i·mag·i·na·tion - Blog

Winter Cleanup

nospam@example.com (Lewe) — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 17:01:00 +0100

rev. 1.01

Besides upgrading my Serendipity to 1.1-beta5 today, I also did quite a bit of changes to the site. Similar to what I did last June, I did some major cleaning up. I've been using my weblog for many different things though the last years, but in this last half year, I think it got clear that its main focus are the movies. And with movies I mean my articles on them, not my DVD Updates, or my CD updates or all the other random stuff that I have been putting here.

Even if I wanted to I just don't have the time to publish my newly bought CDs and DVDs here aswell as writing all those movie articles. There wasn't a post inside the categories of 'Music" and "DVDs" for many months and therefore I today deleted those categories and nearly all of the articles that came with them. Just a few worthy articles I moved over to the "Misc" catergory.

Now don't get me wrong, there still will be more than just movies inside this blog - but in 'easier' categories that aren't so time absorbing like the two I just have deleted. Fact is, this is a movie-blog and though the actions I took today this has been underlined.

If you should (what I doubt) miss anything from my website, feel free to contact me about it and I'll see if I can recover what you're yearning for. I hope all of you can understand my actions and you'll continue to visit me and my ramblings from time to time.

Cheers

Lewe

Serendipity 1.1-alpha5

nospam@example.com (Lewe) — Sun, 30 Apr 2006 20:43:00 +0200

rev. 1.00

As one of my first taks, back in the blogging business I upgraded my S9Y to the latest CVS snapshot. When I visited Garvin a couple of days ago he already informed me about numerous changes that one would want to check out. Especially the media library has gotten a complete workover. Through the last days I've been hit heavily with trackback spam and as a result of it I today switched off trackbacks from external sites. I'll re-enable it soon to see if the burst is over, in case you want to create a trackback to one of my articles please contact me and I'll re-enable the trackback functionality for this special trackback. Other than that everything seems to be working as smooth as usual, still I'd like to ask you to encounter me in case you come around any weirdnesses inside this blog.

Serendipity 1.1-alpha1

nospam@example.com (Lewe) — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 10:18:02 +0100

rev. 1.00

Okay, so here are the latest news on this S9Y installation. I just upgraded to 1.1-alpha1 which didn't came with any new major features. But I did a few smaller changes to the sidebar again. After I had removed the 'Recent Comments' from the sidebar I soon realized that I was using them more than I had thought. Later Azundris came up to me, stating that she also missed them and so I decided to put them back on. In exchange I removed the 'Upcoming Movies' list again, because it was useless. I am not sure if the 'Recent Comments' pluging might force me to enable the Captchas for each and every entry, no matter how old. Right now it's disabled for the first 4 days, but if I'll wake up tomorrow and the Plugin will be full of spam there will be no way around constantly enabling the Captchas.

New Design

nospam@example.com (Lewe) — Sun, 22 Jan 2006 23:20:00 +0100

rev. 1.00

Yes, my blog looks all different. What you see is the previously mentioned Connections theme that Carl Galloway ported from WP. I've worked long hours on it to get it customized and I'm not talking about the logo, but small things like borders, margins and footers which I removed or adjusted. I don't really have a clue about php or css, but working on this one felt pretty easy to me. I am slowly getting used to work with css and with such a well documented theme like this one learning and understanding certainly is made easy. There are still a few minor things outstanding, which will probably follow throught the next week.

The navigation bar on top of this blog is not completely functional yet. The 'About' link is still broken, but I hope to have a website good to go for it as soon as possible. This is also the reason for why I deleted my picture from the sidebar, there will be a picture of me featured in the 'About' page and I think that's enough.

The RSS-Feed should be working flawless as it is pretty independet from the theme itself. What do you think about the logo? This is something like a second draft, when Garvin had seen my first draft he didn't stop yelling for about half an hour and than quickly made me a new one. The one you see is done by both of us and derives from this picture I made a couple of months ago. Even though I like it, I think I'll still look in developing a new one sooner or later.

Please contact me with any problems you run into, I am pretty sure there are quite a few left. Thanks in advance.

Revision Completed!

nospam@example.com (Lewe) — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 12:16:00 +0100

rev. 1.00

Ok, so after another 4 hour marathon of updating it finally is done. Every movie article I've ever published now has the new rating system and is stored into the database including the IMDB id. I've also changed formating issues and general formating stuff I started to use this year. Eventhough some of my first articles are fairly short, they as of now should look as similar as possible to the new ones. There are still are a few minor things that are subjected to change throughout the coming weeks, but surely nothing as big as this.

The downside of all this updating is that I've collected quite a big movie backlog through the last days. Right now I am counting 5, but I am not quite sure if that's all there is. I really hope that I'm going to find the time to catch up on those as soon as possible, but with new years upcoming I have some serious doubts.

Nevertheless it's save to say that the time I used to update all of those articles was well used and will be a simplification and an enhancement for everthing else to come. For now I'll try to catch up on my backlog asap and make sure to keep you updated.

