(Typed in September, so very little detail here) Majority of the month spent working on the new NUS registration system - designing, coding and graphic designs.

Also - at the start of the month - spent a huge amount of time extending the RSS and SEF URL systems - the latter of which is mentioned here, way back in July.

And I put the contents of the Essential booklet thingy online, mentioned here. I also sat down with Fraggy and worked out what jobs he and I needed to do on the website as the new academic year approached - Pugwash was right at the top of the list. Oh, and Pete Hooley brought Max in to visit us.

(The following has been copied and pasted from my notes)

Summer work up to the end of August:

• NUS registration system analysis, flow design, layouts, security analysis, implementation, best practises and how to implement in-line with existing code
• RSS system
• Search engine modification to return better results
• Various page layouts improved
• Clubs and socs generic templates implemented
• Investigated new ways of routing the output from the flux capacitor through the matrices in my tumble dryer to improve drying efficiency. Or not...
  

The last week-and-a-bit of the month were spent on Jury service - at the same time I had to finish off the NUS Reg system. No sleep for me then...

Hours worked: lots

Whilst I was on Jury service, the NUS Reg system went live. I spent the first week of the month tweaking designs, adjusting code, chasing a couple of bugs, and answering e-mails (the majority of which were - and are - of the "I forgot my password/username/real name" variety), denying I was having my 25th birthday, and trying to sleep enough not to fall asleep in court. Fun!

Between the 11th and 18th, I replied to 101 e-mails asking for help or assistance on UPSU.net. Some simply required a 5-minute change on the database, while several prompted me to go off and build new webpages to clarify issued with the registration system, change existing content, and one even resulted in me spending 6 hours trying to fix a pixellated prolapse on the Get Involved homepage template.

I've also uploaded the wallplanner, created the "What does your Union do for your society" page for Diana (a mere two months late?), and decided with Diana to redesign the Societies' portal page in the near future.

(The following has been copied and pasted from my notes)

This month:

• Created the new NUS registration system and supporting documentation pages
• Created the Essentials pages and associated artwork for homepage hero and ad bar
  

20060914

• Created "How to personalise your club/soc homepage" document and advert link
  
• Created "What does the Union do for its societies" page
• Added wallplanner to site (upsu.net/wallplanner) and updated get involved homepage with new advert
• Replied to e-mails ref account problems

20060915

• Replied to e-mails with account problems, etc - 1 hour

20060916

• Replied to a few e-mails but managed to largely avoid work for one day - woohoo!

20060917

• Replied to registration e-mails (troubleshooting, lost passwords, upgrade problems, etc) - 2 hours
• Fixed code bugs in the registration system - 1.5 hours
• Added NUS Extra Ts & Cs to the registration mini-site
• Added UPEL events to the diary - 2 hours
• Updating the Flirt! homepage - 1 hour
• Updated essentials homepage hero - 30 mins

Total: 101 account enquiry e-mails requiring investigation and response handled this week (approx 5 hours-worth of work)

That's pretty much it up to September 17th. I've spent most of this evening creating these pages - hopefully, I'll actually bother to keep them up to date! Oh, and - touch wood - I'm not sacked yet...

20060918 - 20060921

• Homepage redesign - created graphics, slices, chose colours, developed layout specs and tested. Created HTML layout and stylesheets. Started creating colour changer code. Also worrying about how to switch from old to new homepage layout with a minimum of interruption.
  
• Dealt with enquiry e-mails
  
• Hrs: M 1000-1630, Tu 1130-2100, W 0830-1700

20060922

• Updated Social:Life diary with FF2006 week 2 information (3 hours).
  
• Created the FF2006 timetable page (3 hours).
  
• Tidied up existing homepage code-base - exported various homepage functions to external include files to enable a smoother transition to the new homepage design.
• Had a filling drilled out unanaesthetised. Took 1 1/2 hours. Not my idea of fun...
• Started hacking parts from V1 of the homepage into the V2 layout. It's messy, but it works. It's 9.30pm and I'm knackered. Home time!
• Hrs: Th 0830-1700, F 1300-2130 - total this week: 41.5 ish.
  
• Update: spent an hour writing about the new SUSU homepage. It's not paid work, but it's worthwhile research for me, so I reckon it counts...

