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July 30, 2010
Please Help to Support the Village and the rest of the site and:
| Posted on: Thur June 17 2010,12:54 by mickeyfmann |
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New Directions
Time for a Change |
For some time now I have been talking about a new version to this site, work has progressed well but the simple fact is that I'm far to busy to write manage and maintain my own application for this site. So I'm officially throwing in the towel on creating my own CMS system integrated with phpBB.
Some time ago I stumbled into a CMS tool called Concrete 5, and instantly fell in love with its simple but powerful design and capabilities. After convincing a few companies to adopt it as their official CMS of choice, and doing a bit of development in it myself, I decided that I want to join their community development team and work to improve the few faults it does have.
Starting next month, I will be setting up an installation of Concrete 5 on the inetvillage.net domain and will begin work on installing it with all the features I think we need. In addition to the adoption of Concrete we will be migrating to phpBB3 as it is easier for me to intertwine the authentication process of phpBB3 with Concrete so that one login works for all. This unfortunately puts the RPG out of the picture for the time being but i think we can agree that we need a site first.
Once the installation and setup are complete, I will begin the process of building content, any suggestions or volunteers will be welcome at this point. I want this site up by the end of the summer and I'm not going to let anything stop me this time. This decision should make that process easier to accomplish
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| Posted on: Wed Oct. 07 2009,2:58 by Swift |
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Geocities closing; PSO blast from the past
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I'm aware this isn't really site news, but seeing how this will grab the few people still coming to the Village and that it concerns the Phantasy Star Online old guard I thought screw it.
As most of you may know, long running website Geocities is closing down. For those who weren't around in the late 90s and early 2000s, the likes of it and FortuneCity and Tripod were the most popular places for hosting sites. And what young people did with them at the time was to make fan-sites.
And one particular site there that will be dissappearing when Yahoo pulls the plug will be my old Phantasy Star Online site entitled 'Swift_PSO' or 'Swift's Home'. Thankfully, I remembered I had it with enough time to share it again with you guys as well as take as many screenshots as possible and grab all the assets back.
Anyone remember it?
I want to draw your attention particularly to the 'PSO Friends' page, where I spoke about all my bestest buddies at the time like Juno, Mickey, LHG and now long-lost ones such as Li Mei/Ein, Edge/Denny and Demon (Remember him?! Ahh memories!).
Check out how I described Mick lol (this was when we'd migrated to IV after the great PSOquest culling):
Also, my Guestbook (remember when they were cool? lol) was signed my a lot of those/you guys including Weaseal, Owl, Goku and Isaac (just ignore the first few pages of bot ad entries lol).
As well as a bunch of old snapshots (I used to be called the camera man of PSO lol), old sigs and avatars and wallpapers that might get you nostalgic, there is also a link to 'Angelic Daemons', a long-defunct site Weaseal and I used to be part of before a massive arguement erupted between all of the owners, where Weaseal declared Gundam Wing Endless Waltz the greatest movie of all-time. Those were the days.
I thought I'd share that with you guys one last time before Geocities goes down on October 26th. My advice to you is to check back before the shut down date in case you too had some time capsule-like gems up there.
Also, I miss PSO and the huge, reliable community we once had. 
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| Posted on: Mon Feb. 16 2009,1:00 by mickeyfmann |
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Work Continues
Not Done But Definitely Making Progress |
Its been awhile since I've provided an update on the status of our new website, so I though why not update you a little on the few things that I have had the time to complete.
Chat:
I'm happy to report that our new chat is online and operational, its not the 123 flash chat that I had originally planned on using but that proved to be out of the scope of our available resources to host. The new chat is php based but it also incorporates an Ajax interface making for smoother transitions and refreshes. Once the new site is up it will grab your username from your active session on the site, otherwise you'll be prompted to specify a nick name. All in all I'm pretty impressed with the functionality, it doesn't make use of a database backend which keeps it fast an light weight. Feel free to check it out
Village Chat
Email:
Our new host doesn't provide a Web-based email client so I had to install one. This was a new journey for me but I managed to discover RoundCube. I've been playing around with this application and it appears rather useful, with a built-in preview pane an some nice settings and features. Note that anyone who was using our old web-based email client, your accounts are setup in this new client but your passwords have been reset. Contact me via pm and i can setup a new password for you. Just a note, under the new site all site staff will be welcome to an email account if they'd like one, as would any donating member and certain special member ranks.
