Michael Wright

Feels like ages since I last updated this, perhaps because it is. Well here is an update outlining some things that have happened between the last update and this one, there is no point me updating you on what hasn’t happened now is there?

wImg has been taken offline. This was down to some server costs that couldn’t be covered at the time, but rest assured that it will be making a return but perhaps not under the same name, and it’ll also have a larger source of funding including an outside source.

Refresh Text is going well, I haven’t got back round to updating it yet, although I will have to sometime soon so that the client gets their Polish pack out and fixed/bug tested.

I’m now at uni and have been working on some Java. The tutorial work that has been done during the tutorials is available online for you to peruse through. That quick site uses a simple AJAX code to get the Java file and load it into the code box at the top of the page.

Other than that, my new project hasn’t moved far. The coding and design stages have started, mainly ’cause I was told that I could use it as part of my project for my first Uni Year for one of my modules. Other than that, I’m still sending the emails out to various people regarding it.

Finally, I have got my account on Google Wave, and have had it since the start of the month and it’s so much better when there are other people on there to chat to. So now it’s better than when I first registered!

Stay tuned for more updates!!

One thing I noticed when working on a forum earlier for a client was the fact that I couldn’t set it up to allow more than one domain. I searched online and found nothing. So I took the development root of tweaking the coding.

It wasn’t all that hard to do – it’s just a matter of redefining the variable $board_url outside of the “settings.php” file. Of course, making sure it’s defined after the “settings.php” file is loaded, otherwise it will be overwritten.

So load up your “index.php” file – and head down to line 50/51. Where you’ll see:

// Load the settings...
require_once(dirname(__FILE__) . '/Settings.php');

Now below that paste the following code:

//Redefine the board URL - Multiple Domains
$boardurl = 'http://' . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] . '/forum';

Of course, make sure you modify the ‘forum ‘ to the sub-directory that you’re using. That variable mustn’t contain a trailing slash!

That’s it, save it, and you’re done.

Note: the redefining of the boardurl will not be mirrored into your server settings.

Preview of Stinky666's T-Shirt

So I thought I’d do a designer a favour and promote his recent T-Shirt. I guess if I promote it enough, he’ll send me a free one… Probably wishful thinking, but still, worth a try. It’s a t-shirt that this friend of mine created from scratch. It was then put through a public voting process with many other t-shirts to see which should be turned into a t-shirt. There is a sample of the t-shirt within this post.

Make sure you check out the site at least which is here. I’ll definitely be looking to buy one sometime in the near future, and perhaps giving it away as a prize for some sort of contest or something. Who knows?

The designer goes by the alias of ‘Stinky666′, and here is his deviantART.

If you have a piece of work/art that you would like featuring here, please let us know!

My current client’s site currently has a name – that’s right, the name is going to be Refresh Text. It’s still in the alpha development stage, however there are over 20 users currently registered on the site. The site is in a semi-open alpha in that if you would like to have a test of the site, then feel free to comment & I’ll email you a link to the site.

The site is hopefully going to be transferred over to it’s own server within the next 48 to 72 hours, after one or two more features are installed and some final rigorous bug testing is done. Once the site is released publically, the link will be publically released here on my blog.

Keep an eye out!

That’s right, we’ve reached the 90,000 uploads mark on wImg … with now just under 10k to go before we hit the almighty 100k. furthermore, in just a few days time, wImg will be hitting it’s 1st Birthday.  Look out for new things coming to wImg.

In other birthday news, Tuesday was my brother’s 21st birthday. Definitely a few years older than wImg – but nonetheless, it was fun to go an celebrate with him.

Look out for an upcoming review of Virtual Forums as they release their new v2 software on Friday evening.

Domain Sales

Currently I’m in the process of selling some of my domains these are :
imgsnap.co.uk, imgsnap.net, tpixel.net and ision.org.uk

If you’re interested in purchasing those, let me know in a comment on this post.

Holiday

Starting tomorrow evening I’ll be on holiday till Tuesday evening. I won’t be online during this time – however might have emails.

wImg & wServices

Last night wImg experienced downtime of an hour or so. As a result, wServices will be changing server to allow for SMS notifications to be sent to me when wImg is down in the future. Hopefully this will cut down on our downtime substantially.

Last night I was approached by the owners of Coders Hangout and after they read my review they decided that they should take some action. Thankfully a new member bar has been added, and the ugly side bar has been removed. Definitely a step in the right direction for Coders Hangout … more importantly, this now makes their site more easy to navigate for me – and so they’ll hopefully see me as a more acitve contributor.

URL: http://codershangout.co.uk

Coders Hangout Main Page - Screenshot

Description: Web Design Forums | Web Development Forums – We give free, expert advice on any web design and development related issues. We also offer free web site critiques.

Review: First thing that you notice when you come to the site is probably the colourfulness. Coders Hangout is made up of an array or blues and greens, with some white for backgrounds. Coders Hangout is probably one of the first places that I would head to if I needed any form of advice with how to do something. It offers advice in a huge range of topics, from Starting Out to SEO.  Unfortunately CH has a problem or two – much like all websites do. However, I’ll come to those later.

