October 29, 2007
updates in progress
Very obviously, updates to the website are in progress. I felt that the old design was becoming too unmanageable. Little things will be added to the new site in the next few days to bring it up to standard.
kraftbj at June 22, 2007
mt 4
I'm installing a beta version of the CMS that I use for this site. Expect some interesting activity.
Update: I fixed the issues that prevented me from posting new entries. I'm running into problems with a subroutine in the template.pm file. At this point, it is preventing me from editing a couple of template entries (including the master index).
[This entry will expire when everything is up and running.]
October 10, 2006
pictures of the DC trip online
I've posted pictures of the trip on my gallery page. I haven't had the chance to go through all of them, so once the captions ended, I just uploaded everything. The good, the bad and the ugly. So, please ignore the bad photographs. I'll go through when I have some spare time [insert laughter] and add captions and remove bad pictures.
I really like the Our Lady of Hope chapel. It is modern but still very well done.
July 20, 2006
i can't see your amazing website
In case anyone noticed and was concerned, my Internet-life was in a coma for about 13 hours today after a network failure at my server farm.
My farm, rather the company whose farm hosts my site, suffered from a failed router/switch. After a battery of tests, changing configs and replacing equipment, everything appears to be back in working order.
July 11, 2006
gallery album limits?
I'm not 100% sure, but I'm starting to figure out that Gallery albums may have limits.
We have been using my website as the photo depository for pictures from Camp Bapchule. Last year, we only had about 150 pictures total. This year, we have over 400!
Since personally, I've never taken that many pictures for a single event or for a single subject, I've never stretched the Gallery 1 software that far.
Last night, the album was sitting just shy of 400 pictures when Vanessa attempted to upload about 30 or so. It crashed and threw at her a handful of unexpected EOF errors. After some troubleshooting, it simply appears that once you hit about 405-410 pictures, it stops working.
It may not be the number of pictures, but also the total size of the picture thumbnails. I'm not too sure.
Since all of the photos were uploaded, the solution I discovered is to delete the album and reimport the images.
Does anyone else have information regarding this limit? I haven't been able to find anything on the web so far.
March 25, 2006
two new projects
Two new projects down the workflow for your consideration.
First, a new website called Catholic Thinker. This weblog, written mainly by Mark Lavernge, hopes to have a few regular contributors discussing modern events in light of Catholic thought.
As the disclaimer on the site reads,
"The authors on the website do not claim to speak for the Church. We are Catholic, however, and so we hope to promote a Catholic way of looking at current events, books, media and whatever else comes to our mind. We might say something that is contrary to Catholic thought. If you catch us, let us know. The depth of knowledge contained within the Church is too expansive for any one person or any small group to ever fully understand and so we will make mistakes.We hope to further the discussion that was started during the Second Vatican Council when the Council Fathers asked how does our faith- our church- connect to today's modern world.
I'm excited about this project and hope it'll find its niche online.
The second project is primarly for Lambda Omega Alpha, the Catholic fraternity at The University of Texas at Austin. I'm launched an online store that is currently selling LOA and UCC t-shirts. It's not perfect and there are many tweaks I need to make, but since it is primarly for a small audience, I'm taking my time on it. All proceeds will go to LOA, the UCC and the LOA Scholarship Fund.
March 20, 2006
a little fun with the site
Early Sunday morning, I realized I had some incorrect settings for my site's DNS. In trying to fix it, I accidently knocked off the site for most of today.
There are various DNS servers across the Internet that help your computer know that brandonkraft.com actually points to a server with a certain IP address. Since it's a decentralized system- part of the whole "the Internet could survive a nuclear attack" thing- it takes a little time for the update to scatter across the Internet. In practice, this means that it takes 24-36 hours normally to fully update the Internet. In some cases, although rare these days, it can take up to 72 hours.
So yeah, I was playing with one of those settings they say not to play with and I knocked myself off the grid. :-)
February 20, 2006
fubar and a snafu
Well, fantastic. I had good news and I had bad news.
The good news- the Brandon Kraft family of websites is popular. Between this site, The Brandon Kraft Foundation, my personal portal, the Save Players! effort and an unannounced Catholic Thinker project, there was enough activity to lead to an abnormal and unacceptable level of server load for the account I was on.
