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August 19, 2004

Looks Like I'm Not Alone

Often times, when I'm pounding my head against the obstacle that is standing the way of me getting my work done, I feel that I'm all alone. That I'm the ONLY person who has run into the situation. Of course the real frustration is that deep down I know that this can't be the case. I can't be the only person that has run into the problem I'm facing.

Never has that been more true that with this site. This labor of love is comprised of a series of scripts, programs and hacks that make www.npug.org what it is. I know that the site will never be perfect, but there are so many things that I'd like to change and yet due to my limited skills as a programer, or web developer, I continually find my self beating my head against that familiar wall. Well, it looks like I'm not alone at one of my walls.

On the front page of the site is the "Event Calendar". Currently I have to edit this by hand, but ideally I wish I could let MT handle it for me. Today on one of my favorite weblogs, Asterisk, I found that Keith is running into the same hurdles as I have in his article entitled, "Simple Events Calendar With Movable Type." If you're into web design, or using MT beyond it's basic weblog format, it's a good read.

I'm definitely keeping my eye on this thread, but even if there's no solution, I'm just glad that I'm not alone. 8)

Posted by mashby at 03:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 15, 2004

Chat Section Done

Just to give you an idea of how long it takes to do even just a little section like Chat. I sat down thinking that I could knock it out in about 30 minutes. Two and a half hours later, I'm finally done with it. Well, except for the fact that I think I need an altered header image for the logs section.

Just the "Articles" section to finish and the "Polls" section to add and complete and I'll be over the hump. Maybe tomorrow I can tackle those two sections.

Posted by mashby at 11:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Needs More Than A Coat Of Paint

As I get deeper and deeper into applying the redesign to the site, it becomes more and more clear that this web site needs more than a coat of paint. Besides the fact that I'm not happy with the text (which I can fix later), I'm finding more and more areas where a script is needed or more rough work done on the CSS.

Take the Articles & Reviews section of the site. Many of the articles have photographs associated with them at the end of the entry. To see an old example, select this link. How should I handle these photographs? In the past, I created new pages in which to house each photo and thus provide navigation back to the article. Now that I'm using MT though, that doesn't really work in the overall design of what I've done.

So do I install a photos section and move the photos there? I'm planning on having a photo gallery and then link meeting photos to the gallery. Maybe I should do the same thing for articles? Since it's not installed at the moment, I don't really know exactly how I should handle it. For the first article with photos, I've left them off for the time being. I figure I can figure it out after I get the photo gallery installed, etc.

Part of the hurdle is that I'm converting something that is already created. Had I started this site from scratch, then I think it might have gone easier. I would have worked around whatever limitations and gone from there. It's just a little frustrating when you start into a new section and see just how much work it's going to take to get it where you want it to be.

Such is life eh? :s

Posted by mashby at 10:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A Great Meeting

Much to my surprise, yesterday's meeting was a huge success. Thanks to everyone's help, we had good attendance, good giveaways and a new backup place in which to hold our meetings.

Every month I think that we have nothing to talk about and that the meeting is going to bomb and yet each meeting turns out to be a surprise and to be quite successful. You'd think I'd learn right? ;)

Posted by mashby at 10:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 13, 2004

There's Never Enough Time

It's 3:03am and I'm just now getting around to putting up the meeting information. I've made attempts several times this week, but there simply hasn't been enough time.

For example, I had planned on posting it after dinner tonight, but fell asleep on the couch. After waking up to drag my ass to bed, I couldn't fall asleep. Knowing that the meeting notice hasn't gone out yet just kept me up. So here I sit pulling copy out of my butt to form an agenda and everything that I plan to talk about for Saturday.

It's not as if I'm alone though. I have one volunteer for one small segment and Randy has done his usual fantastic job of getting a bunch of door prizes for us. Not only that, but Fred has really been a blessing in getting us into CompUSA for this month's meeting. If I didn't have this kind of help, I think I'd hand this whole puppy over to someone else.

Well, that's a little too maudlin and there's a lot of work to do, so time to put my nose back to the grindstone!

Posted by mashby at 03:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 11, 2004

Giving AdSense A Try

Since I manage both NPUG and InterPUG, it only makes sense that I would run the ads for InterPUG. However InterPUG has been dying on the vine for the last year, so until I get that site back up and running, I thought I might as well give Google's AdSense a test run to see if it's worth my while.

I've been running it on my weblog mashby.com. It hasn't netted me a dime yet because I haven't hit the minimum for them to cut me a check, but I figure NPUG might actually tilt the tables in my favor. I've never made a dime off of NPUG and InterPUG has been in the red since day one, but maybe this will help. We'll see.

Posted by mashby at 09:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 08, 2004

Downloads Section Converted

After finally fixing a bug that was my own creation, I was able to get back, FINALLY, to converting the site over to the new design. I was able to get as far as the Downloads section.

Today was day two of getting my taxes done, so I didn't have time for much else. I filed an extension for the 2003 year and as although it feels like I just blinked, the August 15th deadline is just around the corner. Two 12-hour days later and I'm almost done. Woo hoo!

I plan on blocking out a few hours tomorrow to focus on getting the meeting section and maybe the front page up. We'll see. I have to get the meeting details posted for sure. That HAS to happen tomorrow.

Until then...

Posted by mashby at 10:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack