Saturday, February 19, 2005
Enough is enough !
My patience finally ran out, the www.glug.org.za has been down for a long time now. I decided to see if there was anyone else that would consider hosting the site. I posted a message to the mailing list...
To my surprise I got a whole flood of messages of people that was willing to host the site. Gavin McDougall arranged a login to his server within minutes. Thanks!
So I proceeded to host the site temprarily on ww.ostech.co.za.
The next day the glug site was back up. I also decided to also make available the source to the site here.
Some history on the site
Originally the site was hosted on a php nuke cms. It was badly neglected and it seemed that nothing was going on (an abandoned idea). There were some complaints but no one was willing to make a commitment to design a new site. I decided that I would give it a shot, but I am not renowned for finishing projects I start.
I got my original idea from the www.ossn.co.za website. Jonathan Carter from the Shuttleworth Foundation was friendly enough to send me the source to his site.
I used the basic layout as a base and started filling in the details, the most important thing to me would be the information supplied. The site started taking form, at some stage I release a preview for people to comment on.
Everyone had some form of criticism, but overall people liked the design. One issue was the use of tables which I then converted to 100% css. A painful experience to make it IE compatible.
Most of the criticism was on my graphic design skills. Luckily Chris Piek armed with Gimp stepped in an upgraded the look. Shortly after, people wanted to replace the existing site with the preview site, so it was launched without being finished. Still isn't finished, probably never will be. ;)
Not long after someone posted a exploit to the list and the site was taken down. I fixed it, but it but the site remained down. Ross was not convinced that it was actually fixed and refused to put the site back up. I had to make the source available so that other people could review it. For that I had to host the site somewhere and I do not own any server capable of hosting php. Luckily there are people that would donate to a good cause.
So now I challenge anyone to send me any other exploits (if they do exist).
Chris also added tux holding a South African flag. Thanks Chris!
Saturday, February 12, 2005
Shape up or ship out?
No pain no gain?
Time to get past the laziness, I decided to join the gym. There are basically 2 choices, either Planet fitness or Virgin Active. Virgin active being the biggest group is the expensive choice. Then on the other side there is Planet fitness, they have been around for a good number of years. Since I am a member of Discovery Health the cost is about the same. So the deciding factor came down to the fact that my brother already joined Planet fitness.
My program is about 30 mins cardio (20 mins cycling and 5 running or rowing) then weights for 40-50mins, ended by 10 mins stomach, 3 or 4 times a week. Bravery or stupidity? only time will tell ;)
Thursday, February 10, 2005
Who are you?
One thing in life is that you can attempt to define yourself by answering this question. You can lie, who would know? But that is not the point or is it? Lots of people lie to them self every day, that might just be who they are...
Who you are is defined by how you react when placed in a certain position. People are always trying to find them self. Having a bad day? Is it the result of who you are? Why do some people have lots of bad days? Do they cause their own unhappiness or is the world to blame? Surely if you compare people some have very few bad days, so should be credit it to who they are? Or do they simply have easy lives? I do not think that "easy lives" exist, people tend to make their own lives complex.
So why would people do something like that? Are we not in control of how difficult we make our own lives? Or is it because of other people that your live becomes complex. Friends... but then again we choose our own friends.
Given the world is a pretty bad place, that is why you distinguish between friends and acquaintances. If you are going through a tough time you get to learn so much! You get to realise who you are, and who your friends are/or not. So even though the process is painful it does serve a cause, it is a opportunity of making or breaking.
So what if the making is actually breaking? Then I guess it is time for more change... Change is good? Isn't that what I said?
Who you are is defined by how you react when placed in a certain position. People are always trying to find them self. Having a bad day? Is it the result of who you are? Why do some people have lots of bad days? Do they cause their own unhappiness or is the world to blame? Surely if you compare people some have very few bad days, so should be credit it to who they are? Or do they simply have easy lives? I do not think that "easy lives" exist, people tend to make their own lives complex.
So why would people do something like that? Are we not in control of how difficult we make our own lives? Or is it because of other people that your live becomes complex. Friends... but then again we choose our own friends.
Given the world is a pretty bad place, that is why you distinguish between friends and acquaintances. If you are going through a tough time you get to learn so much! You get to realise who you are, and who your friends are/or not. So even though the process is painful it does serve a cause, it is a opportunity of making or breaking.
So what if the making is actually breaking? Then I guess it is time for more change... Change is good? Isn't that what I said?