My account previously was a "shared" hosting solution. In short, myself and 30-50 other people were all being hosted on the same actual computer. We were like a little community. You know what it's like living with other people. Imagine a really large community like that.
Now imagine if one in those 50 people used up 25% of the hot water all of the time. Or caused brownouts because he used all of the electricity. Or parked in 25% of the parking spaces all at once.
I was that guy.
My service provider, HostGator, took an approach that overall, I didn't like.
Without notice that I was such a bother, they suspended my account. E-mail, website, everything around 11 p.m. last Monday. I discover the problem at Midnight and instantly start calling/e-mailing them to figure out 1) why I was suspended and 2) how can I get my site back up.
They told me various things, none of those things had a solid action plan associated with them, except pay more for a higher system. Could I figure out what part of my site was draining most of the resources and attempt to curtail? Sure, but they didn't provide any information to assist with that (besides it is a Perl module, which doesn't narrow it down much except to say brandonkraft.net didn't cause the problem). It took three days to get e-mali access again, and even then, I didn't have access to e-mail sent during the down time. I've got most of it back, but I still have 36 hours of e-mail either in a queue somewhere or discarded.
So after three or four days of simply trying to figure out what they want me to do to begin to fix it, I still had no idea. They had given me a week from Monday to figure out everything before terminating my account and deleting my data.
Early Friday morning, I balked. I upgraded to the semi-dedicated plan. Instead of 50 people using the same computer, now it is about 2 or 3.
In short, I am finally back online but behind on my academic online postings. Need to get to that....
December 14, 2005
now they work together
Six Apart announced that Movable Type now is installed on Yahoo! Small Business Hosting solutions.
After Cyberstation of Wichita Falls, which I do not suggest anyone purchase a hosting solution from them, Yahoo! Small Business was the second host of brandonkraft.com. It was during the Yahoo! days that I discovered Movable Type for my use and installed it.
It never worked quite right. I always had problems with it, mostly on the database end. All of the issues I had could be worked around- every entry saved as a Draft, then edited and saved as Published- but it was quite annoying.
Now, I'm switched over to HostGator, who has been great to me. It would have been nice for Movable Type to work correctly with Yahoo! back then...
December 9, 2005
firefox 1.5 css3 draft testing
If you're visiting Random Musings with Firefox 1.5, you'll notice the posts are divided into columns. This is a test of a proposed CSS3 design property. If you have any complaints, leave me a comment on this post. I'll be playing with the design to see how I like it.
So far, I noticed on one of my longer posts, it could get annoying to have to scroll back up to start the second column.
If you're not using Firefox 1.5, everything will look the same.
This test will run between now and around Christmas.
August 23, 2005
google ads? you sell out.
So yes, I have added Google ads to my website. I might keep them; I might remove them. We will have to see. Why have I added them?
All in all, this site doesn't have much overhead. That I can recall, every piece of software is free so I pay for hosting (disk space, server software, bandwidth, etc) and the domain name. It's not much but it's still something while I'm on a tightening budget.
In addition to these Random Musings, my account hosts The Brandon Kraft Foundation, Save Players, the UCC's Computer Support app, serves a testing ground for some new prospective LOA and UCC pet ideas, not to mention my calendar, my project management software (personal and Foundation) and more.
I could make a solid claim that some money from The Brandon Kraft Foundation should pay a small part of the fees but so far, we've been able to file for incorporation, request tax-exempt status, have a website, a PO box and a toll-free 866 number for over a year without using any money that people have given us for a program. (Our hope is that if you give your money for a particular program, every possible cent will go towards that program- not websites or phone numbers.) Now, if you want to make a donation for general usage (administrative overhead like that as well to augment individual programs), feel free to donate.
I'm not looking to make a profit on this and if I ever do make a profit, I'm going to send it to the Foundation anyhow. It would be nice to have the site pay for itself though. Ad revenue is credited to me based on 1) how many "impressions" my site gives (i.e. how many times are ads viewed) and 2) how many people click on the ads. In other words, this isn't a comission system (like the Amazon links on the sidebar) so no purchase is required.
