Cleaned up some of the scripting even further for even faster loading times and even fewer files to have to mess around with. I'm hoping this will make having to mess with the core less of an issue, even though the scripts that were in place already did that to some extent. But this way, I have the core all in a single file that I probably won't touch after this except to add in a few more credits or to fine-tune. But changing the layout will simply be mostly a matter of editing CSS, with a few minor changes to the header scripts.

I swear, PHP is so underrated. I wish I had known about it (and CSS) when I was in my teenywebber phase way back in 2001.

Oh, and I'm back to having a network again. I really should have known better, but I have to admit that Glob@t is terrible at notifying hostees. Or rather, their official mails get lost in the sea of spam they send you, bugging you that, "This is your last chance to upgrade to storage and bandwidth that you'll never need so you can get traffic you don't care about to see a product you don't sell at a price you'll never afford! At least, it's your last chance for this month!" As much as I think their actual hosting is good, they're bad about spamming their customers about their latest deals. And it certainly doesn't help when a good number of those deals are ones you have to opt-out of. (Which can be rather complicated)

But the other problem (and this is by far the worst) is that they are terrible at updating information. I had my account set to update automatically, but because my card expired and I had to enter new information for the new one my credit union sent, the email that was sent to me about renewing my domain informed me that I would be charged $0. (Due to what I believe to be their system registering my old card, even though it's been several weeks since I entered in the new information) To make matters worse, the only links provided in the email were for support, which unfortunately is still being outsourced to non-native English speakers relying on scripts, or so it seems. (Each time I've gone through support, it's never solved my issue) In short, my domain lapsed and there was nothing I could really do about it.

So, I did the same thing I did last time: I registered a new domain. Everything works pretty much the way it's supposed to, with one notable exception. I switched the account over to the new domain, but as of the time of this post, Glob@t has yet to have their system updated. So while I can access all my pages and upload via FTP or an individual site's admin panel, I am still locked out of my Glob@t control panel. Each time I attempt logging in, I receive the message that "account has not yet been provisioned". There is a note below the login that "account changes can take up to 15 minutes to propagate to the system", but it's been closer to 15 hours.

Now, I didn't mean to turn this into a rant about Glob@t, but buyer beware: someone must have bought them out, and whoever it was has the business sense of SixApart. Some poor decisions are being made to an otherwise outstanding host.

Labels: Network

Here it is after spending the last two days and forgoing Phantasy Star Universe for all of Saturday: the rebirth of Mythercaria.com. Not only do you get a brand-spankin' new layout, but I've completely retooled the network in CSS and PHP to make it far easier to update and navigate. (I've long outgrown the whole teenywebmaster stage and have been searching for a way for MythCom to be more functional and less artsy-fartsy) So hopefully, it won't be another three years before I update the network again.

In the meantime, enjoy a relaxing watercolour of Haruhi and Tamaki from Ouran Host Club over sunflowers to the music of the inimitable Thomas Dolby. You can also enjoy some new music uploaded to Radio Mythercaria, which I had been meaning to update as well.

And I am going to be dead tomorrow at the Anime USA staff meeting from staying up until this late of an hour to get this thing hauled up onto the web.

Labels: Network, Radio Mythercaria

Uploaded a new theme for Unfettered, one far more to my liking than the previous one. Come to think of it, most of my network is shades of green at the moment. Just one more reason I've been toying around with more redesigns for the main network...considering I've had this layout for several years, I'd say it's in dire need of a redesign.

The problem is that I'm currently rather busy with the Art of the Graphic Novel class I'm taking to help me along in the development of our new project as well as work on said project and training our apprentice. Needless to say, maintaining my personal site has fallen by the wayside.

What I'll likely be doing is retooling the site to run on PHP and tailor the page itself using CSS, so that it'll be easier to update the network when necessary.

