I've recently been working on a blog system for my website. It's now functional and basically complete, thanks to a little help from FirestormX. I still have a few plans for it, and until those are completed, I'm not making it an official part of the site. However it's still there for trial.
I also redid the rest of the site, making it compliant to XHTML 1.0 w3 standards. I still get a buildup of anticipation every time that I click on the validation link, though.
On Christmas, I received a midi adapter for my keyboard. I have minimal experience composing, but I'm interested in learning about it. This was my first attempt to make anything, from about a week ago. It's my piano's rendering of the midi file, recorded by my low quality microphone. However, I think it sounds better than most computers' rendering of the midi.
Recently, as I was looking for the sheet music for a song that my sister wanted me to play, I found this website.
I know that there are lots of websites out there with free sheet music, but they are pretty elusive, and this one seems better than all of the others I have found.
About half of the sheet music is in pdf format. For the other half, you'll have to download the Finale Viewer.
The current version of the viewer, downloaded for Finale's website, doesn't seem to work. In order for it to work, you have to use the version provided on the sheet music website: For Windows The plug-in also seems to work only in Internet Explorer
This is a little bit of a bummer because it installs some sort of virtual hardware thing called "Finale Viewer Explorer."
One other thing about the music, is that a good percentage of it is transposed into the key of C, I assume for ease of reading. I personally don't like this that much, but its tolerable. In general the quality isn't quite that of purchasable sheet music, but it will give you a taste for the song.
Hmm, after all that, I'm not sure if it really sounds worth while. I guess it depends on how much you want the sheet music.
Recently, I've been working on a blog system for my website, <a href='http://www.64digits.com/octopus'>Octopus's Garden</a>. The system uses MySql for comments, users, and blogs, unlike the current site's system, which reads information from text files. I've read a little bit about the security issues of MySql, but I'm still not sure exactly how to fix them. Here are some of my questions:
<b>I.</b> How does one deal safely with the password used to connect to MySql. Is the following insecure within a PHP file?
$db_host = 'host';
$db_user = 'username';
$db_password = 'password';
$db_name = 'database';
mysql_connect($db_host,$db_user,$db_password);
-Would it be possible for a hacker to access the raw PHP source? If so, where would the password be stored.
-Is it possible for the transfer between this PHP script and MySql to be intercepted? If so, is the password automatically encrypted, or should I encrypt it somehow?
<b>II.</b> How does one screen user inputs so that they do not interfere with the MySql structure. Is there an equivalent of strip_tags() or must one use some sort of index system to replace possibly dangerous user data?
[Answered, thanks to melee-master:
http://us2.php.net/manual/en/function.mysql-real-escape-string.php]
<b>III.</b>How does one deal with user passwords:
-Are the passwords sent in an encrypted form when they are sent using < input type='password'>?
-How does one encrypt user passwords to be placed in the MySql Database? I'd probably be able to figure this out, but if someone wants to tell me...
<b>IV.</b> I'm using cookies to store a person's login status. How should this be made secure? By inserting an encrypted password and checking it on each page?
If you have any other insight about Securing such a system, please give it. Thanks.
-Mooselumph
This vacation I thought I'd try to do some work on my website, Octopus's Garden. I had this thought after unsuccessfully trying to do some work on my latest game. Anyway, throughout the evening, I was able to get done basically nothing. In fact a new banner, that is only debatably better than its ancester, is the only thing that I have to show for the time.
<a href='http://www.64digits.com/octopus'>Octopus's Garden</a>
<img src='http://64digits.com/users/mooselumph/website.png'>
I think in the future, I will add another page to the Game Maker section to display my examples, and maybe a blog to act as a news system.
I know that the website is pretty dull, as it is. I don't think it has much depth to it. I probably just need to add more content. I think I also need to make some user interaction. If I ever make the blog page, I think I'll also allow comments or something. Any other ideas?
Hmm, I can't think of what to say, but since I'm no longer a mod, I run the risk of being warned for such a short blog. So I'll go on.
Has anyone downloaded the new beta for Windows Media Player? That is, WMP 11, I think. Of those people, how many can't stand it? I can't. I hate the way that it lists music.
IE 7 is horrible too. If they were going to copy tabs, which of course they were and reasonably so, they should have done it completely. Their wierd variation bugs me. Plus the program always locks up on about the third page, but I'm assuming that that is just my computer.
I think for Christmas, I'm going to ask for an interface to connect the midi ports on my keyboard to my computer. I might need some good software eventually, to replace the Anvil Studio freeware that I have for editing midis. Does anyone have any cases to make about which program I should get? I'd be considering cost, basic functionality, and advanced tools.
I'll end by asking, is not starcraft the most addicting game in the world? And that is all.
I just changed the resolution of my screen down to 1024 x 760. Now that I think about it, I believe that I considered myself to be somehow part of an elite group because I had such a high screen resolution. Well, if I was, it wasn't much fun. Somehow, changing my screen resolution has motivated me to become involved in all of the sites of which I was once a more active member. This explains why I am now making one of my semi-annual blog entries.
Over at the GMC today, I saw
<a href='http://forums.gamemaker.nl/index.php?showtopic=253620&st=0'> this topic.</a>
It's an <a href='http://thegriddle.net/isocity/'>Isometric City</a> where you can put buildings that link to your website. I spent about four hours this afternoon working on my building. It still is only mediocre, and I need to work on a little bit of the cropping:
<a href='http://www.64digits.com/octopus'><img src='http://www.64digits.com/octopus/images/iso_city.gif' /></a>
[Edit]
Here is the replacement:
<a href='http://www.64digits.com/octopus'><img src='http://www.64digits.com/octopus/images/iso_city2.gif' /></a>
[/Edit]
I've done a little bit more work on Last Offensive Option. I improved the soldier grouping a little bit a while ago:
<img src='http://64digits.com/users/mooselumph/loo_3.png' />
I'd really like to release a demo, but I'm not quite ready to do so, and I don't feel like explaining the controls and everything. However, if you go to my website, and type in some really imaginative, or maybe not so imaginative, urls, maybe you'll find something.
Right now I'm working on the AI searching method. I add an immeasurably small element about once a week. At this rate, the interaction that I want to be in the first demo probably won't come for about a year, so don't get your hopes up. That's an overestimation, by the way. I'm notorious, at least to myself, for making promises on the internet, and not coming through, but I won't do that this time.
