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1

Adverts & Recruitment / PPages Beta Testing is STILL OPEN

« on: June 07, 2008, 09:26:57 am »

Some of you will probably remember a pet project of mine known as Project Pages -- a simple free webhost with a really bad design. Well, it still exists. And a new version is coming. A version people will actually want to use. There are going to be much prettier skins and a lot of new features to boot. It's almost ready for prime time, but I need some serious help testing it. I need to be sure that there are no serious bugs, and the system is very easy to understand for new users.

I am looking for a team of 5 or more people to take a decent chunk of time over the timespan of a week (Starting a week from today -- June 14th) to test out all of the features, and basically do whatever they would do if they intended to actually host a website with the site. It's not an incredibly complex job, but it will help me diffuse some problems with it before I roll it out to the public. The testing will be done in an isolated area away from the main of Project Pages; one that is closed to the public. Anything you post there will be kept there unless you ask me to move it.


Anyone who joins the team and actively tests the site for a decent chunk of time will be offered a free upgrade to a premium account on the site. A premium account currently grants its user 3 major things. The first is no ads. The ads on the site will be replaced with the text of your choosing, (can be blank) and will be labelled with your site's name instead. (Basically a persistant little place to leave messages to your users.) The second is extra pages. The old limit on the number of pages you can host was low, and has gone up already. Premium accounts however can host even more pages. Finally, you will be able to upload more files/images, and bigger files as well.

I am not sure how I intend to price premium accounts, however using them will not be necessary at all. The free hosting option should be more than enough for most people; all features that were there before and then some new ones are coming too. Upgrading to premium will cost very little money too, if people decide they really want the upgraded storage and the such. Do not panic about them; I do not expect them to become very prominent, nor do I expect to make much money at all from them. I simply coded the feature in, and decided I might as well make use of it and give my beta testers some incentive.

If ppages hosting won't cut it for you I can also offer you some storage space and a mysql db if you need it; I have no problem with doing this, just ask me.


UPDATE: I *will* allow people to join the testing late if they are interested! Please just get in contact with me personally and I will tell you where to look. For anyone already signed up, I'll be sending out an email to all of you telling you where it's hosted, what to look for, and what bugs I'm already aware of. I'll compose that very shortly, and you should have it by midnight.

You can get in contact with me personally by sending an email to admin@ppages.org, iming me at cppchriscpp on aim, or heading into the chatroom (#ppages on windfyre.net; you can just use the chat applet on the main site if you'd like)

The main site will be updated one week from saturday. There will be an hour or two of downtime, though it will be around 1 in the morning so it should not affect many people. Afterwards I encourage anyone looking for hosting to give ppages a try. (or a second one; a ton has changed since the first release)

Thanks for your interest, and I hope to hear from some of you soon!

~ Chris

2

Feedback / Chat link

« on: December 11, 2007, 05:06:31 am »

I only today realized that we do have a chat link and that it is visible on every page. I'd like to request that we change that link to something a) more colorful/noticable, and b) make it more evident that it is a chat link.

To those of us who IRC regularly, #ZFGC is obviously a channel name. To the rest of the world, it means nothing. And even myself I never really equated it to the chatroom. I think it should clearly say that it links to the chatroom somehow, and that might bring us some new users.

Also, it would be nice if a link were added to the homepage as well. I know we don't use it much now but still >_>

3

Other Projects / [Completed] Console Sidescrolling Game

« on: October 19, 2007, 02:48:49 pm »

Well, I'm here to show you guys the fruit of a few days of work and boredom. In my programming class in College, I had a pretty easy time with some of the projects so I decided to start this. It's a sidescrolling game, along the lines of SMB and the such. The twist? It's played using on the console. Some of you may have seen an earlier version of this, but I have retooled it to work much better. It now has monsters, and proper gravity.

The game has four levels, but you can make more if you want. Open up one of the levels in notepad to see how it works. You'll need to turn off word wrap if it's on. The first line contains the height of the level. If you put this wrong the level won't run. This is followed by a dash (-), then coordinates for each monster. The coordinates for each monster are the row number (the top row is 1, second is 2, etc) followed by a comma and the column number. The lines below this are the actual level. _ is seen as standable ground, and | is as well. Space is whitespace... just try to stick to what I used for characters - It'll make things easier for you

One little thing with the program. All of the lines in the program need to be of the same exact length. If they are not, the program will generate an error at the moment. Just stick a flagpole at the end like I did - it makes life easier. if you want a space after, be sure to add a space to EVERY line so the program doesn't error on you. Let me know if you have any problems.

