Author: Ben

I’ve finally started coding my site, currently the layout is exactly the same as the current site, not that that’s a bad thing, but meh. I’d rather get the backend code working properly before I even think about any form of design.

Hopefully using the templateing system that I’ve implemented I’ll be able to do layout tweaks without even touching the actual php code, and maybe even devise way of changing the template, whether this will be user based or not I’ve yet to decide – but the code is there.

I’m also looking into some spam protection, as I’m fed up of deleting the stuff, currently I’ve managed to keep it down by blocking one net range, but I’d rather not go ban happy as it may actually block out legitimate users – something I’d rather not do at all.

The code I have so far, whilst being really early on in the processes is a lot tidier than my old code, and I’m actually commenting it this time, so I know what the hell stuff does LOL.

For those of you who’ve seen parts of the code, I’ve stopped with the stupid variable names (I had shit like $cheese, before LOL) and actually used half sensible shit this time.

And the database is actually going to use proper data types this time, and some keys, so this might actually speed up the process.

Pagination is also on my list, as with 500+ quotes (well there won’t be soon, I’m cleaning that out, lots of repetition, and generally unfunny stuff), and 50 posts, it’s beginning to get annoying to read.

The worst part of all of this shall be transferring the data from one database to another. I’m not going to keep the site counter, that shall be restarted, and I’m going to – as I’ve already said, cleaning out the quotes database.

For anyone who actually is bored enough to want to see how I’m getting on, here’s the URL for the test site – bear in mind this probably won’t work half the time, due to me screwing with it.

http://bod.sytes.net/omgnew2

So yeah, I’ve kind of started my new site, just creating the DB at the moment. Using some sense this time, like using proper data types etc, so the site might not run at the speed of a slug swimming in treacle.

Hopefully I can start to get to work on the main php code sometime…soon I dunno when.

But it’s a start :P.

Seriously needs an update.

So yah, in about 2 weeks, when I’ve finished college for good, I’m going to get down to working on this site, as I’ve been neglecting it for aaaaaages. There are a number of things that need to be done.

I really need to work on more text parsing shit, like possibly bulleted lists, so I don’t have to use gay o’s to do it.

The entire stats section needs sorting out, I’m going to run most of it as a cron job, to save SQL being raped every time the page is loaded just to do all those sums.

Every SQL query on the site needs optimising, as MySQL is being used *heavily, I’m seeing like 1GB+ of data being loaded since its start-up (about 80days ago), and that’s just insane for a ~1mb database. I *know* the site hasn’t been loaded that many times.

The quotes DB needs a bit of a cleanout, there’s a lot of repeating jokes and stuff in there that’s just cluttering things.

The comments page needs some kind of verification, as I’ve been seeing *insane* amounts of spam on it. The last comment ID that was left was about a week ago was 438 (they’re sequential), and the increment number on SQLs db is like 590. That’s just insane for a week.

I need to generally tidy all the code of the site, the whole thing is so bad and kinda… hacked, which would explain the dire speed of the site half the time.

I’m considering upgrading MySQL to 5 from 4.1, this will require a large amount of work as the DB will need to be altered and I may have to change some queries etc.

The server itself will need some software upgrades; I’m also getting a NAS soon which I will connect to the server too, which means I might as well do a buildworld to upgrade the OS and such.

I’m also going to generally tidy up the HTML output of the site, as parts of it are…interesting.

My Admin panel also needs to be revamped, as performing certain duties is just unpleasant.

And finally, I’m going to work on some pagination stuff, so the quotes DB doesn’t take an age to load.

So yeah…in about 4 weeks when I’ve finished college and had a rest, I’ll get to work (I hope).