It's been since April/May since I haven't posted for a whole month, this time about 5 weeks, actually. Even though this is just a small blog that I don't place much importance in, I still try to write a few blogs a month. Every once in a while however I get "webbed" out and/or "coded" out, this happened although shortly after I was working on AdaptBB quite a bit. Anyways...
Just the other week I went to my Dad's Wedding which I was nervous about for various reasons, a smaller one being that it was a wedding and I don't like to be infront of a lot of people. (I was his best man) Anyways I had a good time, helped to be away for a few days. I'm going to FINALLY add pictures of myself in the Gallery the next few days.
I've also been busy off and on putting in job applications, as well as a few interviews but nothing has panned out yet. I'm hoping to get a decent part time job hopefully this winter so I can save up money. Also I'm finally going for my driving temps along with my Mom late this month/early November, really excited for that. I probably won't be able to get my license however, until early next year.
Other than the aforementioned I can't think of too much else. I have been working on AdaptBB and will be revealing some info and screen shots on Monday, so be sure to stay tuned to AdaptBB.com. The script is actually coming along nicely and I hope to have a demo and beta in the next few weeks.
Not to sneak this in at the bottom, but as I have in the past, I'm going to try and cut down the amount of web stuff I have. I have right now (I'd link to them, but it's 1 AM right now) - InsaneVisions (AdaptCMS - active, AdaptBB - active, OneCMS - not active), adapt, GTA IV Universe, PCR, DW, Bengals Chatter, 24 Quotes, PY and this blog. I know a lot of that isn't every day work, but to break it down a bit:
InsaneVisions - Every Day (or nearly, work on adaptcms and/or adaptbb as well as posting 4 articles a month)
GTA - Not bad now, don't have to post much.
PCR - Don't know if I'll be able to keep this one, I'd love to but I just don't have the time to keep updating the list and write reviews.
DW - I don't want to let this one go if possible, little work from me.
Bengals Chatter - Especially with being on a nytimes online column twice because of it, I REALLY don't want to let this go unless I have to.
24 Quotes - Has always been up in the air what to do with this site. In the end it's a quote site with 24 news. (which is not often) So not a big hassle and it's a GREAT domain.
PY - Another toss-up. It gets okay traffic and was a big project which didn't exactly succeed, but who knows.
As you can see, a good amount I don't want to let go or sell, whatever. But as was proven with Kroger, I cannot have all these sites and projects. Especially with both a forum and cms script, some of the sites will get neglected and if I have a job a decent amount may be updated very rarely. If I go to college soon and have a job at the same time, I'll be lucky to be able to work on the scripts.
Luckily I have time to figure this stuff out, but there will be changes. Anyways I'll be posting probably this week with a political or current evens blog.
With thecross-border attack by US forces against the Taliban inside Pakistan and a step-up of attacks on Taliban camps in Pakistan, ties between the two countries have deteoriated quickly.
First is a New York Times story that claims President Bush has allows US Special Forces to enter Pakistan for ground attacks against the Taliban without prior approval to Islamabad. If true would be a significant policy change after years of fighting, previously only allowed unmanned vehicles and limited.
With the step-up in attacks there has been some serious rhetoric by Pakistani leaders, including the military chief and Prime Minister. On Wednesday thearmy leader said:
"the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country will be defended at all cost"
"No external force is allowed to conduct operations inside Pakistan"
Another story came out yesterday with Pakistani opposition lawmakers threatening to "quit" the War on Terror. Today "The Pakistan Army has been ordered to retaliate against any action by foreign troops inside the country".
Overall just a very tense situation. However all indications are that the amount of attacks will only increase, hopefully relations with Pakistan can get back to normal.
There won't be a monthly recap for August, in a nutshell I was finishing it and accidentally went back, so it was wiped out and not saved. In a nutshell most all of my sites went up, Insane Visions was mixed (not as much activity), AdaptCMS.com and most others were up.
As I had said in the prior version of this article, the Monthly Recap will probably be moved to another site (but will still be posted here, just will be posted originally somewhere else - likely Insane Visions).
In early 2006 the attack that sprung forth quite possibly the lowest point in the Iraq War, he Gold Mosque attack. The holy site spurred hundreds of killings in the following days and was likely al-Qaeda's biggest victory in the War.
Around that time the anti Iraq-war sentiment was also at it's highest point, President Bush's ratings were low and the thought of a Republican President being elected in November 2008 was though of not as difficult, but impossible. Now here we are 2 1/2 years later and not only did the person who first proposed the now successful surge stands as the Republican nominee, with Sarah Palin re-energizing the base like few ever expected, we now have a good Presidential Race.
I'm still just in disbelief that I'm writing here as a sane person after the low points in the Iraq War that we've had, that we actually have a toss-up on who will be the next president. There are still some tests and a heck of a lot of time before one can even seriously think of picking a winner, but it sure looks like it'll be close.
Despite what all experts expected, after basically being told "No" by his own advisers when McCain wanted Liberman, he could of easily picked someone like Romney who many conservatives like (don't ask me why), Bobby Jindall (would of been a good pick actually), Tim Pawlenty and a myriad of other typical republicans. Instead just as McCain came way out of right field to get the nomination, he rolled the dice on a little-known Alaskan female Governor.
