Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

Well who would have thought we could sustain interest for more than 24 hours? Ah well we have like an hour to spill out in ICT although we could do to get some law revision done. Anyway I have loads to post but have stuff to do now. Back later.

Although officially I hate PHP, date() is pretty cool. The thing is that PHP uses a different timestamp format to the standard MySQL timestamp. Therefore the majority of timestamps stored in MySQL are actually stored as intergers. Or at least this is how phpBB do it. And that is how my latest site does it. But enough about quick plugs. What’s happening here?

Ah right, the thing about MySQL timestamp is that it updates to the current time everytime you update the column. Therefore when I had to make a change to the database to set a post to a different user, it updated the timestamp and moved the post to the top. Hmm, I posted this, maybe it evens it out or at least dislodges it from the top.

So, Malcolm in the Middle has just ended. Ok, here I am just trying to fill out space. Here’s a picture of Fonze again:

Hu, I lasted about 20 minutes. Not unexpected though really. I am still exploring the features of the site. On the left of the main page you can see a link called albums at the bottom, below the about link. This offers you the chance to see all our albums (well currently 1) and all the photos within these albums (again, 1). Enjoy!

I can add resources to posts apparently too, so if you go on the full link or permalink or whatever it’s called you should be able to see the full resource.

Or, if you are already on this page, you should be able to see it below ;):

It would be cool if domains propogated faster – like instantly :). There is nothing worse than waiting around for them especially considering that they take anywhere from 12 to 48 hours. It will be good once Nerd Federation is officially back at the point we can start spreading the URL around again. Ah well, the time should come soon.

Time for today is publishing on and I really should start law revision but I am finally making visible process on my new site. It has an intergrated forum and I am moving towards finishing the posting and editing section then I only have the move topics section and the forum code guide and editor. Oh, its going to be a long night / a long week.

Well best get started with the random tips and information. One thing I am not happy about is this editor tells me I am using Verdana 8px, but when it comes out in the page it is Times New Roman! The blow is slightly cushioned for myself however as my browser, Beonex, uses Arial as the default font. A nice bit of scripting in the editor though means it is not compatable with Beonex – neither is vBulletin!

So before the moans side tracked me, I was getting into my story. Having started doing some stuff in PHP to make sure of forcetype and stats on subdomains (just wait until I get an ASP.net rewrite engin!) I found a few helpful bits of information that spent much time annoying me and ended up really simple. Most notably, not remember == for comparissions.

One other thing I noticed is that although you can redirect a user using the header location tag, it doesn’t actually stop the PHP script running. So the user may have been sent elsewhere but the thing they were not allowed to do and you had throught been stopped doing it because of the header location code you added, is still actually being done. It’s easy to fix though, all you need is:

Header ("Location: whateverpage.php");
Exit ();

Hmm, yet another over complication of PHP if you ask me. Still I’m kind of on a high right now as this editor is pretty cool. It has some quite extensive image adding features and plenty of HTML options. I give it my offical stamp of "neeto!" Well, I will probably be able to keep myself away for like an hour at tops, see you then.

After a long talk with everyone else involved in Nerd Federation (well, less of a talk, more of I am going to tell them later), Nerd Federation has been brought back online but these time as somewhat of a blog portal. That said none of you lower scum will be posting ;). It’s pretty much just myself, Ceon and Rawpulse that get to post entries, though the rest of you can post comments.

Random subjects are always cool and that’s the best thing about a blog. You can just come on and make a post pretty much about anything and yet you still don’t end up with the pointless comments and discussions that you often find on forums, indeed that you used to find on the Nerd Federation forum. If you can find your way past the entry portal page that is!

So prepare to be overwhelmed by fun as we post random comments that just make no sense…

A lot of people are using the internet to speak out against the companies that they object to. From the global protest sites such as www.stopesso.com to the small one man operations, protest sites are springing up all over the net. But can it be done without attracting a ball of law suites?

Starting these websites can be a problem on two fronts. The first problem is that if you start printing lies about the company they wouldn’t be happy about you bad mouthing them. The second is that if you register a domain such as www.xyzsucks.com are you breaking the trademark of xyz?

The first problem is easily to solve – don’t say anything unless you can prove it. First of all making up lies isn’t going to help the site as it will discredit it if it is discovered to be a lie and secondly it’s not really fair on the company. Which is why the can sue you if you start publishing lies. Stick to the truth of why you don’t like them though and they pretty much cannot touch you.

As for the second problem there is always the solution of not using the companies name in the website name but then how will people know the site is about that company? The good news is this is not a criminal act so even if the company does get angry, police are unlikely to come round knocking on your doors.

As huumor pointed out on one of my favourite web developer forums:

“if you hate McDonald’s and make a “hate” site called www.McDonaldsSucks.com – you are probably more likely going to be #”¤#&”¤-ed by McDonalds lawyers than if you would use www.CrapDonalds.com – with this domain name you’re not using the copyrighted McDonald’s in it…”

The problem is going to come from ICANN’s decisionon whether you can keep the domain or not. Some sites including www.walmartcanadasucks.com have been allowed to keep the names whereas a recent Reg Vardy protest site had its domain handed over to the company.

There is no clear rule on this one although running a search on The Register throws up some interesting results.