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This is rid-fricken-diculous.

lombardi — Mon, 12 May 2008 20:39:12 GMT

It is May 12th. Exhibit A:

And that makes me sad. :( I'm freezing every body part off. Even the ones that I don't have. I hate this weather.

Mother Nature, you done messed up this time!

Busy Busy

Rai — Mon, 12 May 2008 19:34:29 GMT

I've been a busy little bee. Okay, I hate that term. But I've been busy.

Recently I graduated from university. Finally. I moved back home to my parents house, which sucks but not for the normal reasons. I need to find a job now, but there's some other annoying factors in my life right now that I have to deal with. End of the month I will possibly post what...

So now I'm trying to unpack and clean things up, but I'm doing a terrible job at it. And of course, I'm sure once I'm done it, I'll have found a job and want to move out again.

Right now, just got an email saying I owe Surpass $633. Amused me, sent the details to K. Now just bored. And stuff.

I have changed my avatar

DewKnight — Mon, 12 May 2008 06:14:54 GMT

I think this is the first time I have changed my avatar since I joined surmunity. wow.

"You last visited: March 16, 2008 at 3:03 AM"

lombardi — Sat, 10 May 2008 04:05:32 GMT

...Seriously? It's been that long?

That means that I turned 23. What else has happened since then?

I have a boyfriend now, and it's very strange how we met, and how quickly we hit it off. It's a very long story, and I rather not go into it. But I will tell you this--I don't have to worry about dry spells anymore. :celebrate

Yeah, basically that's it. I still don't have a job. I don't have a record deal. No one knows that I can act.

None of my Jack Dempseys died yet. We started feeding them live fish. We buy like 50 of the poor things. They don't know that they're going to be fish dung by the end of the night. They're huge, and we only have a 30-gallon tank. :laugh: Should be interesting to see.

See, I don't have a life. And so, I end this now. Good night.

Blonde :O !?

lovetrick — Fri, 09 May 2008 22:17:55 GMT

I've put too much time and dedication into growing out my hair, so I'll stick with my long straight black hair. But it's nice to dress up once in a while. I'd like to have more freedom with the way I look, but I can't risk it.

I bought a blonde wig. It really suits my style and makes me look more like a princess. Which I undeniably am. :floating:

My favorite band broke up today :<

Attached Thumbnails

Good Grades!

twirp — Wed, 07 May 2008 19:30:33 GMT

:lovelette
They posted grades today!
I have 4 A's and 1 B...:suspicious:
The B was in Intro to Political Science, so I'm okay with it.
Hmm...
Hopefully I do better or just as good next semester...

So how are your lives going?:wow:

repost blogness

Alex — Wed, 07 May 2008 17:10:04 GMT

hey!

back on surmunity for a while to say hello and whats up. Have a lot of stuff coming up that ill post later. yayaya! tacos! :taco:

Hello blog! Hello photos!

Kayla — Tue, 06 May 2008 18:43:59 GMT

The blog is working again now, woohoo!

Try out the photo albums - really fun stuff. Check out the one that I added to see what it looks like [right side of the profile]:

http://www.surmunity.com/members/kayla.html

Ubuntu 8.04

twirp — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 01:31:47 GMT

Ubuntu 8.04 is coming out tomorrow!
I've been playing with the Release Candidate at home >.<
It's pretty cool and is a major improvement over 7.10
So I'm hoping to upgrade Tails to it within the next few days... Assuming no horror stories come up between now and Sunday.
Wish me luck and for no errors...
I'm hoping the fact that I compiled some stuff that they now include doesn't break anything, but I'm backing up all the stuff on it at the moment just in case.

My dogs ran away!

lovetrick — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:38:45 GMT

My mother's boyfriend left the garage door open when he left for work. I, assuming that the door was closed because it usually is, let my dogs go out. One of the rare times I don't check to make sure the door is closed, it is open. Patsy and Lili bolted out. I panicked, I cried, I called my mother's boyfriend and told him that the dogs ran away, then I went outside and sat on my porch crying. After a while I heard some leaves rustling and called out for Lili. I crossed over my neighbor's lawn and luckily she came running to me. I was able to pick her up and Patsy followed. I felt bad having called Ed from work and have him rush home, only to have gotten my dogs back without his help.

This happened 2 hours ago but I'm still a good deal stressed out. :headspin:

It's been too long!