Labels: Network, Unfettered

I let Mythecaria.net lapse unwittingly, and due to some privacy issues I couldn't get the domain back. So I went and bought a new one, and this time, I spelled it right! (Though Rob prefers my old name better, since it was my 'unique spelling' or somesuch)

I have some massive changes to do and no time to do them in, what with the manga and work and deadlines and moving to worry about. (Yes, I'm moving again! Can't seem to stay at one place for very long, can I?) In fact, I'll most likely be putting the network on temporary hiatus while I make necessary changes like a PHP gallery on Unfettered so that I can dump that loathsome DeviantArt. (Sorry, DeviantArt fans...I'm only forced to use it temporarily)

Labels: Network

It's been a two-year hiatus, but behold! Brand-new layout. Unfortunately, this also means a very long time indeed until the next one, given all the work I'm doing on Hana Road. In fact, all this week I've been either working on the manga, updating MythNet, or practising in Photoshop to get the feel of the new tablet. *stomps on the dead XP-Pen*

Unfortunately, I'll also need to update Unfettered. Not so much update as make it 800 X 600-friendly, now that I know the menu can't be accessed with a screen resolution less than 1024 X 768. That's a problem.

So...the layout. I've been listening to nothing but the Waterboys for the past few days, so we can consider this sort of a pre-Saint Paddy's layout. (Never you mind that Mike Scott is actually from Edinburgh and I'm "from" Glasgow...) "The Whole of the Moon" has long been one of my favourite songs from the band, and this picture of Sakura in an Irish step dance costume that I did on a lark gave me as good an excuse as any to use it.

For the time being, however, I think I've earned my sleep.

Labels: Network, Unfettered

First update of 2005! The latest change is that I've moved all my past archives to Blogger, so those of you who are really bored can browse MythNet's ancient history all the way back to 2001 when it was a small, simple personal site on envy.nu and was named The Long Dark Tea Ceremony of the Soul. Yes, MythNet has been around for quite a while.

The only problem is that Blogger seems to be having some issues with my archives, or more specifically, links to the background image and CSS. I don't know whether this is a Blogger issue or a Comcast one, but the archives are going to clash with the background until whatever is causing this lag to finally catch up.

And finally, after an entire two years of undeclared hiatus, I have begun working on a new layout. Yes, you read right -- MythNet will be getting a long-awaited layout change soon.

Labels: Network

Fixed an issue with the background -- the increasing number of those of you who have made the switch from Internet Explorer to Mozilla Firefox or Opera would have noticed that the background was not stationary. I had to look up how to fix the problem to make it compliant with W3C standards (which I'll have to do with everything, eventually), which took some doing. Rest assured that by the time I get around to updating the network, this will be done.

I also just recently learned that Blogger has officially stopped sucking! Must have made all these drastic improvements now that Google has taken it over. What's more, having a Blogger-run blog (albeit a simple automatic updating tool for my network) made me eligible for a Gmail account. So those of you who have Blogger accounts from way-back-when can get your own Gmail! I recommend that you do...spam is a real problem with my network addys.

For now, I'm working on the portrait for MythNet's next update, so said update may take a while in happening -- particularly since, now that the wedding is over and done with, we'll be working more on the manga. In fact, the next layout will be the first one featuring original work rather than the fan art I typically use. Stay tuned for further developments.

Labels: Network

Finally got around to updating Radio Mythecaria, both in terms of layout and MP3s. Because MP3.com has steadily been declining in quality since Universal bought it out, I no longer link to downloads from there. These days, I'm hosting my own downloads, straight from my CD collection, and hopefully I can be more regular about updating it.

I've also started working on the illustration for the next network layout, so I hope to have a new layout sometime in the near future. Unfortunately, this next update will be the last for a while, due to the fact that work and the manga are consuming whatever free time I have. In fact, we hope to have Megami Studios set up fairly soon, though all that will probably be there for a while will be an updates blog and possibly a few pictures. Stay tuned for more later.

Labels: Network, Radio Mythercaria

Did some minor spring cleaning to the site -- removed some dead links on my rings page and rings that were no longer linking me. In fact, I got through several address changes to the fanlistings that I've joined -- which always seem to be forever changing their URLs -- before I realised that four were no longer in operation. At that point I decided the hell with it all: no more fanlist joining for me, thanks. For that matter, I won't bother with any more rings or cliques, and I've removed my fanlistings as well as the adoptees page.

