Major Development and Some Big News…

Hello to the world out there, I’m back… even though in reality I’ve been here all along, I’ve been back for the past few weeks quite intensively working on things behind the scenes and behind closed doors.

There’s been a lot going on both with the development of www.spikedeffect.com and my life, and to be honest there is so much to catch up on that I wont be able to cover everything in a single post, unless I really want to bore you to utter death.

For this post I’ll cover the two major things that have happened (or is happening in the case of development) in the recent past / present and without further ado… here goes.

Some big news on the life front…

Before I go too much into this, if you are reading this news for the first time and feel a bit miffed as to why you only found out this news by reading this blog even though you know me, don’t take it personally. Things have been crazy busy for me that I may not have had the chance to e-mail / contact you on-line, and what makes matters worst is that for some odd reason on the night the big news happened I have recently discovered that not everyone received the news I sent in an SMS, so you may have been one of those people who didn’t get the SMS they were meant to.

So, what exactly is this news? Well for those who didn’t know, I have been dating someone for nearly two years now which mounts up to be the longest relationship that I have had… Rachel has somehow managed to put up with me and my antics for this long, and must be mentally insane to have done so, but none the less I’m happy that she did and at the same time feel lucky that she’s has not given up on me after all this time.

In light of this, at the end of last year I decided I would start saving up for an engagement ring, a decent engagement ring that Rachel would appreciate and love wearing… So, along came 2008 and with Rachel dropping hints left, right and centre about rings she liked :-P, eventually in late February we found a ring that was brilliant in elegance and a good price without compromise.

Therefore, at the beginning of this month I ordered the ring in her size and waited for the call to let me know it had arrived… Without Rachel knowing (even though I’m sure she had her suspicions), during my lunch break on the day the ring arrived, I went to go collect and pay for the ring (and empty out my wallet… :-P), I then proceeded on to the restaurant where Rachel and I had our first ever date. At the restaurant, I spoke to the manager on duty and explained what I wished to do that night in the restaurant and to see if there was any way they could accommodate the occasion. The manager said she could arrange to have a table set up in the upstairs area of the restaurant where we could have some privacy for the occasion and also arrange the candles I had brought in on the table to enhance the mood.

I let Rachel know that that night we were going to go to the cinema, but that I’d booked a table to have a meal before hand as I hadn’t eaten and just to meet me in town in time for the booking. I’ve always wanted to make the occasion as much of a surprise to Rachel as possible, so even though she was aware I had ordered the ring she had no idea when I was going to propose nor when I would pick up the ring… So after I finished work, Rachel and I went to the restaurant and were led upstairs; the table had been set up with the candles, two wine glasses and a purchase till open for our sole benefit upstairs.

After the meal, nervous as I was, I told her how much she meant to me and that I felt really lucky to have her, I then got down on one knee and asked if she would marry me… She must be mental because believe it or not, she actually said “yes” :-P. So ladies, gents, dogs, cats, aliens and so forth, the big news is that I am now engaged to be married I feel lucky to have someone in my life who will accept me for who I am and any way I come, and I adore her for everything she is, and I look forward to sharing my future with her

As I said, don’t feel offended if you are learning of this news for the first time and feel you should have known earlier, chances are I’ve not been able to catch you on-line or e-mail you as of yet because of how busy work has been and the fact that I don’t really want to have to sit by a computer when I get home after being in front of one all day at work

For those who want to see it, I have uploaded some pictures of the ring to the gallery, to see the pictures just click the thumbnail picture of the ring.

Recent (Major) Development Work

For a while now I’ve been going on about moving SpikedEffect.com and all it’s related websites to a new dedicated server, and for those who’ve been checking up on the site of late may have noticed a bit of down time recently… If it didn’t click at the time what was going on, that down time was due to the domain being transferred to the new server.

So for about a couple weeks now you have in fact been viewing this blog on the brand new server… So, that’s the good news, the bad news is that the main SpikedEffect.com website has now been re-classified as “In Development” and I feel it would be a good idea to explain why.

I have decided to make a major change to the main part of the website and it was in no way a case of just moving the old code to the new server. The backend that powers SpikedEffect.com has been changed and it’s a major change from the old system and works in a completely different manner, so it wasn’t just a case of changing a few lines of code to get it working… Due in part to this I decided to take the plunge and totally redesign the site which meant a long time of development and testing.

Now in actual fact the design and template are pretty much complete, and it’s working in the production system. However, due to the inability to integrate the gallery and forums seamlessly into the new backend it’s at a stage I am waiting for 3rd party developers to finish some “bridges” (code that synchronises user log-ons to the gallery and forum).

I’m currently in two minds on whether to make the new site live before the final releases of these “bridges” (one of them is currently in “release candidate” stages but has been for the past couple of months), as there is no set release dates for the final versions I’m not sure if it’s worth holding out until that time.

One option for now is to of course open up access to the new site but keep registrations disabled until I can get at least the forums integrated, or just to keep it inaccessible for now until it’s been implemented. This is where you come in, leave your comments and tell me what you think, would you rather see the new site live even if you can’t really do that much on it yet? Or would you prefer to wait until I’ve managed to get the forums up and running at least? Let me know your thoughts on the comment form for this post.

For now however I have attached to this post a few “teaser” sneak peeks of the new design, to see the full versions just click the images below.

As you’ll probably notice the design is a whole lot “slicker” then it use to be, and I’ve spent a lot of time trying to ensure that the design looks right to most, if not all web users regardless of the browser they choose to use. However, in some cases, due to Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) and below being a right pain in the backside some things may not look 100% right, I have done my utmost to make it as compatible as possible, but I had to draw a line at some point as I was getting sick and tired of “fudging” things to make IE6 behave.

Feel free to give your thoughts on the design sneak peeks as well, hopefully in the long run the design will prove to be a lot more visually “impressive” than the old website was. You may also like to know that the new design is actually a “fluid” design, in web development terms this just means that the design will “stretch” to fill your screen width, meaning unlike the case with this blog, if you view the design on for example a PS3 on a HDTV where the dimensions are a lot bigger than a standard computer screen it will not just be a “block” in the centre of your screen.

There is still a bit to be done on this new server and as time goes on more features and development will happen as time allows, but for now let me know your thoughts on the sneak peek and also what route you’d suggest I take when it comes to access to the new system…

Cheerio I’ll be back soon…

So there you have it people, once again sorry for the whole lack of updates for what is nearly a year now, with this whole server update being planned for quite a while now I was reluctant to make any updates to the site as I wasn’t totally sure what I was doing with the site once it had been moved.

I’ll be keeping you all up to date with any further developments when it comes to both life, spikedeffect.com development or just my general thoughts and opinions, it’s good to be back and you’ll hear from me sooner rather than later

Post Tagged With: dedicated server, engagement, gallery, HTML, Joomla, life, news, PHP, ring, special occasion, web design, web development.