Late Night Fiction

Blogging is a great thing. And with the increase in mobile device use, faster wireless network speeds, and new technologies in recent times, it makes sense that blogging has moved to the mobile scene. When I started “moblogging” I was simply using email on my phone to compose a post, email it to my blog, and have it show up on the site that way. When I got an internet-enabled iPod Touch I used the same technique.

This was simply because the blogging interface used by WordPress does not display or function correctly in Windows Mobile’s IE or the iPod Touch’s Safari browser, respectively. However, with the wonderfully expandable WordPress system, three plugins will make your blog “mobile ready” for all the major web devices out there.

Administration (Back-end)

• WPhone - Creates a “Use mobile admin interface” checkbox when logging in through a mobile phone or iPod Touch/iPhone. Solves all your mobile blog-managing problems, although a bit glitchy on the Touch’s browser when editing large articles. However, this will remedy your managing needs for everything the less-featured iPhone app doesn’t cover.

Display (Front-end)

• WordPress Mobile plugin - Allows your blog to easily (and attractively) display on mobile devices, such as the aforementioned Pocket IE. The only downside to this plugin is the more commercial nature of it that requires you to pay to have ads removed. If you don’t mind a little text-ad or have limited mobile visitors, this will do the trick.
• WPtouch - Creates a great interface for iPod Touch/iPhone users. If you download one of these plugins, this should be the one you use. The interface is incredible, allows a good amount of customization (including your own icons), and works great on the Touch/iPhone’s browser–portrait or landscape.

To really see what these all do, try them out on your own blog or view this site on a mobile device: all three plugins are currently used. This should give you a good idea of the good these plugins can do for your blog.

Internet blogging, iPod, mobile

Running PHP5 with 1 and 1 web hosting is quite simple. All it requires is creating a new (or editing an existing) .htaccess file.

Create a .htaccess file (if one doesn’t exist) in the directory you’d like to run PHP5. Add the following lines:

AddType x-mapp-php5 .php
AddHandler x-mapp-php5 .php

This will automatically tell the server to run .php files with PHP5 and won’t require any file-renaming.

If you don’t know about .htaccess files, they only affect the directory they are in and all subdirectories. So, for example, if you put the previous .htaccess file in a new directory under the root called phpfive, all files and folders in that directory with a .php extension will run PHP5. However, files in the root and any other folder that lacks the .htaccess file will run the default PHP4 instead. Therefore, to run PHP5 on your entire site, place the .htaccess file in the root of your site.

The other way to run PHP5 is by renaming all desired PHP5 pages to include the extension .php5. Apache automatically assigns the .php extension to PHP4, so this will manually (and repetitively) tell the server to use PHP5 on a file-by-file basis. I recommend you use .htaccess as it still offers quite a bit of control over which files use PHP5 and won’t give you an unattractive 5 at the end of all your URLs.

Internet htaccess, PHP, web hosting

The winds have shifted once again. I’ve decided to move “Late Night Fiction” (just the name) to a blog on a different domain where it can concentrate on the many various things I write about, like projects I’m working on and such–basically half of the other arbitrary things I write about here. This site (blog.chicken-cheese.com) will stay as it is, probably with a new name, and just posts about the internet, web development, and things along those lines (my expertise) as the main focus.

This was my first official blog and, as such, it was a bit more difficult to pick a focus and stick with it. So splitting between where I want this blog to go and the rest of what I’ve written should take us in the right direction. I am open to suggestions about a possible name or even if you think the split will be good, as this is for you, the reader.

Internet blogging

Most remember a few months ago when the ones in charge of Facebook were forcing us all to go along with the drastic design and functionality changes they were making to the site. There were those who liked it, and those who strongly resisted it (myself included). Us members even went so far as to dig and find the few work-arounds to get to the old Facebook (note: they don’t work anymore!). But it seems there has been less commotion nowadays, now that we’ve all settled in with the new Facebook environment that we were so lovingly forced to live with.

So, as some predicted and some refused to believe, we have all grown accustomed to the new changes and still use the wonderful social-networking giant that is Facebook. I know there were threats, but did anyone follow through and actually leave Facebook when the changes were forced upon them? That’s a good question..

Internet facebook, People

Late Night Fiction is now on Twitter! If you use it, you can follow us over there and stay updated on the latest posts, etc.

