CrazedSanity has had a much-needed update, and we're now at version 5.3.3... after a few problems.  I doubt much of anybody would have seen the problem.

After making some visual changes, I also changed some configuration things.  In the process, I screwed up some connection information for the database, so the live site was trying to connect to a non-existent machine (my test machine).  So I did a couple of things to help avoid it in the future.

Oh, and I also pointed the live site to a test database.  So some out-dated blogs and data were displayed.  Not a big deal, fixed it within an hour or two.

On the GOOD side, I've updated the main page to also show the most recent 5 entries for each person's blog.  I noticed a while ago that I'd missed some entries because I was only looking on the main page & apparently missed a day from Prophet, so when he updated the next day, I only saw the most recent.

I'm working on other changes as well.  Some other changes as well, such as:

• retrieving HTML chunks from CS to load on your website
• hits tracker changes
• Ajax!
• and more

Stay tuned!  If you're really interested, send me an email or comment on this post.

... that really drive me crazy.

So I ask for feedback, and I get it.  Awesome.  No complaints here.  You want blogs?  You get blogs.

Then I hear from others that didn't fill out the survey (yes, Jill, I'm looking at YOU) that the news is nice.  Geek news?  For non-geeks? Makes me a little giddy inside.

So I've got news AND blogs on the site now.  But... well, showing all that is kinda big and nasty...

Suffice it to say, I managed to get *BOTH* to show on the main page, with a little "toggle" link that swaps which is displayed.  But the "little" things, which amounts to some polish and lipstick as Mike Holmes woud say, was the part that took the longest: I added "a little code" so the site remembers which you selected.

So now you all say, "oooh," and bow down before my technical prowess. 

I suppose an acceptable alternative would be to say "thanks" in the comments.

I also accept smiles (and a kiss, if you're my wife).

I really need some feedback about this website and such... please fill out the quick survey.  I've got some ideas to make the site more interesting and such, but I need to know what you think!

I've been thinking about getting rid of the news feeds on CrazedSanity for a long time now.  I don't know if anybody gets anything out of them anymore, and I don't really think that they're providing any benefit to the site... in fact, it might actually be detrimental.

It's based on an out-dated, painful-to-maintain, misunderstood open source library called "CS-RSSDB" (and it's not in uppercase just to make you look, either).  I didn't know that much about RSS, and the poor code really illustrates that fact, along with my blogs explaining how I've "fixed it" from ages ago.  Hell, I haven't even put a page up about it on Developer's Corner... that's gotta say something.

What do you think?  Post a comment below if you're interested.

As a possible alternative, the front page would be covered with the most recent blog from all of my bloggers.  You know, like BuzzKill.org is right now.

Tell me what you think!  It's in YOUR HANDS!

(DISCLAIMER: if I don't get any feedback, I'm just going to do what I want.)

Buzzkill?  What's that?

Yeah, it's our "sister site", which has, quite frankly, been severerly neglected for years.  I don't just mean a couple either; it's had the "Under New Management" title on that page since the beginning of '05...

Anyway, to get the site somewhat closer to being up-to-date, I've updated the front page so it shows the most recent blog of ALL users on CrazedSanity.com.  If you don't like it, you can try to contact me, and I'll try to fix it... but I guarantee nothing.  Besides, this gives your blog more exposure. 

Check it out.

This is just a quick note, in case you were paying attention.

I updated the "age hype" settings for blogs so things appear newer longer.  Here's a run-down of old vs. new:

 It goes all the way up to "Updated in the last 6 months", then after that it says "pretty old".  Anyway, for those of you that have the privilege, honor, or whatever of being able to post blogs on CrazedSanity.com or use CS-Blogger, now you know.

Finally, after much anticipation (mostly by me), my UPS is finally in place, allowing me to crank up a second server.  The server's name, as the title implies, is Hades.

For right now Hades does virtually nothing but look pretty.  Eventually it will become an internal backup server.  I'm working on building and/or utilizing a distributed backup system, so Hades would (most likely) be the staging area for that.

I know you were all just dying to know what's up, so there you have it.  Let me know if you have ideas about the distributed backup system, or if you want to help out, or... well, anything.  Just drop a comment.

Some of you may have already noticed, but there has been a distinct lack of emails flowing into CrazedSanity.com and Buzzkill.org since the Planned Move.  It appears to have something to do with DNS; subscribe to the comments on this blog if you are looking for up-to-the-minute updates.

There's a planned move on the horizon.  The servers are moving back to their original location, back to the Server Farm (yes, it is a play on words).