If you make any levels, please post them here, even if you think they're crappy. I'll include any levels if you want me to and give you credit for them.

It's not perfect, I'm aware of that, but I'm pretty happy with the results. Let me know of any bugs you encounter. For now, let's say being able to hang onto the clouds is a feature, not a bug

Anyway have fun with this - I had fun making it.

The game is available on my Project Pages page. (If I use it, it encourages me to keep PP up to date and working)

:D?

4

Feedback / I'm see\ing\ a lot\ of \back\slashes >_>

« on: October 14, 2007, 01:58:20 am »

Not that many, but I'm seeing a lot of backslashes before quotes... I had this problem when I was making my forums for PPages... both ' and " are affected... I think you're escaping them twice - one way or another.

Just thought I'd point it out... probably already well known

Erm... maybe it was a database issue - it appears to be fixed already look around at some of the topics on the forum and you'll probably see it however... if I'm wrong, neeever mind

5

Coding / Some help making a tour, probably with flash

« on: September 17, 2007, 03:00:40 am »

Hey guys, I'm back again working on Project Pages. This time however, I'm asking for some help. I want to make a simple tour of it using flash or some other tool that will fit on one page and look really pretty.

Thing is... I've never used flash. Ever. I'm looking for someone to either make it for me (I'll give you credit! Also I'll offer hosting with php and a mysql database if you need it - I can spare some space on the host for PPages) or help me figure out how to do it myself. (Just credit in this case unless you help a ton - if you really need it we can still try to work that out.)

So, any info... any help... pretty much anything?

UPDATE: Behemoth5 is helping me out making it. Thanks very much to him, and very little to you people (kidding)

Thanks in advance guys!

~ Chris

6

Other Projects / [Completed] A Custom Simplified Webhost!

« on: August 29, 2007, 04:37:53 am »

So I can't believe it, but it's finally done. I've finished a releasable version of one of my biggest projects. Some of you might have heard me referencing GS or GameSitez up until a few months ago, this is it.

I started the project as GameSitez about 3 summers ago before I left for a vacation. The idea was to make a simple webhost for forum goers and the such to display their projects with little to no work. I intended the project to be very simple on the php end, but as time went on it became evident that this was unrealistic. I worked on it until around the end of that year and it became pretty impressive... for my little php knowledge. I dropped it for a bit after that for other projects and then came back to it for a few months some time the next year. I continued work on the forums mostly at at that time, but I also added a lot to the administration side of the site. Eventually it dropped again, only to be picked up early this year. I worked on it up until now pretty constantly, and I redesigned a lot of what I designed. I came to find much of what I did was rather badly coded and recoded a lot of it. Eventually I found a better host than my house and moved it, as well as buying myself a domain name for it.

And now, Project Pages is open.

It's a free webhost, it has a google search and google ads at the bottom of the pages. I know they're somewhat annoying but they can be removed. It is gonna cost a bit to host it and the ads being on there will hopefully make a dent in those costs.

I'd have to say my biggest accomplishment on it is fully working forums, and a pretty good user system. Each site comes with a board that can have up to 10 (I believe) forums, and as many categories as you can cram forums into. The posting and bbcodes and emoticons work fine. There are locked topics as well as stickied ones. The forums have a skin to match their websites'.

I coded a pretty advanced site coloring system... it works for everywhere. It now also includes a banner generator as well as button generator. A layout previewer is also built in now.

With it you now get your own subdomain, which wasn't half as hard to code as I expected. It also allows for uploads and images.

If any of the restrictions on storage etc are too small for your project, get in contact with me. I intend to eventually set up a system for paying for upgrades, but chances are right now I'll do it for free, since this is so new.

And for my beta testers that stuck around, (tet and xero mostly, zell for being around as well) thanks a ton, I owe ya. Free account upgrades are open to you peoples

So thanks for giving it a look people, hoping to hear lots from you.

~ Chris

7

Recruitment / Recruiting some beta testers

« on: July 12, 2007, 06:23:18 am »

I am looking to find a team of people to help me beta-test a web project I have going before releasing it to the public. This is for a rather large scale project that has been in the making for 3-4 years. No experience with anything is necessary. (Though I would appreciate finding a few users with experience in php security to help me patch any holes it might have.)
 
The site will work well in any browser, (so far as I know) so you will be able to use it in whatever browser you please. (This is coming from an Opera user, so you should be able to trust that. It also works on my jornada handheld without flaw.)
 
