Spent the evening working here. Upgraded MU WordPress to 2.7. So far, so good. No glitches, bugs or major problems. Nice.

Upgraded to the latest version of K2, made the modifications I had in the older version. Still need to upgrade for the home site.

Just about done with K2 for Comics. Modifed it to flow with the rest of the site. Should be cleaned up and available for anyone who wants it tomorrow.

Listened to the blip feed for a good while. Didn’t blip as much as I would have liked. That’s what I get for being such a piss poor code monkey.

Goodnight, kids.

AB

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Lemme know if there are any problems, glitches, etc.

AngryBob

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I took a fuck-off day from work yesterday. It was nice. I woke up, took Angela to school, came home and wrote for a good chunk of the day, did some behind the scenes work on Jedi Jesus for some more of the day and did some serious thinking.

I need more days like that. More time like that.

So, the news is that I have successfully mashed ComicPress with k2 (the main theme on this site). There is still some clean up to do, but the comics appear where they should and the navigation mostly works the way it should.

Also in the news column, is that I have resumed work on the comic. Yes, I have the first two pages of the second story arc roughed out. I’ll bring it to work to finish the pencils, ink, color and scan. First page should be up in a week or so. There’s some ret-con going on, as I’m going to do away with some of the references to pre-existing Star Wars characters.

So new comics soon. Very soon. Maybe some Bad Napkin Art too.

And I haven’t forgotten that pod-cast project. Just been difficult to organize, but I think that’ll be coming together shortly as well.

Okay. It’s about bed-time.

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Things are moving apace on ill-literati.org.  I need to finalize some things with the theme.  After some discussion with The Dude, I agreed that the new look (also seen here) is too stark.  I wasn't sure if I was being self critical or not, so having some input helped. 

It should look a little more like the theme over at http://ill-literates.com/testheme if you wanna go see it.

The Comics are now up at ill-literati.org though, including a new Jedi Jesus. Linkage follows:

• Bad Napkin Art: badnapkinart.ill-literati.org
• Jedi Jesus: jedijesus.ill-literati.org

Share and enjoy. More coming soon.

AB 

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.: And this is it.  You're looking at it.  It's a black and white theme and this is what I've been spending my time doing.

    Right now, it's finished for my own personal use for here and Ill-Literati.org.  I'm using TTFTittles for both the blog name and the blog description in the header, as well as for the post titles.  For general use, I'll need to pull the code for that and make it standard code so that people aren't forced into using TTFTitles if they feel like using this theme. 

    It is nice.  And simple.  And it really took no time at all once I finally decided what I wanted it to really look like.

    So, now I have to send it up to Ill-Literati.org and start moving some of these blogs over there.  That means that I also have to set it up for use with code from ComicPress.  

    Aside from that, I'm doing well.  Thanks for asking.

AB 

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.: I have a lot of things to talk about today.  Most of them will be short.  I'll start with the theme I've been working on.

     Ill-Literati 1.0 is nearly done.  You can check it out here but keep in mind a few things:

1. This is my first theme done from scratch (or from Kubrick, which is what most WordPress themes are based on).  So if it bears an uncanny resemblance to the current theme on this site, it's because I wrote it like that. I like the format of this site, but it was a couple of themes that I mashed together to make this one.  I did peek at some of the code from this site to do certain things I didn't know how to do (like setting up span classes to get the icons in the meta info below the post title, and setting up the calendar to have them boxes around the dates).
2. It's designed to be used by anybody, which is why there is no fancy graphic for the title of the page, or for the navigation links.  Those can be added or modified by the end user.
3. It's not done. Officially, I suppose it should be called version 0.9 or some such shit, but what can you do? 
4. I know it's very, very simple as far as design and color.  There was no point in going nuts on a theme for my first.  And it's best viewed at 1024 x 768 or larger.  There will be a smaller version for smaller resolutions, and possibly a scalable version using % rather than px for design layout. 

    I'll be finishing it up tonight for it's official 1.0 release.  Very little clean up to do, but there is some.

    I have some nifty ideas for new themes, now that I think I have the hang of it.  Ranging from simple, to quixotic.   I may be able to get a couple banged out before I come of the night shift.  Until then…

AB 

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.: I've been coding php for two nights straight.  It's been sloppy and I keep making very silly, very simple mistakes.  So I'm taking the next few hours off, going to do some work (whatever I find around the office to keep busy with, anyway) and think about going to New Jersey to see my family for Easter. 

    I've been designing the ill-literati theme using Kubrick as a base, but doing most of it from scratch.  I finished the CSS last night, finally tweaked the header out as far as layout goes and now I'm working on the sidebars.  That's what's been confudding me out here.

    Fuck. I think I just figured it out.  But I'm not going to play with it now. I'm burned out, man. 

    What I want to do is have two sets of side bars.  One for post (blog) pages that has two columns, and one for page pages that only has one, so that the page content can be wider but the main sidebar links and categories remain.  And I've been losing my mind.

    But I've done it before, for the footer on this site. 

    I was trying to set it up as an include on the page template.  But maybe I can just do it the way I did the ones for the footer.  I'll play with it tomorrow/tonight when I come back into work, unless things pick up.

    I'm off to drink more coffee.

AB 

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.: l major projects involving the Ill-Literates is on hold for at least a few days.  

While I've been slaving over hot monkey brain (you get points if you ID the reference), apparently the kind folk at WordPress have been toiling on the next release, which is WordPress 2.5.  There may be some issues and the like, so I figure I'll wait until it's released and then check out the theme and plugins on the test site before writing the php on that bad boy. Gives me more time to tinker with the css at the very least.

More on this coming soon.

That is all.

AB

from deep13

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.: Spent a nice chunk of the night working on glitches.