The event is planned to happen this weekend, somewhere from Friday, March 11th through Sunday, March 13th.  I'm hoping there will only be a very small outtage.  In theory, I'll have a DNS server setup at the farm to avoid problems excessive downtime while waiting for the registrar to update DNS server IP's.  I'm looking into the possibility of having DNS hosted externally for a bit more stability.

Recently I found a great service called Disqus.  Basically, the service handles the comments for blogs, keeping me from having to build my own system.

All blogs have this available by default, and they will pretty much always be active.  The only way to be alerted to comments is to "subscribe" to the blog (each one), so you'll have to do that if you want to make sure you're alerted when someone comments on your blog.

Anyway, I hope the new feature is helpful.  Have fun!

Some of you may have noticed that the data feeds from Slashdot and The Register were getting old.  Very old... in fact, several months old.

This was due to a problem with the system that pulls feeds (RSS) and stores them in a database, known as CS-RSSDB.  The system broke following an upgrade to the internal XML parsing system (CS-PHPXML) that is used on the site for configuration, AJAX requests, and various other things.  I tried in vain for a long time to get the script to work by forcing it to use the older version of XML parser, which at least allowed retrieval of the SlashDot feed.

I tried to fix the system to follow the new XML parser, but found that it was seriously broken.  So broken, in fact, that it would require a fairly significant overhaul so that it would once again be able to pull basic data out of the feeds.  I just about gave up... then I found SimplePie, an RSS framework that was just as easy to implement as it sounded.

I found it after getting frustrated at the idea that I had to write from scratch every piece of code that powers CrazedSanity.com.  Every piece might not seem like much, for what seems like such a petty website, but it is actually quite an undertaking.  You might not realize it, but CrazedSanity.com uses many different systems/frameworks:

1. Content (cs-content; a content management/templating framework)
2. XML Parsing (cs-phpxml; for parsing XML, a major part in some Web 2.0 things like AJAX, RSS Feeds, and site configuration)
3. CLI Logger (cs-clilogger; a system for logging the output of command line scripts, such as those that download new RSS feeds)
4. Multi-Thread (cs-multithread; a system for handling communication between multiple processes, used for running multiple simultaneous background scripts)
5. Battle Tracker (cs-battletrack; a system used by the Table Top Online Role Playing system, "TTORP", for storing Dungeons & Dragons character sheets)
6. Web Application Libraries
   • database abstraction layer (for putting data into the database and getting it back out)
   • logging activities (page views, errors, etc)
   • database storage of sessions
   • web application upgrade system, for handling code + database upgrades seemlessly

Anyway, I started to feel like I was suffering from the "not written here" syndrome, a problem the befalls developers wherein they basically won't use any code not written by them.  That, coupled with the idea that I had to spend a ton of time rewriting something just to get it working again, made me feel like there just had to be a pre-written alternative out there.  Something that could just parse RSS feeds without all the fuss (trust me, XML of any kind in PHP, even RSS, is painful)... then I found the SimplePie system.

I read the instructions, even downloaded it, and started to feel like I was being mislead.  Like the code just was not as simple as it implied, and that the only way I'd be able to do what I wanted to do would be writing my own.  Have I said that enough yet?  Have I mentioned how truly daunting that task felt?

Anyway, after figuring out how their demo code ran, and ripping out a bunch of stuff that I didn't need, I found that I could get my RSS system running again really quickly with virtually no hassle.  Amazing.  I think it was the first time that I ever found code written in PHP that was actually as useful as it claimed to be.

Recently, a few of you noticed that CrazedSanity was throwing some errors instead of the normal friendly pages.

This has happened a few times in the past.  The usual culprit is a local backup script that was never given proper limits.  In normal people terms, the script went crazy and filled up the hard drive with backups of itself.  Ooops.

Today appeared to start out that same way.  Just as I noticed the issue, my wife alerted me to it.  I was already logged into the server, where I quickly deleted 10 gigs of old data. It seemed the problem was alleviated.

A few hours later, almost exactly four in fact, the server was once again complaining that it was out of space.  This time it was not my wife (thanks, Darkman), though the news was just as frustrating. 

I quickly logged into the server to check the afore-mentioned backup scripts output, but found that it hadn't gone out of control. It was a system that had gone out of control, writing over 25 gigs of data to a couple of different log files, but not any system I'd setup; it was something called "famd", a File Alteration Monitoring Daemon, a system which I had never setup.  Needless to say I uninstalled the system after deleting the affected log files.

UPDATE: Thanks to my wife for catching the bad grammar in my error page.

