SJDGC Forum - Completed ... Finally

So after a nice length of time (20+hours) I have finally finished the migration of the SJDGC vanilla forum to SilverStripe forum. It took a lot of hours for something so small.

The beauty of these types of projects for me is I get to use what ever method I would like to get things done. I get to use my old DB classes I have used for years and some straight no framework PHP coding.

things i missed when first planning
  • html -> bbcode
  • db collation issues
things overlooked
  • posts last edited field when not a topic starter
  • Members in the Community Member Status

After doing some test imports of the topics for the forum I realized a bunch of things I had missed when planning the migration. I forgot the fact that one database was using latin_swedish_ci for collation and one was using utf8-general-ci which led to some funky characters. This was fixed by the following.

  1. if text field change to blob in db table
  2. change back to your previous text field type
  3. set collation to utf8 ... general_ci

The end result of all of this is the complete migration of the old forum into the new system. The users are linked to their respective posts. All the topics and comments are in place and the text is all correct.
A nice bundle of scripts for a Vanilla->SS Forum migration. Also some nice utility scripts for fixing text strings I had to make after some DB corruption/errors/mistakes. And the cherry on top is some nice snippets for my PHP editor for silverstripe and my libraries... gedit :-)

// a super simple to strip non-ascii characters from a string
preg_replace('/[^(x20-x7F)]*/','', $text_to_clean);

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Comments (0) October 17, 2009 5:28 am

issues ubuntu 9.04

after upgrading from 8.04->8.10->9.04 in less than a month i was stuck with a system that wasn't good enough. which as a linux lover was upsetting.

i have been a linux user for a decade and a ubuntu user for half of that time. i haven't seen such issues with upgrading since the old days.
current issues with 9.04 for me:

  • Xorg version doesn't support older FGLRX driver
  • USB problems

system specs:

  • AMD Turion64 1.8gz Mobile
  • 2 GB DDR PC2700
  • ATI Radeon Xpress 200M - mobile
  • HP Pavilion DV5000z - laptop

the new Xorg server doesn't support the previous versions of the fglrx drivers and you have to use the community driver ATI or Radeon. this would be great on 8.04/8.10, when i was running them previously i stopped using the proprietary fglrx driver and used the ATI with much better performance and a better desktop experience. though in 8.10 reinstall the ATI/Radeon drivers are working just as bad as when I had 9.04 running. this also bothers me because i shouldn't have such issues and should have the correct open source ATI driver like the last install. funny how things work.

ultimately to get this version of Ubuntu running at the moment you need to hack your system a little bit. on 9.04 i pretty much completely downgraded the Xorg server to the one from 8.10 which is a little hacky for my liking. but it allowed correct fglrx driver performance.

USB issues are still there. long delay on autodetect and mounting. often times not having access to my wireless trackball and complications with touchpad.
i am thinking maybe the wireless being on the usb_core system might be messing up the enumeration. not sure though.

conclusion i reinstalled 8.10 ... which i will describe some details of in a later post.

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Comments (1) October 04, 2009 8:16 pm

time ... past, future and how to get there

this is a holder entry for my section on time, theory and social theory.

  • relativity - einstein
  • back to the future - and it illustration of paradoxes
  • grandfather paradox
  • quantom mechanics
  • quantom theory
  • cause and effect relationship
  • effect and cause relationship
  • string theory
  • society and how we could be and will have to be
  • ... and even JC will make an appareance here believe it or not.
    • lastly i will be showing how my theories and philosophy can fit into any system of belief
    • this is possible because they are all talking about the same nonreligious principles i will be showing
      *this is not to endorse a faith or to give it any backing or credit, this is to allow others to take these philosophies and fit them into their beliefs effectively. the point is to not shun these ideas but understand how important they are no matter where your beliefs come from, even if that means using religious texts to back these concepts*

this will all end up to be "the future - how do we get there".
i have a vast ammount to talk about on the subject and will try to make this as objective and informative as possible by trying to include all my references and sources. i don't like just throwing out opinions that are more than educated guesses without proof or evidence for the conclusions. to much of a political thing to do.
and as always if anyone would like to challenge anything or needs anything to be clarified please feel free to contact me or leave a comment.

further information:
none of this will be meant to debunk or refute anyones beliefs or opinions. this will be my theories on life, people, philosophy and society with as much evidence from observation and knowledge as possible. i don't jump to conclusions quickly and i immerse myself into these topics before i have a formal "belief" ... law/theory ... for how things work. i don't take BS as evidence and theories are theories because they haven't been disproven not because they are correct. i am not the final answer on anything.

goal:
to inform and educate people on ideas that exist and to make people think. ultimately this is to get people to wake up and think as well. the social theory and society side will blow your mind if you allow the time to think about it ... about 3 weeks worth of thinking straight to get one point.

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Comments (0) October 04, 2009 7:57 pm

silkscreenexpressions moving forward

we are moving forward with silk screen expressions. we have spent time today updating some things and adding some flare.

newest udpates:

  • homepage
    • updated right side of page with icons instead of nubmers
    • updated navigation and removed numbers
    • implemented slideshow
  • updating site header
    will now be using a javascript slide show to show off the latest tshirt designs.
  • will be updating the navigation accross the whole site and removing the numbers
  • new pages coming soon

i hope everyone else is as excited as me about these sites. i can't wait to get all the content up and functioning 100%. i am completely immersed in these sites and am going to make sure they get done this time :-) .

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Comments (0) September 25, 2009 12:30 am

Excited ? ... Yes I am

I am very Excite.

As is said from he at lagbox, "good things are coming, good things". There is a lot of opportunity in the air and the timing might be right to finally pull resources together and do something with my lagbox network. Everyone is excited again and I have the time.

Direction and site content is highly needed as the network moves forward. I have limitless hosting to create as many sites as I would like so please if you have any ideas feel free to contact me. I am working with friends and trying to pull ideas together for some collaborative sites. We definately have to create some type of movement and get people out their informed. A good information site on what is going on is coming up after the initial sites of the network are in place.

I will be displaying my projects and my portfolio with the software I am creating and my test projects. After these sites are up I should have enough time and resources to create some new sites for everyone to enjoy.

As I get better at this blogging thing I will have some more thought out posts and some more interesting talk of my mind and projects coming soon.

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Comments (0) September 18, 2009 3:10 am