excerpt from each comment. That's way too long. Mine only shows the post title, the author and a link. Third, the "Popular Posts" widget would still have to die because part of the fourmula for popularity is the number of comments on the post, which is unaccessible to me due to IntenseDebate.

Lastly, switching to IntenseDebate would involve me losing all comments already posted on Four Island as there is no easy way to import the comments. And we can't have that, right? :)

Because of all of this, I've decided not to go with IntenseDebate. It'd be too much trouble and it'd probably hurt Four Island rather than help it. So, I think I'll try to spruce up my own commenting system. So, I have some questions I'd like to ask you people (please comment, a few anonymous comments won't hurt and you're contributions will help remove the anonymous problem):

1. For the anonymous problem: I can't use the IntenseDebate accounts, but how about OpenID? Is that a plausible direction to go in?
2. Or would it be better for me to simply make it a lot easier to register? No, that probably wouldn't help. Sorry, disregard that suggestion.
3. Ok, perhaps I'm completely lost on the whole "anonymous" problem. Please leave suggestions, thankses!
4. Should I add comment threading like IntenseDebate does? I'm leaning towards the "no" end of the spectrum, but it's up to my readers. Sortof.
5. Any other IntenseDebate features you'd like to see in Four Island?

Anyway, thanks in advance for helping. I'm just trying to make Four Island a better, more social place. :)

Just like that, another year passes. Well, most of you seem happy for 2009, and while I'm sure we'll all miss 2008, I'm sure the future'll be bright.

YES! Time goes by so slowly! - 4 vote(s)! Not a chance, I looove 2008! - 1 vote(s)! What year is it? - 1 vote(s)! I'm, like, indifferent - 2 vote(s)!

And yes, I'm very sorry for doing the poll late again. I've already failed one of my yearly goals. Oh well. If I hadn't posted late, the True Falsities craze wouldn't have started yet. That might be good. :)

I wanted to start this post off by saying that I had come down with a case of writer's block, a severe condition in which authors and bloggers simply stare at their text editors, unable to write or think and that I'd saved this post in my reserves just in case I came down with this terrible condition, but then I realized that I was copying too much from Humorix. So, instead, I'll start like this:

Recently, I've been reading Humorix again. It's so good! I love it! I so badly want them to continue doing to because it's so funny and good, but sadly, it is not to be.

It is becoming clear that I am obsessed with Humorix. During Four Island's extended downtime, I started a Wordpress blog called "False", which was pretty much a parody of Humorix. However, instead of containing Linux humor, it contained Four Island humor, including all of Four Island's regulars.

For instance, the first story run was about Four Island switching to Wordpress. There was mass hysteria, cats and dogs living together and I had recieved the title of "clinically insane". :)

The next thing was an article on Smiley actually updating his website. Then, akin to Humorix's ''Crashback'' feature, the next post was about the fact that he actually did update his website. However, I then pointed out that Atmos hasn't updated for years.

There was a big series going on in it about Gryphic and the Color Pencils War. It started with Gryphic posting American English on her blog, which people found suspicious. Next post, she posted on her blog an admittance that she was not actually Gryphic, a robot dispatched from the "American English Agency" had locked her in her closet after she posted "Colour 4eva" [sic] and had been writing posts for her ever since. I do not remember why the robot finally cracked, but I do remember paramedics carrying a half-dead Gryphic out of her closet on a stretcher. She was fine by the next post, though, thankfully. :) I think she then sued American English Agency over her blog, a.k.a., she wrote the lawsuit as a blog post. There was a further conspiracy about Gryphic and Color Pencils that I cannot quite remember. It was good, though, and I miss it a lot.

There was this thing about TimTam going insane after being interviewed for something and running out into the desert, but I was probably on cupcakes by then. :) I think it had something to do with this Humorix story, like TimTam was accused of doing that to Apple and then he went insane. I don't know, it was funny.

Sadly, I cannot post the actual posts or the hilarity I miss. There was a problem with the posts, I do not remember what it was. Something, perhaps, with the emoticons, or perhaps the declarations. However, I wrote a PHP script to automatically change all of the posts so the problem was fixed.

Oops. I made a mistake in my script, I forgot the "WHERE" clause in the "UPDATE" command. Stupid me. Every single post was replaced with the contents of the last post written, which had something to do with JAL making a website about saving the children.

