Atom FeedSaturday, November 15, 2008
PolarLava CycleLog V2.5.1
Last weekend I found time to make a minor update to my CycleLog. The Bikes page now features a lightbox image popup for each of the bike images. This now allows for a small thumbnail image that can be clicked to view in a larger size. This is what I wanted to do all along, but didn't have the time back when I added the images. This was really needed as the original image sizes were too large which resulted in horribly slow page loads. Plus the reduced image display size looked really lousy. So all is well now, although I need to update the Centurion Ironman image since the bike was rebuilt. November 15, 2008 @ 07:45 am | Category: Software DevelopmentSunday, April 13, 2008
Mini-Project: jpcache
So after releasing one modification for jpcache, I've now adopted it as a mini-project. I've used this application for a long time now and have found it to be an absolutely great addition to all of my pages. In short it allows you to cache complex pages once they are generated and optionally compress the output on the fly as well. This caching can effectively turn your complex pages into a static pages, thus allowing you to server them up faster. Additionally you can specify the time between page generation/cache updates from 1 second to indefinitely.So what's the problem? I had made a few small contribution to the project a number of years ago and had discussed developing a cache management interface with Jean-Pierre (the "jp" of jpcache). I actually never pursued this as MyClient was already meeting most of my cache management needs. But sometimes I just wanted to quickly flush a single-page from the cache. So I was compelled to develop a page-level flushing mechanism. This development, after a minor modification was accepted by the project, but never released.
So a good deal of time passed and it became clear the jpcache project unfortunately had ground to a halt. That's OK, I understand because being the developer of several projects myself, I can easily see how it happens. Simply put, running a project is a lot of work. I considered taking up the cause, but I was already managing more projects than I could handle. It was at this point I released my page level flushing modification as V2.1pl via my blog. (see below)
So for a longtime I was content with the situation. Then in early 2008 I learned that jpcache had been taken over and renamed QuickCache. I was happy to see somebody had taken up the cause and emailed the project lead about my single-page flush modification. And unfortunately I never heard back from them, nor has this change shown up in the project.
Again I just sort of gave up on it. But recently I've been looking for a reason to use the PHP SQLite extension simply because I found it interesting. Thus I opted to (quickly and easily) create a SQLite backend for jpcache. And at the time of writing this, it's the backend I'm currently using, although that could change in the future. I thought about submitting it to the QuickCache project, but it appears that it's development is also stalled. Thus I've opted to release it as "jpcache V2.2" at this time. See the newly created jpcache project page for more information on this release.
In the future it's possible my jpcache changes could be incorporated into QuickCache should they be interested. But a more likely scenario would be for me to create a new project branch —which I guess I effectively have at this point. My reasons for doing this, beyond what's outlined above, is that one of the changes QuickCache made was the elimination of the configuration file. Personally I disagree with this change and feel the configuration should stay separated from the operational logic as much as possible. I also still toy with the idea of creating a cache management tool. But realistically it's more likely I would first modify MyClient to support SQLite databases. At that point I would again not need a management tool, although it would be nice to add that at some point. Thus I will be maintaining some version of jpcache for the foreseeable future if for no other reason, my personal need and desire. So if you're an abandoned jpcache user or simply someone looking for a web page caching solution, this might be a solution for you too! April 13, 2008 @ 09:31 am | Category: Software Development
Thursday, April 10, 2008
PolarLava CycleLog V2.5.0
The latest update to my CycleLog adds graphs for the distance, average and maximum speed. You will find these graphs on main, calendar and search pages.At this time on the main page I'm not graphing the "Lifetime" section as the amount of data requires this to be a tremendously large sized image in order for this to be readable. It's largely more for my current rides as you'll note on the calendar pages. But it's also a nice feature to have on the search page although depending on the data set, it can take up to 30 seconds to generate the image. Thus in most places the image is cached with the notable exception of the current month on the calendar page. The intent is to eventually graphing of the year on the main page as well as on the Yearly Summary page. A lot of that will depend upon finding a suitable image size that will allow the data to be displayed but still maintain a reasonable file size. Being historical data I will only need to actually generate them once with the exception of the current year. And that will need to be generated a separate process as it takes too long to generate as part of the page generation.
I'd also like to take a moment and give a quick nod to JpGraph which is what I'm using to generate these images. I can't begin to say enough good things about how easy and flexible the application is. I'd highly recommend it to anyone who is looking to do (a wide variety) of graphing. April 10, 2008 @ 12:57 pm | Category: Software Development
Monday, January 21, 2008
MyClient V3.2.1 Released
MyClient V3.2.1 has been released. This is release only requires file updates, there are no configuration changes to be made.Enhancements
- None
- Bad include path for session and serialize data support has been corrected.
- None
- None
Sunday, January 20, 2008
MyClient V3.2.0 (Bluefin trevally) Released
MyClient V3.2.0 (Bluefin trevally) has been released. This is release only requires file updates, there are no configuration changes to be made.Enhancements
- Updated to operate with E_STRICT error_reporting.
- Added support to display serialized and session data. When enabled, data that is stored in a session format (e.g. using a DB backed session handler) or data that is serialized will be displayed in a more readable unserialized fashion. Using this option will automatically enables the "Render HTML" option so this option displays properly.
- None
- None
- RENDER_SERIAL
Friday, November 23, 2007
PolarBlog V1.10.2
PolarBlog V1.10.2 has been released. This is a bug fix and performance improvement release.Enhancements
- Improved query topic indexing.
- Improved comment indexing.
- SafeSQL*.class.php Added released NULL support and fixed PHP5 abstract method declaration error.
- E_STRICT Compliance: Fix Call-time pass-by-reference errors.
- E_STRICT Compliance: You need to set your default timezone via date.timezone. See PHP: Date and Time Functions, PHP: Appendix J. List of Supported Timezones and the .htaccess File section of the PolarBlog Documentation.
- Entries in deleted topics causing the entry index page to fatal.
- Search results not being properly sorted, partially due to V1.9.1 change to prevent memory overload.
- New and updated entries that are post dated shouldn't ping Ping-O-Matic (if enabled).
- None
- None
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
PolarBlog Update Coming
I've been quite busy as usual the past few months, but with the weather declining that generally means good things for my website and software development. Anyhow, a few weeks back I discovered that the last PolarBlog release broke the "Entry Index" page. And I've been struggling to understand why the search function became so horribly wrong most of the time. Well, I finally got tired of dealing with it -because I search my own blog often, and tracked down the problem last night. It seems some dummy broke it as part of his efforts to fix a poor architectural decision at the very beginning. Thus it actually broke back in V1.9.1. And I've been doing some cleanup work so it now runs without complaint under E_STRICT.So hopefully I will find time over the long weekend to get an update packaged up and released. :) November 21, 2007 @ 12:59 pm | Category: Software Development
Thursday, September 27, 2007
PolarBlog V1.10.1 Released
PolarBlog V1.10.1 has been released. This is primarily a minor security update, bug fix and spam reduction release.Enhancements
- Added support for auto blocking of Akismet flagged messages.
- Added additional protection against comment spam.
- New configuration directive RBL_AKISMET_AUTODEL.
- Prevent hacking of input variables to eliviate potential path disclosures.
- Prevent hacking of session cookie to eliviate potential path disclosures. Read more about these two changes in the PolarBlog Potential Path Disclosure entry.
- User IP detection could return a comma delimited list of addresses instead of just one.
- RSS feed not updating when multiple entires entered with the TTL.
- Entries in deleted topic cause fatal errors.
- Added RBL_AKISMET_AUTODEL
- None
