Inexperienced Me

I’ve actually bought a domain and hosting lately. But not for me, for my club. I’m the webmaster for the club, or clubs. Interact and Octagon.

However, the host seems to be experiencing some problems from time to time. The day after I bought the hosting, the server had apparently been killed, and my account had been deleted. I clicked up the Live Support and told the support person. He fixed it up quickly and nicely, sending me a few smiley emoticons and apologized for the troubles. I was at ease.

But once in a while, the host seems to have a site-wide PHP problem where all I get is an internal server error for ever PHP page when I try to access the site and the error_log says some strange things like:


[22-Jul-2008 08:15:59] PHP Warning: Module 'eAccelerator' already loaded in Unknown on line 0
[22-Jul-2008 08:15:59] PHP Warning: Module 'suhosin' already loaded in Unknown on line 0
[22-Jul-2008 08:15:59] PHP Warning: Module 'ionCube Loader' already loaded in Unknown on line 0


And I feel like I should just switch hosting. But I’m leaving for Taiwan soon and have homework, so I can’t deal with another host change. Plus, it seems that these problems only started after the “server death” (as I had checked up with the site before signing up) and the support dude (who seems to be also the one on the forums whose post I found the link of) was so nice and helpful. And the dude who was on the forums whose post I found the link of slash support dude, he seems like an intelligent person. Not like that “Jamie Timbre” that had been exposed as a scammer by Jem.

I’m really just thinking optimistically.

Plus, I used a limited-use coupon. So the deal was really cheap.

Wordpress 2.5

I’ve upgraded. Really, I’ve only upgraded so quickly because the screen shots of the new post page show how really sexy it is. It’s those buttons. And the dashboard is so… useful and beautiful!

Except for the fact that it’s stupid because it’s not very fluid. Very fluid? I mean that it’s fluid for resolutions up to 1024 by 768, but anything larger (in width) than that will have the main portions no longer stretch.

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one complaining about this, check search the blogs with Google with the words “wordpress 2.5 widescreen” if you’d like.

I’ve changed the stylesheet to my liking, however, and made a little plugin for those who don’t want to dig into their stylesheets. It’s only four lines of code, I believe. Just add it to somewhere like: wp-admin > css > global.css

.wrap, .updated, .error { max-width: 5000px !important; }
.updated, .error { max-width: 4970px !important; }
div.dashboard-widget { margin-right: 15px !important; }
#rightnow { margin-right: 2px !important; }

Here’s a quick plugin. Save it as a “.php” file and upload it to your plugins folder. Activate it. wp-fluid.txt

This plugin makes the max-width much larger, so that it’ll support much larger screen resolutions. It also fixes a discrepancy between the padding in the main pages. It was put together after a brief snoop of the current stylesheet.

Otherwise, here’s my pros and cons list

Pros

• It’s beautiful.
• It’s a welcomed design from the old admin panels, which was pretty cluttered in some spots. And this design isn’t one to distract.
• Tag management is completely supported.
• Searching everything is supported, no more plugins.
• Dashboard widgets.
• Automatic plugin upgrade. This is wonderful, no more wasted time on plugins.
• That media gallery is awesomes.
• No more messing with my code in posts.

Cons

• The contrast isn’t impressive. Some thing’s need me to squint a little on my laptop. The light blue’s not doing much favors.
• Obviously, the non-fluidity.
• The font size isn’t very impressive on some parts of the admin pages. Making it bigger with Firefox provokes some sections to semi-break. (See the “Settings, Plugins, Users” menu.)
• Some things that used to be on the sidebar of the post pages are now under the textarea. I don’t like that. Especially the categories.

Multi-Crossover Fanfiction

I rather like crossover fanfiction. Though, it is the scum of all fanfiction, I’ve always found it interesting. Or at least, interesting when I find a story written by an author who likes to show how excellent their skill is in making another’s characters alive.

But MULTI-CROSSOVERS. Not just two, never three. There is always an interesting thing where there is a story with five different characterverses in one. And I’d read these, except for the fact that:

1. They are always written by idiots.
2. There’s always a fandom that I’ve never read/watch into.
3. That fandom is one that I want to read/watch into:
   1. Discworld
   2. Firefly
   3. Star trek
   4. Lost

Well, I don’t think Lost would be good for fanfiction, anyway. But it’s always there.