I had a bit of a major problem recently. Other people disagree (more), but I’m convinced that PHP 5.1.1 deleted my partition table for my first hard drive. I’ve explained it enough already, so use the link above if you want the story.

So this means that Windows and Linux need to be put back on, in fact I only just managed to save my source code, as I could boot into Windows once and once only. This is a job for the Christmas holidays; only three more days of school to go.

I’m running a temporary build of Windows at the moment, because it is unstable as anything. The mouse stops working periodically (and it’s not the cable) and it boots up slower than a snail with a speed limiter.

I’ve done some serious sorting of security on PK recently. The logon security algorithm has been made a lot better, but for obvious reasons I’m not saying why, as the alpha version of PK is still online (somewhere) and it is a potentially hackable thing (it’s been taken down by me now).

Also, user permissions have had an MD5 hashing system added as well to make sure people can’t just meddle with their session data to gain access to modules they aren’t allowed to access.

I’ve had an idea that I might do a Webdev & Nerd Stuff podcast at some point, if I get round to it, so I’ll keep you updated with that and as ever with all my webdev projects.

Major news update :

Project Krystal has gone live on the all-new Buttons Productions website (my school’s Young Enterprise company). It’s been a long time coming having the system this stable (it’s approaching Beta quality). I’m really happy because it looks great, works (better than the Alpha builds anyway) and just generally it has been quite an achievement to get to this stage. We’re now on version 0.5.1 (approcaching Beta 1).

Whoo!

I’ll keep you posted with GPL stuff and PK stuff too.

I’ve created my first ever open source project, to give back to the open source community who have helped me learn so much (GNU/Linux, PHP, MySQL, Apache, too many things to mention).

It’s fairly simple, a basic RSS feed generator. It uses PHP and accepts input from a MySQL database. It’s licensed under the GPL, so it’s free for anyone to use and make improvements to.

You can get a download of it from my site, located here. A sample bit of code it generates can also be viewed at that page.

Any suggestions or comments, just post a comment here (you will need a Blogger account). Or send me an email, it’s strategyoracle=-AT–gmail=—DOT–com.

Well, it’s out to you now, so use it if you want and please do give feedback if you like it.

Yes, today is (well, has been) a day off school for standard teacher training stuff. I’m now about half way through my mock exams, which is fairly good and, well, let’s keep off the subject of exams shall we?

Due to the exams (oh no, said it again) Project Krystal has crawled along in progress, making only a few minor adjustments in the last week. The development process should speed up sometime soon, when I get more free time that I can plug into the project.

Well, there’s not much more to say other than that I joined a new forum today, http://teendev.com, under my strategyoracle name.

Well, until next time…

As this post finally wins the award for longest post title ever, and longest time between posts, I would like to welcome myself back to writing this blog.

I haven’t written for ages for a number of reasons. Firstly, mock exams are about to start, so revision has been heavy recently and secondly, lots of further development has been taking place, so there hasn’t really been time to write here.

But anyway, on with today’s post, and it’s going to be a bit of an essay to make up for all those days I didn’t post.

In development, Project Krystal has come on leaps and bounds, but is still most definitely in Alpha stage, as there are major flaws getting it to work. I am kitting out a friend with a copy of the latest ‘stable’ (I use the term loosely) build to test and find improvements, not only to the code but the web user interface too. He gets a free copy of my website management software to build his website, I get a tester. Symbiosis at its best.

In code, I am now building the final bit of the project, the products page with cataloguing system (fully sortable) and searching for the products. Also, the rich text editing system is officially integrated with the whole admin system, so it is as easy to use as any WYSIWYG word processor.

Christmas is also coming, so that means a new graphics card, the Geforce 6600, hopefully, to replace my current (rubbish) Geforce FX5200.

When will I be finished with Project Krystal? No idea as yet. Once all the features are done, the code will have to be seriously stablised to the point that I consider it something worth(y) of selling.

On the note of Hybrid, which will take over from Buttons Productions after the end of the year, my friend Chris is now on board to deal with the design of the future Hybrid site and our contracts. He’s good at building mock designs (albeit in Paint) and making them look good when I convert them to the cool XHTML.

OK, until next time, which I’m not sure when it will be,

Peter the Nerd

I hate to say it, but the dreaded Mock Exams will arrive soon (only a couple of weeks now), and so the amount I post to this blog is likely to decrease. If anyone reads this anyway, post a comment, but never mind.

Today I downloaded and installed Squid for my Linux system, and started playing about with it. Still can’t work out how to get the ACLs working properly, anyone with a good tutorial should post a comment if they find one. I also have started thinking about the PayPal integration of the Project Krystal Products system and its potential security implications. I don’t want to sell a hackable system, do I?

I’ll write again sometime.

Sorry I haven’t posted for ages, I’ve actually been quite busy.

I’ve now sold 8 copies of the Making Of (don’t ask if you don’t know), at £2 each, so I have finally made a profit from buying all those DVD+Rs.

Anyway, Young Enterprise was busy again, despite more than half of the people not being there. Project Krystal is going places, with a rich text editor being implemented now, to replace ageing and frankly clunky BBcode. Should be good, just the integration of that with my current PHP app to do.

Hopefully write again soon,

Peter

I think it’s about time I introduced you to a great forum and community for those less experienced in Linux (and even Windows). Linux-noob.com is a community run by anyweb, and it is really friendly to newbies to Linux. These guys will help you through anything, either on the forums or on their IRC channel, #linux-noob on EFNET.

In my news, did some work today, but no more dev for the moment. I’m going to write a SUSE 10 review for Linux-noob.com now.

I’m back and I have got very far with Project Krystal. I have got through two major development milestones and, well, let me just show you the URL to the rolling, working preview.

www.aurora.co.nr/pkalpha

The backend is about halfway there in terms of dev, but the frontend sucks right now. You didn’t need me to tell you that, but it does. If this system gets sold, though, it will obviously have a properly professional looking frontend to go with it.

Also, I better mention that I did all the dev up to Milestone 2 on my new SUSE 10 system. KDE 3.4 looks great, amazing what changes in 3 minor versions! It even has a K menu search system (like Vista’s upcoming Start Menu search). KDE’s is a bit clunky, but it shows the power of open source off a bit. Not too impressed with GNOME in SUSE 10, not that it’s bad, but SUSE haven’t bundled the good window themes and icon sets, so it doesn’t look as polished as KDE.

Oh no, the holiday appears to be escaping….