As always, if you have comments or suggestions, you can leave them on this post or send them to web-comments@brandonkraft.com
August 15, 2005
site upgrades in progress
As mentioned previously, I'm working on a Xanga mirroring plugin for Movable Type. In theory, it is functional but I have to modify the MT base code. I don't like that since anytime I upgrade the base code, I would have to reinsert that code. Once I figure out how to make it a plugin, we'll be good.
I've added minor features that are invisible to you (for example, when hover you over here certain abbreviations- such as NASA, UT- some help text pops up telling you what those letters mean. The HTML tag to do that is done by the program without me having to remember).
I have enabled TypeKey authentication on the comments. This optional function allows you to use the TypeKey system to login before posting a comment. If you post to the site and I know you're trustworthy, you'll be able to post comments without waiting for my moderation. If the comment spam problem explodes again, I may require TypeKey authentication before posting a comment.
I've been playing with some other ideas to expand how I can use MT but nothing ready to discuss here.
mt 3.2b4 released
I'm playing with the latest beta of Movable Type and so far, all seems well.
I have a final later today and then my summer semester will be over. I'll try to get in the habit of posting again. As always, if you notice any bugs, yell at me.
August 5, 2005
mt 3.2b3 upgrade
I'm about to upgrade the CMS to MT 3.2-beta-3. I'm currently running 3.16. 3.2b3 is supposed to be a near-final release so I'm secure enough with updating my actual site with it. Just to be safe, I dumped the db to my harddrive just in case everything is corrupted after upgrading!
update: Upgrade complete. Now, it's time to play with all of this...
July 29, 2005
xanga mirroring?
Andrea, a dear friend of mine that I don't have the chance to catch up with nearly enough, mentioned that she was bummed about me ending my manual mirroring of my site onto Xanga. For those not aware, I used to copy/paste all my posts onto Xanga so the vast number of my friends using it could read up on me with ease.
With Andrea's comment, I did a little investigation and a little playing. I have a script to mirror to Xanga without any action on my part. For me, it's great because I have to do no work. For my Xanga readers, it's great because you have to do no extra work.
It isn't 100% complete yet but crossing all fingers, it'll be up soon enough.
July 5, 2005
dbd:mysql 3.0000 errors
Hostgator, my hosting solution uses cPanel to manage the site and download new fixes and whatnot. Recently, a perl module, DBD:mysql released a new version (3.000). Usually, I would have never noticed this except something about it causes my weblog's content management system to freak out, resulting in a lovely 500 error.
What does that mean to you? Nothing. What does that mean to me? I have to go through a couple of extra steps anytime I wish to update a post. It's not a huge deal but annoying. If you notice any weird updates or site links, it is probably related.
From what I can tell, the DBD:mysql developer has released a 3.000_0 and 3.0001_0 developer release that corrects the bug. When will that be released and implemented via my hosting solution? Hopefully by week's end.
Update: July 7, 2005 1:32 a.m.
A fix has been released (3.0001) and it should be reflected on my server is the next 24 hours. I must say that I've been impressed at seeing open source problem solving in action.
July 4, 2005
pgp key
I am slowly making the switch from Microsoft Outlook to various open-source applications. As part of my migration from Outlook to Thunderbird for e-mail, I have decided to give myself the option of secure e-mail. My public pgp key can be found online. You can use this key to verify that e-mails sent by me were actually sent my me (assuming I "signed" them).
How much will I actually use this? I have no idea.
June 28, 2005
mit weblog survey 2005
There is about a week left to participate in this survey; the larger the sample, the more accurate it will be.
June 13, 2005
saveplayers is online
Well, the cat is out of the bag now. In Today's Austin American-Statesman's Metro section, an article discusses Player's fight against UT's efforts to claim their land. UT is intending on using Player's for a parking garage.
Michael and I have started working on a student movement aspect of Player's efforts. We had talked to the owner and I threw up a quick splash page on saveplayers.com. We were mentioned in that article.
Now, there's a hellstorm of media coverage being thrown our way. Tomorrow morning, I'm booked to be on the Bobby Bones morning show on 96.7 KISS FM at 8:45 a.m. His producer sent me an e-mail today and I left him a voicemail. I figure I'm not actually booked until I hear back from him.