Village Mail
WYIWYG:
Our new site will have a What You See Is What You Get editor installed for certain parts of the website, mostly administrative but the fan-fic may have a simplified version for formatting purposes. The editor I've chosen is called TinyMCE and I've chosen it because of its robust features and the extra plugins available for it. For example it contains an image and file manager application that will allow admins to upload files to the server as well as perform simple editing on them. The image manager also facilitates image cropping, resizing and some other simple functions through a graphical web-based interface. This tool should definitely save us some time.
Those are some of the big items I've tackled recently, I've also complete some odds and ends on the templates, as well as found some one to do the last leg of graphics work that we need.
As for completion, I'm currently working two jobs with a few side projects on top of that so I can't say when all of this will be completed and live but I'm going to be dedicating no less than 8 hours a week to the site until its complete so hopefully that will produce some results.
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| Posted on: Tue Feb. 03 2009,2:21 by mickeyfmann |
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Its Alive
Back In Action |
My apologies for the site being down a little longer than anticipated, let me tell you that ikonboard is no joy to move to new locations! But after beating my head against the wall for a little while, I managed to get her working again.
So here we are in our new home, old site but hopefully not for long.
Please post any issues you notice with the boards here, just want to keep track of any other move-related issues.
Finally with the migration, i had to recreate email addresses. If you had an email address with us before you can still use the email link found on the main site's left navigation to access your old email inbox. No telling how much longer this will be available but you can use as long as it is there to collect any emails you may have had in the old system. I've recreated the accounts on the new host but didn't remember what everyone's passwords were so if you want access to your email let me know and i'll give you the new password.
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| Posted on: Fri Jan. 30 2009,1:30 by mickeyfmann |
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Movers 'R Us
Migration time yet again |
As some of you may know, some time last year I stumbled upon a little better of a deal for web hosting. Unlimited disk space and bandwidth for only $6 a month. I purchased an account and have been developing the new site there ever since, I was hoping that by the time it came to renew our old hosting services, I would have the site completed and we could switch engines entirely. Unfortunately this is not the case, I've been working hard on the next version of the site but just don't have enough of it done to want to take it live yet. My I've been working on it about three nights a week so we should be seeing something soon (yeah i know i've said that before but the pro-bono stuff is always at the bottom of the list).
Currently our hosting package is set to expire this Saturday at midnight, my plan is to take the village offline sometime either late tonight or early tomorrow and begin the migration process. Any of you who were around for the last migration know that this could take a while, the code and application move itself is rather simple, the big problem is the DNS changes which take a while to propagate the world over. This means that the site will likely be open to the public again sometime Sunday, at the latest Monday depending on your location. After the migration is complete I will continue to work on the new site, hopefully we'll have something to test in the near future.
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| Posted on: Tue Dec. 16 2008,12:11 by mickeyfmann |
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Registration & Password Resets
Interim Procedures |
Okay so for the first time today a negative effect of my locking down forum registration has come to my attention and i was honestly pleasantly surprised by it.
To make it official, anyone wishing to register to the site or old members wishing to reset their passwords or re-register to the site, contact me at mickeyfmann@mickeyfmann.com and i will either reset your password for you or pre-register an account for you accordingly. I'm working some additional contract work at the moment so I check this address regularly, usually about 5 times a day, so I will notice your email and jump on it immediately, as slow as things have been around here i don't think I have much of a choice.
This method of registration will remain in effect until the new version of the site is completed, which hopefully shouldn't be long. The new version of the site is nearing a point where I believe we can go live and finish up the odds and ends in the form of updates and fixes. Keep an eye out for a request for Beta testers in the near future, as I'd like to put this thing under fire before we open it up.
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| Posted on: Fri Oct. 17 2008,2:58 by mickeyfmann |
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Back In Action
Stupid bots, and a stupid host |
Well as i'm sure many of you know, the Village was down for a little while. In the end the problem was a result of too many bots attacking the registration scripts which intern ate up far too many server resources and caused our host to shut down the scripts.
As a preventative measure i have removed all registration requests from the system and pruned a few other things as well. Finally, considering that it has been nearly a year since we've had a genuine registration request, I've disabled new registration entirely for the time being. The new version of the site is nearing completion and thus far its preventative measures have proven very effective against bots.
