Magicmoonbeams's Blog

Battle # 2 – New Hosting

magicmoonbeams — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:51:40 +0000

Flipping heck, I said I wanted experience in getting a domain and hosting sorted but this has been a very trying time indeed. It’s taking ages and it’s still not sorted. Currently trying to connect my domain name to the name servers and it’s telling me the domain doesn’t exist. Just what I need. Endless chats with help desks. No phone numbers to call for help. Half the time the help desk is closed…My mate at work laughed and stated that’s why they get you to pay for full customer support…and he’s right I reckon…

So, its a race to the finish line as my project needs to get up there for Tuesday and the hosting environment at UTS doesn’t particularly like my site and takes it down each night (resets permissions on the FTP server).

I’ll let you know how I go!!!

755

magicmoonbeams — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:52:27 +0000

Interesting situation with the hosting of my website with UTS. The platform I’m using, ZenPhoto/ZenPage, requires permissions to be set up within it directory structure to allow you to edit files and so on. Great. Did that. But the site was still not working. With some very handy advice from Alastair and a magic bit of code we managed to figure out that I also needed to change the permissions on my root folder to 755. Magic. It worked. The bones of my site were up.

The next day I logged in to find the website had gone again. I decided to check the permissions again as the thought struck me that the UTS server may have backed up over night and part of that process may have been to do a clean sweep and set all the permissions back to the default 711.

So, each day I go to my FTP server and reset the permission for my site. This is not really a long term solution so I have arranged for some external hosting and registered my new domain name. Great experience albeit for a small fee. More on this experience soon as I will be transferring all my working files to this new host in the next week or so.

Coming along

magicmoonbeams — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 06:28:00 +0000

The website is coming along. Got some nice styles sheets going on (considering my complete lack of hands on design skill). Funny thing happening between my PC and Mac when I view it though. Some pages are missing when viewed on the Mac version. Will delve deeper and find the problem. Checked it out against different web servers i.e. Firefox v’s Safari. Both PC versions are ok but Mac versions missing info. Might be my PC web browsers are more recent versions but that won’t do as a solution as the greater public will face the same issue. Will report back on these strange goings on…

Battle

magicmoonbeams — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:03:57 +0000

Having a right old ding dong battle with Zen Photo (the platform I intend to use as the basis of my site). I have downlaoded the code, uploaded to the ftp and changed all the code to connect to the MySQL database. All looks good so I hit the GO button. Up comes a landing page with Go to Gallery and Go to Admin. If I go the The Galley – it’s just a blank page. If I go To Admin I have the full admin back end up and running. I can upload photo’s choose themes add libraries – everything I could possibly want it to do. I go to view the main site form the admin site and there’s a big blank page. I think I’ve left something out….delete all files off the FTP and download Zen Photo again. Same thing happens. I have been through all the code and passwords and made sure nothing is going wrong with the set up. As far as I can tell its all tickety boo. I have done this three times over the last two weeks with the same result. Infuriating…

I asked a mate to download Zen Photo and see if it was me being dumb – he had success. I think the problem may lie in the UTS server side as it may not be letting me access some of the code. PHP admin rights perhaps. No idea. I can’t find answers in the FAQ’s on the ZP site.

Options (in no particular order):
Find a new host server
Contact UTS admin
Get on the blog to the Zen Photo community
Find another platform

Anyone used Zen Photo before and experienced these issues?

Tactical ads. Newpapers v’s Web

magicmoonbeams — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 05:19:48 +0000

Interesting argument about how newspapers could get tactical advertising messages out in the domain very quickly (the next day after the storm there were loads of ads in the Daily Tele). I don’t recall seeing any digtial versions. Debate ensued around the office over whether it would have taken too long to create the digital version and get them posted to sites for the next morning. The newpapers have slightly missed the point however, that for immediacy of the actual event unfolding that the web won the game hands down. Who cares about ads anyway!

Read the full article here

At last…

magicmoonbeams — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 05:03:32 +0000

It’s taken me about 10 attempts on my blog to put up this hilarious picture below. I hope you find my efforts rewarding!

Sydney Dust Storm

magicmoonbeams — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 05:01:15 +0000

Locked in!

magicmoonbeams — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:38:49 +0000

Hey all, don’t sit with your headphones on in the class rooms anytime after 9pm. I was tapped by security at 9.30pm last week – still grappling with the practical – and was show to the door by the very friendly security gurad. She went one way and disappeared, I went the other and then got stuck on that floor! All the stair doors were locked and the lifts went nowhere. Stranded!! I looked for a phone to call someone and none in sight. Not even any numbers for me to cal on my mobile. Only one thing to do after 10 minutes of walking around like an idiot…shout really loudly. Errr Hello…HELLO.

Eventually I was set free with a slighly raised pulse but otherwise unharmed! Be warned!!!

MySQL database

magicmoonbeams — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:07:02 +0000

I had the fear about databases as there is a mountain of information on the myphp admin interface. Most of it should be ignored for now is my take on it. I enjoyed watching how various bits of code manipulated the database and how you could control large amounts of information with simple commands. I need to use this type of database so feeling particularly good tonight…

Reflections 8

magicmoonbeams — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 08:07:15 +0000

Mucking about with CSS and having a ball. Coming from a old skool graphics background I’m quite taken aback at how the visual on the screen (which used to be page!) is actually coded in reality. It makes perfect sense but getting my head around a set of commands/values rather than dragging/clicking has been a real eye opener. Like anything it takes a while to get used to but is becoming more natural with each pass.

I can’t imagine I’ll be winning any design awards this year though!