20060925

• Homepage: finished the layouts and continued working on the stylesheet implementation. Added in the rather gucci colour-changer code which also handles two different high contrast stylesheets, providing a text-only homepage. You can try it out live at upsu.net?version=beta. Choice of stylesheet is saved in a cookie and on the member's profile, with the profile information taking precedence.
  
• sdd

20060926

• Homepage & search: started coding the new Google-based search system - soon, the whole UPSU.net search system will use Google, at least until we can devote some time to making our search engine damned good. Which could be never, since Google is free and very effective.
  
  For now, the new homepage is search-focused. Literally - when you load the page (unless you're using a text-only stylesheet, for accessibility reasons), the cursor is placed in the search box, and you can select whether you're searching UPSU, all pages from the UK, or all pages on the www.
  
  The script is a little redirector I had to write which works out where you want to search - UPSU.net, the UK, etc - and sends you off to a corresponding Google page. So far, it's working brilliantly, and gives much more accurate results than the internal search engine.
• More homepage: the sunset/sunrise code is working - hooray! (Sad, I know ;o) ), which means the new homepage will be almost fully functional (no "my RSS" reader or "my bookmarks" toys for the initial release). The main colour of the page goes from light to dark (again for all versions except the text-only ones) in 7 variations from an hour before sunset to an hour afterwards, and the same for sunrise. If you load up the new homepage and leave it on, it'll refresh itself every ten minutes, meaning you get to see the colour change happening. Honestly though, are you really *that* bored?!
• NUS Registration: also spent about 4 hours adding in one of the last updates to the NUS Registration code (there's only one more major update, although bugfixes are an expected part of life when you're as much of a bodger as I am...!).
  
  This update means people who have signed up for an NUS card, but haven't yet collected it, can now sign into the site. They're sent to a page explaining they will need to collect their NUS card before October 31st, but they're fully signed in and can post on the forums, etc. I will review this policy at a later stage - we may prevent people from writing blogs until they have their NUS cards, but to be honest I can't see it making a lot of difference, since very few people will sign up with the intention of causing trouble, we have extensive admin and user reporting systems (e.g. complaint buttons) in place, and we aren't publicising this change.
  
  The next and final update is a comparatively minor one - at the end of October, the NUS accounts from 2005 will expire. People signing in will have to be prevented from signing in, told why, and sent to the registration pages if they want to upgrade their accounts.

Tomorrow I will mainly be whingeing about the fact I have to re-cut and produce the daytime versions of the homepage graphics as (in my humble opinion), it's a little too hard to make out smaller text placed over them at the moment.

And what the hell is this obsession with CSS validators saying foreground and background colours "really ought to be" specified together. What if I'm placing a picture behind text to make it perfectly readable and nicely contrasting? It's perfectly legitimate, but these perfectly legitimate pages are failing validation with hundreds of warnings, causing all manner of know-it-alls to pop up and decry our work as non-accessible. Grrr.......... <and breathe> ;o) (I'm not an angry person really - I just enjoy whingeing sometimes...).

20060930

• New homepage is done. It's not finished - blogs/"Sabb watch" still needs to be done, but we're pretty much there now. And, it's valid XHTML for the first time (although the errors on the page before were very minor, and wouldn't have prevented most browsers and screen readers from doing their thing). Wahey!
• Tonight, I'm listening to David Gray, Damien Rice, and Norah Jones.
  
• Next job: NUS card issue system. I have 40 hours to get it done. Borrocks... (update, Sunday 01/10 22.39 - it's done with 11 hours spare. Who says Last Minute is a bad thing? ;o) ).

20061001

• NUS Card issue desk system is updated to handle new card types, use better data checking, and to handle expired accounts.
• Hours this week:
• M: 1030-1730
• T: 1100-1800, 2000-0100
• W: 1000-1700? 2030-0200
• Th: 0900-1730, 2100-0300
• F: 1130-2230
• Sat: 2 hours random pixel adjustment
• Sun: 1400-2230
• Total: 66.5 hours. Ouch.

20061009

• Played helldesk geek all last week. Hours:
• M: 0800-1800
  
• T: 0930-1000, 1100-1300, 1500-1700
• W: 0800-1300, 1400-1730
• T: 0930-1600
• F: 0930-1930
  (These hours don't include my lectures - will update them!)
  