I won't be revealing too much about the project here, other than what I have already, as I do not wish for the project to become public yet.
 
As a member of the team, I will ask that you:
- Visit the site and poke around
- Sign up for a free account and try it out (No obligations, no spam, don't worry about it)
- Report any issues you find
- Suggest features
- Give general and true input towards the site. (What do you like, what do you dislike, how intuitive is the design... Would any features be helpful, are any useless, etc, etc.)
- Contact me somehow - be it through IRC (I've set up a channel for it) email, aim, or pm on the forums, I'd like to get your input

I'm not looking for a very big team, but I'm not going to set numbers as I would like to base it on response. Not everyone who responds will necessarily be able to try it right now, but if you're genuinely interested I'm not likely to deny you

After this beta test has gone on for a while (and possibly when I find a better host) I'll open up to the public.

I'm going to ask that you not invite any people to the beta site, at least without my permission. I'd probably be perfectly happy to let them in, I just would really like to know who is on the server during the beta tests. It's for security to some extent, I'm not overly worried about anything too severe, I'd just like to know who is around I guess.


NOTE: The site won't be open to testing for a while longer... I have to clean up a few things and add a feature or two hopefully as well. It's very very close to done, however. I'm thinking tuesday at the moment. I'll stay in contact. If you'd leave some form of contact I'd appreciate it. Probably I'll just use it to let you know when I open the demo. My aim is cppchriscpp if anyone doesn't know it, and I'll probably state it there.

Oh, and I'll have a forum set up you people can post on about it too, which will make communication a good deal easier.

If you've got any questions feel free to ask here or pm me. (Or aim me or talk to me on irc, I don't care just get in contact :p) I can't set an exact date for when I'll open the test, but probably sometime next week or late this week. It depends on how fast I can code a few things, mixed with how distractions play into my life.

Thanks to anyone considering this, and I hope to see some of you soon on the site =D

~ Chris



PS: I'm debating making the source available to a few people in a read only format, so I can get help fixing some security issues. Any ideas on how I'd do this? I want a fairly secure way of doing this, so only those who I want to see it can see it. I don't want any source leaking out without my permission


Official Beta tester list:
-----------------

• xero -IRC
• Hikij/BlueMonkey - IRC (I assume)
• Behemoth5 - IRC
• Sol
• Issac_Amisov/li]
  
  • Tetyle
  • Windy
  • FISSURE
  • zell - IRC
  • MusicMan -IRC
  
  Thanks guys, and anyone else with inquiries about this can direct them to me.

8

Other Discussion / ¡uʍop-ǝpısdn ǝʇıɹʍ uɐɔ ı

« on: July 04, 2007, 02:58:25 pm »

uʍop ǝpısdn ʇxǝʇ ǝʇıɹʍ oʇ noʎ sʍo11ɐ ʇɐɥʇ ʇdıɹɔs ɯopuɐɹ ɐ punoɟ ı

I think I might actually turn this into a bbcode for use on my forum... converting the script to php of course

The script is available: here.

So has anyone else found something fun like this around?

9

Other Discussion / type of cable/connecter I'd like to make/buy

« on: February 28, 2007, 11:52:16 am »

I'm looking for the ability to connect a laptop hard drive into a compactflash slot, if such a thing is possible. I've looked around and it does seem theoretically possible, as compactflash I've read has pinout that is compatible with ATA specs. Basically I'd like to put a very small laptop hard drive (the kind creative has in the zen touch) into a Jornada 720 and would like to find out if this is possible.

If anyone can find me either a) a way to connect them or b) a connector, I would be greatly appreciative.



And I've already seen 50 different ways to connect compactflash cards to computers as hard drives. If you post one of those I'll probably hit you with a fan/shoe/dog/hammer/fish/turtle/tomato/elephant, so do it at your own risk.

Thanks in advance

~ Chris

10

Entertainment / Hey Metalheads, want some free music?

« on: January 25, 2007, 12:54:53 am »

Grey Skies Fallen is a melodic death/progressive metal band that has existed for 11 years. It has never once been under any actual label. They have some pretty impressive music, and now

They've decided to release all of their albums to the public for free download.

Go to http://www.greyskiesfallen.com and check them out!

Anyone else know of bands doing similar things?

PS If you're more a fan of really soft music, check out Avrigus. They did this with their two albums a while back; hopefully their stuff is still available, try google.
It's not bad but it only works for me if I'm in a certain mood but it's good stuff.

