This is to inform all you bloggers out there that since there is not very much interest in the blog anymore I will be taking it to a one person blog as of Septenber 1, 2006. Sorry if this inconvienences anyone, I just feel that this is the way it is headed at this point.

OK, so I do not have a lot of time right now to do everything I want to. I have been working like a mad man, visiting my daughter and I have other web obligations on top of all this. So where has that left MoM? unfortunately, on the short end of the stick and it has been neglected for the last couple weeks. So here is what has happened of late:

First the service provider that hosts this site changed PHP versions and guess what, the scripts that run this site crashed. I fixed a few, but some of the errors were WAY to deep to get to immediately.

Second, to fix the PHP problems, EE put out a new version of the program that runs this site and guess what, the scripts that run this site crashed. Again, I fixed a few, but there were wy to many to get to immediately.

Third, the new version uses new conditional testing and gues what, the scripts glitched and while the site did not crash, it was looking pretty bad there for a while. Once more, I fixed a few, but it took till now to fix it all.

Whew, what a mess Ollie… I do not think I am going to change versions again any time soon, it took WAY too much time, and I had to give access to the site in a manner I do not like to a tech. Thanks for reminding me… I have to close those ports and change the passwords… And to think… I don’t get paid for this!

Well, well. Seems all that coding paid off and pMachine gave me a present… the Forums Module.

If you are not familiar with Forums, they are sort of like blogs but not as directed. Each forum has a particular topic and users can post a question to them and the community answers. They are more free-form than blogs but can be just as much fun.

If you are a BBS’er now internet surfer, then you will be familiar with these forums because they are the same thing we used to do way back when. I know that I am certainly getting nostalgic about now. I can’t wait to see what happens.

If you would like to visit the new forums, go to:

Miasma Of Musings Forums

I am looking for suggestions on Forums and topics. So please, Make a suggestion in the suggestion Box and who know, you could be shaping MoM to your liking.

- JB

OK, so this is for the bloggers and the members, sort of an announcement. When yo go into your control panels you will now be able to select a new theme for the control panel you are looking at. Most of you will like the blue that is already there, but the new ones are pretty nice, especialy the “Inverse” theme. It reminds of the old BBS days.

It is not much on the user end, but it is more options for you to explore.

So, as you can see from the site, it is coming along quite well. The work over the last week has been the kind of work that you as a user would never see. I have totally rearranged the site naming, template modules now rule the roost of this site, making upgrades and changes very easy and very fast. The site is now really becoming plug and play.

I was also working on becoming part of the blogging community on the back end as it were, by programming a new plugin for the software that runs this site and others running the same software. The Bloggers List that you see on the bloggers page is using my new plugin, faster, stronger, and more configurable than ever before. By then offering it up to the blogging community at large I have increased the exposure of MoM and hopefully that will draw more interest.

Otherwise, I have started thinking about a site redesign. I know that sounds pretty fast for a site that just got up, but have no fear, when it happens the site will just change over and there will be no down time. Wonderful thing these templates, I can co-develop a site and run the same site while the new one is in the works.

Otherwise, I have also found a new piece of software, used by several of my friends, so thought I would give it a try. Tillian is an IM aggregator, in other words it combines all the oher IM services into one program running a common interface. This is great since I have 5 IM accounts and hated opening two of them (ICQ and AIM) for fear of crashing my sound interface. So, if you are like me, give Tillian a try.

As for the reason why I started this site, the slow blogging on AFF, well, I am more convinced than ever that AFF will crash, and sooner than later. They are in real need of a site planner and someone to let them know that they have to spend money in order to serve their clients better.

I am still planning on getting everyone their own templates, but that seems secondary by now, though I know it’s not.

Well, back to the grind…

Here is a quick update on what I have been up to on the site:

1) RSS 1.0/2.0 & Atom Syndications feeds are now working
2) I have posted Miasma of Musings on several blog listings
3) I have turned on PINGing to several Blog aggrigators, we wil now be getting more exposure.
4) The look and feel of the site and sidebars is closer to what I wanted
5) XML on the main page is validated, making it easier for search engines to catalog
6) CSS still needs more work.
7) In the stats page, online members are now shown through their icon. I think this is cool, but I will have to limit it later, but that is not hard.
8) People who have not uploaded or chosen an avatar get a nice “?” smiley.
9) Top Right Login area is looking better
10) the Referrers page is updated with this site look and feel.

Very Important: I need to set up an email remailer so that email address do not get spammed. I will work on that first thing.

Oh, there is so much more to do, but it is coming along and you are all here for the ride. I would love to get even more bloggers going, so if you know anyone, direct the here and lets get them blogging.

On a philosophical note: Seeing as how my cash situation has become “tight” I am going to work a licence with pMachine and turn this commercial. My plan is that the first 25 bloggers will be grandfathered in for life at no charge, but people after that could pay $10 a month or $100 a year for the priviledge of blogging with all these fine bloggers. For this they will get the tech support of me and their own look and feel for their blog. For additional funds they may want me to build them custom templates.