    Finally figured out the problem with the TTFTItles plugin.  By figured out, I mean I saved myself some time (after wasting much) and fully reading the plugin's page and the comments until I found someone with a problem similar to mine and voila.  One short trip into mySql (yes SleepJunky, mySq) and I fixed it.  I would have fixed it days ago had I just fucking done that in the first place.  So now that I have the pretty titles back, I'd like to point out the new logo for the site.  Nice?  It's okay.  I can do better but it's quick, easy and attractive. 

    Thing is, I really like that blue on black logo.  But it don't quite jive with the link color (which was some shade of red-ish).  So I changed the link color to a blue that matches the logo, but I don't really care for that either. 

     I don't fucking know.  I'll figure out some sort of color scheme sooner or later.

.: The Dude has now completed a new post, which had gotten me thinking about how I want to present the site.  I'd like to give the Dude his own blog, and call it 'Dead Air'.  I even came up with a graphic for the blog header.  

    So this is the tentative Plan for Ill-Literates 3.0…

• A separate blog for The Dude, as well as the separate blog I has for meself.
• Ill-Literati becomes a multi-user blog for the trusted ill-literati who either don't post often (like dear Brandonicus) as well as people I would like to see do an occasional blog on the ill-literates site.  With potential to give them their own separate blog if warranted (like if Brandonicus starts posting movie reviews more often.
• This would possibly mean pushing my blog off of the front page of the site, and using that precious web space for feeds from the rest of the site (similar to what you see at aint it cool news). 
• Web Calendar up soon.  I keep saying that.  Maybe forums too, if I can find people to use it.  We don't get any traffic that comments on posts, so I'll have to think that over.
• Ill-Literacy must return. It just fucking must.  Because it was kinda cool.  (That was our webzine thing, which kinda went to sleep and didn't wake up).
• And the Comics.

.: Speaking of Comics… Jedi Jesus 003 isn't ready yet (rough pencil and dialog still), but the newest and oldest comic is now up.  That's the Bad Napkin Art, which was a staple of the old livingininfamy.com site I once had. So check it out and let me know what you think. 

.: What did I say about focus?  That's okay this time, AngryBob… this post is an update of what's up.

.: Have off tomorrow.  Will probably spend a chunk of that time working on the new theme, which is about ready for being re-written to clean it up.  Hope to be able to test it by Friday next, and release it shortly after.  It'll be the core theme of the site (and will look pretty much the same as it does now).  Everything on the site will follow along that theme, with the possible exception of Ill-Literacy.

    I don't know what to do with that.

AB

down in deep13

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.: I spoke with Pip for a while tonight. 

    Turns out her mother (Gantor) has shaved Pip's head. 

    Bald.

    She seems pretty much okay with it, being bald.  I guess that there's been a fairly serious lice problem down in Florida, and they decided that this was the best way to combat it all.  I've never had lice personally (lucked out somehow), but I know that I wouldn't shave my head if I did.  I'm losing hair fast enough now.  Why rush things along?

    But now, if and when she comes back to New York while it's still winter, what will she do to keep her head and the back of her neck warm?  Hats? Scarves?  I can't see her using them long enough to lose them, which might happen if she uses them long enough.  

    She told me some stories about her dilemmas and trials in Florida.  The girls who are stupid, the boys that she likes-who are stupid.  She also told me about some kid named Big Mike, who's apparently about 16 years old and is the local bully that the kids down there hang out with.  I didn't ask Pip if they had a choice in the matter, I was too busy listening about his misdeeds and the question didn't occur to me until after we got off the phone.

    Big Mike likes to hurt the other kids, I guess.  Body slammed a small eleven year old boy when he came to Pip's aid because BM was twisting her arm.  I think that if I should happen to get to Florida before they come back (which was the plan, though that was before Gantor said they'd be back in weeks, not months), I'll have to see this BM kid for myself.  Maybe speak to him about why I've turned my back on the violent paths.  Maybe show him why, too.  Because it's only fun to hurt someone for about two seconds, if you're any kind of human being with a lick of empathy.  Even when they deserve it, it's not fun, just necessary.

    BM.  Heh, that means shit.

    I really do miss my girl right now.  I miss her big time. 

.:On the other side of things, Innerwebs still churning along at 88mph.  Had to have been the fucking first 2 cat5 cables.  Damn it.  I could have been so much more productive these past few weeks had we just bought a new cable.  Had we known, anyway.  I swore it was the router, and still even suspect it, although at the moment it has quite the alibi.

.:Did the rough pencils and rough dialog for Jedi Jesus.  Put it in six panels, which I'll work on some more tomorrow.  If it's slow enough at work, I may even get it inked and scanned. 

.:Came a long way tonight on the new theme.  And now that it's looking mostly the way I want, I'll clean up the code, remove the extraneous personal shit and perhaps release it for public consumption.  Will also likely set up the adapted ComicPress theme to go with it for people who want to use it for comics.  

    The problem I'm having now deals with the TTFTitles plugin.  Somehow I hosed it for use on the main blog, even though it works fine on other WordPress installs on this site.  I've dumped it from the server and reinstalled it and it's still hosed.  I'll play with it tomorrow, and then if I can't figure the fucker out, I'll go get help out on the webespheres. 

    So technically, we'll call it version .9 at this moment.  Version 1.0 will be the cleaned up and spiffified version.  

    The next step is going to be a fully original theme using all code from scratch.  I also want to get some paper on php so that I can possibly start doing some minor coding of my own.  I have a couple of ideas for plugins and the like.  I would also like to set up my WordPress so that I can have a comic in a page that can be updated on said static page.  Though perhaps a plugin would be best suited for that as well.   

.:It's late.

    For me anyway.  Time for bed.

AB

from deep13 

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