Kayla — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:56:36 GMT

Since I used my Surblog.

So many holidays have passed since my last post.

:smileyleo:

And I have ate so many sushi rolls.

:icon_chef:

And fruit.

:sadstrawberry:

And thought about how the Internet continues to change the world.

:earth:

What's new with you?

How to start a website

FredFredrickson — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 14:40:19 GMT

As I mentioned once before, I am coding a website. A social networking website that has a few twists to it (not a myspace clone), and ultimately has a very targeted audience.

As I mentioned before I will be documenting my adventure on this blog- going over techniques that I use while developing this site, and providing insight to anybody who may not be familiar with actually coding an entire site from start to finish.

To those who are already avid programmers- you can just follow along and check my work, but to those who are genuinely interested in diving into the world of programming, this is a good place to start.

To those who are not already know-it-alls when it comes to programming- it may help to have a basic understanding of PHP and HTML. This blog will be dedicated to the middle level. To those who have messed around with their installation of wordpress or phpform, but haven't known where to start when programming their own site.

Beginning

The first thing I do when considering a site is listing out just what pages I'm going to eventually need. Then I break down what functions each will have, and then I take a long coffee break.

The site that I'll be taking you through will be a group-based social networking site. Instead of focusing on individual profiles, we'll be focusing on communication among small to mid-sized groups.

This software, of course, can have many purposes, and in some ways mimics Facebook's groups. This particular site will be revolving around INVITE-ONLY family communication. A great way to keep up to date with information, pictures, and other stuff for families strewn across the globe.

So step one is listing out goals, and the pages the accomplish these goals.

Home Page - Basic description, maybe latest news related to the site. This site is dedicated to invite-only groups, so privacy is a top matter, there will be no featured profiles or groups.

Register Page Group - Registration includes creating an account to use to login, and establish personal information. Registration will also include either joining the family you've been invited to join, or creating a new family.

Group Page - Group page will be the main hub for a family group. We're hoping to include these features, but more may come up as we go along...

Family Message Board Overview
Family Calendar
Calendar Upcoming Events
Family Photo Albums
Latest Photos

Profile Page - Although the site will minimize use of private profile pages, this will be important to ensure up-to-date contact information, if the user chooses to provide it. Phone numbers, mailing addresses, etc.

Group Config Page - The creator of a family group will have control over a few things:

Who can invite new people?
Colors? Font sizes?
Family Name & Photo
Removal of family members?

User Config Page - Update/Edit personal information per user.

Photo Gallery Page - Browse Galleries

Upload Photo Page - Upload photos to galleries. Possibily create new galleries from this page. Maybe find a flash upload program to make it easier for non-computer type people.

Calendar Page - Show entire month, as well as single day's events.

Family Message Board Page - Show individual message and allow comments from other family members.

Invite Page - Allow Invitation of new members to family via email, or entry codes.

Other goals that we are interested in:

Strict Privacy, including login verification per photo view*
One member may join multiple Families
Word cenoring to prevent bad words angering people
Make sure to make it as simple as possible
Big text, changeable text sizes for older people
Again, Simplicity
Security of data

*See Pay-Per View Content for an idea of how we may accomplish this.

In Conclusion
This is a brief and hardly exhaustive list of what we're going to be tackling to get the basic function of this site live. Follow along with me over the next few weeks as we tackle each part, one at a time, and get some source code to follow along and build your own. And as always, feel free to drop any questions off in the comments below. And get ready, our next topic will be The Registration Page.

:happyburger:

Best Practice: Logout System

twirp — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 22:17:15 GMT

There's usually a billion ways to accomplish just about any task in any programming scenerio, but usually only a few that are considered to be of "Best Practice."

The reasons to follow best practices instead of just make-it-work practices are plenty: security, efficiency, and speed. Repeat these words to yourself (in a quail-man style) as you approach your latest foe: A Logout System.

Ultimately, the point of a logout system is a way to allow the user to leave your site. There are several problems with this, the main one being they might never login again.

The first step to creating the best logout system is don't. You already put so much time and effort in creating your site, people should be forced to enjoy it. So after logging people in, don't let them logout.

But aren't logins stored in cookies and can't the visitor delete the cookies? Yes, it is possible for a user to remove the cookie storing valuable information allowing them to be "logged in," but there are some ways around this.

