Special Blog Post:
Big Brass Blog, Release 2.0
In late February of 2005, Shakespeare's Sister and Pam of Pam's House Blend launched a group Weblog called Big Brass Blog. Last month, Pam transferred ownership of the domain bigbrassblog.com to me so I could revitalize the site. I have now more or less completed the task for the main Website. As of this morning, the new DNS for bigbrassblog.com had propagated across a considerable expanse of the Web, although holes will persist for possibly as much as another 24 to 48 hours, and some connections will have to clear old DNS out of cache before the new site shows up, but that should be a pretty rare circumstance. The embedded link—http://www.bigbrassblog.com—below should now take most Internet travelers to the new site, though.The project that has consumed me for the better part of a month is now ready for its public debut. Without further narrative, The Dark Wraith Forums proudly announces that Big Brass Blog, "The Blog of the Greats," lives.
The Dark Wraith is thoroughly toasted from this latest adventure.
Published 9/13/2006 02:04:00 PM
<< 23 Comments Total
Good evening, Dark Wraith.
You have been a busy bee! The 3Bs is certainly fancy...in fact, it could even be called quite beautiful. I'm impressed!
Good evening, Old White Lady.
It's going to be frustrating for another 24 hours or so: the old Big Brass Blog will suddenly, for no apparent reason, occasionally show up when someone types in http://www.bigbrassblog.com.
That happens during the propagation process. The new DNS (domain nameserver) binds to parts of the backbone, then it fades out, then it binds again. Eventually, over a period of a day or two, the binding becomes permanent and pervasive across the Web (and, as a result, across the planet).
Although I don't keep track of what's binding where, I suspect that during an active period when the binding is moving to new parts of the 'bone, the DNS reverts to the old nameservers; but again, I don't know that for sure.
It's just a little frustrating because, when the old DNS shows up again when I type in the URL, it makes working in the code somewhat more difficult because I don't have the control panels to organize my work across the templates, the skins, and the plug-ins.
The whole DNS propagation sorts itself out, though; but it sure takes longer than it used to. At least, I think I remember when it happened more quickly than it does these days.
The Dark Wraith might, however, be suffering from an overly rosy memory of how things used to be on the Internet.
Looks good. When are you moving this site off of Blogger?
I went to Frys today and reset all the Macs. I didn't get to stay and watch all the fun.
Bummer.
Good evening, Debra.
I am so glad you asked about when I'm moving this flagship off Blogger.
That entire project of rebuilding Big Brass Blog from scratch as a Nucleus content management system gave me the experience I needed to be able to rebuild The Dark Wraith Forums as a NucleusCMS site. I built the tools, the "includes," and everything else for Big Brass Blog, and I can now do the same thing here, while keeping the theme exactly the same as it now is, here.
There's only one small feature I have to wait for: Nucleus does not have yet have a native way to preview comments, and that's something I consider important. I would also prefer the commenting system to use HTML tags instead of the old BBC tags it now uses. (Strangely, the MiniForum over there actually does accept HTML tags, not Bulletin Board Code, in comments!)
I know several developers are working on these upgrades for the next round of NucleusCMS, and I am, too. Once that hurdle is crossed, it would take me about three days to build this blog in the Nucleus framework, and Blogger could then kiss my scrawny old backside goodbye.
I am patient. I know it's a matter of fewer than six months before the features I want are available in Nucleus; and during that time, I can perfect the work I've done at Big Brass Blog. (For one thing, I still need to rebuild Big Brass Alliance, which was a sub-directory of Big Brass Blog.) And all of that will be to the end of getting this place completely into my own hands, since Nucleus does not rely on any publishing service other than what's part of the code in the site, itself.
Thank you for asking about the move of this blog, Debra.
The Dark Wraith will keep folks updated on the matter.
Always glad to be of service. :)
The Dark Wraith Forums proudly announces that Big Brass Blog, "The Blog of the Greats," lives.
Congratulations to you! I cannot fathom all the hard work it must've taken. It is just fantastic, Wraith!
Now, about that dance...
;-)
Madam, I know oxen that have more grace than I on the dance floor.
The Dark Wraith is to the foxtrot what Republicans are to governance.
Quoth the Wraith:
I'll be posting the announcement here at The Dark Wraith Forums, so come back early and often for fun, excitement, and maybe even a rather risqué little dance routine...
Sat Sep 02, 04:12:37 PM
Tease.
Hey!
It's looking good. I had stopped visiting the BBA page a while ago because it seemed like it had been hijacked by spam. It's still on the blogroll, though. Any plans for that page, or will you consolidate that into the open forum page?
Good afternoon, zencomix.
Big Brass Alliance is next on my agenda for repair. Nucleus is a content management system, so that new blog you're seeing is essentially the seed from which I can create all kinds of sub-blogs sort of like the "diaries" you see spawned on the giant blogs. The difference is that the sub-blogs I can build from my primary architecture will be full-blown, stand-alone blogs in and of themselves. BBA was a sub-directory of B3, which means I can re-create it and have it stand in exactly the same relationship to the new Big Brass Blog.
I have to clean up all kinds of small annoyances and little loose ends at Big Brass Blog first, though. I also have to make sure the propagation of the new DNS is finished.
In other words, It will probably be the first of the week or so before I can get down to repairing BBA; but rest assured that it will get done.
DW,
congrads on a great looking site. (another great looking site)
I'm sure it took a great deal out of you--but as all labors of love you've seemed to have gained tremendously as have we by your efforts.
Thanks so much.
Most excellent work Dark Wraith.
Good Morning Dark Wraith,
Hope it doesn't take you long to recouperate from the titanic effort, and what a great redo! I had assumed that your attention was taken up by the first few weeks of school. Should have known THAT wouldn't faze you.