I'll keep you updated on my progress but expect some real results soon as i'm currently drawing up a migration plan to move as much data as i can from ikonboard into PHPBB.
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| Posted on: Tue Oct. 14 2008,4:26 by mickeyfmann |
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Memories
Farewell to a Good Friend |
Nine years ago our family set out on a mission to find a new pet but when we arrived at a small hotel in Tionesta Pennsylvania we got much much more than that. It was subtle at first, as we walked into their kitchen we were bombarded with little yellow bundles of joy who were ecstatic at the thought of someone new to play with, all except for one. In the back of the room one of the little pups had decided that nothing could possibly be more interesting than a completely uncrowded black ceramic food bowl, filled to the brim with tasty morsels.
Perhaps it was the fact that he was the only boy in the litter, or maybe it was just that he loved to eat but as we continued to sort through wave after wave of overly excited fur balls, he continued to fill his tummy paying us almost no attention at all. After some time I still couldn't make a decision, as many of you know you don't pick puppies they pick you, and eventually our little hungry beast decided that the commotion on the other side of the room was worth investigating, either that or he was just full and looking for a place to sleep. Regardless he made his way right to my lap and right to my face for an endless shower of kibble flavored kisses, after which he promptly fell asleep in my lap. That was it, the sign I had been looking for and just like that we had more than a new pet, we had a new member of the family who I swear was more like a person than a dog, we had our Lobo.
Throughout the years we shared many adventures together, fishing trips and runs through the swamp, baths and the subsequent yelling for getting into things that we weren't meant to. He developed the lovely habit of stealing our clothes to lay in them when we weren't home and would steal our shoes when we were so we would have to stay with him. My father would take him for walks, wearing the same sweatshirt every time, and every time Lobo saw that shirt he would run through the house eagerly awaiting his outing. Day in and day out Lobo was always there for us, with a smile on his face and a wet tongue waiting to let fly.
I remember the time not long ago when Chrissy woke me up one morning before she left for work, telling me to come out side and when I arrived I saw that her dilemma was an 85lbs golden retriever who honestly thought he was going for a ride, and refused to leave until he got one! Or the time we learned that a tom turkey was more brave than our faithful friend, who tucked tail and ran when the bird came after him.
Sadly Lobo's journey came to an end yesterday afternoon, for reasons we do not yet understand, but he lives on in the sense that all of us will never forget him and all of the wonderful times we shared together. He is our pet, our friend, and most importantly a member of our family and we will miss him as such.
Take Care My Friend
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| Posted on: Mon July 28 2008,11:36 by mickeyfmann |
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Congratulations and Best Wishes Are In Order
Cheers! |
Well for any of you who don't already know, this past Saturday two of our villager friends accomplished something very special. Our very own Smurfette and Saya professed their love for one another and took their vow's of holy matrimony.
Not being able to attend the ceremony and the celebration, I figure the least we can do is all congratulate them and raise our glasses in a toast.
Best of wishes to the both of you, we're happy you found each other and may your love for one another flourish now and forever! Good luck to both of you and enjoy your honey moon!
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| Posted on: Thur July 03 2008,12:48 by mickeyfmann |
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New Beginings
Of a Sort |
Once again I'm forced to apologize for my lacking attendance to this place but as some of you may know, moving is a royal pain in the arse. But I'm happy to report that as of last Friday at about 12:30pm central time, Chrissy and myself have officially become home owners, which translates to a ton of debt and a list of little projects about a mile and a half long!
Despite the extra work and money involved, we must admit it feels good to have our house and it definitely feels more like home than our apartment did. Most everything is unpacked and slowly but surely we're making the place our own, we even started painting the living room last night.
I will make sure to post some pics once we have everything how we like it, and remember as a fringe benefit to being a village member, you're always welcome in our home!
As for the site, obviously work has been slow the last few weeks just because of the move but now that things are starting to settle down again I'm starting to turn my attention back to the site. My goal is to have the CMS piece done within a few weeks and then focus on the Fan-Fic which needs a lot of work. Once the mainwebsite is ready to go we're going to do a phased go live with the RPG, what this means is that the site will be live and the RPG will be there but it will not be active until later. The reason for this is that the RPG will require a lot of additional work and I would like to have the site up before I focus on this. That way you can see the progress and we can leave some of the down sides of Ikonboard behind.
As always I'll keep you updated on my progress.
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