Ramblings and Thoughts Related to Software and Website Development. I Moderate This Blog With An Iron Fist. There Will Be No Mercy!
andrew_'s Articles
September 23, 2008 by andrew_
Version v1.6.3188.23322 of the forums was published today. This was a hurryupomgbbqtheeditbuttonandurlsaregoingcrazy update. Fixed the edit button functionality. Restrictions removed completely. Users may now edit replies freely. Fixed a url problem with old forum urls. 404 error logging categorized. (Just a friendly reminder; Forum Update posts will be moderated with an iron fist. Please do not reply with feature requests or ask when/if features will be available or when/if bugs will b...
September 12, 2008 by andrew_
Version v1.6.3177.21890 of the forums was recently published. This was primarily a fix and maint. update. - Fixed a problem with the sidebar in some forums where the category list would throw an exception once in a blue moon. - Fixed an exception being thrown on occasional queries for the livesearch implementation. - Reworked the Active Users code in preparation for refit. Improved mutex handling and logic. - Fixed a problem with the karma cache and duplicate keys.forums. - Updated the Ca...
September 9, 2008 by andrew_
Version v1.6.3174.27495 of the forums was recently published. This was primarily a fix and maint. update. Fixed a problem with the new editor whereby inserting external images with smiles in the same reply or post was causing all manners of whackiness. Re-enabled the GalCiv2 metaverse medals. Fixed the link to the Metaverse profile for the GalCiv2 forums. Rewrote the script which resizes images in posts and replies and gave the resulting resized image a facelift. Fixed a problem where p...
September 2, 2008 by andrew_
Version v1.6 of the forums was recently published. The wincustomize and stardock forums were finally moved over to them today, and were the last two forum sites to be moved. Our other 14 forum sites (yes, thats right. This codebase runs 16 forum websites) were gradually moved over to this new version. Along with a massive changelist, the forums are now running on new hardware, with a new setup and all kinds of fancy new bits that we're hoping will improve performance and stability. And now...
June 26, 2008 by andrew_

Well it looks like the infinate wisdom of the people resposible for the Firefox 3.0 Download Manager has infected the developers of Opera. Opera 9.50 with all of its speed, rendering and UI improvements has managed to infuriate me. Why? Because I'm a web developer responsible (at the moment) for 20 something major websites, all of which need to be tested locally before we publish them into the wilds of the intertubes.

June 20, 2008 by andrew_

So anyone active in the Stardock Community knows that I don't think that Firefox is the end all, be all of web browsers. In fact I think it's still way behind a browser like Opera. Opera just isn't as popular. So I digress.

Anyhow, I dont use Firefox full time at home and I still do most of my browsing at home on IE6 (shush. I like it.) However while I'm hard at work on the Stardock family of websites, Firefox is my primary browser. I've come to love Maxthon for using the IE7 engine (most for testing and gmail) instead of the default IE7 install, which is horrible imho. And for evrything else that falls into normal browsing I use Firefox now primarily at work. For web development, even with the annoying bugs that come with it, Firebug is just the bees knees and nothing else matches it for IE or Opera.

Firefox 3 is realeased. Huzzah! Or not.

December 1, 2005 by Andrew Powell
Recently the widgets archive for Kapsules underwent a complete redesign and rewrite. Affectionately called the 'Widget Forge' for some time, the archive was moved off of the kwidgets.com domain and into it's new home www.widgetforge.com . The new WidgetForge boasts a snappy new look and user experience. For Kapsules widget developers, the interface and process of adding and updating your widget has been improved and has some new features, including automatically alerting the developer to new...
September 18, 2005 by Andrew Powell
Version 0.9.9 is a major milestone release of Kapsules. Kapsules has seen a lot of changes since the last version. The Widget Settings, Window and main Configuration dialogs were completely redesigned and new controls were added to make changing settings a breeze. Special attention was paid to widget developers and nearly every request from developers for new widget capabilities and features were implemented. Several widget-authoring aspects were completely redone from the ground up. Once agai...
June 7, 2005 by Andrew Powell
In an ongoing effort to promote widget software, we have added a new section to Wincustomize.com for Kapsules Widgets. Kapsules is a similar application to DesktopX and allows you to place scriptable widgets on your desktop. Kapsules makes use of Windows Scripting Technology, which allows it to use any language which is availible with an Active Script engine. Kapsules boasts support for 8 scripting languages with the ability to write and run widgets in a host of additional scripting langu...
June 7, 2005 by Andrew Powell
In an ongoing effort to promote widget software, we have added a new section to Wincustomize.com for Kapsules Widgets. Kapsules is a similar application to Konfabulator or DesktopX's widget enabling feature that allows you to place scriptable widgets on your desktop. Kapsules makes use of Windows Scripting Technology, which allows it to use any language which is availible with an Active Script engine. Kapsules boasts support for 8 scripting languages with the ability to write and run widgets...
May 19, 2005 by Andrew Powell
Ultra slick mini suite containing WindowBlinds 4.5 skin with 2 designs. One that's silver/metal and a bright version to compliment the design of the Kapsules website. Both styles comes with normal non-transparent start menus and compact non-transparent start menus. Also included in the package is a walpaper in 1600x1200, 1280x1024 and 1024x768 resolutions, matching logons in the same resolutions, a Sysmetrix skin, a classic Winamp skin, backgrounds for ObjectDock Plus and a nice and partly...