• Total: 38.5 hours. Less ouch.
• Ooh, and I bought a shiny new Macbook Pro. Yay...!

20061013

• More helldesk geeking
• Modified the lost password system to allow members to get their sign-in name by e-mail, relieving me of the obligation to individually chase up several hundred support e-mails.
• Hours:
• Sat/Sun - avoided doing much work. so won't bother putting any hours in!
  
• M: 0830-1845
• T: 0900-1000, 1100-1300, 1500-1700
• W: 0930-1230, 1430-1730
• T: 0930-1600
• F: 1000-1100, 1400-2200
• Total: 36.75
  

20061017

• Yet more helldesk geeking!
• Created a couple of tools - one is a simple account reset tool, but the other one is a very useful diagnostic tool - simply type in an e-mail address and the script checks the DB for an account on that address. If one's not found, an e-mail is sent to the address saying that we couldn't find their account, and tells them how to register. If one's found, a load of checks are carried out and an e-mail is sent saying what they need to do next, if anything, to use their account and, if appropriate, get an NUS card. Very fast, very handy, and a real time-saver for me.
• Caught up on the majority of the problem e-mails, and have made sure the girls now have enough information to deal with most of the problems that come up on the NUS card desk. Next job is to integrate my diagnostic tools into the issue system so members can receive an e-mail explaining why we couldn't issue their card today, if there's a problem.
• Also been polishing the Union Council homepage and planning a polish of the whole Get Involved section. Tricky bit's going to be working on the news listings, although they may die a horrible death ;o)
• Hours:
• M: 0900-1830
• T: 1000-1300, 1400-1800, 2000-0100, 0300-0630 (T: 15.5h)
• W: 1900-2100, 0100-0200
• T: 0915-1815
  

20061018
The NUS registration system is proving to be a bit of a headache for me and, more importantly, a number of students who are having problems trying to register. The two main problems are that the upgrade process seems to be "losing" peoples' user IDs halfway through the upgrade process in roughly one in ten upgrades, which results in a failed upgrade. I hope it's just an oversight in my coding, because that should mean I can fix it, but the other possibility is there's something wrong with the way the code is using sessions on the server - again, it would be a fault on my part, but it would make things a little more tricky to track down.

The other problem is that, very occasionally, two member accounts with the same username or e-mail address are appearing on the database. This would also point to a problem with the upgrade process, but one where the software is mis-identifying the user account and writing the wrong information to another profile. While this isn't a security risk (as neither account can be signed in to once this has happened), it still means that data is technically being corrupted, which is a Very Bad Thing Indeed (TM).

Both of these problems are high on my list of things to deal with, but thankfully because the symptoms of the problem mean it's brought to my attention very quickly, I can deal with the matters - it's a pain to deal with, but clearing up the mistakes isn't impossible.

20061021
Spent 6 hours editing, uploading, cropping, resizing and doing all the other gumph that accompanies the upload of a zillion photos - you can see them in the galleries. Also popped a hero on the homepage to run for a few days to let people know (and by way of apology for the late arrival of all the pics, too!).

20061029
Not much to report lately - my hours have been fixed for this week thanks to the unique way the BBC is funded the odd way the Union works out paid hours (which probably isn't that odd - it just seems a bit strange).

I've spent most of the week chasing up individual account problems, adding in bugfixes to the registration code, putting the Blogwatch code on the homepage (latest blog entries), and having the occasional drink - including a couple courtesy of Elle Gray in return for looking (a bit) scary to stop people nicking the pink Breast Cancer Awareness money pots. At least, I think that's why she kept buying me drinks on Friday - maybe there was an evil plan I didn't spot... ;o)

Oh, I've also cobbled together a one-size-fits-all/none template for Pugwash mag, so all that's left to do now is work out the details and start putting some test articles online.

Much love from the pixel coal face. More next week, maybe...

Hours worked: lots Pay: plenty ;o)

20061103
Sort n' sweet...

• Mon: ~ 1 hour
  
• Tue: 1300-2300
• Wed: ~ 1 hour
  
• Thu: 1500-1630, 1730-1900
• Mmmm, lie-ins...

20061115
So much for lie-ins. Hours not listed 'cos there's not much point, but averaging around 40 hours per week for the last two weeks.

