Today JBlogs now has a way to view all posts in a category. By attaching the cat="category" to the end of the URL of the page, the blog will look for all posts in the specific category. This can also be achieved by simply clicking on the category after a post.
Even more amazing is the qry="query" URL parameter. This allows you to search from the blog itself. It currently has no user inteface but I plan to bring that soon. This will make JBlogs even more powerful.
Posts can now be edited and updates can now be checked for from the admin panel. This will initiate a simple AJAX call to my web server to verify that the current version is the same as the installed version.
JBLogs or JB-Logs is an abbreviation for Jamie Balfour Logs and is of course is blogging mechanism. JBLogs was known as BlackCat, but BlackCat has since been dropped in favour of the play on my name.
It's a content management system if you like, it's design is simple. You build the page around it rather than doing it all from some third party design. This is where it has the upper hand on certain other blogging systems in my opinion.
I say this from experience because when I used WordPress it was a nightmare to have to integrate into the site.
JBLogs is one of what I call the Three Steps To Ditch Third Parties in an attempt to make the site more fluid and my own work, not some third party constructed site. The Three Steps To Ditch Third Parties started with my gallery, then the calendar and now the blog. Prior to this blog that this post is on, I used WordPress. It felt like an external website. I then started to build this blog.
Now it feels like my blog is part of my site, and it's now got it's own back end system powered by the wonderful TinyMCE rich text box and some clever PHP.
There are even little widgets at the side of every page (not on mobile and tablet websites) and on the front page.
Of course, the widget is also included in the default blog package and is accessed through AJAX so it can be used on any website if you want.
Simplicity is the main focus of the blog though. It's simple by design having just one directory for user editing whilst the rest is not meant to be edited. It's also lightweight. It also only requires one line of code to start it from an empty PHP file:
<?php include 'jblogs/assets/posts.php'; ?>
That is all that is needed to make the blog work.
New features to come to the blog include a spellchecker for TinyMCE, the ability to edit posts from the user interface (it shouldn't take long, but I've got a job at the moment and then there's university, so we'll see how that pans out) and certain improvements on the interface. It's also written in mysql_ commands not the newer mysqli_ commands.
On the 9th September 2014 Apple will unviel their latest products, rumoured to be the iPhone 6 and the new iWatch.
The date will be particularly of interest for me because my phone is up for renewal on October the 7th so I'd be buying a new iPhone anyway.
I'd also just like to end this post with a comment about this being my first proper post from my content management system I have developed. :)
This will likely be the last post about improvements on my website because I intend to stop fixing my site from now on.
The changelog has been getting less and less attention because of the fact the site is very neat and how it's meant to be.
So this post will cover the latest things to be completed on the site.
Firstly, it's performance has been improved considerably, pages have shrunk in size considerably as mentioned in a previous post. This means it is faster to download and view the site.
Secondly, a new design was tried on my website, but it moved back to the previous design - I am honestly happiest with the design as it is.
Thirdly, it's had some new features added and older less used ones removed.
Fourthly, most inline styles have been removed.
Finally, the blog is looking really looking good.
My website has taken yet another step in the right direction being optimised further, which further reduces the size of the site.
Currently, the largest page on the site is 1.6MB, which is a large page for a mobile phone user to view, but apparently spot on the average page size according to this website. Having said that, my largest page is actually my photo gallery, which is not exactly something I imagine mobile users to be using everyday.
My front homepage comes in at just 795KB and my About me page comes in at 728KB.
Most of this saving comes from gZip being applied to everything on the site, minified CSS and JS, compressed images, much less HTTP requests and less third party linked tools.
Today it was announced that Robin Williams was found dead at age 63.
Apparently a lot of the public are getting confused at this thinking it's Robbie Williams, the singer, but as a matter of fact the reference is to the actor, Robin Williams.
Robin was an excellent actor with roles like Mrs Doubtfire, Flubber and many more. He was also an excellent voice actor and could do some awesome voices and impersonations.
He was one of my favourite actors when I was young, particularly because of his role in Flubber, which was one of my favourite films for about a whole year.
As well as that, he was a gamer, most notably naming his daughter Zelda after Princess Zelda from the Legend of Zelda. He enjoyed playing a lot of the games I love like Warcraft, Zelda as well as many others like Battlefield and Half-Life. A true gamer.
He will be missed by friends, family and fans alike.
The next few months and the remainder of 2014 will see some really awesome games being released!
Nintendo
My Flygon plush Pokemon and I are so happy with the list of Nintendo games!
Nintendo are releasing the best games in my opinion.
- Super Smash Bros for 3DS has got to be the biggest portable game release for me ever (other than Pokemon games). On 3rd October 2014, Nintendo will release the long awaited Super Smash Bros 4. The release will be the debut for Smash Bros on a portable console and hopes to gain more of an audience this way (albeit they have always been reasonably popular games on the whole).
- Also on it's way to the portable Nintendo console are my favourite generation of Pokemon games remastered; Ruby and Sapphire. The games will be named Pokemon Omega Ruby and Pokemon Alpha Sapphire. Generation III was by far my favourite generation of Pokemon because of it's fluid story and the fact that Dragon Pokemon finally took off, particularly Flygon. The game is incredibly exciting for me personally, and I'm sure other Generation III fans feel the same. We're going to see that in stores on November 28th 2014.
- Then there is Hyrule Warriors as well. The Zelda game that changes the idea of Zelda a bit and goes for a 'hack and slash' approach looks incredibly good fun. With stunning graphics and excellent visuals, this game looks like it will stand out as one of those excellent Wii U games (I'm so glad I bought a Wii U at the very start). That is to be released on 19th September 2014.
- After all of that, there is still Super Smash Bros for Wii U to be released! It looks even more exciting than the previous bunch of already exciting games. The Wii U version with it's absolutely awesome graphics is set up for one of the best launches for the Wii U. Nintendo surely can't go wrong with this - there are already three generations of this game that have been best sellers on their respective console.
PC
- For the PC, there are two games that took my interest, namely GTA V and Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. GTA V is also being released on PS4 and Xbox One on the same day, although there is still no confirmed date for either game.
PS4
This is as far as I go with next generation gaming, as I may get a PS4 in the future.
- For the PS4, The Last of Us: Remastered is the remastered version of the PS3 release that already looked awesome enough. But anyway, this is a remake of a game thats not even all that old (now why didn't they wait and release it on PS4 in the first place?)
I've definitely left some games out so feel free to comment.
This is my review of the MacBook Pro with Retina display 2013 15" laptop by Apple and you may be quite surprised by it.
It can be found here.
I have recently not been posting much to my blog and I must apologise to my readers for this.
However, since I have new stuff to review, I will be focusing on reviews this week, particularly the MacBook Pro Retina which I just received today.
My blogging system is still underwork and I hope to have a good system in place by the end of September.
I have been working on a variety of different tutorials, particularly the VB.NET tutorial and the HTML tutorial so please take a look if you are interested in either of these.
Until the next post, goodbye.
Welcome to my even newer blog!
This is my third blog on my site, and this time powered by some clever magic provided by a system called JBlogs. Notice the "JB".
The point is, this is my CMS (content management system) that although is missing a back end, has a really nice front end at the moment. I wanted to 'integrate' my blog better with my website, so I built a PHP blog myself that will retrieve all of the posts etc. and place them on the page. The styling for the page is down to my actual website. This means that anyone can just use JBlogs on their site so that their blog fits into their site. Now why didn't WordPress do that?
I was slightly sick of the separate design WordPress offered on my blog so I decided to make it more part of my website.
JBlogs is still under work, but I feel it is now ready to be used.