More on S9Y Updates

nospam@example.com (Lewe) — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 23:14:00 +0100

rev. 1.00

Okay, so here is the latest Update on changes to this blog. My update to PHP 4.4.1.3 resulted in a great success and fix of an error I was annoyed about for quite a while. As you know this Server is running FreeBSD on a Sparc platform and the PHP-GD module had been broken for months already, but after all those updates I made, I suddenly found it working again - so enjoy the new and now improved captchas resulting from that fix. Additional to that I've been working with Garvin on enhancing the Plugin we (I guess mostly him) have developed last weekend.

It has grown in something called 'Community Rating' and is pretty much usable for every kind of rating one ever could be interested in. For further informations hop over to the (german) website of Garvin and read all about it.

The Plugin is in full effect now in this blog, a very nice example for what it does can be seen here. It automatically gathers rating informations from a website specified and displays them (if available) right away.

Another thing I want to mention here is that there is a fabulous new theme available for S9Y. Carl Galloway ported the award winning 'Connections' skin from WP to S9Y. Check it out on his theme blog or even better do your own testrun of it in my Smarty Testblog.

I've been talking to Carl as I had found a minor problem with the Skin using the Opera browser, he was very helpful and fixed it in no time. I can only recommend you trying out that skin as it's not only very nice looking, but also very sophisticated. I for myself am thinking about switching aswell - I'm just a little stuck with all the other changes I am going through lately.

Speaking of which, I hope the bumpy days should be over by now and while I am still working on the last small problem with the rss feeds, everything else should be working flawless by now. For another time I want to ask you, to report bugs in case you come along any.

Of course the last talk left for me is revising all my old movie entries, I am working on that but that will obviously take me a couple of more weeks I guess. The Bloglines readers of you will be able to follow my process day in day out, for all the others I'll write a short notice as soon as everything is up to date. So stay tuned.

Updates, Changes and New Features

nospam@example.com (Lewe) — Sun, 18 Dec 2005 01:37:00 +0100

rev. 1.01

First of all, Sorry for the downtime of the few hours yesterday. I compiled a new MYSQL Database and went to bed. It took me nearly a day to figure out that it never got started after the installation. So, lets forget about that and head on to the good news. I did a lot of changes to my blog tonight. My rating system is entirely new and as of now I am saving all of my ratings into my database. As result I can now generate intresting statistics, such as the "Top 5 Movies of the last 30 Days" plugin you can now find in my sidebar. The style of the raiting is still the same, 5 Stars (10 Points) starting with half a star going up to 5 full stars.

Since I am showing blank and filled stars, I also got rid of listing the maximum achievable points ("of *****"). Another thing I updated is my Sidebar, I not only added the already mentioned Top 5 movies plugin, but also changed the sorting and formats, aswell as removing a couple of things.

And belive it or not, there is even more to come. Right now I am working on implementing a feature to save the IMDB-Id of each movie seperately into the database, and offer my users a secial IMDB button which will get them to the IMDB page right away.

Other than that, I am thinking about revising all my movie articles, to insert all the new informations to the old articles and get them into the new rating system. This obviously would be a lot of work - but of course it would be a nice thing to have all my articles on one singular rating system.

Well, I guess I'll think about that - For now enjoy all the new stuff around here and as usual - don't hesitate to contact me in case you came across anything unusual or broken.

Serendipity 1.0-alpha1

nospam@example.com (Lewe) — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 14:04:00 +0100

rev. 1.00

The Reason for the bumpyness of my Weblog and RSS-Feeds through the last days is that I am implementing a few new features. Garvin told me of a new possibility with the latest version of S9Y and eversince I am (we are) working on implementing them. First of all I upgraded to Serendipity 1.0-aplha1 and now I am working on the main requirements on the administrative side - which is why you don't see any changes, but only downtimes and errors. As of this forenoon this is pretty much done and I'd like to ask all of my readers to report anything abnormal you run into, that includes weirdness with the RSS Feeds.

I also did some minor changes to my sidebar, as you probably have noticed for yourself by now. I moved my picture and the 'Upcoming-Movies' List to the top, so that once you enter my blog, you see everything that's upcoming.

I expect the neat new features to arrive through the next two weeks, or as soon as Garvin and me find the time to find the time to exchange more than a few words over ICQ. So stay tuned, I'll write another update as soon as the features are done and ready to go public.

Serendipity 1.0-alpha1

nospam@example.com (Lewe) — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 18:31:00 +0100

rev. 1.00

Now that Garvin released the 0.9 Final version of S9Y my bleeding edge SVN tree has been bumped to 1.0 alpha1. I quickly flew over the recent changes but the Changelong mostly said 'fix' and so I guess the things Garvin has been doing were rather enhancements than implementing new features from scratch. I'd have wondered anyways because S9Y already contains more features one could ever wish for. Nevertheless I have to admit that I am a little bit anxious to see what the big "1.0 Final" will bring us, as we already have world domination for so many years now. Go Garvin, go!