When the user first registers, take down their e-mail address. Track how often the person comes. If they don't come as often as you like, send them a threatening e-mail address, like killing a dog or some other sentimental animal.

Store all the information you can about the user. This way, even if they do delete the cookies, you can use the information stored to decipher if a non-cookied visitor should be logged in. PHP offers many different ways to access this information. The $_SERVER variables allow you to track their IP, the referring sites, Web Browser, OS, their host name, and much more. Recognize their behavior, remember everything about them, and keep them logged in and coming back. Why force your visitors to have to keep logging in every time they visit when you could keep them logged in forever.

Another great way to keep a user is to sell something no one can live without on your site. Record their address, credit card info, phone number, and e-mail. If they show any hint or sign of leaving, start calling them, e-mailing them, and sending them friendly letters. If they still insist on leaving, hit them where it hurts, not the crotch, but the wallet. Almost everyone will do anything for money, and if it requires them to keep visiting your site in order to get their money back and keep it for sure, then you'll have yourself a dedicated visitor.

So the next time you hear of a visitor wanting to logout and leave, don't let them! And your page rank will be hitting double digits in no time.

Best Practice: Login System

FredFredrickson — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 19:38:31 GMT

There's usually a billion ways to accomplish just about any task in any programming scenerio, but usually only a few that are considered to be of "Best Practice."

The reasons to follow best practices instead of just make-it-work practices are plenty: security, efficiency, and speed. Repeat these words to yourself (in a quail-man style) as you approach your latest foe: A Login System.

Ultimately, to program a login system, you need to inevitably trust the client enough to grant them access to what they're logging into. Much like the analog hole in music (no matter how locked down the DRM is, if you can hear it, it's still open), a login system can only be so safe, without completely blocking out users altogether- which would be particularly useless, right?

So that leads us to saftey point 1. Don't store passwords in cookies. Don't even store any personally identifying information in cookies. Consider cookies as useful, but not safe. Never keep Credit Card, Social Security or password data in cookies- even if it's encrypted.

So how do you propose a login system be programmed?

Well, aside from a persistent login system (which I may cover at a later date), the best way to do a login system is with a session.

First, you verify that the user is in fact the user. This usually takes place with a username and password combo. Once this is verified, create a session and store identifying information in the session variables. This is safe because it's almost completely server-side.

After a certain preset time (or a logout action), delete the session. Require new login.

Now how is this better than cookies? The truth- it's actually using cookies. PHP may actually store the sessionID in a cookie so when the user sends requests, your server can link the user to the session variables stored on the server.

Is this 100% foolproof? No. A session cookie can be stolen. Even submitting session IDs through get (or post??) can be found. There is no way to "store" a session ID on the client without opening the "analog hole" (if you will).

But this minimizes damage if a user is hacked. Fact is, if somebody has access to this user's cookies, they're in bigger trouble than just an issue logging into your site.

The last thing you need is somebody gaining access to personally identifying information by stealing cookies. The most access somebody could "hack" with sessions is finding your session ID and using it to gain access to a session.
This is called Session Hijacking.

For the most part, Using this system is the safest - albeit not completely locked down- way of providing a login system.

Now- let's just say that you're running a bank. (For heaven's sake, you should already know this if you're programming for a bank!) The best way to lock down session hijacking is simple: Record an IP address. If somebody tries to access a session with a different IP address than the one who created the session, then require a new login. This is simple, yet incredibly effective, and is employed by most banks (along with a few other neat tricks!)

And just for good measure, in case somebody does gain entry to an account via a hi-jacked session, make sure you require an additional password verification to change the account password. If somebody gains access, they won't be able to do much damage before the session times out, then they're back at square one.

Until next time- This is Fred with some stupid programming stuff that nobody reads. :happyburger:

Sadness...

twirp — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 13:42:02 GMT

:screwy: Microsoft didn't accept my scholarship application :(
I knew they wouldn't, but yeah...
I applied at the last minute, so my essay was messed up and so was my resume.
Plus, I don't think I had enough "Leadership" positions or extra curricular activities.
But yeah...
I guess my money has to go towards something useless, like college tuition instead of something useful like a new pimped out desktop.
Now to search for other scholarships... :annoys:

Yeah... search for other scholarships... I doubt that'll be happening. Have to do my final projects first, and then maybe, I'll search for other scholarships. Maybe I'll do one of those 30 video ones where you alert people about global warming.:screwy: