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EoV Tech - Happy Birthday EOV
Eye of the Vortex, the site, has officially lived thought the first year. Of which, we went though three site designs (one of which you never saw), Several Staff arguments, several hundred bugs and glitches, issues in every browser known to man, two changes to the Magazine and one more on the way. Let's see where we have come from in one years time.
Michael N. Esposito II's Avatar
Michael N. Esposito II, Reverend Webmaster
I decided for New Year's Day to go through some of my files (and backups) that have some of the old EoV data and dig up whatever I found to be interesting on the changes we've made to the web site over the first year of our existence.

Design and Redesign.


In the Beginning...
In the Beginning there were three guys behind the site. One guy was the brains of the operation; another guy had the technical know how; and the third was a brilliant graphic artist who had wowed several of us previously with his past work. You know these guys now as Chris Newton, Michael Esposito, and Jason Ford. Of course, when we started, all we had was Mike's server on his laptop and had worked out designs and features from there since we didn't have our host yet. For the first two months of development, this was the site's ORIGINAL look. (graphic glitches and all)

TheFirstEOV.png


What we finally launched with was this...

TheFirstEOV2.png

Needless to say, it was a good move.

The Look

(...our current look rather. Well you already know. it's...)

TheFirstEOV3.png

This look started in March of 2008 on Jason's Mac Book Pro. It made it's way to the test server for testing and set up around April to June and was finally launched on the main site on July 1st 2008.

What the Future Holds...

Our resident illustrator and graphics guru, Jason Ford, has several ideas and several EoV related project on his plate and said only this about it.
Jason Ford wrote:
It's going to be awesome, but I can't show you yet.

So Much Code...


The Files Then...
The files back then were small and light; only semi-complex in their nature since the languages being used (HTML, CSS, PHP, Javascript, etc.) where all very new to the EoV Team.

Files1.png


Assume each folder hold about five files except images (which has a ton more) that's over 50 files. Which for a website is fine.

The Files Now...
Unlike our early life, we now have a much better understanding of the codes that our website uses. Jason has mastered HTML and CSS while Chris has a good grasp of HTML, but not yet a master. Michael, who handles the PHP and Javascript, now has a powerful understanding, but he knows he hasn't mastered the fine arts their in.
Files2.png

Now assume that each folder has 20+ files in them. That makes 180+ files now. Each being fairly sizable and complex when it comes to code, and yet we have the speeds down to a very usable rate of around two to five seconds a page on a high speed connection.

The Horror of Browsers.

BrowsersInWindows.jpg Click for Full Image

Four of the most common browsers used today in Windows XP are IE8, IE7, Firefox 3.5.4, and Opera 10.01.

If you notice, in both IE7 and IE8 there's either a minor or major graphical issue. Why this is happening is because not every browser shows it the same way since most have their own engines or use a free Engine (Opera and Chrome use the same HTML engine but different Javascript Engines)

For those using IE8 if you turn on the IE7 Compatibility Mode you'll only have the minor graphical error. We are still working on each and every little glitch in each browser. So it's just taking a little bit of time.

Magazines. From Download to Online and Beyond...


The Downloadable PDF.
The Downloadable PDF, also known as EOV January 2009 through EOV July 2009, was completely compiled by Jason and Chris during this time. It obviously faltered since we didn't have a well oiled team for this job at this time. So Chris decided to move it to the web based mag. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.

The Online Mag.
Well then. Now we have this beast. It was crafted and for a while it was trash (read September '09) and then it was better (October '09 / November '09) but then Chris decided to ax this version too for a whole different list of reasons.
Douglas Adams wrote:
There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

Is how some of us feel at this moment in time about the Magazine in the form of an informal poll. Most of the data seems to be skewed though, so your mileage may vary.

What's going to happen now?
Well from my knowledge were going to roll out a new Mag with a new name and it's going to do in either March or April. I'm not sure which yet nor do I have any solid information on that. At this point it's a lot of rumors, ideas, and future thought moving around.


All of that in one year. I leave you with a challenge to find programmers who are willing to help at my caliber.

Any Programmer willing to flex their muscles of decoding and understanding, feel free to break this down in any way they wish.
Code: show
if (isset($_GET)){ //change these values to whatever your own database server requires $link = mysql_connect('localhost', '{DATA EXPUNGED}', '{DATA EXPUNGED}'); //Connects to the database at "localhost" if(!$link) { die("Cannot connect to the database!"); } $name = mysql_real_escape_string($_GET); $res = mysql_query("SELECT user_avatar FROM {TABLE} WHERE username = '$name';",$link); if(!$res){ $imgtype = "png"; $image = "http://www.eyeofthevortexonline.com/Images/avvy/unregistered.png"; } else { $result = mysql_fetch_array($res); $variance = stripos($result,"http://"); if($variance === false){ if(!empty($result['user_avatar'])){ $image = "http://www.eyeofthevortexonline.com/forum/download/file.php?avatar=".$result['user_avatar']; } else { $image = "http://www.eyeofthevortexonline.com/Images/avvy/[i][url=http://www.eyeofthevortexonline.com][color=#999966]EoV[/color][/url][/i]cn.png"; } } else { $image = $result['user_avatar']; } $imgtype = substr(strrchr($image,"."),1); } header("Content-type: image/$imgtype"); readfile($image); } else { ?> echo " "; } [/code][/spoiler] Have fun. Good Luck. Let me know if you understand why it's doing what it's doing and what it's doing. (E-mail is below in the Author Footer) [code]
if (isset($_GET["name"])){
//change these values to whatever your own database server requires
$link = mysql_connect('localhost', '{DATA EXPUNGED}', '{DATA EXPUNGED}'); //Connects to the database at "localhost"
if(!$link) {
die("Cannot connect to the database!");
}
$name = mysql_real_escape_string($_GET["name"]);
$res = mysql_query("SELECT user_avatar FROM {TABLE} WHERE username = '$name';",$link);
if(!$res){
$imgtype = "png";
$image = "http://www.eyeofthevortexonline.com/Images/avvy/unregistered.png";
} else {
$result = mysql_fetch_array($res);
$variance = stripos($result,"http://"); if($variance === false){ if(!empty($result['user_avatar'])){ $image = "http://www.eyeofthevortexonline.com/forum/download/file.php?avatar=".$result['user_avatar']; } else { $image = "http://www.eyeofthevortexonline.com/Images/avvy/[i][url=http://www.eyeofthevortexonline.com][color=#999966]EoV[/color][/url][/i]cn.png"; } } else { $image = $result['user_avatar']; } $imgtype = substr(strrchr($image,"."),1); } header("Content-type: image/$imgtype"); readfile($image); } else { ?> echo " "; } [/code][/spoiler] Have fun. Good Luck. Let me know if you understand why it's doing what it's doing and what it's doing. (E-mail is below in the Author Footer)
Michael N. Esposito II's Avatar

Michael N. Esposito II

• Email • Staff • Articles by Michael N. Esposito II • Other Generic Articles

American National, Michael Esposito is a 22 year old freelancer, Web Coder, Designer, and Ordained Reverend (really). Major in Computer Science and on the tail end of his BA. When not working for the Eye of the Vortex or playing games, he's constantly searching to better himself in any trade that he takes up.

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