We still have 60 days to find out if McCain will be the next president and if his Vice President choice will work out in his favor or not, but at minimum his pick as taken the republican party and re-energized it in a way I haven't seen in my very young life and also mixed up this race. For the first time the headlines are not about Obama, but a republican. (in a good light...excluding the dailykos type attacks)
Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, you have to be excited. Also whether or not Palin was the right choice, some might argue she was the only choice in order for McCain to have a chance at winning. Get ready because this is going to be a crazy 60 days up to November 4th!
Despite it being denied officially, it's been known for some time that there is an agreement in place between Pakistan and the US that allows US unmanned planes such as the Predator to enter Pakistani airspace. However they have refused to allow any US forces enter Pakistan, despite it happening 2 years ago and apparently with or without permission, may of happened just yesterday.
According to The Long War Journal via Geo TV (Pakistani) US helicopters launched missiles at three homes in Taliban-controlled South Waziristan. Originally it was claimed by Geo that these helicopters landed and troops dismounted, troops then began searching homes. It has been confirmed by Pakistani military that the attack "occured in the region". (real specific, huh?) The AP reported this confirmation.
So far the only details revealed is the typical evil US soldiers went in homes and killed 15 people, women and children. 2 Pakistani intelligence officials claimed 19 were killed. So far the US has not commented, the military denied US forces were involved.
If this is true, it wouldn't be tough to guess that the target was someone of very high value. What's more, were they able to kill/capture this person? If so, of course, you have to wonder who and if this attack happened, what long-term impact does this have on the new Pakistani government?
So many questions, hopefully some will be answered.
Okay so along with the many types of TV shows I watched, I am a big sci-fi fan. I loved Next Generation, DS9 and have been a Stargate fan. Only going back maybe a year ago or two, but I've watched nearly every Stargate SG-1 episode (just a few left to see) and every episode of the next show in the series, Stargate Atlantis.
Unfortunately I was surprised to hear that Stargate Atlantis has been cancelled. The show has enjoyed very good ratings, the best since Season 2 and it seemed likely the show would be picked up for at least a Season 6. However the top guys at Sci-Fi obviously had other plans in mind.
The good news is that Atlantis will now go the way of SG-1, movies. Even better, Stargate Universe will premiere also in 2009. The show was announced a few years ago with very little details, but now it will become again the only Stargate show on Television.
One other bit, although I will reserve judgement, there are some troubling tidbits in the announcement of Stargate Universe. I'll show some of the details, the good and the bad:
"will involve more space-based action than its predecessors"
Keep in mind all these quotes are about Stargate Universe and yes, I am passing judgement on statements. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE space battles, but I've thought along with many others that Atlantis does too MUCH space-based action. The fact that the Stargate is hardly even used in Atlantis, this is quite worrying for Universe.
"cast a known actor for one of the leading roles, and fresh faces to round out the cast"
This is probably the best news, besides the show premiering in 2009 without a gap between Atlantis and Universe. Without a doubt a problem with Atlantis has been that they don't have a big name actor like SG-1 did. Definitely a bonus for Universe.
"aimed at a slightly younger audience"
Maybe the most worrying and most quoted on the internet about this news. By no means has Atlantis or SG-1 been intended for young kids, but it hasn't exactly been targeted for 40 years old. While both SG-1 and Atlantis does have a darker side at times, I would of rather had Universe have MORE of that, rather than loosening it up. But this could also be more talk to get younger people interested.
"a little more character-based, a little less rooted in a sci-fi mythology"
Actually the most worrying to me. I like character-based, but less sci-fi mythology is VERY worrying to me. One of the things that really got me so interested in Stargate SG-1 was the mythology, was very intereting and one of the advantages the show had over Atlantis.
Of course all this talk is based on a few statements, but it's almost the only thing we'll get for a while. Hopefully Stargate Universe can take advantage of SG-1 and Atlantis' strengths and weaknesses, while also trying some new things. Will be looking forward to the premiere.
For anyone that has watched the news in the past week, at least knows about the recent conflict between Georgia and Russia. I unfortunately wasn't able to post about the conflict until now.
This was probably the most difficult conflict for me to read about - simply because the propaganda on both sides were so strong. Both still insist the other side committed genocide, intentionally killed hundreds/thousands of civilians and many other claims...oh yeah, almost forgot ethnic cleansing.
Once the dust somewhat settled, some facts were found out:
Technically Georgia started the War. South Ossetia, some elements, fired upon Georgia which sparked the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia. (ironic, invading your own country...)
The 2000 killed by Georgia in South Ossetia, accused by Russia, was discounted by Human Rights Watch, citing hospital sources at about 44 dead and 273 wounded.
After the initial cease-fire was declared, Russia advanced further into Georgia.