Many thanks for applying your skill and talent.
Looks great!!! Really a change for the better! I haven't had the time to track down a walk through on how to move archieves from one cite to another (I want to get my old posts from blogger onto my new site), I was wonder If you could point me in the right direction...
Good Afternoon O' Dark One,
The new version looks fabulous! Excellent work!
Especially nice to see the membership list cleaned up...To that end, I think I added my newest blog incarnation in the midst of your upgrade and am not on the list? Can you get "Declarations" on the list? I couldn't find a way to do it on my own or I would have.
Nice to be back to the blogsphere after a needed rest.
Missed you especially.
g
Good afternoon, Dark Wraith. The B3 looks fantastic! I can't wait to see what the Big Brass Alliance - and the Dark Wraith forums - look like.
Have a good weekend and take a break.
Hi Dark Wraith, I like you have been busy with lifes challenges as of late. You have done a wonderfull job in changing the 3B blog. I shall visit it more often and see whats going on there.
Hello Dark One
I was wondering where you have been. You have done a great job at BBB and I'll be sure to visit it more often. I'm impressed with your skills. Me, I'll have to stick to blogger.
Good afternoon, BlondeSense Liz.
Yes, I'm finally returning to the Land of the Living, if only barely. I still have some work to do on Big Brass Blog. I need to perfect the architecture so that I can make a clone to use for the resurrection of Big Brass Alliance. If everything is right with the parent, all of the child blogs I create off it will be perfect, too.
Of course, that's not how it works with people; but fortunately, we haven't quite gotten to the point where our Web pages are as unpredictable as our offspring, although I am occasionally nearly convinced that, like all kids, some Web design standards have the Devil built right into them.
That's part of what makes Web design (and kids, I suppose) so interesting.
Given the choice, the Dark Wraith would probably opt for an evening with a recalcitrant cascading style sheet, though.
[If worse comes to worse, the CSS can be deleted.]
Good afternoon, Jack.
Thank you for stopping by. I am obviously hopeful that all of the people who used to go to Big Brass Blog on a daily basis will now start returning. The place really came back to life with a bang, which is a good sign. I've seen some sites revitalized, but the re-launches fizzled because the original visitors had just moved on and had no reason to re-establish a lost visiting routine.
I am also hopeful that folks will remember to start coming by here again, now that I'm coming back from a posting dearth.
The Dark Wraith should probably put up one of those big spotlights to attract people's attention as they drive by on the interstate.
Good afternoon, Karen M.
Ah, you remember. Yes, rebuilding Big Brass Blog from scratch is the opus to the final project, which will be the re-deployment of The Dark Wraith Forums as a NucleusCMS site.
Folks here might recall my vow to get this Website off Blogger. I wanted a new construct that was completely stand-alone, highly flexible, and as state-of-the-art as possible.
Unfortunately, "state-of-the-art" means "learn something completely new, Old Dog," so I have once again had to give up the fantasy that I have every skill I could possibly need already embedded in my thick skull.
NucleusCMS uses PHP, which I had avoided getting too familiar with: I saw it as nothing more than an alternative to javascript, but that was a wholly incorrect impression. I have now learned that PHP is a meta-framework within which other resources are brought to bear. In fact, some of the tricks I've created here with great effort can be done much more easily and routinely within PHP. Moreover, one of my greatest achievements was mastering (or at least becoming not quite incompetent at) AJAX, and now I know that I can replace AJAX scripts with much faster dynamic content tricks in PHP.
But the coolest part is that, over at Big Brass Blog, I'm actually using AJAX scripts inside of what in PHP are called "includes" to run those very cool news streams you see over there! I can pull news from anywhere on the planet now, and I can do as many as I want (although a practical limit is about five, but that's more than enough news for any newshound).
Now, the fact of the matter is that NucleusCMS has two deficiencies, as I already noted: comments cannot be previewed, and the tags like italics and bold-face in comments have to be in the ancient Bulletin Board Code instead of HTML; and as I noted previously, it looks like the comment preview issue is going to be addressed very soon, so The Dark Wraith Forums is going to be given the Big Overhaul here not too far down the road.
Of course, the place will look almost the same, at least to first appearances. The only first-appearance difference will be symmetric sidebars girding the central content column, which means the new version will finally give up on the 800x600 resolution monitors. It will still look okay in them, but it will be oversized at 800x600. The number of visitors with that resolution has dropped off to almost nothing in recent months, so it's time to move to the 1024x768 standard, anyway.
Now, you might have noticed that the plan for this place is already well along. In fact, I've almost finished building the new site; but again, I'll wait until I can get the comments preview feature.
And I should point out, by the way, that the reason I want that is because we have it here now, and I don't want to surrender features just to go to a new system. More to the point, though, given that I am an obsessive/compulsive perfectionist when it comes to things like writing, I have no intention of posting comments that I cannot at least have a chance to review for grammatical integrity.
Sometimes, it's a real pain in the butt being so obsessive/compulsive about something like that. I guess it would be worse, though, actually having to live with someone like that.
The Dark Wraith occasionally gets really annoyed by his own company, even.
I figured it out, I just had to change it to FTP to my Bravenet account instead of Blogger.
Darn, Fred, I had to leave for a while, but I was going to get to your question as soon as I returned.
Are you using a secure or unsecure ftp protocol? If you can do so, make sure you're using secure. I believe that even Blogger is recommending that, these days. The world is getting more and more unsecure, and a lot of that is the result of those who pretend they're trying to make us more secure.
Funny how that works.
The Dark Wraith finds it all a tad ironic.