PDG Forums Coming back soon

As long as this works we will be back up soon. This could wreck the whole database, so I have a backup.

Oh yeah, I'm officially out of ISR!

42 Recruitments in 40 minutes

I guess I said 75, because there were so many for so long, and my laptop was always in use.
The next obvious step is to put all that stuff in, and make them all freshmen, and add those that requested to PDG. However, there were non-freshmen there, so I'll have to exclude them, and put them in the proper class. The welcome e-mail will contain a link to prevent this.
Roderick was there, claiming to be VP.
What I should have done is put the registration onto the school computer we had and then done something cool on my laptop. Pinko's "junk drive" worked amazingly well on the Knoppix system, but we did not have mplayer on it, and xine couldn't handle it.
We were going to just show the videos in winsuck but it wouldn't let us do "workstation only."
Obviously, we couldn't just put a CD in the Knoppix one.

Plans for next year:

• Organize more clearly more in advance.
• Get there early, even if it means skipping seventh. (This is one of the few things that were done right.)
• Multiple registration boxes.
• Make sure to not use Curtin's windoze on other boxes. Either use one of our Linux toy boxes, or use Knoppix.
• Plan for a TV (or projector) well in advance.
• Keep the area behind the table "restricted." (That was the idea behind hooking Shane's laptop to the school's moniter.)
• Pre mix video, and test it on the subject boxes before the weekend before activities fair.\

Roderik again mentioned the supposive move to Fordham Prep server, and I have changed the notices a bit. Yet there are some remaining problems:

• Capablity of server - I doubt my stuff will be able to run on what Curtin's got, without me adding core software, and he won't let me do that. He may give us a POS box to do it on, but from my own personal experience, running even a board like PDG takes processing power.
• Porting - I will need to do work to make it work on Curtin's whatever. It was designed specifically for the environment it is currently in.
• Communication - I would need to speak at least as far as technology goes, even if Arca/Roderick really do have the political work.
• Past experience - This was supposed to happen last year, as early as January. Also, Curtin is known to turn PDG down.
• Polotics - If this isn't hosted by me (and especially if it is hosted by Curtin), I will need to go through lots of "red tape" to get anything of use done, even if the users are in favor of it by a landslide. I can easily picture others mucking with my procedure, undemocratically. Arca is essentially a dictator. What sets me, as Forum God, apart from him is that I have actually done stuff for the forums and continue to host it. I have also listened to the people and worked to do as they wish. SO I'm saying ther will be alot of slowdown in progress. The PDG Officials and the IT guys will both want to approve everything.
• Me as tech admin - I'm not sure if they would, but would not be suprised if they want me out as admin. As far as technoligy goes, all the code is poorly documented, and you will all be screwed essentially.
• Other Admins - It would be horrible if Curtin is an admin, which he would want to be. Besides, he would be "god" of the server anyway.
• My even more hi tech administration - Part of what I do also involves alot of file editing, programming, database editing, and so forth. This cannot be done within phpBB admin interface. I REALLY REALLY doubt Curtin will let me do this.

So we'll see what happens. If this had happened in the beginning, when it should have, then it would have been simple. I was still basically the tech admin, and no MODs that need to be constantly looked after were present. It was basically just phpBB with the activation changed and very minor other changes.

As far as LAN party goes, again we'll see what happens. I have some ideas to help Arca out for it.

total crap

this had better work after all this crap ive been thru

holy crap - posters

i forgot about posters

so now big remainign issurs: local registration, tv, posters

Nothing useful

Wow. We did sure get a hell of a lot of planning done, but unfortunately I couldn't use my laptop after 2300 EDT. Shane finished up like five SW:BF matches.
Oh yeah, while he was doing that I got to use the sound system
Upstairs, w/o lappy, we just talked and planned. Best idea was to have someone playing stuff, sitting there.

The next morning, I think \Shane said he set the alarm for 0600, but he didn't wake me up until 0730. I think it may have been that his dad told him not to go downstairs until then, but we could still do laptop stuff. That was the main reason I had my home desktop open to the outside. Anyway, I was dead tired, so I stayed asleep while shane went downstairs.

Eventually I went down there, figuring he already ate breakfast, and I could just get some on the way home. He said he did some DDR recording onto the video. He was plaink ut2k4, and I suggested that he record it, but I guess that never happened. Then we had breakfast (Cinnamon Life is good.). Thw Kaiser parents had something weird withone of their PC's or something. My biggest disappointment is we didn't watch Star Wars Ep. 4-6. Also Shane couldn't be bothered to post this whole time.