There have been incidents involving South Ossetia, Russia and Georgian troops actually firing at Journalists. Angry Georgian troops started pointing and firing a pistol at Journalists (video shown on FOX News), a now famous youtube video of a Russian sniper shooting at a Journalist and another video of two Turkish journalists in a car being caught in the cross-fire, one was shot in the head. (but is somehow okay)
In the end of this...well there isn't an end in sight. Russia has no intent of letting Georgia EVER get back South Oessetia or Abkhazia. Whereas Georgia (as well as it's citizens) intend to get both back someday. If there's good news, it could be if UN troops take over "peacekeeping" duties from Russia, this will at least delay the inevitable.
Maybe the worst part of this, aside from the negatives of war, is the long-term relations hit this will have on the US and Russia. What's more is that it has now peaked a big question in the minds of analysts and normal everyday person - does this now mean Russia will take action against other countries that were once under USSR control?
The "Monthly Recap" is a monthly post that looks at my projects and websites to see how they are doing. Statistics is a major part, however other things such as new users, number of articles and other things are also factors. I'm a bit delayed on July 2008, but here it is:
A bit of a down month in July. The CMS and awstats say uniques were down a little bit, 11% according to adaptcms, but this was after 2 record-breaking months. Analytics says it was a bit up.
I was hoping to do 2 tutorials in July, but only got 1 up. A total of 6 articles, again, with 1 tutorial and 1 blog. Mixed
Ah, finally a very good month for adaptcms.com. After the release of 1.2 showed little stats difference from any other month, July proved otherwise with AdaptCMS 1.3 being released.
Both Awstats and the CMS reported significant growth (especially the cms stats, 35%). Analytics also said a small uppage of stats.
I expect it to go down in August with 1.4 being worked on, but once opensourcecms.com can list it, it will definitely help. (whenever that is, I've submitted adaptcms twice) Up
Okay so I got on my Laptop Sunday night and I turn on my PC to encounter a scary "Operating System Not Found" error with only a black background. Long story short I was doing a heck of a lot of googling and was finding from an error in windows to my hard drive being dead. (bad, very very bad) As I was searching I remembered my friend Zach was going to be setting up Linux on this server he was working on, in a random thought I figured downloading it.
I was actually moments away from removing the HD and checking it out when I flip up the laptop and see that the Hard Drive is sticking out, I push it back in and see that two screws are missing. I turned it on to see it working fine and I couldn't find the screws, I can't imagine them just coming out somehow and I had my Laptop turned sideways that day, so I realized why I didn't notice the missing screws until now.
Alright, so anyways, even with Windows running I figured I'd give Linux a shot. I've always said that I wanted to give it a shot sometime and I had downloaded it onto my Flash Drive, so I went ahead and burned it onto a CD and installed it on my Laptop. After getting it running, I'm impressed! I'm using a type of Linux called "Ubuntu".
It took a bit of work to get all my programs (that I need) up and running, but overall I have few complaints. I love the way it's structured, the speed and pre-loaded programs. Most of my gripes have been fixed with little searching and the fact that PHP, Apache, etc. is built-in is just awesome!
So I guess the question is if I'd reccommend it to others? I'd say yes for those that know there way around windows and such. As much as Linux has advanced to be user-friendly, some things require using the terminal (but not much) and if you're looking for an OS for low-medium computer users, windows is a no brainer. But for the tech savy, Linux is at least worth a try.
I'm a HUGE news guy, especially middle east news and I'm always watching out to see what's going to be big news or at least something that I have to keep an eye out for, news wise. Although the media coverage will probably be weak, the one area you have to keep an eye on is Pakistan.
I posted a little over a month ago questioning whether Pakistan could even be an ally - Pakistan is an ally?
At the time I thought it was a big deal, but it would cool down - wrong. Just two weeks after my blog I saw quite an interesting article on The Long War Journal:
In a nutshell, not only is Pakistan struggling to keep control of some areas of there own country, but in several areas they have no control and in others, are losing control. Ironically one story that was heavily reported was when 9 US soldiers were killed in Afghanistan.
On the other hand, one story that has not been heavily reported is that once again the US was fired upon from fighters inside Pakistan - US returns fire on Taliban inside Pakistan. So what's all this mean?
Although I think it's for political reasons, Obama is right to shift the focus to Afghanistan. We can send over 10,000 troops and that would help, but it's also a situation that requires a second aspect being fixed - Pakistan. How? That's the un-answered question.
The ISI (Pakistan Intelligence) is often said to have at least element cooperating with the Taliban, at minimum. Musharaf won't be in power for that much longer and he's not in a situation where he can do that much.
A prime example is the Indian Embassy bombing in Afghanistan, more than 60 killed. Shortly after there were articles questioning Pakistans involvement - Is ISI behind Kabul embassy blast?. However the tip of that iceberg was the Afghanistan President, Hamid Karzai, publicly accused Pakistani agents of involvement in the embassy bombing, specifically even the ISI of orchestrating attacks in Afghanistan - Link. I'll keep updated on this topic and I recommend all readers do the same.
and accidentally went back, so it was wiped out and not saved. 
In a nutshell most all of my sites went up, Insane Visions was mixed (not as much activity), AdaptCMS.com and most others were up.