The reason for this is twofold: first, constantly changing other people's links alone is far more trouble than it's worth, especially if a webmaster isn't able to devote most free time to the upkeep of a site. Which brings me to my second point: I can't. As much as I would like to keep MythNet constantly updated, I'm having a hard enough time working on Hana Road as is, what with work, searching for a higher-paying job, complete overhaul of my finances, and so on. Truth be told, the only reason I've kept the domain is because of Hy-Brasil (which has gotten many positive reviews), Unfettered (I need to have some place to send all those elementary-age fans), and as simple promotion for Megami Studios.

I may be performing some more cleaning in the near future as I clear out those "Upcoming" sites that I realise I'll never be able to create, as well as give my Links page a thorough scrubbing. But unfortunately, it's all the work I can do on MythNet until I get through the first chapter of Hana Rd.

Labels: Hy-Brasil, Network

The guestbook has been down since I've changed hosts, but since it was getting spammed on a regular basis, I'm not all that certain I want to go through the hassle of setting it back up again. It was nice to hear from people who had actually seen my site and took the time to comment on how they liked it....but unfortunately, too many jerks saw it as free advertising. So with my next update, I will be removing the link to the guestbook.

That aside, things have gotten busy for me, what with going back to work as a substitute teacher and working on Megami Studio's upcoming webcomic, Hana Road Fruit Party. And since Rob is revamping Mitsukai, we've got that to work on as well. Yet, I hope I'll be able to update MythNet (and most of the subsites) within the next few months.

Labels: Network

Currently I'm in the process of switching hosts from Blue Domino to Globat, and I will also be transferring my domain registry to them as well. So those of you internet squatters who have been eyeballing my domain hoping to sell it back to me at the 'low price' of the U.S. Treasury are fresh out of luck - the domain name is going to be paid for shortly and well before the expiration date. There might be some downtime, but since I've just finished transferring my files to the new host, the it shouldn't last long.

I've also decided to take down the guestbook once the move has completed. While there are honest visitors out there who genuinely want to take the time to tell me that they enjoyed my site, the spammers who see guestbooks as free advertising are ruining it for everyone. So I bid Vizbook farewell.

Labels: Network

I've been added to the Serene webring, much to my surprise. I submitted my site several months ago, and I'd assumed that because I didn't hear back for so long that MythNet had been rejected and I forgot about it. I'm glad to know that others appreciate my hard work. In fact, I am proud to announce that MythNet was listed as the March Site of the Month on Anime Angels. The praise does not go unappreciated, believe me.

On the down side, I will probably be killing off Hell's Bells soon. I've found I really don't have the time or the inclination to update it, and lately it's become simply a place to post the ByteBack! A.J. Axline emails my dad forwards to me. But since A.J. is stepping down from his column, the last purpose of Hell's Belles has ended as well. I may put together a personal site soon, where I may have a small mini-blog to report on upcoming projects, so stay tuned.

Labels: Network

I edited the splash page a few days ago, since the frames were really frelling up my web tracker. So that's all fixed. I also changed to a Bravenet tracker because I get more info from it and the organisation is easier for me to read. The latter is why I don't normally use the one my host provides. It tracks all my pages, but it's rather difficult to read.

I've also finished setting up the frames/CSS/Java-free version, but the main sites will still have frames/CSS/Java. Making different versions for each is going to require more space than I have, and I seriously doubt anyone would be willing to donate to provide this. Supply & demand and all that. Anyway, I'm still not sure if it looks all right in Netscape, so I'll run some tests later to see if Netscape doesn't hate it.

Labels: Network

Version 3 is now operational! Aren't we just thrilled? Strange as this may sound, it really didn't take all that long to put together and set up. At least, nowhere near as much last time, which took two full weeks. What's more bizarre to me is that I much prefer this current Tohru layout...much more professional. I done gone and learned some actual HTML.

As you can see, there's been almost a complete overhaul. I wasn't very happy with the chromeless window, and I've found I don't really need it anyway. I also hope to make the site more user-friendly by setting up a quick & dirty version for Netscape soon, but for now at least the bells & whistles version is complete. Now I don't have to worry about it for another six months. XD

Yes, I realise it's a wee bit out of season, but I happen to be fond of autumn. Besides, the colours are a complete 180 from the blues, violets, and pinks I traditionally use. And I'll bet you won't see that many other autumn layouts right now, will you? Different is good.

