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Well, I am back home, and it's kinda nice to be back. In the last few days I've decided to learn PHP (a web scripting language used to make all sorts of neato things on websites). Ironically enough, to be able to do this I had to make my computer into a webserver, something I had planned to do eventually anyway. For those not in the know, a webserver is merely a computer that "serves" websites to viewers on the internet, the files for the website reside on the webserver, and server allows them to be viewed, and interprets more complex programming (scripting like php, perl, or others) to give visitors a nice website they can easily view and interact with. At the same time, it makes sure those visitors don't have access to other files on the computer, of course, only those the owner wants available. Anyway, I'd been planning on getting my own server running in the near future, both as good practice in computer science, and to host the guild website for our new Guild Wars guild, as well as a voice chat server for the same game. Now, with this webserver installed and running, I can offer a website directly off my hard drive, without the hassle of uploading to who knows where. Many thanks to Comcast for being so lenient in what they block their customers from doing, as this was not fully working from my college dorm. Comcast doesn't "allow" you to use their cable service to serve websites... but they don't physically prevent you from doing so, and I have been told they don't really care as long as you're reasonable about the sort of site you host. That's enough boring crap, here's some (hopefully) neato tests and examples of basic php stuff I've done since yesterday. Please take a look at it when you get a chance, and let me know what you think of my earliest attempts at server-side scripting, heh heh. First on the list is a couple of pages called Input and Input 2. These little pages basically allow you to make some choices or enter some text, and generate a little html page with the input you chose on the fly. Pointless but a nice example of simple things php can do. Next, we have a page called simply Test 1. This simple page illustrates a dynamically generated page with content that changes based on the day of the week. The background color on this page changes every day, the time at the top changes on the fly as the page is refreshed, and lastly, a different picture is loaded on each weekday as well. This one is utterly pointless, but neat, and has some very nice pictures of the only fake person (celebrity and the like) I vehemently admire. Lastly, the most complex little php app I've done so far, "Table" let's you choose the number of rows and columns to generate in a table, and then does just that when you hit the submit button, alternating color schemes between rows for what is scientifically proven to be higher readability. I read that somewhere on the internet, so it must be true. Well, if anyone has a chance to check any of these things out, please leave a comment saying.... whatever you feel like saying. I've progressed beyond online tutorials and bought a nice book that will help clear up the last part of making "professional" websites that is still foreign to me: interaction between scripting and databases. Sounds exciting huh? In non-geek news, I am reading the first volume of the His Dark Materials trilogy, a response of sort by Philip Pullman to the Christian propagnada aspect of the Narnia novels by C.S. Lewis. Far from being just atheistic propaganda, however, this trilogy has won a number of awards, and even 50 pages into it or so I am already quite absorbed into the story. The writing is most excellent, and the characters thus far compelling. The setting is also intriguing, a parallel Earth of sorts, where everyone's soul manifests itself as a sentient creature, a daemon that accompanies it's "owner" and changes based on the sort of person one becomes. Very cool stuff. I do regret not attending Acen this year, but it's better for my wallet, and it's not like I had any real reason to go this year, with nobody to go with (Kyal and Dale gave me an invite but I wasn't sure if I wanted to go then either, and in the end apparently they waited too late and don't even have a room, and commute instead), no costume to show off, and no real motivation to go apart from buying crap in the dealer room. Oh well, I only got back home today anyway, so it really wouldn't have been workable, and on the bright side, I'm using this time to learn php instead ;). Well, I am out. Good night to all. Post a comment in response: |
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