Chroder.com

I’m opening a new site soon called The New Tech (abbreviated to the uber-cool TNT ;-)). It’ll be a tech news/article/discussion type site. I’ve already got the domain name set up (www.thenewtech.com) and the vB forum (which will be used to contain news stories and whatnot).

So that’ll be taking up some of my time until a RC of vB3.5 is released which is when I’m going to finish porting over Webmaster-Talk hacks to the new system. Tim says he’s thinking of getting a designer to design a new style for us, so I’ll just have to skin vB. That is really good because I’ve been under the curse of Designers Block for about 4 months! My designs have never been top notch, but now they’re just hideous lol.

Other then that, I’ve finally completed the mandatory class hours for driving school and graduated with a 94%. I’m still waiting for the phone call to create appointments for the actual driving lessons. If all goes well, I should have my G2 in a few months. So that leaves me some time on the weekends to do various stuff. Stuff like fixing some bugs with my Wordpress plugins, which I have yet to plunge into.

Now I’m off to play poker!

Update: Well, I’ve got a “public preview” of the TNT forums up for everyone’s viewing pleasure. It is indeed a preview, thus there is still much to do. If you’re interested in tech, then sign up — could use some people to chat with

I’m going to driving school. I’ve got to go from 9:00am to 3:45pm for two weekends and I don’t think I’ve ever been quite so bored in my life.

My first day was yesterday, which was uber-boring, and seemed to last for ever. Probably because the content was really dry; about insurance and how the licensing system works etc. Today wasn’t as bad, but it’s still boring to cover one subject for almost 7 hours.

The instructor today thought I look like Harry Potter lol! He called me “Mr. Potter” and “HP” haha. I like him better then the instructor we had yesterday, who was pretty boring (on top of the boring content).

So after I finish the required classroom hours, I get to actually go out and drive with the instructor. And then after that, I can go for my G1-Exit drivers test. I don’t know how it’s done around the rest of the world, but here we use a “graduated licensing” system. That means there are three different levels of licensing:

• G1: The lowest level with lots of restrictions (have to drive with someone who has their G for >= 4 years, cannot carry any other passengers, no driving at night, no freeways, no blood alcohol content…). This gives us just enough room to practise with our parents, for example. You get this by writing a written test.
• G2: The second level has none of the restrictions except for the no BAC and you can only carry as many passengers as there are seat belts. To get this, you have to wait 12 months (or 8 months if you go to driving school) after you got the G1, then you have to go out and take the G1-exit drivers test.
• G: The final level, the “full” license with no restrictions. You get this after 12 months with your G2 and another, longer drivers test (called the G2-exit).

So for anyone to get their full G license, it’ll take them at least 18 months from the time they got their G1. Probably more since the drivers tests are usually back-logged.

So I’m going to driving school to reduce the time needed to get my G2 and to reduce the insurance (insurance goes down by a max of 45% if you go to driving school). Those saved 4 months and money savings are worth my boredom I think! I hope I pass my G1-exit test, the instructor told us only about 55% pass it, and only about 22% pass the G2-exit test. If you don’t pass the first time, you can take it again but that costs money and you’ll probably have to wait weeks for another appointment.

A vulnerability in XML-RPC libs can be scary for us bloggers (or any other PHP app which uses the libs). The story was Slashdotted today, but a lot of scripts were patched before. Wordpress released it’s fix in the form of version 1.5.1.3 on June 29th — update now

I haven’t read up on the vulns (yet) so I don’t know the extent of damage it could cause, but just thought I’d call attention to it.

I’m working on my first vB 3.5 plugin Almost done.

It lets forum users choose which forums to load on their forum home. For example, if you are a webmaster but have no interest in search engine discussions on Webmaster-Talk, you might want to hide them altogether instead of simply collapsing the category.

I’d like to add some sort of quick-lookup to the forum home to show a simple overview of the hidden forums, an easy way to access them incase the user wants to pop inside for some reason. That would be the better alternative instead of going into their user cp and unhiding it just to reach the thread listing. Also, I’d like to add a better way to choose unhideable forums via the AdminCP (instead of the simply textarea). It’s kinda hard though because there are no hooks in the vB ACP, and I don’t want to resort to file edits. So I’m hoping they’ll have some ACP hooks in the next release.

So there you have it 100% using hooks too — no file edits! As it stands, there may be one or two template edits (one to add an item to the user CP nav and the other to add a ‘forum overview’ thing I was talking about).

vB 3.5 beta was released just a little while ago! Wooo! Read the announcement made by Kier.

Other then some really cool new features (taking advantage of AJAX, of course ;-)), including the much-requested inline-moderation (the one the IPB fanboys are mad about, as if IPB thought of it first!). But most of all, the underlaying code has change considerably. Along with hooks for plugins, everything has undergone a huge overhaul, I’m still exploring the code now.

So happy hacking!

This plugin has moved: WordPress Plugin: Inline (Collapsible) More Link

I went out today and got a new mouse and keyboard since the other ones (which were like 5 years old) were really starting to annoy me. The keyboard was all dirty and the springs in the keys were starting to act up on me, and the mouse refused to move to the left no matter how many cleanings I gave it.