[UPDATE: February 8th, 2011: the items under "Misc Services" have been updated to reflect current status]

Just four months after the digital catastrophe, CrazedSanity.com has again been revitalized, along with all hosted sites and services. 

In the coming days/weeks, more services will be transferred from old servers to the new ones, such as DNS and local backups.  Here's a breakdown of things to be restored, and their current status::

1. Websites:
   
   1. CrazedSanity.com
      1. svn (done)
      2. www (done)
      3. project (done)
   2. BuzzKill.org (done)
   3. BuzzkillProductions.net (done)
   4. CS-Project.com (done)
   5. DigitalImpacts.com
      
      1. www (pending)
      2. test (done)
   6. UmbralFantasy.com (pending)
      1. www (pending)
      2. test (done)
2. Misc. Services:
   
   1. DNS (done Feb 2011)
   2. Backups (done Feb 2011)
   3. Cron (scheduled) jobs (done Feb 2011)

 The current webserver (including SVN and database) is named Cronus (previously referred to as "Zeus", but renamed due to an existing system with that name).  This new system is far superior to Poseidon, and is fairly superior to Geryon--especially since Cronus actually runs.  Here's a breakdown of specs (I'll try to add Geryon's info later):

UPDATE, February 8th, 2011: Some miscellaneous code changes have increased website response times from 4-14 seconds down to just a fraction of a second (only initial site load time considered; images and external items are not; mileage may vary depending upon network latency, time of day, etc.).

It seems the new server, Geryon, suffered a catastrophic hardware failure over Easter (2010-04-04).  It appeared to have gone down at around ~11am, and was down for the rest of the day and continued to be down until Monday.  The operating system was reinstalled and the main website (CrazedSanity.com) was restored, but the server suffered another catastrophic failure that night.

Two hard drive failures were the cause.  While the server was setup to handle a single drive failure, it simply could not handle two at the same time.  Unfortunately, there was no backup system in place, so a few months worth of work was simply obliterated.  Thankfully, it seems very little data of actual value was lost, though there is no way of truly determining just what was available to be lost.

 An old backup of CrazedSanity.com (and BuzzKill.org) has been restored, along with an old copy of the database.  Thankfully, I hadn't quite decommissioned the old server (Poseidon), which is now the production server until Geryon can be fixed.

As it stands, here is the list of items that need to be done (I'll try to update this as soon as things get completed):

UPDATE: for the most up-to-date list of pending service/website restorations, see Revitalization.

It seems there was an error when going to a user's blog (instead of an individual entry.  For instance, going to "/blog/help" would generate an error; going to "/blog" was okay, and so was "/blog/help/user_blog_list_fixed".

The problem has now been resolved.  It was a logic problem that occurred when implementing RSS functionality.  If you have any questions, comments, or want a feature, please let me know.

Intended Future Capabilities

As you may have guessed, there are still more features to come.  I am but one person, and I haven't found a way to bend the space/time continuum to my will, and as such haven't been able to increase the number of hours in my day as compared to everyone else.  As time permits, the following features are intented to be added to blogs (in no particular order):

• better timestamp options
• future entry creation (date entry for the future, only shows once that date is not in the future)
• comments
  • authenticated users
  • "anonymous" (requires implementation of anti-spam measures)
• isolated user image folders
• entry tagging
• renaming/deleting entries

This tutorial covers the basics of blogging on CrazedSanity.com.  It is not a complete reference to every possible action available by any means, nor is it intended to be: the idea is to cover the basics and areas where users might have issues or questions.

The images have been modified to (hopefully) only point out those areas that are of importance, and obscuring the unimportant stuff.  If you think they suck, let me know why and your thoughts on how to fix them.

Accessing Your Blog

	After you've logged-in, click the "Members Area" link in the upper-right corner of the page.
Now click on "Edit My Blog(s)".

Your blog probably won't be as massive as this list (that's my list of blogs).  In fact, you won't have any to begin with, but you can change that after reading this tutorial!  Anyway, at this point, it is important to understand what everything means.

See those icons?  You know, that spyglass () and pencil ()?  Click the spyglass to view your entry (this is the link everyone else will use, known as the "permalink"), or click the pencil to edit the entry.  The green plus symbol () is what's really important: cick that to create a new blog.

Editing (and Creating) Blogs

Now you should know the basics of getting to your blog and what all the links mean.  Now it's time to actually do something.