The site, which we planned to release in August, was not ready at all for this kind of coverage. By 10 a.m., we put up an online petition and within the last hour, I splashed a little color on the site. I'll add pictures in the next day or so.
The last time I ran a log check at 1 p.m., saveplayers.com had over 700 hits for the day. The online petition has just under 200 names.
Feel free to sign the online petition at saveplayers.com or the paper version at Player's by the register.
June 10, 2005
just playing around
I added a location plugin that adds the "from [location]" as part of the "posted" information after each post. If you click on the location, geourl will return with various websites that are located near me.
I also added a plugin that will make linking to my photo gallery easier (hence the picture to the right). This provides no additional function to you as a viewer; however, it makes my life easier.
I will be testing a plugin that would allow me to submit and publish posts via e-mail. Roll-out is expected in two weeks.
May 24, 2005
graduation 2005 pictures online
Pictures are now online from all the various graduation ceremonies as well as the Lake House weekend following.
If you would like to add any of your own photos to the mix, let me know and I'll set you up.
May 12, 2005
life of jimmy
The Life of Jimmy trailer is a beautiful piece of art. See the full thing on Sunday night.
April 23, 2005
site links update
The solution I am currently putting in place for the old links is a redirect system. All old links (http://www.brandonkraft.com/weblog/archives/000001.php) will be redirected to the page now corresponding to that post. This is a permanent redirect and bookmarks should be updated.
This is a work in progress and this post will be updated when it is complete.
April 21, 2005
new host, old links
Everyone: The transfer to the new host is complete. One of the downsides to this transfer is that the old links for entries are not invalid. Any link in the form http://www.brandonkraft.com/weblog/archives/00###.php no longer exists. In a day or two, Google will catch up and business will be back to normal.
appears to be working
This post is being added before switching DNS over just to test out the new systems. So far, it looks great...
new hosting
brandonkraft.com and other related sites will be transferred to a new hosting provider soon. If you notice any technical problems, please refer them to web-comments@brandonkraft.com. Please note that "permalinks" for the blog may change.
May 13, 2004
mt 3.0 upgrade
I just upgraded the CMS to MT 3.0. If you notice any problems, please let me know. The comments probably will not work for a few hours. I'll update this post with that.
Update: Comments problem solved.
What's New: For the moment, the only change that you can see deals with the comments. Before, due to a glitch, the server would return an error message but the comment would be posted, after my approval. Now there is an system for that. When you post a comment, the server will return a "Thanks for Commenting" reply that tells you to chill and wait until I approve it. I will be sent an e-mail to let me know you posted a comment and then I can approve or delete your comment.
June 15, 2003
the first message
Well, this is the first message. After fighting with this thing for a little while, I finally figured out the small things to get it to work. I think this will be a great addition to the site.
June 1, 2003
xhtml transformation
This is just a quick little musings to say that I'm going to convert the site to XHTML over the next few weeks. As well, I'm going to drop my use of FrontPage and go back to real web creation. So far, the resume has been converted over. I had forgotten how much control of my style I had to give up to use FrontPage themes; I think what I have done so far looks good while regaining my control of the design. One thing I will have to get used to is the phased-out use of the tag. Style Sheets here I come...
Oh yeah, I added a form so you can text message me from the site. Right now, it's on the resume subweb as a popup. As I convert the site over, I'll add it to a main page.
May 22, 2003
weblog and midwestern
Ok, I just made myself mad. I had written a decent-sized entry and then I deleted it on accident. I don't do that too often and it really bugs me whenever I do. I'll try to recreate the post...
I decided to start more of a weblog layout to the site. Recently, I haven't had either the time or the inspiration to write a long musing at any one time. However, I have had small amounts of both many times so I'm going to post small nuggets whenever I have the urge in a somewhat weekly format. I'll play with it a little but just so you know, look out for it. Also, Cyberstation still sucks. I'm using them for dial-up ISP access now and they still don't understand that I cancelled my webhosting services with them (after they stopped providing me service). The Cyberstation nameserver still points brandonkraft.com to their servers so I can't even see my website! (A nameserver is what directs traffic to brandonkraft.com or any other named site to the numeric IP address of the server. Most IPs run their own using information sent out by the different domain name registrars- hence why it takes between 24 and 48 hours many times for a new- or changed- domain name to be seen by everyone.) In short, if you see any problems, please let me know as I can't view the pages after going through server-side processing.