So I went out and bought a cheap-but-cool keyboard (link) and a Logitech MX1000 wireless mouse (link). I was not sure about the mouse, it got mixed reviews and I know people who have had their share of problems with Logitech wireless mouses, but I’d thought I’d give it a try anyway. I’ve got 30 days to turn around and take it back, might as well give it a chance Wireless is a big plus, makes me feel free. And the extra buttons are pretty cool.

I’m still getting used to using a different keyboard and mouse, since I was using the same set for years and years. We’ll see how it goes!

The Systm team finally released their first episode! Head over to Systm.org and download it if you have not already. I’m quite impressed. They put it together very professionally; I’m looking forward to more.

After watching that episode, I had a strange urge to go out and mod stuff

I went out tonight with Kelli, Ryan, Mike and Rex to see the new Star Wars. We left at about 7:30PM, and I just got back now at 1:20AM.

The movie wasn’t bad at all, I’d give it a 7/10. There were some really boring parts where I was shifting in my seat, but for the most part, I think it was quite good. Though I’m not anywhere near a hard-core Star Wars fan The part I hated the most is waiting in a line to even get to our seats! We finally got there at abou 8:30PM, and we had to wait until like 9:45PM in the “pre-line” or whatever you want to call it. Very frustrating!

We had to ride in a Uhaul van because no one had a car to fit 5 people in comfortably. It seemed like a good idea at the time So Ryan and Kelli were in the cab, while me, Mike and Rex were stuck sitting in the cargo-area, sloshing around like water in a barrel. We made some stops before making it to the theatre, so I spent like 1.5 hours in the back on the “there” trip, and another 30 mins on the “back” trip. Sitting in the back is almost nauseating, and Ryan made it worse by going reeeeeaaaallly fast and then stopping really fast while cornering. So I’m typing this and my brain is still whirling around, quite annoying!

So anyway, that was my Thursday night. I’ve got no school from this night, all the way until next Wednesday! There is technically school tomorrow, but no way am I going when everyone else is going to be off doing something! And there is technically school on Tuesday, but my Law class has a trip to some seminar which allows us to skip the day.

Oooo, ahhhhh…

The vB devs just made an announcement outlining what they’ve been doing for the past few months. Nice stuff!

I was beginning to think IPB might be getting ahead with their new features (2.1), but with the next vB release, they’re back up scratching at each others throats again.

Slashdot
Slashdot readers may recall that last month Canadian policy makers rejected the DMCA for Canada. Not so fast apparently — the U.S. Trade Representative has released the annual Section 301 report which each year tells the rest of the world that they need stronger intellectual property protection. This year Canada is a particular target — the U.S. plans to conduct a special review of Canadian policies and explicitly rejects Canada’s rejection of the DMCA. A good summary on what this means from Canadian law professor Michael Geist.

Hm.

ROTSS Episode 2 is out

I find these podcasts quite interesting, maybe you will too

I saw this story on digg, thought I’d share it.

This is like that free WinXP SP2 CD I blogged about before. They actually send you the CD, free, and pay for S&H. So the grand total: $0.00 Get your copy here.

read more | digg story

My cat is in heat! She has been howling for like 3 days straight so far.

We have to wait 2 weeks before we can get her fixed — why oh why did we wait until the last minute? Got some cute pics of her though in the gallery lol.

I got around to making a new theme. It has a lot of the same concepts as the old, default theme — it’s easier that way

So anyway, there are a few things to fix up but I’ll get around to them tomorrow. This time I really do intend to put up a gallery and an “about” page.

Post syntax highlighted code, or simply post code that is not affected by the WordPress text replacement features.

Note: This plugin does not work correctly with WP 2.0. I’ve tried to get it to work, but the new WYSIWYG editor is causing a lot of trouble. I’m leaving the download up for anyone who wants to give it a try (re-release if it you wish. I will link to you from this post if you do). I am working on a new plugin that will let you post code, but in a different manner. I am trying to get something together so at least old posts will still display correctly.
You can Download what I’ve done so far and work from that. The problem is something to do with HTML cleanup, I believe. TinyMCE (or a plugin) cleans up invalid code — I’ve tried to fix it by converting HTML into entities, but the cleanup takes place before my TinyMCE plugin can work on it.
(more…)

Saw this and thought it was pretty funny!

read more | digg story

Don’t you just love it when members think the admins are some all powerful entity?

It’s been happening a lot lately. Someone spots some spam and complains about how we don’t do anything about it. Or if they see some person offering illegal templates, they get pissed off at us because we don’t ban the user right away. It’s not like we know every single post that is being put up on our forums. It’s not like we keep track of every single user.

But this isn’t enough for some members. They want to hear us go, we should be acting faster, banning more, deleting more. We should be taking peremptory action, dammit! Sure.