CH is running vBulletin – which is rather usable in itself – unless the site owner decides to slaughter it and make the most un-friendly site possible. vBulletin is a rather good forum software, one of the leading brands out there. With vBulletin, lots of addons are available so running a forum is rather simple – but that’s not what we’re here to review. CH is active, with over 150 members and over 8000 posts. Perhaps not that many considering when it opened, but bear in mind that very little advertising of CH has taken place. CH is a very ‘niche’ site – and for that reason, the people on it know their stuff.

One thing that is noticed is the presence of advertisements, not that it’s a problem because websites need to stay alive some how – and advertising is the only sure way of doing it. There aren’t hundreds of adverts on the site unlike other competitor sites, or just other sites in general. However, you’ll find one at the top of the forum, and one on the left.

What I don’t like about the site is the fact that it looks bulky – how does it look bulky? I don’t know – but it does. The rounded head images are rather over-sized, and the green bars within the category, are they necessary, afterall, they’re just blank!  Animated advertisements annoy the hell of out of me, and the one in the partners box on the left is annoying too – that would definitely put me off the site.

Actually, why can’t the whole side bar be removed – at least give us, the user, the option to remove it if we want – it’s restrictive, and  useless to a general user. Granted it contains adverts and what not – but the only useful part would be the top section which has either the guest login or the current member’s info – throw that into a nice horizontal bar instead!

What would I do?

This is the part where I say what  I would do to the site to make it more to my own taste, and how I would want it – furthermore, it acts as a suggestion box for the site owners/developers.

Firstly – that side bar needs to go – it’s useless – let’s get rid of it – or give the user’s the option to remove it if they want!  I’d also relocate some of the ads to the bottom of the page – granted it’s not one of the most clicked places, but it’s out of the way and won’t put the members off.

Make it more ‘3D’ and ‘hip/hop’ … currently it’s very bland – throw a new skin on it, one that’s more usable and lightweight, I personally prefer things to be really lightweight, with few, or no side bars or small! It’s not a problem that the site is fluid, it’s a problem however when the first half of my screen is taken up by something that isn’t the required content viewing as a guest.

All in all, I’d probably give the site a 7.5 out of 10 – it can be improved on rather simply – perhaps just by getting a more ’sleek’ skin. Move to web 2.0 Coders Hangout, and move on up – you’ll attract a hell of a lot more people that way.

Want your site reviewing? Leave a comment to one of our reviews, and we’ll contact you!

wImg Host Main Page - Screenshot

Created: July 2008

URL: http://wimg.co.uk

Description: A free image and file hosting service, offering people the option of over 20 different extensions and upto 10MB per upload. Newly added, wImg offer users the option to snip really long URLs down to a more managable size.

Coding Used: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, AJax, PHP and MySQL

wImg has been something I’ve been trying to create for years – however in the past I haven’t taken it professionally or for that matter seriously. In the past, I’ve ran premade scripts with minimal features and without any means by which to expand the service to do what I want it to. However, come July, it was decided that I would create my own Image Host. It started off more as a test to see if I could do it – well I could.

I began by writing a simple upload form & really really simple backend. On the first day, I had a total of 4 Uploads. July was a slow month, but not to worry because we’d just started and to be honest, why would someone use us over a competitor?

Word soon began to spread around that wImg was the place to be for the image hosting that you require. It was simple & fast, and most of all – it was advert-free, what more could people want? Well, they wanted was more extensions, and also – the ability to upload larger filesizes. With that – I provided. v1 was to be blunt, simple and outdated after a few months. So I commissioned a designer to create what would become v2. v2 would host a range of new features which were made possible by a server change.

The server change – this was down to the fact that with a previous host we were with, we were overusing our resources – and at that stage, it was decided to upgrade the hosting while we were at it. So we now run wImg from a UK server, we chose a UK server simply because it’s a UK based company – and so therefore should be tied to UK laws. With this change we were able to create new features that hadn’t been on wImg before.

V2 saw new features including more uploads in the multi-uploader, ability to upload via URL – the ability to tag an image – 5 of the most recent ’safe’ uploaded images. And to top it all off, wImg had a better stats page. What we wanted to have was complete transparency between our host, and our clients (the users), we wanted them to know what was going on – as and when.

With this transparency came the publicly accessible personal email address of wImg Host – just the one email address, and all emails are read & replied to. Not only that, but wImg v2 bought about something better … something people wanted, but some didn’t want. The ability to keep track of previous uploads.

Member accounts was a big thing – it’s something that people have wanted, and people have needed, thankfully it’s been a big success, with over 175 members, and over 4,000 uploads [at the time of writing].

v2.5 was the new thing on the block – it was set for release around the time of the 11th month – or for that matter, now! v2.5 was planning to boast features that other image/file hosts didn’t. Including personalised URL forming, wSnip [a URL shortener] integration, txt/css/js file creator & editor … and more.  Many of the v2.5 features are starting to roll out – with the URL shortener now available for use in the left hand side bar on the wImg website – and the editor & creator is also available.

The Future: wImg hopefully has a bright future, either as a more experimental task, or simply as a business, new features are planned for release including paid member accounts, and a new look. So stay in touch for v3, and for our year anniversary in 2 weeks time, it’s going to be big.

Hi there.

This site is going to be the new home of my blog and portfolio. I’ll be adding coding snippets, random links, and further more reviews of sites and other such things. So stay tuned for lots of upcoming things.

I’ll be kicking off very soon!

Ciao-for-now

Michael