roncli.com blog

In a recent post, I mentioned that I was combining roncli.com, my projects site, and this blog into one website. Well, work on it has begun, and it's called Gate. The name Gate is actually short for Aggregate, which I will somehow work into the main theme.

Gate itself aims to be an open source, modular project. The first three modules will be a wiki, a Blogger-supported blog, and a project management module. I've been working on the SQL Server database setup the last week and a half or so and have it just about completed. Now I gotta write the repair script, which is what happens when installation goes wrong. It's been pretty fun, as I've been using jQuery and jQuery UI for the interface, allowing for the installation to be robust and user friendly.

The challenge is going to be figuring out how I want to do the modules. There are two problems to solve here. First, I need to figure out how to handle database usage between the modules and the core application. I'm using LINQ to SQL to build the data structures and synchronizing them with SMO, so theoretically the modules could use a separate LINQ to SQL file for the same database, but that might not be very optimal.

Second, I need to figure out if I am going to be able to just drag and drop modules into the /bin directory or if I'm going to have to compile it into the main website. The design strategy is to keep things simple for the user to install, so it would be nice if I didn't have to recompile things for every module. I know how to do plugins for desktop applications, as I have in Solar, a TCP/IP text processing engine that I've written that allows users to write their own plugins to process the text however they want to. Would it work for websites, or even make sense for them? That is the challenge ahead of me.

The nice part of it, like I said, is that it's open source. I'm doing this mostly for myself, and if others can get good use out of it, that's great. And if I can get others to help out with the code, that's even better. But until I have a functional version, I'm pretty much just going to write the core module plus the wiki, blog, and projects modules myself. Once the new roncli.com is online, then I'll look into releasing Gate as its own project.

Labels: Blog, Coding, Gate, Projects, roncli.com, Solar

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Projects!
Posted: 1:59:00 AM 0 comments

I decided to jump into Microsoft Project to organize my list of projects. My god, do I have a lot of projects. Not counting weekly tasks, I have 27 projects. Twenty-seven. When am I going to find time to do them all?

I suppose that's what Project is for, finding the time to do them all. It's not very encouraging at first glance, but when I glaze over the details, things do move along, if slowly. I doubt I'll ever complete all 27 projects, though, as certain projects, such as the D3TL 2003 upgrade (yes, I know it's 2006), D3DSN, and MediaSmarts probably isn't going to happen. They are the absolute lowest on my priority list right now, although I will at the very least review where these projects stand before June is out.

My goal is to get PwnedCars done before my vacation in June - by the way, I'm leaving for Melbourne, Australia on June 17th - and get some significant progress done on the new roncli Productions website. After that, I've got some long-term projects, including Cent, which I've mentioned here before. Since I've actually had to use C++ at work, I'm a bit more comfortable with the language, and hope that can help me get more done on Cent.

Here's a large (but incomplete, I must have some secrets!) selection of the 27 projects I have, for your interest:

modplug.roncli.com - Where ModPlug used to be hosted before the first crash, this box now holds some websites for MisterX (Kim), and its future is unknown at the moment. It probably will turn into a hosting box for the next modplug.com, but that's up to Kim & LPChip. (By the way, modplug.roncli.com technically isn't an address, it's just my designation for the computer itself.)

reborn.roncli.com - Reborn is my router, running FreeBSD 6.1 just like the ModPlug box. It's also my network's backup server with 300 GB of storage space. It backs up everything, including my MAME collection, OSMusic.Net, and all of the photo's Kathy's got stored on her computer.

successor.roncli.com - This is my main computer, and the reason it's a project is because I want to reinstall Windows. Yeah. That's going to be a fun day or three.

www.roncli.com - This is the Windows server where all my ASP websites live. The only thing I need to do is figure out how to backup the databases so that Backup can pick them up and put them onto Reborn.

Outpost Music - My music group that I haven't really done much with in a year and a half. Well, it's high time I got the forums working. I'll likely work on that after vacation.

The Nightstalker - Not to be confused with http://www.roncli.com, http://tns.roncli.com is solely devoted to my music. However, there's only 2 songs listed there right now. Considering I've released over 50, that's got to change.

Chess - Not sure what to call this yet, but I'm really interested in making a site with Java that will allow people to solve chess puzzles, play games, chat, and more. Definitely a long termer.

Cent - I really haven't come out and said what this is, but it's my dabbling into CrystalSpace to see if I can write a legitimate 3D first person shooter. It uses Crystal Space as its rendering engine, so once I understand it - and I understand a lot of it right now - writing the necessary code should just be a matter of time. How far I go with it depends on how well it runs.

Solar - Solar is a TCP/IP Text Processing Engine. I can hear it now. Huh? Basically, it is a telnet server that allows multiple connections, allowing them to interact. It would be great groundwork for a MUD-type application, but I really haven't had any plans to do anything with it. Putting it in as a project at least gives me an opportunity to improve it.

ChessCli - This is definitely being called ChessCli, and is my attempt at creating a WinBoard chess engine.

Outpost IRC Bot - Not sure if I even want to continue this project, but it was designed to be a cutthroat one hour compo manager. I had a lot of ideas for this about 4 years ago. Whether I can recall them, well, who knows.

roncli.com Logs - I'd really like to expand http://logs.roncli.com, as I'm recording a lot more information than I'm displaying. I'd also like to work on the performance and get this thing smoking along.

Torrent Keeper - Frustrated with the lack of true multithreading BitTorrent applications, I started Torrent Keeper about a year ago. It hasn't gone anywhere, but I figure this will likely follow Backup and Due Process as one of the first few roncli Productions offerings.

Word Field - A silly idea of mine that I'd like to follow through on eventually. Combine word scramble, mine sweeper, and some aspects of Press Your Luck, and you've got a good idea what this game will be like.

D3TL 2003 - As mentioned above, I started to do an upgrade of D3TL in 2003. The database was really badly designed, even though it was much better than just updating a Flash file every now and again. Problem is, I don't play Descent anymore, and given that there hasn't been a real game played in months, I might be better off saving an idea like this for Cent if I ever finish it.

D3DSN - This is the Descent 3 Dedicated Server Network. Yes, it's still up. No one uses it though, because the software's buggy. When I went from Visual Basic 6.0 to .NET, I really messed up with some timing issues. What I really need to do is add true threading to that application, but the last time I tried to test it with Esa, I ended up giving up because he wasn't seeing the new web services for some reason or another. Again, if I ever pick this up, it will probably be for Cent instead.

IsItUp - Recall September of last year when I high-tailed up to Lubbock, TX, to escape Hurrican Rita. While I was up there, I was interested in whether or not my servers were up. So, I wrote IsItUp, an insanely simple app. I might expand it a bit, but probably will end up being released as freeware.

Numbers - Some people write "Hello World". I write Numbers. I've written this game in many languages, including TI99-4 Basic, Macintosh QuickBasic (OS 7.0 days!), C128 Basic (dual screen!), and finally Visual Basic 6.0. It's a rather addicting game, and over the years I've added some features to it that make it even more challenging. I want to do something with it, I just don't know what yet.

roncli.com Blog - Yes, the very same one you are reading! I'd like to add some things to the blog, maybe my BOINC stats, maybe my Google Calendar agenda, perhaps some other widgets that will make the site more interactive.

Labels: Blog, Cent, Chess, ChessCli, Coding, D3DSN, D3TL, Descent 3, IRC, IsItUp, Logs, ModPlug, Numbers, Outpost Music, Projects, roncli.com, Solar, The Nightstalker, Torrent Keeper, Word Field