Learning Experiences! Today: SMF2 RC2
So while working on the new website for Sybolt, which is built entirely on Simple Machines Forums (SMF), I've come to learn a lot about how it works. Mainly recently. I wanted to use a particular plugin, however it didn't support the version I'm currently working with, so I had to manually install it. This involved a lot of digging around, cutting, copying, pasting, SQL modifying, and a lot of rewriting in order to get this plugin to work with a system that was not too different from it's intended version, but still different enough where there were quite a bit of modifications necessary. Normally, this sounds like a lot of work, but I've actually learned quite a bit of how SMF works internally, and even how to write custom plugins, after doing all this. Hands down, I'm a hands on learner, always have been. Give me some code to dick around with and I'll learn more about it than I could ever while searching through developer docs or books.
And I wish to take this time to be at awe with SMF. I used it long, long ago, and it has truly evolved into something magnificent since then. Basically, I'm going to build an entire website around its registration (heavily customized to handle other Sybolt-specific information) and theme system. And I'm even working on a custom theme, with hopefully some art help from our Art Department (Read: Moon) which should make things even more amazing.
So what about that forum software I was developing for HoL? Honestly, I'm tired of it. It was a great learning experience, and a nice attempt at trying something new, but it's not as feature rich as I would like. And now that I have a grasp on how to write plugins and customize user accounts how I wish in SMF, I will most definitely be abandoning that old software and work on this.
I may make the old HoL Network source available at some point. However, it's not very user friendly serverside. Lack of a .sql file, lots of hardcoded information, etc.
However, I do have one complaint: Password storage. sha1(strtolower($user) . $password) == $pass is nice and all, but I lack sha1 routines in fro. I was hoping for a more generic md5 technique, so that I can send password hashes directly from fro instead of plaintext passwords in the GET query. Not entirely sure how I want to fix this yet. I can either completely rewrite how SMF saves passwords, add a sha1 routine to fro that is only used for one thing (gross), or I could send passwords in plaintext. I'll probably end up doing the latter, out of sheer laziness and the desire to simply use ssi_checkPassword in SSI.php. But who knows.
And that is my rabble of the evening/morning. Also, I'm coming down from an Energy Drink overload. Shits bad brah.
Oh, and I aced my first exam on i386 Assembly. Hells yes. Now about that Calculus studying and raw ext2 filesystem parser I have for a Unix Systems Programming course... uhh.. yea.
What am I doing? Do you care? Maybe!
- Working on an Simple Machines theme for the Simple Machines Forum I'm about to set up for Sybolt's support and general forum-ness. The theme will also most likely be used throughout Sybolt pages, so I have to make sure it's implemented everywhere... somehow.
- Decided to use SMFs registration/login system as a global. I may have to change the way it saves passwords though, so I can support logging in from fro, without having to write extra encryption functions. Also need to learn how to write plugins, so I can implement a bunch of custom user settings that relates to fro and related projects.
- Got my new hardware all installed, it's beautiful. I'll probably be doing some more GAYMIN than usual, and plan to buy some L4D2 since now I can play it without lagging!
- Still working on that 111 bugfix release. I added a couple small community-request features too, nothing major. I WILL release it this weekend, even if I didn't get all the community-request stuff in.
in.sybolt.com Downtime
After Comcast screwed with my network, in.sybolt.com is no longer pointing to the correct address. I'll fix it tonight, and it should work again in 24 hours or so.
drm/fro has already been reconfigured to redirect users to Rizon. BAN TF2 Test Server, SVN, and FTP are all inaccessible.
If you really really need to access any other services, use 76.114.60.118 directly. However, this is not suggested and you should just wait till in.sybolt.com points to the proper address again.
fro – Options Menu Quick Fix
While working on getting the kinks out of the beta client of fro 110, a quick fix was discovered for ingame options not saving properly.
Download this file and replace savegame in your client folder with this new one. Make sure your client is closed all the way before replacing the file, else it will be overwritten with the old broken version.
The rest of the fixes will come in the following week or so.
And yes, it is quite easy to give yourself custom items and achievements during this beta phase, so go nuts (But don't expect them to be available after beta).
Blogging about Bloggers who Blog others Blogs
Most bloggers leave a foul taste in my mouth, but there's a certain breed that I despise the most. This is the blogger that, instead of creating their own content, or wasting people's time with posts on their personal lives (which I would never do), they instead clone the blogs of other people and regurgitate them on their own site. I'm not going into specifics of where I've seen this, but I'm sure most people have seen these blogs around.
There are a few blogger types I care about, so don't get me wrong. Dev-blogs of projects I care about are my particular favorites. Especially the kind from programmers in big name studios, telling the story of how they designed an algorithm to generate cityscapes in realtime. But you know, that's just the geek in me talking. There's also those who actually do go out and find their own content, stuff that's funny or interesting that hasn't already been said before in a billion blogs and news sites.
Now I ask myself, how would I classify my own? Well, a little of what I hate and love. I try to put details of projects I'm working on (when I'm actually doing something productive) but most people just seem to skim it. And I also throw in a bit of personal jibber jabber, brought on by sheer boredom. But you know, some of that personal stuff is important to some people, such as the fact that while I'm upgrading my hardware, in.sybolt.com will be down.
So, a little self hate here and there, but overall I believe I haven't sunk down to the level of simply cloning other people's content yet.
Oh by the way, on the topic of in.sybolt.com going down, Comcast will be doing fiber optics installation for a few hours tonight, so all services on in.sybolt.com will be going down for several hours around midnightish (Pacific).