Redesign in progress.

I haven’t actually come up with a new design yet, but I’m reorganizing the site right now. You may have noticed that the blog is now the first thing you come to if you go to www.sweetvenus.org. The photo gallery has also been updated and is drawing directly from Facebook. This also means that all the photo galleries that were here before may not all be on the site now. This is for privacy purposes. Basically, the photos on this site are the ones that are visible to non-friends on Facebook. All other galleries are friends only and only viewable via Facebook. Make sense?

Because I’m reorganizing the photo gallery, some photos on the blog may not appear, especially those on posts before 2006, since that’s about as far as I’ve gotten on replacing them with the new URLs.

I’ll also be adding the calendar back in, but in a nicer more calendar-y format.

I’ll be redesigning the website soon.

I need to update my Wordpress version (I’m still using version 2.0.4 here…). Then I have some plans to try to integrate my Facebook account with the website. You may have noticed that the photos and videos links take you over to Facebook now, since I’ve pretty much uploaded everything over there. However, I’m going to integrate everything better so that it looks more seamless. Or at least try to. We’ll see how that goes. I know there’s at least a Wordpress plugin for Facebook photos.

I may or may not merge the old wedding blog’s posts in with these. I haven’t quite decided. But if you’ve tried to get to jessicaandben.com (or you subscribed to the RSS feed over there), you may have noticed it’s now pointing here.

I hope to be done with all of this in a month or so. We’ll see how motivated I am.

The future of sweetvenus.org?

I’m trying to decide what I want to do with this site. After the wedding, I’m contemplating combining jessicaandben.com and sweetvenus.org. This means the blogs will be merged together and the sites will be identical. I hardly do anything over here anymore. The photo album gets updated and that’s about it, but I also upload a lot of my photos to Facebook. I’m thinking of uploading them all over there (since it’s faster and a lot easier) and getting rid of the photos and videos sections. “Stuff I Own” hasn’t been updated in forever, and was basically just a PHP/MySQL practice ground when I made it, so there’s no real point in keeping it around. I’ll still keep the cosplay stuff up.

What do you all think? Should I keep the two sites separate? If I do, what kind of content should be on jessicaandben.com after the wedding compared to this site? Should I drop the photos and videos and move them all to Facebook?

As you may or may not have noticed, there is a new section on the website.

I finally added a videos section, which has the two videos I have taken with my new digital camcorder I got for Christmas, all edited and set to music. I also put all the short videos that I had previously taken with my digital camera in there and removed them from the photos section. I did leave the comment (there was only one) in tact. The view counters have, however, been reset. The files are all streamed using the Flash plugin, so no need to download huge files in order to watch them.

I’m still testing a few things and working on my admin section, so please let me know if you find any bugs.

Okay, on a new host now!

There should be no problems with Trojans. Basically, my previous host refused to acknowledge any problem because it did not happen to them, even though I was providing insurmountable proof that it was, in fact, occurring. I had malicious javascript, links, etc. mostly provided by my brother (who must be very bored) and they still refused to accept it. I had been emailing back and forth with them for about a week with no response other than them repeating, “We didn’t face any error.” In my last email, I said that if they did not attempt to fix the problem, I would have to change hosts because I couldn’t keep subjecting my visitors to a Trojan and they responded back with the same, “We didn’t face any error.” So I changed hosts. Less stressful to upload my entire website than to have to deal with incompetent tech support.

So, as far as I can tell, the only thing wrong with the site right now is that recent pictures in my blog aren’t showing up, and that’s because while I was uploading the entire site, I took the opportunity to rearrange and make my files a little more organized. Unfortunately, that does mean I have to go in and change some links in some places.

In other news…I have decided to start taking ballet classes. I decided this last week, when I was looking up some information on the ballet my mom and I were going to see at TPAC this past weekend (more on that in a minute). I was on the Nashville Ballet website and accidentally clicked on the School link. Then something about Adult classes caught my eye. I used to take ballet when I was really young, about 4 or 5, but my mom says I would rather watch cartoons on Saturday mornings than go to class, so I ultimately stopped going. However, I’ve always had a love for ballet, so I decided this would be a good way to help me stay in shape (or..get in shape), help out with my balance (I’m a complete klutz), and other beneficial things. So, I will be taking classes Thursday nights for the next six weeks. If I like it enough, I may increase this to two classes a week in January, but we will see. My first class is tomorrow.