11

Feedback / Old problem resurfaced

« on: November 19, 2006, 05:52:56 am »

This one mostly goes to kirby unless someone else knows how to fix it

A while back myself and another person or two complained about the forum rendering backwards for Opera users. After a while Kirby did something to the them or forums or something to make it render properly. I have no idea what that was, but it needs to be done again.

Thanks in advance,

~ Chris

12

Discussion / Anyone Have/Wanna Write a story for my game?

« on: November 13, 2006, 01:06:37 am »

As some of you may already know, I am creating a game in Java with a friend of mine for school. We are working on a lot of stuff at once, but have a lot working. I'll have demos available any day now, though I wanna get a thing or two more working first. You can find some information about this game across the forum, but I haven't made much known yet. You can see the sprites I'll be using (well, some of them. The graphics that created the demo screenies are there too) here.

What I need now is a good story. I had one a friend of mine was gonna write, but it would just be too hard to use. It's too open and long and complicated. I've got a very strong time limit, and I really can't have as hard a story to code as his. I'm not saying his isn't good but... just not enough time.

I'm not gonna be strict on the story or anything, there's not a lot I *need*> What I want is a storyline that has a few towns and a few dungeons to get through, with a central purpose to it. Nothing too extremely long, but something with some good thought behind it. The game will have random battles, an overworld, attacks levels magical skills and personal skills, all that stuff you expect from an RPG. Ask me anything you want, but if you have a story that fits this or could fit this, or you want to write one, please do what you feel like. As long as I can code in in the next two months, it's perfectly fine. I could use a storyline relatively soon though, as I need to start creating maps and doing other tedious work.

I could release a demo now but it's just not ready enough yet for the general public in my eyes. We do already have fullscreen/windowed switching, a full overworld with tiled screens, and collisions, and the beginnings of battles. Saving and loading of levels should be mostly done by tonight. There's also the beginnings of battles, with foes you can defeat as well.

If you really must see a demo feel free to pm me. It's not too pretty right now mostly in battle as a ton is done but it can't be showcased yet.

Thanks in advance,

~ Chris

13

Graphics Requests/Archive / [Solved] Some sprites for my game

« on: October 05, 2006, 11:52:44 pm »

I could really use some sprites and textures for my game, which I am creating from scratch in java with a friend of mine as a yearlong project. I'd like them done in a somewhat cartoony style, but not completely cartoon at the same time. If this isn't very specific, I'm sure I'll be satisfied with whatever comes out of it. I had some sprites I wanted to work with before, but it turns out that the person who told me to use them and another person were both wrong in saying they were free for use.

Anyway also some textures and objects in this style would be nice

I could REALLY use a temporary sprite for the main character, as well as a grass texture and an object or two by the end of the weekend, as I need to showcase a demo of the game, and my current main character, a vibrating arrow, is not very effective. I need to pretty it up.

Thanks in advance for all of your help, and more information about the overall project is available in recruiting and advertising, where my original topic is posted.

Update:

Now my requests change and become more specific, and much less urgent. Mostly it is based on the sheets posted by dragonmaster here.  and also this:


Basically, what I need is animations of any sprites on the base sheet. Also any other graphics in the same style would be appreciated.

The only nonexistant sprite I really _need_ is a ship. A ship is/was planned to be the main form of transportation in the game, so one of these would be quite important.

If I could get one character animated soon, it would help me greatly. As of now the main character is _still_ a vibrating arrow, as I don't have any sprites with four directions to them. I have a couple with three possible ones (left and right can be mirrored, but up and down are two different things.) but this isn't quite enough :p Diagonal views are unnecessary.

Any people who animate/create new graphics will be added to the credits, unless they wish to remain anonymous of course

Some midi music would be nice also, but I can do without that for now. (Plus this is graphic arts)

Thanks for all your help thus far guys, and I'll have a demo up for you soon. (If anyone knows anything about getting java archives to work properly with images contained in them, please get in contact with me. I'm having serious issue with this at the moment, and I can't seem to find adequate help.)

~ Chris

~ Chris

14

Other Discussion / Odd question involving gameboy advance

« on: September 16, 2006, 02:07:53 am »

I have an odd project I'd like to complete bouncing around my head, and I'd like to try to take it somewhere. In order to do this, however, I need to find a way to play video on the gameboy advance. The best way to do this would be to use a program to stream it through the EXT. port. Does anyone know of an application that will allow this?