Besides all that.... things are coming along really well, I have just the content pages to do, and once that is done, I will really promote the site, although I may start dooing that right now.

So there you have it… I have not been idle, just doing things that may not be immediately visible.

OK, I hope you have been following the development of the site… we now have 12 users and most of those are bloggers. I don’t know about you, but I am excited! Here are some recent additions:

1) MORE SMILEYS; yep, everyone seems to like these in the comments and I have to admit that they are fun. I found some real nice “bigg’uns” that I like and added them to the list of usables. Now, unlike the emoticons on other sites, I have my own tags when posting for them, so the normal one may not work like on other sites. I just have not gone to the trouble of Xreffing all the smiles and using the common keys. I will later, I just wanted to get them up.

2) The PsuedoCode for the comments is running. To get a list of them, clock on the link “Comment Codes” next to the Smiley like and it will pop open a list of active pCodes. That should make come nicer.

3) The Current Bloggers List: In the “Bloggers” page is now a list of all those who can blog on the site. Eventually I will have this linked to a search that will bring up the bloggers entries. I am going to work on that today.

4) In the control panel for bloggers: I was asked how to add color to the posts. Now while I do not have a plug-in that will do this (I may write one) I added the “Span” tag. Highlight thearea you want to color, click the span tag, change the color you want in the opening tag and it will change the color of the text. Simple and to the point… works.

5) Archive Module: on the index page is an Archive section, this will list the entries from the month listed. Again simple.

6) Hundreds of little changes that are not worth mentioning, but are there.

So, here is what I am threatening to do over the weekend:

a) Clean up the “modular” components. They are working, but they do not look all that great.

b) Clean up the style sheets. This will not change the look of the site, but it will make my job easier. I know you all want results, results, results, but this will help me to be able to deliver those results.

c) Flesh out the the secondary page: “About”, “Bloggers”, “Contact”, “Conduct”, “Stats” will all get filled out, and in that order I think.

d) Multiple Blogs will be worked on again. While I got this working, I had to jump through a lot of hoops to get it to work. I need to set up more security and a better set up scheme for this. In short, not to take this from you bloggers, I have to work it so that you can’t wreck the site. This means getting you the right access without too much access. I want you all to administer your own blog catagories, but right now if I let you into that section, you have access to all blogs and sorry I cannot let that happen, for you would have access to the main blog as well and that would be “sensitive”.

e) News Readers: I have to set up the RSS/Atom account setting so people can book mark the blog for proper feeds. Once this is done we should start seeing more people.

f) Pings: Right now I have this site in it’s own little black hole. It is there for anyone to look at but it is not telling anyone else it is here. I have not prompted it through the search engines either. Once I get to this point I am going to do that.

So, as you all can see I have my work cut out for me this weekend… lets see how far I can get in “24” hours of work.

I don’t know if anyone has noticed, but the site is coming along. As far as I know there are no real eye sore pages left. I have gone through all the templates not and udated them so they are lat least “readable”. Here is a short list of the things I need to do to finish the site for “Public” comsumption:

1) Finish the side bar and modules (embedded templates)
2) Work up and optumise the CSS
3) Get the Multi-blog system working…
4) New index page, but stage that on the “Bloggers” page
5) Bloggers List
6) More Emoticons

So there is the short list. But I think I will work on this tomorrow, I am done for the night.

I have not even gotten this site public yet and there has already been one software update. For those who do not know I am running Expression Engine by pMachine. The current version is 1.3.1 upgraded from 1.3. While not appearent to the members, the bloggers on this site will notice that the spell checking has been greatly improved (from nothing before to actually working) and the member hadling has been streamlined.

If you have comments or questions about the software I will be happy to entertain anything I know about. Comment here.

For all those following the development of this site, here are the things I am going to try to get done today:

1) Get the text for post without icon right
2) common footer
3) side bar as modular
4) Rev Comments / Comment Preview with Index
5) Bloggers page
6) Multi Blog enabled
7) Contact Page
8) About Page
9) Suggestion Box

And a ton more… if you have suggestions, please leave a comment on this post. Thanks a lot all....

Well, I have come a long way in just one day for a new domain and setting it up and re-editing the main template. There is a lot to go, but I have done a whole heap for one day and that bodes well for getting this site up and running pretty quick.

Here are the issues that I am going to tackle next (again):

1) Format the blog entries better
2) Add the Mood
3) Work out the Adult Content
4) Work out the footer better
5) Add the entry icons
6) Debug the email problems if any
7) Work out an entry page for Multi-Blog
8) Work out the security for Multi-Blog
9) Finish base templates
10) Upload a ton more basic templates for users
11) Where is spell checking?
12) Add more moods
13) More More More I am sure....

There you have it. Comment to this post if you have suggestions.

Thanks