Here is where you will find posts on topics which I have found interesting or brief walkthroughs on some of the
applications I have tried my hand at. I've mostly spent just a couple of days on each application just to try
and get a basic understanding of the technology used. These applications are by no means a finished product but
hopefully I will get around to working on them a lot more so as to make them better. If you have any feedback or
queries, drop me a comment or an email and I'll try my best to answer them.
How does one embed a WordPress blog into an already existing website so that it matches the look and feel of the original site? The following post will hopefully answer that question.
First and foremost we need to download the latest version of WordPress and setup the blog on your server. I installed the blog in a subfolder so as to separate it from the site content.
Once the blog is setup we now need to create our own custom theme so as to make the blog look like the original site. To start off, copy one of the theme folders location in wp-content/themes. Rename the copied folder with a relevant name like the name of your website. This is the theme which we will be modifying. All future references are with respect to this folder.
We now need to know the blog is mainly divided into four parts. the Header, the Footer, the Content and the Sidebar. We will now need to modify each of these parts.
To modify the header file we need to modify header.php. Here is where you can add your banner, menu bar etc which exists on your website. Open the file in any editor and edit out the content to match your needs. You can remove the main banner of the original blog as it wont be required. Only edit what is required.
Next we modify the footer.php to add your website footer and to remove the default footer which may be present with the original theme.
The sidebar.php will help to modify the content in the sidebar. Some of the sidebar content can be modified through the admin utility of the the WordPress blog.
To modify the content we need to edit the stylesheet of the theme. This can be located in the theme folder and is usually called style.css. This is the most tedious part but is not too difficult. I was slowed down a little because the WordPress styling is done using div tags and my original site was done using tables. But it was sorted out in a couple of hours so its quite simple.
And there you go, a working WordPress blog embedded in your original website.
Well I’m still young or at least I would like to think so, kinda pudgy now but hopefully no clogged arteries, with no intention of kicking the bucket anytime soon. So why this morbid topic you may ask? Well I stumbled upon a similar topic in Times magazine which was an interesting read, so just thought I’d share.
So what would happen to your accounts on Facebook, MySpace, Gmail, Yahoo etc if you were suddenly given a one-way ticket to the afterlife.
Facebook converts your account into a memorial page, which basically includes only the wall and your friends. I’m not too sure if your photos are preserved. Your account passwords are given to the next of kin once the correct documentation of your death has been provided. All your private messages are kept private so your family members don’t have access to them. I think MySpace has a similar policy.
As per the article when it comes to your mails accounts on Gmail and Yahoo, once the correct documentation has been provided your accounts will be shutdown. Your passwords would not be given to your family members. This makes sense because at the most you may want your family members to contact some of the people in your address book and inform them about your passing but you definitely don’t want them going through your mail which you have sent over the past so many years.
Legacy locker is another interesting site, which lets you store all your passwords to all your online sites in an encrypted format. In the event of your death access to these passwords is granted to the people you have specified, once the correct documentation of your demise is provided.
I would advice you’ll to read the terms of service on each of the sites to get the latest policies.
The third person camera system was developed to give a third perspective on the view. For all you non gaming people out there this would mean the camera was just behind and above the person. The third person camera system had a character which the camera followed who was stuck in a room. There was no emphasis on detail so only stick figures and wire frames were used. The following video will help you understand how the system worked.
The camera followed the character around at all times and was always behind him. So when the character turned the camera also turned.
Strafing of the character was also present. Again for all you non gaming people it means sideways movement of the character
Pitching was also incooperated which can be seen towards the end of the video. This feature allowed for the camera to be moved along the y-axis. Additional features which were added once pitching was introduced were: The character remained grounded at all times and rotation was done along the y-axis so as to avoid tilt.
A zoom feature was also developed which allowed the camera to zoom in or out on the character. again this movement was restricted so as the camera was always behind and not too far away from the character
Classes developed are a 3D Vector class, the camera class and the character class. The third person perspective was achieved by passing the correct values to the glut32 function gluLookAt.
This third person camera system developed is very basic but not bad for my first attempt at OpenGL programming, at least I hope so. Will probably work on this application more trying to make the system more realistic probably making the terrain more realistic, adding a proper model for the character and maybe work on the lighting. Will post the new version once it is completed.
The ‘Allo ‘Allo Quiz was a simple multiple choice quiz created based on the absolutely hilarious British sitcom ‘Allo ‘Allo. I have all the nine seasons, truth be told I have skipped watching the 7th and 8th season.
Regarding the quiz, Facebook provides a simple interface by which one can go about making an application. The main pages of the ‘Allo ‘Allo quiz are done using PHP. Once you take the quiz you can see the score of your friends in addition to your own score. A leaderboard also provide you with the fastest times ans scores. Yes you do need to answer all the questions correctly in the fastest time possible to feature on this leaderboard.
Tried to use all the facebook features like notifications using the template bundle, the FBML which is displayed on your profile in both the narrow and wide boxes, emails etc.
Will probably come up with a new version of the ‘Allo ‘Allo quiz which include a better layout, more quizzes, better notifications etc. Will post about the new version once its done.