My "Things I've dun" tally stands at...

• A lot of back-end code improvements.
• Heavily modified (again) the content management display and management system so we can better control how news articles in the Pugwash news streams display.
• Tweaked the save and cancel buttons in the content editor. Added an "apply" button. Much easier to find, and you're asked if you're really, really sure you want to cancel editing the current page before you can cancel it. Don't worry if this item means nothing to you - it doesn't mean much to me either.
  
• Tweaked the print and e-mail links. Shown at the bottom of every page, and at the top of news pages. Author can turn off the top links if desired.
• Have discovered social bookmarking and tagging. Like it a lot, so I've started dotting "post to <enter name of social bookmarking site here>" links on news and blog content, and on all page footers. Next job is to tweak the footer.
• Created com_toolbox at last! The basics - "My portfolio", "Add news" and "Web page SEF URL editor" are up and running, with more toys to be added as and when I have time. All I need to do now is integrate the contributors' tools into the contributor homepages to simplify news creation.
• Extended the capabilities of the dynamic CSS generator. The framework is in place for each blog to have its own CSS now, which means that (potentially), each blog will be able to have its own styling. Think MySpace without the adverts. Template management system to allow people to edit their blog HTML is also in the works, and this brings everything one huge step closer.
  
• Polished the "add/edit a blog entry" screen, which leads me nicely on to...
• ... doing more work on the design of the blogs homepage. I have a basic layout in my head, but want to make sure the final design is worth the wait, so I'm not rushing this one just yet.
• Some fairly important changes to the commenting system - one anti-spam fix, and several layout tweaks. Also fixed a bug where the owner of a blog entry wouldn't be able to moderate comments on their blog if they weren't author+.
  
• Many, many minor code tweaks.
• One major bug report: the SEF engine gets confused when certain URLs contain "content". This could be a problem...
• Starting putting the latest issue of Pugwash online. Tonight I'm on the Bitesize page. Very very cool... In a horrifically, car-crash-in-slow-motion geeky kinda way, of course ;o)
  

My "things I'd like to do but don't have time" list is currently on:

• Create a one-click society/club homepage, forum and news stream creator.
• Override the template management system, so each web page can have it's own template assigned, instead of piggy-backing off registered Itemids.
• Maybe look at how we can replace Itemids with page URLs, and still maintain backwards compatibility - an unlikely project to be honest.

Everyone's over in the club getting p*ssed - it *is* Wednesday after all. I'm off to Tescos' now. Oh social life, wherefore at thou, matey? ;o)

Nothing to report 'cos I was too busy! Sorry!

26/12/2006 

Lots of stuff's been going on with UPSU.net. Again, mainly behind-the-scenes stuff. Again, I'm looking in wide-eyed wonderment at the big community sites because I'd love to see Pompey's students really using UPSU.net to chat with each other as part of a big community.

Little changes on this front include modifications to the SEF URL system so peoples' public profiles can now be found at upsu.net/people/<their sign in name>, e.g. upsu.net/people/alexh.

I'm also going to work on turning on the blog entry tagging code tonight so people can start categorising (or "tagging") their blog entries. This means you'll be able to find, for example, blog entries by member "joe_bloggs" tagged with "noodle" by going to upsu.net/blogs/joe_bloggs/noodle. This means I'll also be able to rob the tag cloud generator code from the tags test to show a member's most commonly-used tags, and also to create a complete tag cloud for a member's blog entries.

Looks like I've got my work laid out for me tonight then!

Coming up shortly, I want to get the second issue of Pugwash published (it's out in print and most of the articles are online awaiting publication), and I also want to re-jig the club and society homepages in time for the start of term so they're more focused on static content, as the news system isn't being updated very much.

Talking of news, I want to tidy up the news system in a couple of ways: I want to simplify and tidy up the news listings pages, and I also want to simplify how news is added - at the moment, it's a bit fiddly to write a news story. It should be dead easy to create a news article that confirms to our publishing guidelines (which set out how a news article should look), so that's going to be one for the new year.

One last thing I want to create is an RSS feed of all UPSU.net news and web page content which lists the latest updated pages. This is more for me than anyone else to provide a quick way of listing what's been updated on the site.

Right, I'm off for a turkey sandwich, turkey smoothie and some turkey ice cream. Toodles...!