Actually, there have been quite a few changes since the last post, mostly in the area of infrastructure changes. I switched the VPS from RapidVPS to Linode. Also in there somewhere I switched over from two old-school engines (Tomcat and Apache) to more advanced solutions (Jetty and Nginx) that support a leaner, meaner application, which in the end means a better user experience.
The new feature for today is Author Contact. Authors can now be available for contact to editors, readers, and anyone else that might want to make contact. Authors control this setting through their Profile. Author's emails are kept private. This option is turned off by default. If you want to be contacted, you have to log in and turn it on.
For readers, this means that you can now contact your favorite authors, and ask for more great stories, poems, whatever. Editors/publishers can browse the site, and contact promising authors.
Authors that are available for contact will have a little envelope next to their name in the story lists. Readers of stories will see a "Contact Author" button while they're viewing the story. The reader's email and message will be sent to the author, allowing them to reply directly to the reader.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Saturday, October 24, 2009
A New Star
I'd like to introduce you all to an up-and-coming star in the universe of photography. Also, he's my son, Taylor. I may be biased.
Please take a moment to visit his web site PhotoImageOgraphy. I think you'll be glad you did.
Please take a moment to visit his web site PhotoImageOgraphy. I think you'll be glad you did.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
New Features
Per Karen's excellent suggestion, you no longer have to be a registered user to explore the features of PenWag. There's now a visitor's mode that lets visitors read stories and generally explore the site before they commit to registering.
Other recent features:
- Switch from recover password to reset password for enhanced security.
- Passwords on now hashed and not stored in the clear (!), again, for enhanced security.
- Upgraded to GWT 1.7, which allowed me to get the story list grid styled correctly.
- The Teasers are now cached using ehCache, which improves performance across-the-board.
Other recent features:
- Switch from recover password to reset password for enhanced security.
- Passwords on now hashed and not stored in the clear (!), again, for enhanced security.
- Upgraded to GWT 1.7, which allowed me to get the story list grid styled correctly.
- The Teasers are now cached using ehCache, which improves performance across-the-board.
Friday, July 3, 2009
PenWag In The GWT Gallery
PenWag is now in the GWT application gallery. Does that make it official now? Whatever "it" is?
Thursday, June 25, 2009
New Look And Better Performance
I just pushed out a new version of PenWag last night with a new look. No sweeping changes, but wanted to get rid of the old-style navigation and clean some things up.
I also spent some time on rebuilding and tuning the reverse proxy for better memory usage (since the VPS max mem is 128M) and better connection handling. The performance is definitely much better now.
I also spent some time on rebuilding and tuning the reverse proxy for better memory usage (since the VPS max mem is 128M) and better connection handling. The performance is definitely much better now.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Teasers - Back To Adding Features
Well, now that the 1.5 to 1.6 upgrade is (mostly) behind me, it's back to adding features.
I've been meaning to get around to turning the story viewer into a scrollable pane. That was just changes to a line or two of code, so that's deployed to penwag.com.
Also, I've been talking to my son Taylor off and on about how to promote the site. He suggested adding a teaser to the main page, that people see part of a story, and can get a taste of what's inside. Perhaps they'll read the intro to a story, and be hooked enough to register and read the rest. Now that's built and deployed. Each time a user visits the site, it randomly picks from one of the stories I've marked as a candidate.
If you haven't come out to the site yet, have a look. It's in its infancy now, come and watch it grow!
I've been meaning to get around to turning the story viewer into a scrollable pane. That was just changes to a line or two of code, so that's deployed to penwag.com.
Also, I've been talking to my son Taylor off and on about how to promote the site. He suggested adding a teaser to the main page, that people see part of a story, and can get a taste of what's inside. Perhaps they'll read the intro to a story, and be hooked enough to register and read the rest. Now that's built and deployed. Each time a user visits the site, it randomly picks from one of the stories I've marked as a candidate.
If you haven't come out to the site yet, have a look. It's in its infancy now, come and watch it grow!
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Upgrade from GWT 1.5 to GWT 1.6 - Again
Well, I wasn't satisfied with the result of the upgrade. Although sometimes I like to try the same thing again and see if the the outcome is different, this time I tried a different approach to see if the outcome was different.
The problem with a straightforward upgrade was the "danglers" from the 1.5 directory structure. During the conversion, it was hard to tell what could be thrown away and what needed to be kept without going through everything carefully.
So, I decided to created a new project, using the current tools, let it build exactly the directory structure it wants, then copy stuff in until it works. Basically. There was some moving around, there were changes to build.xml, and miscellaneous cleanup. But, all my UTs passed, all my ATs passed, and it's good to go.
I still need to swap out what's deprecated in the API for what's current, but that can happen later.
Also in the process, I switched repositories from Subversion to Git. Git takes us back to the command-line world that we had years back with CVS, but it's far-and-away better than the other repo options out there: Local branching, rebase, gitk, bisect, workflow smorgasbord, and more. Very nice. By following this workflow I can auto-collaborate and work on the same branch on my desktop or at the local Breadco.
The problem with a straightforward upgrade was the "danglers" from the 1.5 directory structure. During the conversion, it was hard to tell what could be thrown away and what needed to be kept without going through everything carefully.
So, I decided to created a new project, using the current tools, let it build exactly the directory structure it wants, then copy stuff in until it works. Basically. There was some moving around, there were changes to build.xml, and miscellaneous cleanup. But, all my UTs passed, all my ATs passed, and it's good to go.
I still need to swap out what's deprecated in the API for what's current, but that can happen later.
Also in the process, I switched repositories from Subversion to Git. Git takes us back to the command-line world that we had years back with CVS, but it's far-and-away better than the other repo options out there: Local branching, rebase, gitk, bisect, workflow smorgasbord, and more. Very nice. By following this workflow I can auto-collaborate and work on the same branch on my desktop or at the local Breadco.
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