Anyway, I got brought home, but mad earlier than expected. I then did nothing useful besides eat lunch and help close the pool. Now is when I have to do all that crap, so here is my realistic list of things to do today:
Finalize the registration program
Forum video
Find out whether or not we have TV, if not then rip the VHS.
If we have a TV, mix the good stuff onto a VHS.
Eat quick dinner.
Get crap for linux box.
Pack everything up (including extension cables, cable ties, and laptop2tv).

Here's for tomorrow:
On the train, I will do the homework for Henry if I feel like it. Also I've got to study for LaVancha.
At school, first thing, make sure we are set for fair.
I'll have lunch fourth.
Then i will do homework until I can get down to the fair.
Tie up Meehan's linux box, and fix it.

Rest of week:
Import registrations.
Send out welcome e-mail.

Next weekend:
pdgBB 0.4.0 (sorry for major delays this weekend)
Fix up CTE Networks

Beyond that:
Permenant site
Gentoo issues
Games
Learn stuff (OpenGL, Perl, or something cool)

darn. i think i forgot something
this is really being posted at like 323
screw it

Just read this

While waiting for shane to finish up his SW:BF (aka BF:SW), I read this on Slashdot.

LQ) From a technical and implementation standpoint, which of the supported protocols do you feel is the best? the worst?
RF) From a technical perspective, I like Jabber a lot. It's open source and the protocol is fairly well documented. We don't have to deal with any of the issues related to protocol changes that we have to reverse engineer, etc. As far as the worst, I really don't like the way MSN was designed. I think it's just a bad design in general.

It's what I've said all along. Now here it is straight from a guy who's worked with all of the major IM protocols directly.

Still drinking Jolt, waiting for Shane to give me food.

SW: Battlefront

We now have shane's laptop hooked into a VCR and are recording battlefront stuff from his favorite levels. I must say it is very good footage. Also planned is some DDR, and maybe BF1942 and/or BFV.
We will definetely get some other stuff, it's just that this is overwhelmingly cool.

Oh yeah, Shane hasn't yet posted because his laptop is very delicate. It is sorta dangerous to expect his laptop to multitask.

I may decide to do the forums video using this same method, since plan A hasn't worked out so well.
I also may be using fraps for stuff on my laptop or desktop.

Shane's gonna get me stuff to go along with the Jolt I brought after he's done with this.

Oh yeah shane set up a mad cool sound system. He hooked the 2.1 sound system he's had for a million years into the laptop. Then he plugs the 2.0 speakers I gave him for the sake of portability recently into the other input of the subwoofer. Somehow, sound comes out both.

At Shane's

So now I'm at Shane's house. I had soup and cleaned the pot. Now we are in his basement, with a horrible wireless network,

Nothing done yet

Well all we did is some general EE strategy as well as me trying to figure out how to capture the forums. Shane had to leave around five. Then I had to go to the 5:30. I am now going back to his house to sleep over, along with many tools of my own. I will also open ssh on cte-debian. I am also bringing popcorn and soup, since Shane's soup is crap.

Just now some guy just went on our lawn after making a left way to fast onto my street.

My next post should be from the Kaisers'.

far behind schedule

Today at work I was actually doing stuff, so no homework got done and very very minimal pdgBB work got done. (I fixed the bug that you have to re-activate if you change your e-mail address.
Shane just got here, and we are still messing around with his new Star Wars game.
Also Shane can only stay till five, so I'll try to get things back on track.

oh yeah, mail

if i have any spare time after all that junk, i want to do something cool with my mail.
I have ctengel.net, ctenet.tk, ctenet.cjb.net, engleman@gmail.com, and others. I want to do something cool with them.

today sucked alot

For a day off, today was horrible. I did nothing useful. All day I was annoyed. I ended the day with a feeling of guilt. I was getting some crap for games, but all the mirrors for this one thing I wanted didn't work.
Tomorrow will be a day of much PDG work.

I guess this is my schedule:

1. Get stuff I need to do my homework onto my laptop so I can do it at work.
   
2. Have some fun (I haven't done anything useful yet, so why start now. Besides, my day was aweful. Might as well try to finish it off fun.), but get to bed early so I'm not dead at work.
3. At work, I'll do all of my homework.
4. If I have time maybe do some general planning for PDG, otherwise watch TV.
5. I'll hope to get all of the coding done for pdgBB 0.4.0 done before Shane shows up.
6. When he does, the first matter of importance is an Engleman Enterprises meeting to discuss general strategy.
   
7. Then we shall put together some PDG propoganda.
8. Then he can work on making videos while I'm coding.
9. We'll probaly also do some multiplayer stuff.
   
10. The last video part, but most important, is forum stuff. It is very important that this video is "politically correct," by all standards. This will probably be from the view of a freshman, and will include flashy stuff as well as HOWTO.
    
11. After that we need to make a "final cut" of video(s). There may be more than one.
12. Then, detailed plans for Engleman Enterprises can be made, partly based on the previous work.
13. If we actually have any time after that, small improvements can be made here and there, but I doubt anything useful will get done.
14. Sunday morning, I will dub the video(s) repeated over and over onto VHS.
15. Then discussion will happen with Pinko about "local registration," but it's almost inevitable that this will end up in me writing it.

Yep, so I hope all this works and tommorrow is better. If Shane isn't sleeping over, I doubt that much will get done. If he is, we will probably be up all night working. He has a new DDR and the "aweseme-cool" Star Wars DVD set.

Myself and Shane will be blogging this live. (It is a little known fact that Shane can post on this very blog.)

i want a cms

now

PDG Trouble

Shortly before the incident I will describe below occured, the following conversation occured between myself and Arca:

(20:54:54) ctenetchecker: hi
(20:54:59) Arca: gday
(20:55:12) ctenetchecker: r u planning anything for pdg this year?
(20:55:18) Arca: yeah i am
(20:56:06) ctenetchecker: do you want any assistance with the activities fair
(20:56:12) Arca: actually i cant make it
(20:56:17) Arca: because i have college course
(20:56:24) Arca: at that time
(20:56:42) ctenetchecker: ok so do u think i should get something for it
(20:56:49) Arca: yeah man
(20:56:59) Arca: programming design and gaming bro
(20:57:44) ctenetchecker: ok
(20:59:06) Arca: have like some code on one monitor
(20:59:14) Arca: a website on the next one
(20:59:19) ctenetchecker: ok
(20:59:21) Arca: and then have like game trailers playing on the next one
(20:59:25) Arca: ill give you the game trailers
(20:59:31) ctenetchecker: ok
(20:59:46) ctenetchecker: so we can use those PCs in meehan's room right
(21:00:01) Arca: correct
(21:00:03) Arca: talk to him
(21:00:06) Arca: before you do
(21:00:09) ctenetchecker: yeah
(21:04:33) ctenetchecker: ok when do you want to give me the game trailer
(21:04:33) ctenetchecker: s
(21:04:49) Arca: someday
(21:04:53) ctenetchecker: ok
(21:05:33) ctenetchecker: i still got to do a bit of homework, ttyl

After this conversation, I was very pleased. The work I had already started was now officially appointed to me. I thought it would be great working with Arca this year.

Alright, so it all started on Monday, during a free (I beleive 6th, if not 4th.). I saw (in this order, from left to right) Roderick, Arca, Page, and an empty seat in the best section of the computer center. As I was about to sit in the empty seat, it became a full realization to me that Page was on the forums and in communication with Arca. Instantly this worried me, so I sat two rows back, but close enough that I still had a good idea of what was going on, including even some speech. After a bit, Page was done looking at the forums, and Arca seemed to be showing him and Roderick something completely unrelated. I had a feeling of relief. I guess I must have not been watching closely for a bit (I did have some work to do.), because next thing I knew, Malfa was occupying the previously empty seat and Page was on the forums again, and I think Malfa was making some remark.

I quickly decided that it would be better if the "triumvirate" saw the closing message (I can not change it easily from school.) than it would be if they saw everything else. The closing message at the time (left over from "0.3.9 construction") was:

This board is suspended until further notice by the upper management of Engleman Enterprises.
Sorry for delay. Check back later.

I didn't realize any problem with this at the time, so I quickly locked the forums; however, Page was not active at the time, so he didn't notice it right away (or was it that he noticed it right away, but he decided not to ask me about it for a few minutes). So then Page came back to the row I was in, and when he asked why they were down, I told him he was sitting next to the "triumvirate." He said something like he knew that, but didn't realize it at first. He may have asked why that was a problem. If he did, I told him that I would tell him later. I am pretty sure he asked when they would be back, and I said when I felt like it.

Anyway, they all spontaniously left (Again, I did not actually see it when it happened.), but I think some of them were still hanging around elsewhere. Anyway, this situation was worrying more than whatever work I was doing, so I logged off and sat next to Page, who was still in the same spot. I did not dare re-open the forums again until I could fully assess the situation at home. I asked Page what happened, and he said he demodded me or something, so I said that's highly unlikely. He pointed to the "usergroups" link (then inaccessable, because of closing), and said he removed me from some group. Arca was (and still is) the moderator of two groups: PDG and PDG MODs. I quickly realized that this is probably what Page confused with it. I asked him the obvious question: "Why?" He first said something about me running it without him. When asked more specifically, he then said that Arca didn't like something at the bottom, Page thought it was the "Copyright Engleman Enterprises" bit.

When I got home, I logged in and unlocked the board. When I checked to see, I saw that I was removed not only from PDG MODs, but from PDG. I immediately added myself back into both gropus. I was shockecd by what he did. To me, being removed from PDG was showing much ingratefulness for the fact that I did almost everything not user interface related, and even some of that. Removal from PDG MODs was an act of defiance, it seemed to me. I wanted to find out more info on Arca's session, but didn't feel like looking through the DB. (I still have yet to do this at the time of writing.)

I decided to be a bit more restrictive with information handed out as well as to tell Page not to do it again. Nothing really happened on Tuesday, other than further discussion. I forgot whether this was told to me (I believe first indirectly Monday night, then directly Tuesday.) That Dobbins and Arca had allied and kicked me out. Dobbins says dumb stuff like this all the time. I don't know whether or not Dobbins spoke with Arca, but I think it is safe to say that what he said was inspired by the events on Monday. I didn't make this connection until Tuesday. Oh yeah, Pinko asked me if I wanted him to ask Arca about it. I said no, thinking that perhaps Arca would forget.

Then, today I thought all had settled and Arca completely forgot the whole thing. (He tends to not mention the forums at all unless his attention is brought to them.) After school, I was informed by one of my many sources about a conversation that took place during 8th. Apparently, Arca had had a conversation with someone else about the matter. This time he brought up Mr. Curtin. He was very annoyed at me for the "Copyright Engleman Enterprises" notice at the bottom, even if it did also mention PDG now. Also he brought up the disclaimer line (which is only there to cover my own back if someone complains that noone from the school ever approved it). My sources say that Arca said that he was talking to Curtin about having the forums hosted at school, but Curtin said no because of those two lines. There were perhaps other reasons that Arca mentioned that my sources left out and/or reasons that Curtin mentioned that Arca left out. I am doubtful that Curtin even considered it in the first place, and just gave those reasons as excuses. I also think it is far more likely that Arca talked to Butkowski or did not talk to anyone.

The one thing that never ceases to confuse me is that he has not said anything to me about this matter, at all. We have talked a bit this year, but he never brought it up. It is not my responsibility to bring it up, because I'm not the one with the problem. I will not take any further action until a complaint is filed (We have an entire forum for this sort of thing.), or at least he says something directly to me in some form.

With the activity fair coming up, I hope there is no further trouble, and I may even lock the forums tomorrow during school to prevent the topic of the forums to be brought up that way. As far as the forums at the activities fair, Pinko has already written a local registration program. Meehan is well informed of the activity fair happenings and should be present. He has yet to hear anything from Arca this year. I will be there to set up as early as 6th, if they let me.

bus mess, star wars

Today was a Z day. Therefore, I did not have to be in until 0949. I decided to take the last bus, at 0744. It did not pick me up until 0755. Then I was almost sure I would miss the 0840 train, as the bus was scheduled to be in at 0835. However, we started to catch up as we went along the Taconic and the Sprain. Then trouble started again. 287 was backed up a good way into the Sprain. The bus driver decided to get off at the next exit and work his way on side roads to 119. When we reached the end of the exit 5 ramp (where we normally would have gotten off.), it seemed feasible that I would make it if I ran. Then, when we stopped at a red, the bus driver started talking with the dirver of a #3, out the door. This is what made the difference. Keily called and was wondering where I was. I told him quickly, then hung up. I walked to the front of the bus so I could get out first. I thought about asking to be let off in the tunnel directly beneath the platform, where their are stairs up, but I didn't. I was the first off the bus and ran as fast as I could, but was probably a bit too cautious crossing. As I was running into the station, I heard the ticket guy saying stuff about the train (stuff like, take this to crestwood for local service south of there.). Old guys were going really slow up the escalator, so I took the stairs by two (or was it three? I tend to do that when i have enough adrenaline.) Since the guy was still announcing, I thought the doors must still be open. When I was high enough to see, they were closed. I kept running, but once I opened the door, the train was already moving. I then said something along the lines of "F*CK! D*mn bus." under my breath (or maybe it was audible). Keily called me when I was still out of breath saying the doors closed right before he saw me. I guess it was meant to be. I ended up on two M7s with many other FP students. I missed out on a chance to get a free very small bible (I thought was propoganda.) at the gate. There was no chocolate milk (should have gotten yoohoo at white plains.), so I walked up and heard the warning bell while still on the stairs.
The day was pretty good altogether. Better than the Page/Arca problem yesterday. I hope Lanahan is nice with grading.

Star wars is out on DVD.

I will start a "bus log" of people on the bus in the afternoon.

(all times EDT)

My PVR dreams come true?

Check it out. Pretty cool.

internet connection down

internet connection down