Serendipity 0.9-beta2

nospam@example.com (Lewe) — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 11:48:00 +0200

rev. 1.00

It's been a little more than 2 months since the last update and Serendipity has evolved from alpha to beta through these days. It was mainly because of a bug inside the track exits plugin that I made the upgrade. It looks like the S9Y developers are walking quickly towards the big 0.9 final version. Beside the fix of the mentioned bug I didn't came alone any major new features and changes. Feel free to look around and if you feel like giving it a spin, maybe pay a visit to my Testblog in which you can find out what the beta2 version of S9Y version feels like.

Scheduled Downtime

nospam@example.com (Lewe) — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 08:32:20 +0200

rev. 1.00

The Downtime of zipfel.dk for the last 8 hours has been a scheduled one. Sadly I didn't found the time to warn my readers in advance but at least I made to to shutdown the server and not let it crash. The reason for this downtime was the installation of an uninterruptible power supply, which is I guess a very good reason for a downtime. Let's just hope I never will have to make use of it. Everything else should be just as it was before the downtime. In case you come along any problems or errors, don't hesitate to contact me.

Second Editor for blog.zipfel.dk

nospam@example.com (Lewe) — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 10:37:00 +0200

rev. 1.00

Please welcome my beloved girlfriend as second editor to my blog. She had argued for writing or commenting on articles for quite a while and past weeked after we just had finished watching a movie she said she would like to write an article about it. So here we go, I created an account for her and gave her a short introduction into the worlds easiest and most advanced blog software. She will be taking care of the 'horror' section, so whenever we come around a horror movie we watched together she's the one who will be writing the article. I will only comment them to nag and leave my personal rating.

Maybe we'll have do some further changes to this arrangement in case she falls in love writing articles or just doesn't have time for it at all. But for now, she represents the horror section of blog.zipfel.dk. Watch out for her first article which will be coming online very soon now.

Serendipity 0.9-alpha4 & more

nospam@example.com (Lewe) — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 11:21:15 +0200

rev. 1.00

Yip, I'm alive. I just updated my weblog to Serendipity 0.9-alpha4 which I had done to my Testblog a couple of weeks ago alread. Everything seems alright to me but as usual in case you come along any weirdnesses don't hesitate to contact me. Beside the upgrade I am also introducing a new category: 'CARS'. I moved all my previous articles related to cars into that category and will continue to enter articles about interesting cars I walk by or test-drive into it. Feel free to check it out and stay tuned for a couple of updates that will arrive shortly.

Not my fault!

nospam@example.com (Lewe) — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 14:59:45 +0200

rev. 1.00

The four hour downtime from this mornig from around 6 to 10am was neither my nor a software or hardware problem. It was the city of Kiel that decided to cut down the power for at least in the building the box resides in (but most certainly even more of the city). This combined with me having a day off and so sleeping late resulted in this longish downtime. Well, there goes my uptime - at least there were no problems with the box coming up and for another time I can count myself lucky running on a Sun, without the neat LOM interface I'd have to run over to work in order to switch it on again.

Serendipity 0.9-alpha3 & more!

nospam@example.com (Lewe) — Tue, 28 Jun 2005 10:04:00 +0200

rev. 1.00

There have been quite a few changes through the last weeks in my weblog. After changing my Testblog to SVN last week and fiddeling around with it a bit, I moved my main blog to it aswell. So as of now there is no more waiting on the daily snapshots and just updating whenever I need it. With that change came also the latest version of S9Y - 0.9-alpha3. One of the major changes between this one and the older versions is the improvement of the search function. I had bugged Garvin for a long time already and as of now S9Y is finally able to search for combined words using "" or just certain words inside one article using + (e.g. +dark +city). For the full range of possibilities check here. Other changes inside this weblog are the disappearance of the 'DVD-Whislist' extension inside my sidebar, which not only was nearly empty but also felt pretty useless.

Since today there is a new plugins inside my sidebar, the list of 'Upcoming Articles' where you right now can see the movies I am missing to finally close with 2004. Please disregard the order, I've just entered them randomly to give you and myself an idea of what it's left. I am pretty sure there will be aswell older and newer articles to come between them of which I just don't know of right now. Still it gives a good hint what is waiting to be watched and written about.

Another change I've already been nagging about, is finally happening aswell. If you're one of my readers through bloglines you should have noticed already through last week. I have moved most of the old german articles to a special category (To be gone). I re-read them all, deliberated their level of importance, copied out the movie ratings (if any) and then moved them. As result I'll soon post one combined entry which will contain all the old ratings I gathered and then finally delete all the old german articles. There is only a very small number of german articles I deemed worthy to stay inside my blog e.g. the Top Movies of 2003 list.

If that isn't enough news for you, hop over to my Testblog in which you can see and test a new neat S9Y theme that Hendrik created to finally fulfil his move from Wordpress to S9Y. Welcome to S9Y Hendrik!