That annoys me greatly because I remember LOLing at some of those stories, and I enjoyed the entire Color Pencils fiasco. I liked writing deliberately false news stories, but I wouldn't have the drive to support an entirely separate blog full of it. It would be fun, though.

Perhaps it could be a collaborative project, everyone writes a false news stories, series can build upon others and more fun. That would be fun. And then, there'd be a false news site other than dead ol' Humorix for me to read. And that'd be yay. :)

#5 + (8) - [X] #86 + (8) - [X]

Ok, I'm quite aware that today is not the first of the month. But, because yesterday was New Years, I had to do something special. However, we haven't done QOTM for a while and I decided that I might as well do it (hello from parentheses land!).

Strangely, this month, there are two quotes of the month! #5 (Envy) and #86 (Voices from Nowhere) tied exactly at 8 points each!

I'd also just like to announce the new minor layout, 6.1! If it conflicts or uglifies anyone's face, just tell me!

First, HAPPY NEW YEAR YAYS. Ok, I've gotten that out of my system.

Because I seem to get a lot of ideas from other blogs I'm going to write a list of goals for this year. I'd also write which of my 2008 goals worked out, but I didn't actually write a list of goals last year.

• Increase RSS subscribers to at least 10. And have it stay that way for a while. It's annoying to see 8 or 9 subscribers one day and only 2 the next.
• Write some good articles/tutorials that people will find interesting and want to comment on. Currently, the most popular post is, and has been for a long time, The Related Posts Game, which is kind of strange.
• Have, on average, at least one comment on every post. Because I suspect people won't like every post I write, the "average" part comes in. Please, I like comments. And no, comments by me will not count.
• Refrain from posting poll results late.
• Refrain from creating extensively random polls.
• Refrain from doing anything enumerated in yesterday's predictions.

Ok, I hope these goals aren't too extravagant. :) Anyway, I hope that I can accomplish them, and furthermore, that the year 2009 is a good year.

Just as a sidenote, I'd like a draw a little attention to the goal above about comments. The last part (about my comments not counting) is more important than you would think. I tested how last year would've done in this aspect by running this query:

SELECT COUNT( * )
FROM `comments` AS c, updates AS u
WHERE u.pubDate LIKE "2008-%"
AND c.page_id = CONCAT( "updates-", u.id )

It returned 104 as the number of comments posted on 2008's posts. However, when I added AND c.username <> "Hatkirby" to the end (so it wouldn't count my comments), it returned 49. Ouch.

Woo-hoo! Today's the last night of the year 2008. Tonight Four Island shall shed its red calendars and instead don the blue ones. It will look very strange as we've been looking at red calendars for an entire year. But, change is good. Sometimes. Not really. To some people. I guess. :)

Other websites, apparently, like to predict what will happen in the year to come. These predictions seldom come true unless they are highly cynical, so let's get started!

January 15th I release Layout 7, much to the annoyance of Bluemonkey who wished to release his BluemonkeyBlockLand first.

January 21st I release Layout 8, because random change is fun.

Feburary 2nd I re-install my operating system for no apparent reason.

Feburary 5th Everyone decides that they hate Layout 8 and thusly I revert back to Layout 7.

Feburary 19th In a fit of temporary insanity, I switch Four Island's blogging engine to Wordpress.

March 31st I finally break through my procrastination and switch back to my homebrew blogging engine.

April 4th Someone realizes that I've removed Wordpress and people start coming on Four Island again.

April 22nd phpBB discovers a critical security hole in it's software. In honor of Tri's CIEday, I am too lazy to upgrade The Fourm and someone exploits it, sprinkling pron all over My Little Art Gallery.

May 6th I realize that I accidentally committed my password to source control again. Time to change all of my passwords....

June 7th Much to my annoyance, my defective router spontaneously combusts on my birthday.

June 17th Due to a fault in the space-time continuum, the date June 17th is skipped over, thus allowing conversations that never happened to stay that way.

June 28th I finally have enough time (and I stop procrastinating enough) to buy another router and Four Island goes up.

July 4th I celebrate Independence Day. tonsofpron.com celebrates "Send Spam to Starla" day.

August 25th Because of Opposite Day, people decide to comment on my blog posts.

August 31st Yahoo misplaces my domain records and I lose the right to the domain "fourisland.com".

September 13th I inadvertently manage to mess up the Four Island source code at the same time as losing FourStar (my memory stick), thus leaving no backups, yet again.

September 14th I finally remember that I use a version control system and run hg revert --all.