The ballet we went to go see was new, choreographed by the artisitic director of the Nashville Ballet. It was based on the legend of Lizzie Borden, and gave his interpretation of how the story went. In our programs, we were given a ballet to vote if we thought she was guilty or not guilty and this entered us into a drawing for dinner for 2 and tickets to see “The Nutcracker.” I haven’t heard anything from them, so I assume I did not win. “Lizzie” was preceded by three other, shorter ballets: “Tribute,” “Serenade,” and “Journey.” Of those three, I liked “Serenade” the best. While watching it, I thought it was a little hard to follow, but I could tell it was about love and that there seemed to be a love triangle between the two principal ballerinas and the lead male dancer. It was very beautiful though, and I liked the flowing, long blue tutus. When I got home, I looked up what it was about, and learned that it didn’t actually tell a story, but it was about love and yearning. So I guess I interpreted it as well as one could have. “Lizzie” was also good, but in a different way. None of it was done en pointe (which kind of lowers its coolness value a little to me, hehe) but the story and dramatics were very well done.

Changing hosts…

There might be a couple bumps in the site over the next few days because I am changing hosts since this Trojan problem is never going to be resolved. So don’t be alarmed if the site is down (of course, if it is, you won’t be seeing this).

View site at your own risk.

I’m still trying to figure out this trojan thing. I just saw it pop up for the first time while in Firefox. Best thing to do is disable javascript for now. Or don’t use Windows.

Anywho, I put pictures from Teresa’s birthday party up.

Okay, layout issues fixed.

The only things I know of that need to be done now are work on the smileys and I’m still deciding on pagination for Stuff I Own. I did it in the DVDs section, so check that out and if you think that’s better than a long list, let me know.

I called EB/Gamestop last Friday to check on preordering a Wii. (I’ve been calling every payday for about two months.) They said I still couldn’t preorder the system, but I could preorder games and they would call me when they started taking reservations for the system. So I went down there and preordered Zelda, along with Final Fantasy III on the DS and Tales of the Abyss on the PS2. So hopefully I’ll be getting a call from them soon about the system.

Redesign update…

Okay, most everything should be good. Here’s a list of outstanding issues that I know need to be fixed:

• Heading sizes need to be changed in Cosplay, Stuff I Own, and Resume
• A few weird div issues on some of the Stuff I Own sections
• Move top reviewers to sidebar in Stuff I Own
• Pagination in Stuff I Own
• Image borders in sidebar on main page are not consistent
• Fix winking smiley, make other animated smileys
• Pop-ups (event information, reviews) haven’t been touched yet, so I need to do those.
• Site does funky things in IE, besides the random Trojan (like float problems in the css…sigh, why do people have to use IE?)

If you notice anything else out of whack that’s not on this list, please let me know.

Site redesign!

Okay, if you notice anything odd in the next day or so, it’s because I’m redesigning the site. The colors may change; I’m still deciding on them. Let me know if you have any layout problems.

Oh, and according to my brother, there may be a Trojan attached to this site somehow that you could potentially get if you are using Internet Explorer. It’s a vulnerability in cPanel, which my web host uses, but they have to fix it. So please use Firefox.

Everything should pretty much be working.

The only thing I haven’t quite figured out is why, on the main page, the full name of the month under “latest blog post” won’t display correctly. It only shows up as the first letter. I’m stumped on this one. I may have to go directly into the database to get that information instead of using Wordpress’s nice little functions.

I added Board Games under the “Stuff I Own” section, since I frequently get asked what games I have when a board game party gets close. That’s not all of them, but it’s all the ones that Amazon had listed. I also have Titanic: the Board Game, Alibi, and Careers.

I’m also working on a calendar app right now that will show all the information from the events section plus any blog posts that have been made. One day I may add days reviews were posted, but that would require me reformatting the review database and I just don’t feel up to that right now.

Anyway, let me know if anything funny is going on. I’ve tested this under Firefox 1.5 and IE 6.0 under Windows XP and everything seems to be looking good, but let me know if it shows up funny on your Mac or something.

I’m in the process of moving my blog to Wordpress.

