Category: Website Related

Addressing New 2009 Blog Changes and Features

January 8, 2009

Website Related

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I didn’t exactly post about the updates to this blog for 2009, but I’d like to address two new features that have been added. Before I get to them, to clarify, portfolioso.com and the blog are not the same. The blog contains all my posts, and the latest blog post gets fed to my homepage. The website is the same (black layout). The changes being discussed are with the blog. Anyway, On the backend, the blog was updated to WordPress 2.7, which is absolutely ballin’. But that doesn’t matter because it doesn’t affect users, only me with my uber admin posting panel. Things that do affect you:

  • New Layout – The other one was ugly, purple and hard to navigate. This one is sleek and cool. It’s also better at CSS and XHTML. Awesome.
  • Paginator – What the hell is that? Well if you scroll to the bottom of the blog, it dynamically generates links to the next few pages of posts rather than an “older posts” link. This lets you skip ahead more easily. You can also go back. It’s intelligent, so if you’re on page 8, it will generate links to the pages surrounding it. So if you’re on page 5 of my posts, you’ll see: [First]…[Previous] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [Next]…[Last].
  • Collapsing Archives – The blog goes back to 2003 and it listed every month. That’s way too much and you had to scroll 3 miles to get to the bottom. So I now have a collapsing archive menu on the side which is sweet and has everything, but it’s animated, collapses and saves space. Woo.
  • Search – I think I had a search but it stunk. This one’s integrated nicely on the top right
  • Captcha – Sorry about this one. I was getting a lot of random registrations and added this to prevent spam. Now you need to read an image and type it into a box to register and post comments. Don’t worry, it’s not that hard
  • Tag Cloud – I’m trying to turn this into more of a credible (haha, well technologically advanced) blog, so I added a tag cloud with specific topics and things I discuss frequently. Check it on the right menu. The bigger words have more posts. It’s neat.

I think that’s about it. I like the new features so much I might actually blog more, and be more serious and professional about it. Have fun!

Database Query Upgrade

September 30, 2008

Website Related

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Coming soon. TH12’s postseason picks!

So you didn’t realize it, but there has been an error in a SQL query I have been using since I launched the website redesign two years ago. To be frank, it is all fixed – you didn’t notice anything wrong (it was a backend issue that affected me badly when I was posting). This fix makes my life a lot easier. If you’re interested in the geek behind it, read on. Not so technical? You better quit while you’re still with me.

Ok, ubergeek interested in the inner-workings of this site, here goes: Back in the day, the portfolioso.com homepage was a WordPress theme, that was customized to match my site template. When I decided to make my site XHTML strict, so the theme hacks would never work. As a result, I moved the blog to a subdomain and threw in a new layout for the main site. To get my news to the front page, I used a SQL query to the WordPress Database. Here is where the problem arose. It would query the last story in the database, whether it was marked as draft or published. I was working on an epic new post that is not ready for the public yet, and it really annoyed me that the draft of it was being fed onto my main page! How insecure to ignore the fact that it hasn’t been published yet. Well, at 2:23AM when there is homework due for a 9:30AM class, people like me start programming to fix these things. I dove right into the SQL queries until I found one that works, sorted it out for the site and “boom, there goes the dynamite.”

Twitter Badge Added to Portfolioso.com

July 5, 2008

Computer/ Tech Related, Website Related

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Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send updates (otherwise known as tweets) which are text-based posts, ranging up to 140 characters long. Updates are displayed on the user’s profile page and instantly delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. The sender can restrict delivery to those in his or her circle of friends (delivery to everyone is the default). Users can receive updates via the Twitter website, instant messaging, SMS, RSS, email or through an application such as Twitterrific or Facebook.

So at first, I heard of Twitter on Diggnation and Kevin Rose was telling everyone to follow him. I was like “this is so dumb.” but the fact that you can text a number (not that I have text messaging) and update your status is really cool. So, I finally get into it and it’s fun to follow peoples updates. Think of it like a diesel Facebook status thing, only you can do more with it.

Anyway, I added a Twitter badge to this site. It’s on the left navigation menu, it’s flash based, my pages are still XHTML strict, it works in IE (piece of crap browser). Ok, so now you all can see my updates to Twitter right from my website. Portfolioso.com, adding more stalkage – one step at a time.

New Year’s Resolution

December 31, 2007

Website Related

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I never really do New Year’s resolutions, but here’s my online version of one: I will update this site more in 2008!

Yay!

Welcome to Portfolioso.com 2.0

May 31, 2007

Website Related

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Welcome to the newly redesigned Portfolioso.com. The general purpose of this website is to provide useful information regarding technology and life in general. Some key features include my blog, and other useful programs or utilities that may come in handy.

I decided to separate the blog from the main portion of my site for numerous reasons. As a college student, I do not have as much free time to frequently update a blog, and it is unfair to frequent visitors to not receive updates. I will still continue writing, but it will be a separate wordpress blog and have a different layout, mostly because I do not have the time or energy to integrate it with this new layout.

I hope you find the contents of this site useful and entertaining. Do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions, comments concerns or you would like to see something on this website that does not currently exist. Also, if you find any bugs or glitches on the new website, I’d like to correct them, so let me know.