New Entry

	Okay, its time to create your first entry (or maybe not, and you're here to get a refresher course).  Click the green plus symbol () beside your blog.  A new screen will come up, allowing you to create your very first entry (the blurred-out stuff isn't important).
	Once you create the entry, it will bring you to its permalink.  Just click the "Edit Entry" link at the bottom of the post to continue editing it.  Note that if you've saved it as a draft, there will still be a box for saving as a draft; as soon as you uncheck that box and save it, you will not have an option to save it as a draft anymore.

Adding Images

To jazz up your entries, you can always add an image.  See that little button that isn't smudged away?  That's the image button. There's some interesting things involved with adding images, so let's get started.
When that little image button is clicked, an "Image Properties" window [1] opens up.  If it is on another server, or even already on this server, you can link to it with the full URL.
Now, if you want to upload a file, there are some "gotchas".  First off, don't bother clicking on that "Upload" tab in the main page: as it is broken (and gives a false sense of security); instead, click the "Browse Server" button on that main tab. You will be presented with a window similar to the one here.  Did you notice there's subfolders there?  Well, you can make one too, just to separate your images from everyone else's.  If you do create a folder, be sure to click into that folder.
Click the "Browse..." button.   A standard "select a file" type window will appear.  Find that file and click "Ok"[2].
As you can see, the URL will show up, along with a preview. If you change the width, the height will automatically change so your picture doesn't get distorted.
It is a good idea to put some sort of descriptive text into that "Alternative Text" block, too.  That is the text that appears if you hold your cursor over an image.
In order for that text to appear for some browsers (like Firefox), you'll have to click the "Advanced" tab and paste that text into the "Advisory Title" box.

^[1] It isn't really another window , actually it is just an overlay.  The key difference being, essentially, that you can't ALT+TAB between it and the main window, 'cuz they're not actually separate windows.  So its not really a huge difference to most people, but this little detail might trip you up otherwise.

^[2] I didn't give a screenshot here on purpose, as it will depend upon what operating system you are using... and yes, there actually is another operating system out there that is not Windows: it is called Linux: check out Kubuntu, as I've been told by others that it is pretty user-friendly.

Your blogs can now appear automatically on other sites, like Facebook.  I've updated the blogs so RSS (Really Simple Syndication) works.

Basically, if you want to get the feed, the syntax is http://www.crazedsanity.com/blog/yourblogname/my.blog.rss.xml -- the last part ("my.blog.rss.xml) doesn't really matter, as long as it ends with ".xml".  To see what it looks like (depending upon your browser), check out my blog's feed.

If you've got a Facebook account and a CrazedSanity.com account with a blog, you can enable automatic feeds pretty easily.  Note that these steps probably aren't the only way:

1. Open Facebook
2. Click your name at the top of the page
3. Under the "Share" button, click the little "Options" link
4. Click "Settings"
5. Under "Imported Stories", click "Blog/RSS"
6. Type in the appropriate URL as previously indicated
7. Click "Update" (or whatever the button says)
8. Done! (assuming it worked)

If you have issues with this fairly experimental feature, contact me.

For an unknown period of time, the links for editing blogs (and creating new ones) didn't work.  This problem has been resolved, and I am working on finding the cause.

This problem appears to revolve around a problem with parsing template vars in the CS-Content system, though I've not been able to find the problem.  I believe it has something to do with parsing template vars inside of parsed template rows... but that's just a guess (not as though that explanation means much to anybody but me...).

In a recent post, I mentioned that there are some planned upgrades in the works.  I am happy to say that the first part of those upgrades is now complete, in the form of a new server.  That server, as you may have guessed, has been named Poseidon.  I chose the name because Charybdis is the name of the current server (its second incarnation, I might add), and Scylla is the name of my router (also a second incarnation).  I figured the next logical progression was to go for something that links those two... if you don't know how Poseidon links Scylla and Charybdis, you need to do some reading on Wikipedia or something.

Over the next few weeks I will be migrating services from one server to another.  This will probably be the slowest part, so don't expect any major changes to happen right away.  Here's the list of things to accomplish, in no particular order:

• Migrate DNS
• Migrate PostgreSQL databases
  • copy to Poseidon
  • point Charybdis' services to Poseidon
  • turn off PostgreSQL on Charybdis
•  Setup Apache on Poseidon
  
  • PHP + PostgreSQL & MySQL
  • misc PHP packages
• Move web hosts to Poseidon
• Move Subversion to Poseidon
• Move scheduled jobs (cron tab) to Poseidon)

Registration for CrazedSanity.com is now available.  It worked to a point before, and some courageous users even went through the process and waited patiently for me to activate their accounts.  Well, now it is complete.

Keep in mind that, while there's a link to edit your blogs, there isn't a system to set that up automatically.  If you'd like to have a blog, email me.