I’m starting to really get hacked off at Enthusiast, the fanlisting management script. Multiple times in the past, it has been directly responsible for my fanlistings being on troubled lists. For reasons unknown to me, it has:

1. Not detected that some fanlistings haven’t been updated in two months time, even though it detects other fanlistings with the same problem
2. Tedious upgrades that broke mass amounts of includes… resulting in more troubles lists
3. Not managing things that would relatively be easy to implement (IE, code management – I realize there are “plugins/addons” out there for this, but I hesitate to use them as they don’t really look all that secure)

Enthusiast does many things well. It has been a fantastic time-saver and has allowed me to manage many more fanlistings than I could have done without it. However, it has flaws that so far haven’t been addressed – for whatever reason – and I’m fed up with it. There has to be a better way to do things.

I’ve had a bare-bones admin panel with some very basic functionality written for my own fanlisting management script which I hope will address the problems above. I’m not sure if I’ll ever release it for general use (if I get it finished, that is). I want something that is truly a content management system – I hate having to log in and modify code to add new link codes, change wording, etc. I want it to manage link codes, basic fanlisting functionality, affiliates, and page content. It is very idealistic of me, but seeing as how I’ve got two years of PHP/MySQL programming under my belt (with many more of OOP and HTML/CSS) I don’t think it’s so far-fetched. If I ever get enough time to sit down and finish it, that is.

I’ve started Folding@Home again. If you don’t know what that is, check out the FAQ. I used to do it quite awhile ago but I stopped and can’t even remember why; it was definitely gone when I reformatted my computer but anyway. It’s a pretty neat way to help out researching diseases like cancer, Alzheimer’s, ALS, etc. I know I don’t always have the time or money to help out as much as I’d like with the various walkathons and fundraisers they have so at least I can donate my computer’s processing power to helping out. It’s pretty easy — I just run it when my computer is already on, and it runs in the background doing the rest. Without trying to reach any goal I’ve already completed one work unit. There’s even teams you can join which is pretty cool.

I feel like I’m rambling, however, so I guess the point of this entry is that if you’re interested in helping to fight diseases and wouldn’t mind a program running nearly unnoticeably in the background then this is pretty neat. Also for the biology/genetics nerds who like to view the folding action real-time

Other than the usual spam comments consisting of repeated forms of viagra, links and porn pasted over and over again, I’ve noticed some fringe comments that seem to border on spam but are obviously real people. I’m not sure how I feel about this — on one hand, I can tell they are legitimate comments but their links and names are usually spammy and not what I’d call typical at all. I’m happy that I get comments and that people care what I write but I get the gut feeling that they’re not necessarily commenting for that reason but instead to advertise their blog by hammering out comments at various sites to up their search engine rankings (hence the spammy names instead of a real name).

Some would say that I should just be happy that I’m getting comments but to be honest I just don’t care any more about that stuff. I’m a sophomore in college with a week until my final exams

I’m thinking I might decide to start deleting those types of comments — despite being legitimate discussion I feel like it makes the comments look spammish, which is bad. So please use your real names, spammish people.

I’ve just upgraded to WordPress 2.7.1. The new admin panel was and still is a bit shocking whenever I log in. I’ve just been with the old one for so long. It does look rather nice, though, and hopefully I’ll get used to where things are. Sooner or later.

PS: On April Fool’s Day I always look forward to seeing Google’s joke/prank. This year’s was pretty awesome in my opinion:
http://www.google.com/intl/en/landing/cadie/index.html
The previous link wasn’t quite as hilarious as the blogspot page they made for CADIE:
http://cadiesingularity.blogspot.com
Just picturing the Google techs working on that blog is priceless…

Holy crap – I move in on August 22. It’s a bit like the reality of time is slapping me in the face. I managed to pay Kansas State University the entirety of my arm and leg and am officially good to go for the coming semester. Hooray for outrageous college costs!

The following comes a bit late as I’ve not had time to even think about it:

I’m a bit used to people publicly “talking shit”/”outing me”/bitching about me or my site/”calling me out”/what have you. Read the rest of this entry »