Blogs

Just wanted to drop a quick line about the two modules that I think should be the first to be installed in any new Drupal installation.

First up is Nice Menus.  When having to navigate the administration menu, it is nice to be able to use the simple fly-out menu rather than click a link and wait for a page to load just so I can click another link.  On production sites, I often only have this available to the administrator, but it is a nice time-saver.

UPDATE: I don't know how I missed this, but there is the Administration Menu module which looks promising.  I still like Nice Menus, but Admin menu is simple and at the top where it doesn't interfere with the rest of the page.  Either option is definitely a must for administrating a site!

The next module, which I think should really be a part of Drupal core, is Permission Select.  If you have multiple site administrators or moderators, you need to grant them blocks of permissions.  Actually, user 1 (the user created during Drupal installation) really shouldn't be used except for deep administration, leading to the necessity to create an 'administrator' role where most if not all permissions are granted to users.  By default, this means going through and selecting every checkbox in the permissions page.  Permission Select simplifies this by allowing you to select or deselect all checkboxes, or all of them in a group.  Extremely handy!

One of the benefits of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is that there are no toys coming out for quite some time that I'm interested in (with the exception of Animated Arcee -- I'm just not into the Bayformers.)  This has allowed me to work on other hobbies of mine.  I have a small collection of classic video games and systems, including the Atari 2600, Jaguar, NES, SNES, GameCube, Sega Genesis (with Power Base Converter and Sega CD), Saturn, and Dreamcast.  I have been in the process of getting all of these set up in my "game room" and getting back into enjoying this hobby.  After several years of neglect, some of these systems were rather dirty, so I've been painstakingly cleaning them up so they look about as good as new.

It started with a second Dreamcast that I have which I got from a friend.  This thing was quite dirty from sitting around for a while collecting dust (not to mention that it looked like it had been played with while eating.)  I disassembled the controller and took the top off the system and washed these with warm water and dish soap.  Using a sponge and old toothbrush, I was able to get this looking like new!  In fact, I wound up doing the same thing to my original Dreamcast just so it wouldn't look bad by comparison (this one survived an apartment fire, and still showed some signs of that event.)  I then turned my attention to the old NES.  I currently have 2 NES systems, and had to replace the 72 pin connector, so while I was at it, I decided to completely clean the cases.  The one system wasn't too bad, and cleaned up pretty nicely.  The other had some discoloration and scuff marks, but after some scrubbing with the old toothbrush, it came out looking pretty good.  Not perfect, but good.

Finally, I recently purchased a couple of those cheap after-market 6-button Genesis controllers off ebay (from the listing, they looked like Saturn controllers, but were basically the same mold as the official 6-button controllers.)  These work great, and I'll use them for playing games on the Genny, but I wanted my original 3-button controllers to work again for another project I have in mind.  These controllers had seemed to wear out from some pretty heavy game-play back in the 90's -- some of the buttons weren't responding, and the D-pad was unreliable.  I took the controller apart, washed the casing, the buttons, and the rubber contact pads, then reassembled everything.  Now, it seems to work like new!  While I probably won't use them much for playing games (I mean, there are times you NEED 6 buttons), I do plan to use them for a project I'll be showing soon (next month or so...  I hope.)

After a bit of a lull, I have been getting things together so I can get back to developing on my new computer.  I had to assemble the compiler (VC++ Express 2008) and a whole bunch of libraries.  It's looking like I might not have lost a few things in transition, but nothing too drastic.  I'm hoping to get back to steady work on my "top secret, super-cool game engine" soon.

Laurie and I got married a couple weeks ago and spent our honeymoon in Branson, MO. Really had a lot of fun. We stayed at a GREAT little bed and breakfast (Crystal Cove) just outside of all the hustle and bustle of Branson. Then we went down into Arkansas for a couple days and stayed in another awesome cabin (Silver Run Cabins). Now we are adjusting to married life living in our new house. And waiting for our new sofa to arrive...

Yes, after I don't know how long (at least a year), I have finally managed to get around to putting the site up in Drupal.  Drupal has a much steeper learning curve than Joomla, but once you play with it a bit, you find that it really isn't so bad.  It's not as dependent on components as Joomla, allowing you to do pretty much anything you would want to do out-of-the-box.  (Ok, so you'll want CCK and Views to make life easier.)  Overall, I'm very pleased with it.  Now if I could just get the "network administrators" at work to get with the rest of the civilized world and get the LAMPP server going (who in this day and age still uses ACCESS for a web database!?  (besides us.))

In other, more exciting news: Laurie and I are getting our stuff moved into our new home!  It's actually starting to look like someone may actually live there.  Almost.

Ok, I'll admit I actually like Visual C++.  Writing make files never appealed to me, and there isn't another IDE out there that is as nice to use as Visual Studio (although Code::Blocks is very close.)  However, I've been have to go through some old code that was written in VC++ 5.0 and getting it to compile in VC++ 2005 (or later.)  Unfortunately, there's an awful lot that is almost hopeless and needs to be completely reworked.  What's really got me aggravated at the moment, though, is how VC++'s lack of standards compliance has allowed coders to write bad code.  Case

Well, it's been a while, so I'll go ahead and make a post.

A couple weeks ago, I got engaged!  It's exciting and hectic all at the same time.  September 12 is the day, so mark your calendars.

The office for Jamination caught fire and was destroyed on January 17.  We have found new digs, and it is much better than the old building.  It just feels so much more professional.  Of course, I'd have rather not had to deal with a fire, but the new place is nice.  Fortunately, quite a bit of the stuff was backed up.

It's taking a while, but I just haven't had the time to devote to this that I'd like.  I'm almost ready to make the site live!!!  Turns out, Drupal isn't really too bad to learn.  It does have a steep learning curve, but once you get over a few hurdles, it is pretty straight-forward.  I just about have my download manager ready.  This was one of my major concerns, as Joomla uses the excellent DocMAN, and Drupal doesn't have much in the way of a competitor.  However, by using standard modules, I seem to have come up with something that is just about li

It's still summer, and I have begun migrating. I changed registrars for my domain, mostly because I had another account with my new registrar, and they were about $5 cheaper per year. I also moved servers since my other account allows for add-on domains. This means I can run both sites without having to pay twice for hosting. Plus, it just makes things nicer to have them all together. The other big move is to get the site from Joomla to Drupal. I don't know that this is exactly necessary, but I'm liking Drupal more and more as I play with it.