Weblog Quotes

As I receive a few emails regarding the up-dating of the All Woollie Sheep skin for Windows Live Messenger, I have decided to make a little post.

First of all, I thank each of you for your emails; and for using the skin. It means a lot.

As I now work full time as a Chef, my activity on the web has drastically decreased; which has meant a rather saddening halt in any projects I may have been working on during the time I was un-employed. This covers the WLM skins; forums skins; and the websites themselves.

On a lighter note, I have recently up-dated to the latest messenger version myself; and have made a start on up-dating the skin for it. (I actually managed to crash it trying to open a conversation window, yay!). However, I do not have an actual date for when it may be finished.

There will not be a beta version at this time, since I have not modified any layout files; so you won’t see anything different, other than an icon or two. I have to re-learn the layout files slightly, since bits have most possibly changed between versions.

I do have the intention of up-dating though, but it just won’t be now. Paid employment is a little more important for me at this point in my life, so everything related to the internet has been pushed to the side. I’m also heading back to college next week, so I no longer have a day off to relax.

I hope you can all understand, and thank you again for your support.

Or somewhat.

Over the past five weeks I have been in full time employment at a hotel / restaurant / bar; where I am working as a Chef.

The time has been enjoyable; but it has impacted on my already lack of sleep. So much so the past three days have held very little hours of shut eye. This has caused me to stress out a little; with the added fact that on Fridays I have to peel and quarter three large bins of potatoes and one bin of carrots for Sundays. This is repetitive; tedious; and takes four hours.

For some un-known reason tonight; I have realised every single one of my issues relate to my on-line activities. I no longer have issues in my life, other than being single I suppose. Because I’ve already mentioned it three times to three separate people, I’ll just paste it:

I have a large number of projects that I will just never finish, yet I don’t want to ditch. I was happier giving support as a member, but if I leave the bl00s, I will leave for good. I only visit two sites frequently (support and hnz). Having to put up with the odd argument, or Nicola’s “oh, I have a job so I can’t do this” posts every three days is getting to me. There is little to no communication from the three reds I volunteer my time for; and have done for the past four years. It basically holds no significance anymore. I feel the internet is just not important.

Re-reading that, I’m tempted to correct the icky grammar. But I won’t. It’s authentic; un-edited; and what I said originally.

All of the issues I had with Zathyus Support shortly after the promotion still stand now. And I’m still disappointed.

Since I am now working, any projects I have started will be on hold, and I likely won’t finish them any time soon. Thank you to those of you who have emailed me, but I have to apologise again. The website and weblog won’t be up-dated either. And the community forums will just continue to die. My newest foodie board won’t be going anywhere I would like it to .. basically everything will stop. If it’s linked from here, or my profiles, don’t expect any changes.

Me; Me; Me; Ben; Ben; Ben; Me; Me; Me; Me; Me; Me; Me; Me; Me; Ben; Me; Me; Me; Me.

That’s the current status of Planet ZB. ¹

Ha!

Although I must say, Ben’s postings out-way mine in every aspect; except awesomeness.

Ooo, Ben! If you appear; can you change my avatar link?

1: Everyone else needs to start randomly posting rubbish on web-logs again.

Over the weekend, I spent a few hours jiggling files about for the main website and projects area, which allows for easier management on my part.

Whilst I was doing this, I made a small number of changes to some of the files; which meant I had to up-date the tabindex attribute on most of the links. Ever since I began using them I have hated them. They are nothing but a pain in the rear to organise. Every time I add a link into the middle of others, the tabindex below has to be increased to avoid conflict. For some reason, I end up needing to add new links every now and then.

I do have an idea on how to avoid this level of up-dating, but it’s finding the motivation to edit the damn things again.

Also, if anyone knows of a way php can be used to auto-magically increment the number every time a tabindex attribute is found throughout a page, let me know! I had tried to do this some time ago, but failed. It would be nice to be able to use that idea instead.

I have thus-far spent the past several hours reading through a handful of topics over at HNZ, in order to understand how the role playing game is played, and I’m more confused about what to do than how I feel after I’ve just woken up.