September 22nd Finally noticing their mistake (because it's renewal day), Yahoo returns my domain to me and charges me extra for "domain transferral".

September 31st Another day, another OS. I install SLAX onto my server computer and immediately regret it.

October 5th I release Layout 9. It looks a bit like the still delayed-by-procrastination TGS site....

November 9th I will post a tutorial on my blog that people actually find interesting. Sadly for me, though, Slashdot decides to link to it. My SLAX server soon explodes from the strain.

November 31st I actually manage to acquire another server computer. I install Ubuntu Server 10.56 on it and praise the fact that I had backups.

December 12th Due to a security hole in the latest version of beep, someone hacks my server and, much to the delight of Four Island's small group of regulars, reverts the layout back to 6.

So, there we are. That's my list of things that cannot possibly happen next year. (Well, except for the layout changes.... and possibly the OS re-installations....)

I hope you got a laugh out of that. And now, please enjoy the new year.

There is no other way to say this. There are a million conspiracies everywhere. Ignore those who lie and say that there is no conspiracy. However, if there was one person out there honest enough to tell you about some of those million conspiracies, the funniest would come from Humorix, a Linux humor site. Sadly, however, its editors posted their last post Mega-January 410th 20050, a long time ago.

However, it still has enough material to allow you to browse through its archives when you're bored. In fact, I used wget -m<span style="display: none">utlilate</span> to mirror the entire humorix.org so now I can read it whenever I want, even though I'm offline most of the time now.

You've probably heard of Humorix before. Previously, I posted an article about their "Nonsense" program that was mysteriously deleted. It's so obviously a conspiracy! Humorix must've hidden some kind of virus in that program that would infect Windows computers and destroy them. They didn't want me to use it because I might find out and do something about it. Or not. :) Strange.

Coincendentally, there is a lot of conspiracies, so delicate, you'd think they're humorous stories. Why did they stop writing their site? I don't know. It was very good and it was going for a long time. So long, from 1998-2008. Actually, it was really only going up to 2004. After that, there were only a few articles a year.

So yes, that's the truth. The conspiracies are out there. You know they are. Conspiracy #351,829,364,012,800: "There is no conspiracy". Be warned. And read Humorix. It's good.

This post was never posted. You didn't see anything. There is no UGGGLAY (Uber Good Great Group of Linux Activists Yellow) organization. There is no conspiracy. There is no spoon. This is a joke.

Recently, I was read Bluemonkey's Blog and found a not-so-recent post on the English language and its usages. Yes. That's what I'm going to be talking about now. Run, if you're scared.

Chtspek, teh so ann0yng. Itz imp0sib13 t0 red and teh d4mages pryde. Lyke, y cnt u jst us nrm4l ingles?

Ok.... maybe that was a bit over the top, but chatspeak annoys me. Like, alot. The English language was created for a reason. I don't know what that reason was, or how it relates to this debate. But I do know that, as Bluemonkey pointed out, the ability to read and write used to mean something. If you could do that, you were wise, intelligent and rich. You were powerful, you could do stuff and you stepped on people with your ability to spell "CatDog" correctly.

Now a days, if you're not using abbreviated English on your phone or IM, you're "uncool" and "wasting money" and "going to get sued" or something along those lines. I still stand by my belief, though, that you should use full English for every word you type, even though it may be for an SMS message or an IM conversation.

However, everyone's a bit of a hypocrite. I do, for some reason, continually spell "text" as "txt" when sending an SMS. :)

Recently, I was looking through the SweetCron source code when I found the MY_Controller.php source file. Along with this snippet of hilarity:

    function Auth_Controller() {
        parent::Public_Controller();
        //OMG WHO R U
        if ($this->data->user === FALSE) {

Ok, what? Those SweetCron developers must have been on cupcakes when they were coding that.

That reminds me of the Rubiwin glitches. It has always amazed me how strange glitches can be introduced into programs due to a series of coincidences.

However, this glitch had nothing to do with an amazing series of coincidences. The funny glitch was this thing with the switches, that if a block fell onto a switch in the bottom right hand corner of the screen, it would turn into a picture of a furnace with a hole in it. If a block fell into it, it would turn every single empty space in the area into Super Furnaces.

WOE???? It was very weird and I couldn't understand how that could be a glitch. However, upon re-reading the code, it turned out that I had actually put it in there! OMG! I must've either been half-asleep, or temporarily insane because it was really funny....

Anyway, there's my rant about SweetCron, Rubiwin and OMGs.