So for anyone reading that acts like this, you should look at it from our perspective. We’re extremely busy; we have business to take care of other then reading each post ever created, and we actually do have lives of our own. If you spot some spam, then report it. It doesn’t help anyone when you reply to a thread bitching at us — if anything, you’re giving the spammer exactly what they want by bumping their thread to the top of the list. And before you start getting pissed off at us for taking too long to ban scammers, note that we discuss each situation and try to be as fair as we can. One persons hearsay isn’t quite enough.

How do you treat customers? What is the bottom line when paying customers are concerned? In my humble opinion, there are two over-generalized ways to treat customers: the right way, and the wrong way.

The right way should stem off of that “customer is always right” theme. Of course, the customer is hardly ever right. But I think it’s important to make them feel like they are being heard, they are being understood, and that something is being done about whatever the hell they’re complaining about. Along with these basic ideas, you should treat your customers with the respect they deserve.

The wrong way to treat your customers is pretty much the complete opposite. For example, if a customer made a negative comment about an upcoming product, say it was called “IP.Dynamic”, the wrong way to handle the situation is to ban them from your customer forums, say it was forums.invisionpower.com.

Now if you haven’t got the hint already, this entry is basically a rant on the way IPS handles their customers, specifically one customer named Gregg Heifetz. After one negative comment, the IPS team saw it fit to actually ban him. The comment was simply a personal opinion; it wasn’t rude, it wasn’t racist, it wasn’t anything bad at all.

Quote: Gregg Heifetz
The sooner Matt gets Dynamic out, and nobody buys it, the sooner the focus of the company can go back to improving, bug fixing, and speeding up the forum. Sorry, IPB, that’s just the way I see it.

So he doesn’t think that IP.Dynamic looks like a good product. Big deal. Why not just delete his post like you do with the other negative comments? Why in the hell does he deserve to get banned? This is probably one of the least negative comments I’ve seen with people complaining about online products.

Moving on… Gregg, coming back to find that he is banned, shoots a message off to Charles Warner (IPS President) and asks why he was banned. Mr. Warner’s reply is as follows:

Quote: Charles Warner
That wasn’t negative feedback it was a rude, abusive statement designed to damage the company.

Not to mention you have multiple 2.0 series boards running without a license.

We do not ban people for negative feedback. There are plenty of people who post more than you do but none that go as far as you.

I highly suggest you quietly fade away.

I read this reply and I seriously wonder what is going through Charles’ head. I didn’t find the comment rude, abusive or damaging. Nor do I think it’s going further then anyone else has gone before; in fact, I think it’s quite a light comment. The most I’d go to say is that Gregg is just one of those customers that doesn’t need what’s being created, so he makes a shallow comment. Call him ignorant if you’d like, perhaps that’s true. The comment isn’t the most helpful criticism ever conceived, but I definitely don’t think it warrants a ban.

The one line that really flabbergasted me was “I highly suggest you quietly fade away”. Here is a paying customer that got banned for a fairly shallow negative comment being told to cut his losses and be on his way. Now that is no way to treat your customers.

By now you’re probably wondering why I’m sticking up for a software pirate (“Not to mention you have multiple 2.0 series boards running without a license”). You must be thinking, “No wonder this guy is upset! He’s stealing their software!”. The sad truth is that Gregg was not running multiple boards — he wasn’t even running a single board! Gregg replies to the original message stating this, and Charles’ says:

Quote: Charles Warner
As to point 3 I apologize as it seems I mistook you for another customer.

The other points stand. A lifetime license is not refundable. Technical support is available in the client area. We have never provided support via the forums a fact which is made clear all over the site. We also make the fact clear we reserve the right to restrict access to the forums if we so choose.

Besides, if you truly do not use the license, as you mentioned you would not need support.

If you are accusing your customers of theft, then I hope that you make sure they actually did steal something. Check, double check and triple check that you have your facts straight. The last thing you want to do is falsely accuse a customer of theft.

And what about his other comments? Is that any way to treat a customer after you just falsely accused them of something they didn’t do? Way to go, Charles’, that was a first class apology.

Now that’s only two parts of the IPS-Gregg communication trail. You can read more about this on WHT, where Gregg started this topic. You’ll notice that there are no IPS representatives denying the accusation, and that after Gregg said he was going to the BBB — they finally gave him a refund.

It’s up to you to determine how much of Gregg’s story you actually believe. I for one, believe much of it. IPS is still a “small” company (relative to other commercial software producers) so I don’t think an appearance on WHT to dismiss this bad publicity wouldn’t be too far fetched. In fact, Matt (IPS CEO) is known to visit WHT from time to time; and they definitely know about the thread because a dozen or more people sent emails to IPS staff.

I have an IPB license hanging around. I bought it to compare vBulletin and Invision Power Board, and I’m not totally dissatisfied with the purchase. The features are quite good, the support forums are friendly, and Matt is an exceptional programmer. But from what I see and what I’ve seen in the past, IPS really needs to bring their customer service up a notch. This was just a defining example.

I finally upgraded wordpress to the latest version.

I’m going to skin it later, bit busy at the moment. But I like this default style so I don’t mind. I like it better then mine, actually. Hmm. I think I’ll make a new one based on these colors, nice and light.

We’ll see.