Tag Archives: Computing

Autumn Damage 3/12/2005 – Summary

At some point yesterday when autumn was sitting out in the living room, I happened to be adjusting the angle of the screen when I noticed that the bevel that holds the power button and a number of other function buttons specific to Dell Inspiton laptops had popped out of space by a very noticeable amount. Looking at the side of the laptop, it became clear that something wasn’t quite right, though the extent of the damage wasn’t obvious. After spending about ten minutes looking at Dell support manuals, I shut down the computer and set to work.

It took a little bit to remove the bevel that had popped out, primarily because I hadn’t noticed that the screen had to be all the way back for the protective bevel to be properly removed. After we removed it, there was fairly obvious damage to the hinge on the left side of the laptop. We had to disconnect the LCD from an anchor point on the back of the plastic, then we were able to pull the LCD unit out of its retaining slots. After we did that, a side-by-side comparison of the hinges that allow the LCD to open and close became quite easy. It was quite clear that the left-hand hinge was badly damaged while the right-hand hinge was still intact.

Apparently, at some point within the last couple of weeks, the protective metal encasement on the left-side hinge began to bend back so that it was no longer covering the vast majority of the hinge. This seems to be supported quite well by this image, though the length of time it took for this damage to happen isn’t clear.

So after some consultation with Amanda, we decided to bend the hinge back into place if we could. Using a pair of needlenose pliers, we tried to do just that, but the deformed metal component ended up snapping off instead. Well, no biggie — that fixed the problem either one. But now the hinge on the left side is busted, though the bevel fits correctly again. This doesn’t seem to have drastically affected the usability of the LCD itself, though if I push the LCD too far back, it’ll go back as far as it can without my prompting. Well, I’m willing to live with slight defects.

Trackback Pings Disabled

And then the spammers sayeth, "If thou wilt not alloweth comments upon thy blog entries, we shalt spam you using yonder trackback ping!"

— If there were a Spammer’s Bible, this would be in there.

Trackback pings have been disabled by default on blog entries after this one, and I will (very) slowly be turning trackbacks off on old entries as well. Damn spammers.

Pixelary Updates

As part of the process of signing up for a SourceForge account, you are required to write some descriptions for the project you propose to create. SourceForge asks for a short (less than 255 character) description of the project. Pixelary’s entry is below:

Pixelary is a PHP-based account management system for web site designers. Running on any web server that supports PHP, Pixelary features support ticket functionality, the ability to define multiple contacts per account, and e-mail gateway capabilities.

SourceForge also requires “detailed, accurate, English-language description of your project, including technical aspects which cause it to differ from similar, existing solutions” for their use in assessing the project — this is used internally by SourceForge, but I thought I’d post it here. They further state that the “description needs to be technical and tangible, not abstract and philosophical. Please explain what the software will do, what purpose it will serve, and the basic problem it will solve.” Pixelary’s description is as follows:

Pixelary is being implemented in PHP using a MySQL backend to manage all data. It is being coded to be as robust as possible while still serving the needs of web designers quickly and efficiently. This will be achieved by allowing clients and consultants to interact with the system via e-mail to file support tickets and update their accounts, in addition to the web-based interface. The system may also (at some point in the future) branch off some of this functionality as plugins in order to better allow customization of the software.

Pixelary is created specifically to address the goal of increasing communication with web design clients by allowing clients full access to all data associated with their account, including timesheets, support tickets, and current/past bills.

I have requested registration with SourceForge, and should hear back within two business days (by Thursday). Hopefully, I get the space, though I realize the extreme pre-alpha status of the project as a whole.

Pixelary

So, for the last year or so, I’ve been tinkering around with a new client management system for naturalaxis, and even partially coded it at one point before losing the code. Anyway, I took another shot at it, and it’s currently coming along alright. I’m already using it in a production environment to track my active accounts for the company. The current features — which are limited to the consultant’s interface — include:

  • Support ticket functionality, including the capacity to add notes on ticket items
  • Streamlined timesheet review and posting
  • Contact management: each account can have multiple people associated with it

Percentage-wise, the code is probably about 40% complete, at least in terms of being able to use it for both clients and consultants without any bells and whistles. Some things I still need to finish to put this code completely into production:

  • Complete the coding for the billing interface, which I haven’t even started yet. This is the really important part of the program, since it sends the bills out and provides me with the up-to-date information on each account’s standing.
  • Add e-mail functionality, which I have a component for, but haven’t wired into anything yet. Ideally, the component will be wired into anything that generates output. I’m likely using PHPMailer to save myself a lot of work here.
  • Completing the code for account credits and charges.
  • Making the generation of some information more dependent on the configuration files to make generalizing the system easier.
  • Finish any code I haven’t finished (duh).

That’s the short list, but contains most of the major stuff. There are some things I’m holding off on until the software is initially released:

  • E-mail gatewayAbility to e-mail a support address and automatically add a ticket to the system, provided that the originating e-mail address has an account within the system itself. I expect that this article from evolt.org will help quite a lot.
  • Client management of multiple accountsOne user in the system should be able to manage multiple accounts within the same system on the client side. The way the code is currently implemented, a single user can only be assigned to a single account unless multiple user names are used.
  • System configuration wizardThe skeletal framework for this is there, but probably won’t make it into the initial release. I’d love to be able to change the system configuration without actually using the configuration file.
  • System installerThis is an involved component in and of itself. The installer would automatically set up the MySQL databases needed for Pixelary, create the configuration file, create initial users, and populate the databases accordingly.

The goal here is to get something that I can release via SourceForge — probably under the BSD license. We’ll see about that — for now, I just want a running system that I can be proud of.

Domain Names

Today’s the day when I add stuff I’ve been meaning to post about but haven’t. One of them is my recent domain name purchases, including one made just today though Dotster. This includes all domains I own currently, and all automatically renew:

Domain Name
Creation Date
Expiry Date


darkfusion.net
06/06/1999
06/06/2006


dreamrift.net
11/26/2004
11/26/2006


naturalaxis.com
04/06/2002
04/06/2006


naturalaxis.info
11/13/2004
11/13/2005


pixelary.info
11/13/2004
11/13/2005


republicofelisium.info
11/13/2004
11/13/2005

I’ve also owned willworkfora.tv and insidelogic.net in the past. I got the three .info domains for free, since Dotster recently allowed its customers to register 25 .info domains for no charge. Fun. I may not keep the .info domains, or point them anywhere — we’ll see.

Dell Power Supply Recall

Thanks to Tempus for pointing me to this ZDNet article about the Dell power adapter recall. Apparently, my computer was affected, so I’m getting a new power supply from Dell.

Admittedly, this is sort of a pointless replacement for me, since my Dell Inspiron 8100 will probably be replaced sometime in the next year or so. Until then, I suppose, better safe than sorry.