I didn't explain that too well, but it was about the best I could do. If you have questions about what I'm trying to do, please ask.

NOTE: If you know of something for the gameboy color, that would also work. I'd like to hear of any and all possibilities

thanks in advance

~ Chris

15

Entertainment / Ebook Reading/Organizing program - I found my answer!

« on: July 10, 2006, 12:17:58 am »

Anyone know of a good ebook reading/organizing program? I'm looking for something that'll let me sort them into genres and read or open some reader program or something. Not much criteria I just wanna avoid organizing them with windows explorer as that would be almost pointless >_>

EDIT: Ice Book Reader Professional does almost what I want... but it can't read pdf files which would be a minor inconvenience, but the trial version has this annoying ass nag screen that pops up every minute or so. If I could get rid of that it would be great Sadly I don't have the cash or resources (>_>) for that one

Basically I want something like foobar or winamp, but for books, and much lower power

Anyone who can help me please do

EDIT 2: Not exactly what I wanted, but mobipocket will suffice. I wish it had more advanced organizing capabilities... I think I'll code them myself though. YAY Console C++!

Anyone who has other suggestions may come foward, however.

EDIT 3: On second thought... mobi fails. It copies all my books over and all this annoying !@#$% and doesn't organize. Screw it. I'm just gonna write my own

16

Entertainment / Vinyls...

« on: May 17, 2006, 02:48:47 am »

Love em? Hate em? Got some? Want some? This is ZFGC's official Vinyl discussion topic!

So... found my dad's old music collection a while back and that was cool because he used to be into some early metal. Among the best 45's are Smoke on the Water, Aerosmith -=- Dream On, Patti Smith, Eye of the Tiger, Quiet Riot's Cum on Feel The Noize, a couple of things from Van Halen, and THE EL KABONG THEME SONG!!

I also picked up two Triumph albums and Queens Greatest Hits album from the local flea market for a buck a piece.

Yesterday I made my best fidns though, a record store in Methuen had: Dio's Holy Diver (6 bucks), Metal Church's Self titled album (3 bucks) and a single from them (2), a Scorpions album (2 bucks), a Jethro Tull album (also 3 bucks), and finally a Rush album (also 2 bucks). Needless to say I'll be going back there and raping their collection for all it's worth ^_^

So what are your vinyl related stories? I'm listening to Metal Church's self titled Debut right now and damn, I'm loving it

17

Other Discussion / Awake

« on: May 09, 2006, 02:55:08 am »

I am lost
The footprints that I left have disappeared
For now I am driving blind

Accelerate
Without a destination to welcome me
This road is just an endless loop

Every time I close my eyes
The noise inside me amplifies
I can't escape
I relive every moment of the day
Every misstep I have made
Finds a way it can invade
My every thought
And this is why I find myself awake

Directionless
The letters on the signs have long since faded
The sky conspires to swallow me

Paid the price
For burning all the maps to warm myself
I threw their ashes to the wind

Every time I close my eyes
The noise inside me amplifies
I can't escape
I relive every moment of the day
Every misstep I have made
Finds a way it can invade
My every thought
And this is why I find myself awake

Walk away
Time to leave the realm of the familiar
To find a place where sleep can come

Hesitate
For one last time I shout into the sky
To wake the ones I'll leave behind

- Assemblage 23

18

Debates / The Legalization of Marijuana

« on: April 25, 2006, 04:07:54 am »

Discuss.

Hah kidding I can do better than that. Okay seriously...

The issue of the legalization of marijuana has been around for a long time. There have been many people for it and many people against it. Some say it's safer to use than tobacco. Others believe that legalizing it will just lead to more use of other illegal drugs, as they see Marijuana as a gateway drug.

Though I have never tried marijuana, (I have this thing against taking anything that alters the way I think, but that's a story for another topic) I believe it should be legalized. I believe it is safer than tobacco in that tobacco kills (I have no exact figure but I'm thinking in the 10,000's or maybe even 100,000's) many people every year, but yet marijuana by itself doesn't kill people. While doing stupid things such as fishbowling DOES kill people every year, the same thing would happen with tobacco were someone dumb enough to do that. Some also say it's influence is strong and people could become dangers to themselves if they decided to do something like drive under the influence. While this is true, alcohol is legal in the United States, is it not? And I believe it does at least as good of a job as marijuana in impairing someone's judgement and all of that. Overall I don't see much reason for the government to keep marijuana illegal when it seems to be safer than tobacco or alcohol to the average American.