Yesterday, I paid my tuition for Summer I at Midwestern State University. I realized how much I really do enjoy The University of Texas. I say that in this context simply because of how smooth everything, for me, as been in Austin. I worked for the University- I applied online, filled out I-9, W-4s online, submitted time sheets online. I attended classes at the University- I submit some assignments online, check grades online, check out offline assignments on the class' website, I check and pay all my bills online, change my addresses and phone numbers online, appealed my parking ticket online, priced and bought my books from the Co-Op online, checked buyback prices online, etc. At Midwestern, after surfing their site, I seriously think I had the one professor last summer who actually has a website. I haven't had a class at UT yet that didn't use either make their own site or used a template site like Blackboard or Nicenet. MSU does have online registration but honestly, I bugged me to death. Every five minutes, I had to log-in again- using my SSN I might add. I wanted to override a prereq for a course- I couldn't do it online. Hell, I couldn't even do it over the phone. I suppose it isn't that bad but I am thankful I'm a Longhorn.
Well, for the moment, I'm going to go and be productive outside the virtual world.
January 13, 2003
new year, new upgrades
Well, the spring semester is finally here. I'll write more about that later but for now, the website is updated. There is a new resume section with information about me, the college courses section has been updated, the "Upgrades" page will have future upgrades and the archives will also contain of history of changed pages. Enjoy!
I'm still at a loss about the Calendar problems but I haven't really looked into it. For whatever reasons, it comes out sometimes in Korean.
October 10, 2002
the first one
Welcome everyone to my ever-improving personal website devoted to whatever I feel the need to rant and rave about. With time, I'm hoping that this becomes a site where I at least can get something out of it. For the rest of you, well, its my personal site with the keywords being my personal site. Nothing but good feelings to you all but that's my thoughts on it.
Before I go on farther, I must give credit where credit is due. I obtained the idea of Random Musings from Dr. David Laude, a Professor of Chemistry and Assistant Dean of the College of Natural Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin. While I have yet to have him as a professor, I came across his Random Musings and thought to myself, "That is one hell of an idea!" I was just wandering around the 1st floor of Welch one Wednesday night/Thursday morning and found it on a table. Inspiration comes in many forms, be sure not to ignore it when it comes.
Now that I got my personal site rant as well as giving proper credit to Dr. Laude for the idea, please let me introduce myself. My name is Brandon Kraft and I'm currently a freshman at The University of Texas at Austin. I'm officially a Chemistry: Opition III (Teaching) major while unofficially I intend to duel-degree in History. Teaching option you ask? Yes, my current career plan places me within the halls of academia teaching a classroom of students the awesomeness of chemistry or history or whatnot. I'm in the UTeach program that currently has me placed at Campbell Elementary School in Austin to teach at once every few weeks. I would like to note while the kids there are great, my goal is not teaching elementary.
Moving on, I'm an alumnus of Hirschi Math-Science International Baccalaureate Magnet High School in Wichita Falls. I'm a member of Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Wichita Falls currently calling the UT University Catholic Center my home away from home. I'm a member of countless organizations including the Sigma Pledge Class for the Lambda Omega Alpha fraternity, the Jester East Residence Hall Association (2nd floor wing representative), Freshman Leadership Organization, Texas Exes Student Chapter, Math and Science Teachers of Tomorrow (MASTT), Students Helping Admissions Recruitment Efforts (SHARE), and Longhorn Scholars. As well, I'm a Deputy Voter Registrar of Travis County (so REGISTER TO VOTE AND VOTE!) as well as the webmaster for The Mol Science Club at Hirschi.
For all those who care, I try to keep my calendar public and online. Since I am just a mere college student, I lack the funds to maintain a properly staffed office. Due to those staffing restraints, I have no secretary to maintain my calendar and provide copies of it to all those who wish to know it. Granted, I don't have that many people asking for my time but all the same. Also, please realize that as hard as I may try, I may not have everything on the calendar so no harsh e-mails detesting me for some sort of event of yours that I failed to add to my calendar.