Okay, so maybe I didn’t have any sleep last night; and I somehow managed to watch rubbish on T.V until about 7am; and maybe my head hurts too much to actually read anything, but I’m in the mood to find out what an RP is; and how they are played.

/me :glare:’s at Nicolas’ status.

Non of this entry makes any sense.

It seems the sorting process will take place in September. That’s like, a long time away; like, forever!

Oh noes, I over-used the work like. Eeek. /me feels icky inside.

If I join this RP thingeh, I don’t particularly want to participate in an adult role; since I have no character; or back-story; or personal development; or skills; or experience; or .. you see where I’m going with this. I’m thinking starting at the beginning will be largely beneficial to my role playing; and the overall development of my character. Eee, look at me; I’m soo getting into this!

/me requires assistance. /me waits for the on-line sound from Nicolas.

Hopefully Mr Cape Stealer can clear a few items up for me, and I can join in over there. Hopefully.

Over the past few days, I have been working on a handful of up-dates for two of my Windows Live Messenger skins; All Woollie Sheep and Enhanced Live.

Enhanced Live simply reverts a number of changes, as well as a bug fix or two, with nothing new being added.

AWS, at this time, has also had one or two fixes; and one or two reversions, but I plan on up-dating compatibility to the latest version of messenger (9.0). I’m not sure on when this will be, as I will need to re-learn a few pieces; and actually up-grade;¹ and extract the resources; and see what 9.0 looks like; and plan on the best attack; and possibly other stuff. It will take a while.

I have also up-dated the screen shots for use within the projects, and made some thumbnails for light-box. That was ‘fun’.

¹ After this, I will cease designing for 8.5.

WordPress:

WordPress is now in the beta stages of 2.8, which should be a nice release. The team has been hard at work again to bring us users a great piece of software. A list of new features can be seen on the codex.

I have somewhat been waiting for the 2.8 release more than the others, but I have no idea why. :/

IP.Board:

A few days ago, the first release candidate for IP.Board 3.0 was released to customers for additional testing and bug finding. Having installed the release to test out features and fixes I’m a little happier with the work put in than I was previously. There is no e.t.a on the final release, but I’m starting to get excited for it, as I will finally be able to update the community forums; since they appear to be a little neglected at this time.

Over the following months I shall attempt to keep up to date with both of the above software’s, and maybe actually give a better opinion on them.

As part of the Zathyus Communities Create a Game contest, I have begun to run a small poker challenge on the support board.

Now, I don’t actually know anything about poker; but this is a learning curve for me, as well as a new challenge; which I thrive upon.

The challenge is only in round one; currently sat at the second round of betting, after the flop. Being run on a forum means there will be delays; issues; slow turns; and other bug type stuff. But all of that is a part of the fun.

I’m not overly sure as to why I started the challenge, I just had the idea, and posted a topic.

Hopefully game play will start to even out as everyone finishes their exams; leaving education forever, of just for the summer. Things should become a lot more interesting as the rounds advance, and I ramp up the cost of the blinds.

You’re welcome to head over and check out the challenge, and who knows; maybe you’ll be playing in the next one.

Two, maybe three days ago I set to work on finishing up/cleaning/updating the main style sheet used within the sites and weblog; since I often became side-tracked by other items and what-not.

Testing the fresher design locally, I was quite pleased with it, aside from one or two minor pieces that I would iron out a day or two later. Or at least I thought, until I updated the lightbox style sheet; and proceeded to upload both that one, and the main style sheet to the live server.

Oops.

Not what I had planned, but oh well; it looks great at the moment and can hold off a week or so for any tweaks I decide to make.

Each of the form elements; text areas, inputs, drop downs, etc have had a makeover; and are better that I thought they would be. It’s nice to have that feeling of accomplishment.

On top of the style sheet updates, I have started to use jQuery to achieve a couple of nice effects; most notably Lightbox and the toggle features available on the Projects pages. As I discover more plug-ins, I shall decide whether it’s worth adding or not; and I may also be using curvy corners in some places soon.

These where part of the minor tweaks I wanted to have finished first, before updating the site.