Gawd! I miss our old host ....

Yeah.. I trully do. It was fast and stable. And I had no problems at all when it comes to uploads and downloads. Furthermore, it's completely FREE. (Yeah it does not have all those snazzy php thingie and the mambo jumbo with MySQL and stuff)... but back then I was happilly coding in HTML and it does not matters was how much abuse i put to the system. It always works like a charm. Even found a few neat tricks to squeeze more space from the system.

Our new Emerge host was not perfoming as expected. Lots and lots of setbacks. I had to do extra work cranking my brains to develop new php modules. And then, out of the blue, they change the server settings without even informing us - the paid customers.

Compared to our 1st host (chubnet.com) which was really an enjoyment working with them. I love Jim & Larry of Chubnet.com. They were ever so polite and helpful. Even took the extra effort to help a newbie like me to do my 1st HTML code.

MyChub is back better than eva !

Finally, 72 hours after the crisis arises, mychub finally back online and all the bugs identified and fixed. It was no small feat either.. i had e-mail and called the support team of our host and complained like a bitch. After which they ignored my plea completely.

So the next best thing was to recompile the whole site and redo the whole sequence according to the scarce instructions from mamboportal.org. The hand coded module had been reset and injected in the mos_installer component and successfully running within the SAFE MODE limitation.

A thousand apologies to our members cause during the installation process, all of our members components got deleted.. and so do your messages. *sigh*

To those who complained :- please take note that I'm doing this whole project ALONE!. I'd would really appriciate your patience while I fixed the bugs. I also have a daytime job which I need to keep. This is just a volunteer job.

My deepest thanks to:
- Gaydar radio which kept me company during the frantic nights and mornings. Great music selection !!! yeah...

MyChub.ORG setbacks!

SITUATION
After a whole week of hard work (sleepless nights).. all gone down the drain. Reason ? our stupid host (localdns.com) had decided to change the main PHP setting to SAFE MODE = ON .

Result
Total haywire of the mychub.org due to incompatibilities with file permission. Some hand coded modules did not work anymore since it did not allow FTP upload.. but only through the MOS installer (... this sucks!). Which means i have to recompile the code and upload it using the MOS installer. This will take time and makes hand coding + testing of modules much much harder.

SHORT TERM REMEDIAL
Disable some of the modules and/or reinstall the 'stock' module. Bug fix some of the unfriendly SAFE MODE codes.

LONG TERM REMEDIAL
1. Test the modules on a testing server.
2. Recompile the 'custom' module and upload it.
3. Cross my fingers and hope it all works fine.

It's 3.30 AM and i'm too tired, hungry and depress at our host for their action to change anything without informing the customer 1st. Tomorrow I have a big meeting and I had not prepared anything ... YIKES !

I've been neglecting my own projects for too long. BTW the SMS system I'm developing using JAVA Tomcat has too many bugs inside. And now Oracle wants to charge me MYR 44,000.00 for my use of their database.

Today my brand new MYR 26,000.00 Dual Xeon server got infected with a virus and SpamCop had my server listed. My ISP is threatening to terminate my conection unless I do something about it. Called my vendor and they say they have no support for machines with virus problems. So what should I do ... ?

(but then this is work related - sorry for venting my frustrations here).
Life sucks !

Hand coded Module

After a carefull study of the mambo CMS, I found that it's a kick-ass CMS system. Unfortunately it does not have most of the modules that i wanted.
e.g: New members module shown on the front page.

So I started today, to hand code the 'missing' module myself.
- the 1st module is to show who's online and link them to the PMS_II messaging system. It took me about 3 hours to understand PHP coding which relates to linking to the pms system. DONE !
- the 2nd module is to add a new members who had registered into the front page.
based of the new members module and partystaff, I had re-coded the tabling system and link it to members pictures using the ever popular SQL statements. DONE !
- the 3rd module is actually adding a code to prevent caching of pictures which will make pictures auto update itself. A nifty hack was using the time() statement added to the end of each picture request. DONE !
- the 4th module is the de-registration module. When a user wants remove himself from mychub org.. it will also delete their picture and any posting they sent in partystaff.

Then I started to tinker with the mambo components.
Partystaff
- the 1st component was Partystaff it self which was really a beta version. Redesigned the sub_edit function to enable auto send date function .
- 2ndly revamped the upload section due to problems with extension e.g: JPG and .jpg.
- 3rd added a form validation code to sub_edit function to force users to add more info in their profile.
RSGallery
- 1st change the validation sequence in the gallery, hence only those who uploaded their picture will be able to view the gallery.
- a 2nd validation feature were added where only ppl who updates their profile can view the gallery.

In total = it took me abt 2 weeks to code in php all the modules needed for mychub.org! HOLA !!

Future projects:-
1. A msg system like of Yahoo.com. So those who are online can send msg in real-time to other online ppl.
2. A notification feature where those who receives msg are also notified via e-mail.