ruby

I went and did something productive today! It was small, but I still got dressed (in record time, too... usually takes me so long =_=), went out and did something responsible.

I just had to go and call to cancel my health insurance in the U.S. My mom couldn't do it herself because they needed confirmation straight from me. But I couldn't call from home because the phone line isn't working right now. :(

So that meant I had to go outside to use a phone there. Which could have totally been a freakout moment (agoraphobia + anxiety from responsibilities) but I went and put on a little bit of "Archana attitude" and it actually worked. o.O I was okay!

I'm pretty content now for once... I mean, I won't say it'll last (it rarely does) but if I can have those moments more often than not, I'm doing something right.

...well, to be honest it's something I've wanted to actually redo for a while. The Caduceus site, I mean.

Here's the main page that I've already shown before, and the actual journal part. The purpose of the journal will be for Jon and I to write in-character things about Ryshy and Alexsei, to help us flesh out how we'll separate them from Exalted's Creation and into Eskarne (my original setting for the Anthegenia Cycle, and yes, also the name I gave the Great Bird in Reborn Again. It means "Mercy".)

For the user profiles, I ended up using a nifty Nucleus plugin for customizable profiles. Even if there'll only ever be two users for the Caduceus, I just had to get it done *right*. ^^;

I went through a few different and interesting blog software and CMSs before settling back with Nucleus, one of my staple favorites:

Well, I'm gonna be away for the night, staying at a hotel room with Jon. Which is rather romantic except that 1) my period started and I BET you guys wanted to know! and 2) the hotel room idea is at least partially because the hot water problem NEVER got fixed today. Yeah, great. n.n The first thing I'm doing when I actually get the room is *showering*.

It put me in a little of a bad mood today... well, okay, a lot. I was pretty miserable and I still feel pretty bad, but I'm going to try to enjoy the rest of the night at least.

Just finished talking to people before I go, sending off messages, etc. Thanks to everyone who gave me birthday wishes. Also, Kraken wins, he sent me a book on Ruby programming just like I'd hoped~ I'm pleased with it, it's an O'Reilly book and I can't wait to have time to sit down, crack it open and make use of it.

P.S. I'm playing DR again. Halcier, awesome guy that he is, gave me a link to a reviving Order that I may actually involve Talliska in. Sent my application, anyway, though I could end up being refused, or the interview could discourage me, etc. *shrug* But I made Talliska an IC journal with the new Wordpress 2.5 -- who knows, may actually use it regularly. n.n

Games:
- Mana Khemia (PS2)
- Baroque (PS2)
- The World Ends With You (DS)

Music:
- Diamanda Galas, Guilty Guilty Guilty
- Portishead, Third (Ltd. Edition Boxed Set)
- Thrice, The Alchemy Index Vols I & II

Any cash I get will contribute to my computer upgrade, which *hopefully* I will be able to pay. Apparently my inlaws want to help with it, too, since they didn't know what else to give me for my birthday. Well, that works. I need all the money I can get! n.n

Also, I MAY get a Hosting Matters account as a treat to myself. Most likely the B500 package, which is $8 a month or $24 quarterly.

Details on the games/music/other stuff:

Well, she should be arriving there in an hour-ish, anyway.

I'm a lil' melancholy, but I'm also happy to have my creative and web work time back. I can't function without enough alone time for my projects and games and stuff, any more. And I'm still kinda agoraphobic... I was starting to get tense and cranky and overly self-critical (especially about my looks, but other things too) because I've been outside around people every day.

But, I felt kinda bad seeing my sis off. She kinda strikes me as feeling rather lost and lonely lately. I don't know if being around us did any good, though it did show her that life can be very different if you move away from the Bay Area, with all the competitiveness, high cost of living, overworking and overachieving.

Hrmh garagh! I am so sleep deprived. WTF. x.x

But, I have Apache 2.2.8 now. [Edit: I was able to reactivate FancyIndexing so the default directory listings have images and info displayed again, like this. Took me a while to figure out how to suppress all but the minimum server info appended to the bottom of server generated pages, though. I needed to use the ServerTokens directive for that.]

I found out that however the Hostforweb techs updated Apache, it was with some sort of automated program. The httpd.conf is all pregenerated. It also says in the comments where it's generated from, in case I wanted to mess with that, but I could also use cpanel's include files in [apache_dir]/conf/includes, too. Also, a lot of commonly used modules were compiled statically into the apache install (which I checked with httpd -l), including the ever useful mod_rewrite.c.

JP servers just got Master Classes. Here's a summary: PSU Master Classes! :O

I qualify for both Fighmaster and Gunmaster. Not sure which I'd like more, honestly. o.o I'm sad there's nothing for hybrids, though. If I went Fighmaster I could totally rock with spears and double sabers (my favorite melee weapons), but I'd have no ranged attacks. If I went Gunmaster, I'd rock with shotguns and laser cannons and twin guns (hell, I'd even use rifles, though I prefer bows) but I'd have no melee attacks.

Too bad... I thought there'd be an Acromaster. :( There ought to be a class that specializes in the single and twin weapons (saber, dagger, twin saber, twin dagger). Least that's what I think! It'd be nice to see super-specialization for hybrids like us poor Fighgunners / Wartechers / Guntechers, too, though I suppose the point of hybrids is NOT specializing. Aw.

Anyway, Jon and sis are asleep, so I'm back at pokin' at RubyGems and Rails... I wonder what other gems I should install? Maybe I'll ask Kraken later. For now I have to figure out how to actually *test* my Ruby on Rails install. Hrm!

Man, I suck at being social. I think I actually miss my online and RP life. What a geek I am. :/

My sis leaves in something like 10 hours, but I'm not coming along so I don't have to sleep early if I don't want. And I don't. :D I'm going to be lazy.

I'm poking at installing Ruby on darksiren.net right now. Finally! I have Ruby itself installed but still have to install RubyGems and Rails. Stupid me, I never even knew the 'wget' command existed until I looked at a Ruby installation tutorial for installing on CentOS 4.6 (which is what the ol' webserver runs right now). Well, at least I know now, and it'll help. :D

Can't wait till I have some money to buy some hardware to run my own personal server, separate from darksiren.net. Then I can finally experiment with Linux stuff without worrying I'll screw up my data!

Here's what I'ma try next for a single sign-on solution.

Eep, it's Ruby! I've never really worked with it before. But at the least it's gotta be easier to install than the Java implementation (hell, I was kinda iffy about installing Java SDK / J2EE / Tomcat all for ONE little server app. :P Though, I did get the Tomcat part working -- I think that's at least cool, in case I want to actually USE it some day.)

I wonder if Kraken was looking into this already. Or maybe he will. ^^;

I want to poke at it myself, but dunno when I'll get to it. A lot of my current web projects are counting on me getting this to work though. (Besides the potential PSU guildpage, there's my Brigandine site, Anthegenia Records, and probably more!) So, maybe next year I'll have some projects going again, I hope. n.n