Labels: Network

Did some tweaking to the graphic and size of the gbook, though I really should have gone to sleep by now. Eh.

I've been needing to make those same kinds of adjustments to the main site, but I'm currently working on a new layout, so I won't bother with that. Finally, Unfettered will be the recipient of a facelift, and I am also adding to the network my long-awaited essay and Celtic sites. At least, that's the plan.

Labels: Network, Unfettered

Because I went over my bandwidth limit over at my lousy old host, a close friend paid for me to transfer Mythecaria to Blue Domino...one more person I owe money and chocolates to. I'd been under the impression that they would mirror my files from the old server, but after an entire week of downtime and waiting for registration to kick in, I decided to manually transfer everything. When that didn't work, I figured out that the domain name itself wasn't transferred to OpenSCS, and so I had to wait a day after I manually updated the DNS configuration. At least the site works now.

Unfortunately, since the files are not mirrored, that means Hell's Belles is going to be down for a wee bit while I wait for the MySQL account to be activated (now that I'll actually have one...yay!) so that I can make the switch to b2 from Greymatter. Fortunately, I learned the last time and saved my archives to hard drive. Sadly, I failed to save entries from By the Book, so you're just going to have to sign it all over again. ^_^ Moreover, I'm tired already of the current HB layout, so the downtime was perhaps inevitable. I apologise for all the delays.

Labels: Network

Myth.net was long overdue for an update, but if the graphics looked passable, the layout itself looked horrid. Then, once I had both looking the way I wanted, the engineering was frelled. As some of my friends can attest, the programming involved copious amounts of frustration until an elementary change corrected the problem. My advice would be not to listen to Tears for Fears and early Depeche Mode while breaking one's head over Java that refuses to co-operate.

New features: Besides the obvious changes such as the chromeless window, I've added a cgi-script guestbook because - let's face it - hosted gbooks are really starting to suck. Unfortunately, it was setting up this new guestbook which delayed the network update by two weeks, because it's an intermediate-level script set. Hey, Perl's tough!

I've also set up a weblog system for updates...because I'm lazy like that and anything that makes my life easier is A Good Thing.

Labels: Network

Mythecaria is back on the air, and I am presently slaving away on my next layout. Same old pre-crash routine; staying up into the wee hours with bloodshot eyes glued to the screen...perhaps getting the domain back wasn't so good after all.

Labels: Network

My updating was cut short by my (rat bastard!) host deciding to up and move to another server. It would only be a medium - albeit frustrating - inconvenience, except for the fact that all of Hell's Belles archives from after my move to the domain have been lost. That was frustrating enough, but all of the archives at my sole hostee, Parting Shot, have gone the Way of the Dodo as well. A thousand thanks, O Gawdawful Host. I shall be transferring once the opportunity presents itself.

Labels: Network

Wow, two updates within a week! This might become a regular habit. At any rate, I've added a new pic to the Unfettered fan art section and added a few more links to the Links section. The Gothic section seems to be growing more by the day, so the next site to be opened may be TLDTCotS rather than OPC. Which is just as well, since the MKR essay I had been writing has been split in two, and one of them doesn't necessarily have to do with the series other than the fact that I used one character as a case study for my thesis. So now I have TWO essays to complete rather than just one to rework. You would think I got enough of this at uni...

Labels: Network, Unfettered

Links, adoptees, and cliques cleaned up. I removed a few deceased links, updated a few, and added a few. I may be changing my layout soon after I graduate, so stay tuned.

Labels: Network

The unofficial opening of Mythecaria. Nothing grand, since some sites are still not completed, but at least the domain is up. I'm loving it already. Also, Greymatter has been set up in the future site of Hell's Belles, but since I'll be changing the layout to something more suited for the holidays, it won't be up for another week.

Labels: Network

The main site layout is complete, (and looking spiffy, if I do say so myself) but sub sites are still not finished. Also, I plan to purchase my new domain next month, so I'll be moving off Envy in early December. I'll link it from this site or I may be able to redirect it, but be ready to change those links!

Labels: Network

Fae-chan has finally gotten off her ass and began work on the new site! While the main site is well on its way to completion, the sub sites are still far from the start of construction. Hopefully I'll have the essay site and fan art gallery up before too long.

Labels: Network