Internet

Hulu is a site that lets you watch TV shows, movies, and clips from them both online for free. As I write this I’m getting caught up on the latest Simpsons episodes and yesterday I watched Liar Liar for the first time in years (it made more sense now). If you have a good internet connection, you can even watch videos in Hi-Def. The great thing about this service is that although ad-driven (ads play at regular times during the movie or episode), they are much shorter than episodes on TV, and there’s only one played at each “commercial break.”

As you can see, you can even embed the movie player on your site. Here’s a clip from Family Guy.

So the next time I need to watch a movie, a simple cable-cord from TV to laptop and I’ll watch my next movie on Hulu for free. You gotta love it.

Websites media

Today I went ahead and contacted Kongregate about my work being stolen and how I’d like it removed. It didn’t take more than 20 minutes for me to get a response telling me my work had been removed. Now that is what I call service.

I ended up celebrating by adding The BUTTONS to Kongregate, finally under my own name. After a few adjustments I got it completely working. I might update it soon to integrate the Kongregate API, it sounds pretty interesting. But everything is good now, because what’s mine is mine again.

Internet, Projects development, Flash

I was finally pushed over to the new Facebook today. I thought I had escaped them, but apparently I was just one of the scragglers. While I was strongly opposed to the new design, I messed around with it today and it really is quite a bit of improvement. Whether it was necessary or not, well I don’t think it was. But it could certainly do some good.

And after getting rid of those ugly “these do that” pointers, things are all of a sudden a lot less cluttered. Facebook knew it all along, as did many others, that we would simply learn to accept it. What can I say? They got us by the balls.

Internet facebook

After sending chesse111 a comment about how I know he stole my work and how I’d please like him to remove it, I revisited the site today to see if I, perhaps, had a response. Turns out he deleted the comment I left and then “muted” me (which, I take it, is the same as blocking someone). I looked into it a bit more and flagged both The BUTTONS and Kill the Fireflies as “inappropriate” (which could mean “stolen” as well, I’m finding).

I won’t go into how stupid it is that he would do that. But we’ll see if it really does get removed; I’m hoping the moderators over there pick up on it soon enough.

Internet internet, People

After a recent check to my Mochibot account, I realized that The BUTTONS was getting some hits from a site that wasn’t FlashStuf, Newgrounds, or some proxy site. I checked out the link and it showed me that another site was hosting my game, but after some Googling discovered the page it was (and is) on. It turns out someone submitted the game to the website Kongregate, and is taking full credit for creating the game.

While I don’t have much of a problem with people hosting my work on their site, it is completely different to blatantly claim ownership of the game, and post a comment like this in response to some criticisms of the game on that site:

chesse111 Jun. 01, 2008

i put a lot of work in to this game plase dont critisise me

This is just ridiculous. I can’t even explain to you how much this blew my mind that someone would be so dumb as to upload my work as their own, obviously thinking I wouldn’t find out, and then complain when people started criticizing them about my work! It just makes you ask what the hell was going through this person’s mind.

I know this isn’t new to some people but this is my first encounter with this kind of thing and jesus, it makes me glad that all my work isn’t that popular. I just couldn’t take the stupidity of some of these people. For those who don’t know, I was the sole creator of The BUTTONS and clearly indicate that in the credits on the game, and by submitting/displaying it on three sites (two of which are my own): FlashStuf, Chicken-Cheese.com, and Newgrounds.

Note to people who want to steal my work next time: I (and many others) use Mochibot in my flash, which is a service that allows me to track who hosts my work and how many views it gets, etc. If you see that I’m putting Mochibot in my credits, that means I am tracking that game or movie. In fact, you can even see the stats on The BUTTONS for yourself. Please, please don’t be such a dumbass next time!

But in all seriousness, chesse111, you should’ve contacted me, and suggested that I submit my game(s) to Kongregate myself. It’s a simple courtesy to the creator and the work he did. If you enjoy my games so much, let ME know and I can take the action to submit it to more sites or even let you host it as my work on your site (assuming you had one). The internet isn’t some place you can walk in and simply take what you please. There are people like myself who put time and energy into creating content like these games so that others can enjoy them, only asking that they receive the credit they deserve in return. It’s just nonsense to think you’d claim the game as your own and steal it when I don’t even make any money off it. This isn’t music you’d normally pay for. This is free entertainment. Don’t claim my (or anyone else’s) work as you own because it’s simply idiotic. However, I hope we can resolve this and it won’t happen again. I didn’t mention specifically, but Kill the Fireflies is mine as well.

Internet Flash, internet, People