So be warned that things might look a little crazy sometimes.

I decided that in order to do a couple things that I might like to do to the site, I need full access to my posts and stuff. Hence the need for the switch from Blogger. Plus now my comments are integrated better, instead of being hosted on Haloscan.

I added a new little feature to the site.

Now when you are viewing the folders in the photo gallery, you can click on a link that sends you directly to a related blog post (if there is one). So if you ever find yourself wondering why I took 15 pictures of ducks one day or why there are random pictures of the streets of Knoxville in the middle of all my birthday party pictures, you can click on the link and maybe find out.

I still plan on doing a major overhaul of the site. Maybe Friday. Not sure. I have an idea of what I want to replace the non-functioning calendar with, but I’m not sure how long it will take to implement it.

Anyway, things are going pretty good right now. Boxes are almost all unpacked. Hopefully I will get all that finished up this weekend or the next. Planning a board game party (slash apartment-warming party) for next month. I’m excited because Jason and Becka might be coming up to see my new place, and (cross your fingers) maybe even Sabrina!

I need to go reserve a Wii.

Site problems: Don’t try to view the calendar.

My PHP code decided to rewrite itself and take out all my quotation mark escapes. No idea why or how, but you’re gonna get an error if you try to view the calendar because I don’t have time to fix it right now. I went ahead and took the calendar off the left sidebar because you couldn’t view any of the pages because of it. I was thinking of doing a complete redesign this weekend anyway.

Oopsie.

I just accidentally deleted about three or four reviews in the Stuff I Own section that I didn’t mean to. So if you notice some of your reviews missing (not that anyone ever looks at them, but if you do…), sorry! I was trying to clean out some stuff that I recently sold, and deleted some of the wrong reviews and have no idea which ones they are.

Far too busy to work on the site.

I removed the login script for now, since it’s not entirely working, and I haven’t found time to sit down and look at it yet. Between working, having at least one program due every week in my CS classes, working on a website for the local YWCA as well as other things for my design class, and taking care of my Nintendogs, I can barely even find time to breathe. On top of that, I’m trying to work on my Halloween costume; luckily, my wonderful mother is helping me out a lot with that.

Upcoming dates of importance:
Wednesday, October 12 - Mellow Mushroom Trivia Night. Everyone must come out and help us. I’ve yet to be on a team that won.
Thursday, October 13 - Fall break. I get to relax and not think about school for a day.
Wednesday, October 19 - Crystal Method is at Fiction. Haven’t decided if I will be going. Depends on how my work-load looks.
Tuesday, October 25 - Next part of my design class project due.
Thursday, October 27 - My dad’s birthday.
Friday, October 28 - Jason and Becka’s Halloween party.
Saturday, October 29 - Matt’s sister Becky’s wedding. Sabrina will be in town.
Monday, October 31 - Halloween and Nine Inch Nails concert in Nashville.
Thursday, November 3 - Tests in both of my Comp Sci classes.

After that, I get a breather. Hopefully. My birthday party will more than likely be on November 18. Don’t know what we’re doing yet.

Graduation is only about two months away. Scary.

And, here’s a couple cute photos of me with my brothers and parents at my brother Chris’s wedding in July.

Actually it’s not really working at all.

I’ll have to work on it later, I suppose. All this stuff is new to me, so it might take awhile before it actually works right. But, hey, you can register and you can log in (although it might log you out if you go into the photo gallery).

Okay, I’m working on the login system.

You can try it out if you want, by registering through the link on the navigation bar. Not everything works yet, but I’m working on it.

New photo gallery is up.

The only thing that’s not finished with it is I have to put the commenting system and all the old comments back in. And the videos aren’t in there. It’s just the pictures at the moment. After I do all that then, hopefully, I can work on some sort of login system.

Okay, most everything should be working now, except for the photo gallery which I’m redoing from the ground up.

And it doesn’t seem to work in Safari. Any Mac users out there, feel free to help me out. Apparently Safari hates my CSS.

If anyone else finds anything that doesn’t work right, let me know. Hopefully, I’ll be able to add a login system and have all the blog comments, photo gallery comments, and reviews linked together, so if you’re logged in you can see/edit/delete anything you’ve written. That’s my goal anyway.