FLIP + CHING

Brian’s Website Makeover

Posted on August 6, 2005 by Ching under Web.

Brian’s website makeover is almost complete! For the record, the design is not mine. It’s one that he found on the internet. It’s actually a web template for a car dealership – of all things! He tweaked it and made it work, though. I’ve just been enlisted to make sure that code and the links work. So my portion of the overhaul is very limited.

Anyway, Brian is really proud of it so you all should go check it out and comment on the new look of his web site.

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The New Hotness

Posted on August 6, 2005 by Brian under Web.

Welcome to my new Blog, I decided that the simple templates that the Blog had were not for me. So i spent the last month getting this one prepared and then made Ching upload it for me.

As soon as the “MusicVideo.Com” site is repaired I will have some new videos for everyone to see. feel free to leave a tag on my board to let me know what you think.

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I’m a Blumbering Idiot

Posted on August 5, 2005 by Ching under Life.

Just so you know, I don’t just blog about my successes. I blog about my failures, too. The last couple of days have been rough. It seems I’ve bit off more than I could chew.

I was still high from the successful overhaul of the Mid-Kansas MVPA web site and the last two days I’ve messed up pretty badly at work. You know how I can’t tolerate incompetence, so I just feel like jumping off the top of the Epic Center. I would jump off the Eiffel Tower, but that’s not in Wichita. I’d have to fly to France just to jump off it and I can’t really afford the trip. Especially, since we just paid $80 to fix the AC.

When I came home from working out the other day the AC was making this really loud noise. It almost sounded like something was stuck in it. Anyway, I bumped up the temperature so it wouldn’t kick on. When Brian arrived home, naturally it was hot. He turned the temperature down and sure enough the loud noise came back. He asked me about it and I told him that the AC was already in that condition when I arrived home and I didn’t know what was wrong.

So Brian called Fahnestock, the people who installed our furnace and AC not too long ago, yesterday. They said they could come out today. It would be $70 just for the service call. Brian already warned me ahead of time that the blower/fan thing is not covered by the warranty any longer so if they needed to make repairs it would probably be extra. Talk about bad news. Anyway, Brian took a half day off from work to be here for the serviceman.

At first it was going to be $250 in addition to the service call, but then Brian calls me back ranting that there is a God! Apparently the blower wheel came apart and this component is still covered by the warranty. We would need to pay for labor only. So Brian was telling me it would probably be a $150 ($80 for labor and then the $70 service call). I told him to speak to the guy again because I was thinking that the $70 service call is the minimum for them to come out and that is if they don’t do anything. My understanding is that on these types of things, you pay for the repairs if they actually end up doing the work — but not in addition to the fee for the service call.

In the end, it only cost us $80. So there is a God! Of course, it would’ve been nice not to have to spend the money. We couldn’t roast in the house for another day, though. Things had come to a head and it was life or death at this point.

It’s been one hell of a week with good news and bad news popping up at the most unexpected times. The news of the AC being fixed at a lower cost than expected was pretty good, but it couldn’t make up for the rough day I had at work with my scheduling blunders.

I left work late and totally exhausted. I went straight to the APL, got there early and just moped. I did pretty well before break, winning some great showdowns. I would share the hands with you, but I’m afraid most of you won’t get it anyway (since you all aren’t poker nerds like I am). I almost succeeded in forgetting about my horrible performance at work. All that was short-lived, though, because you know how I just can’t let things go sometimes and I will let things fester until all that is left is a big crater of puss.

What a shitty day this has been! I hope Brian doesn’t mind postponing his web site overhaul again. I’m really not in the mood tonight. Besides, the way things are going for me right now, I’d probably just mess it up anyway!

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It’s a Labor of Love

Posted on August 3, 2005 by Ching under Web.

That, and you know that I’m a nerd who enjoys creating websites and stuff. What am I talking about? I’m talking about the Mid-Kansas Military Vehicles Preservation Association website overhaul that I started last week. I’m almost finished and it so totally rocks! They can maintain the sight without having to code a lick of HTML. That’s how totally awesome I am!

Although, the endeavor posed a few challenges that I didn’t expect. For instance, I knew I was going to use a content management system (CMS) for the ease of maintenance aspect. I was leaning towards Drupal or Mambo until I realized that the 10G hosting package that the club has does not allow for any MySQL databases. So I had to look for something that uses flat files. I was stuck for a while, so I quit thinking about it and decided to tackle the photo gallery section instead.

My initial thought was to use SimpleViewer, which is what my friend Ritchie uses but I couldn’t get it to work to save my life. I sent him a plea for help via email but he was MIA. I was on my own and wasn’t getting anywhere. So I ditched the SimpleViewer idea and used SimplePhotos instead. It’s really basic, but it installed in like a minute. It works great and, best of all, Brian’s dad likes it.

With the photo gallery being a hit, I decided to bring my focus back to the search for a suitable CMS. The only flat file CMS I could find is ReloadCMS. Good thing it is pretty simple to install because the documentation is total crap. It’s written in Russian or some other language and the translation is horrible! So I’m pretty much jumping off a plane without a parachute on this one. I’m doing the customization and tweaking by trial and error. So far so good, though.

Tonight we are ready to start the overhaul of Brian’s website, which he’s really excited about. We were supposed to start it last night, but I got so wrapped up in the club website. You know how that goes.

Anyway, let me know what you think of the club website. It’s a work in progress, but all the sections are functional so feel free to register and play around with it.