Holy crap — it’s been warm here in Michigan. I’ve been wearing shorts for the past few days. Right now it’s 70° F / 21° C outside and even warmer inside.

Normally, we don’t get this weather until maybe May or June, so this has been nice. It’s been a couple days since the furnace has run and we’ve been able to get some Spring Cleaning done. (You have no idea how badly the house stinks until you get some fresh air in!)

I’m trying to get back in the habit of blogging. I may not able able to get on IM very often anymore, but at least I can blog.

Back when the domain was down, I joined the Official Naruto Thread on Gaia Online. Now I’m officially addicted. Not the best situation when you have finals due and are known for procrastination. Now I really don’t want to get back to work.

Description: Places a mandatory limit on how long a summary can be. If the summary exceeds the limit, the user is kicked back to the preview screen with the notice that they have to shorten their summary.

Summary length is controlled in your admin settings, under “Submissions.” If a limit is in place, a small notice appears above your summary field on story submissions notifying your users of the limit. If you turn it off, nothing appears.

To turn it on, simply type in a length. (I suggest at least 750 - 1000 characters.) To turn it off, set it to 0.

This was originally a 2.0 mod, but frankly — it’s a much easier, neater, and more sophisticated mod on 3.0.

As usual, my line numbers are only there as a reference to put you in the general ballpark. They will likely change as you progress through the mod.

This always bears repeating: Please be sure to backup your files and database before you begin this or any other mod.

Requirements: eFiction 3.2.1

Difficulty: Easy - Intermediate (Depends on how well you follow my instructions.)

Files Involved:

• admin/settings.php
• includes/storyform.php
• stories.php
• languages/en.php
• languages/en_admin.php
• 1 Database Modification

Modification History:
- 22 March, 2007 — Mod Released

Modification & Support: eFiction.org

Instructions:

It would be so much easier to keep my project RSS feed up-to-date if I actually updated every time I released a mod, instead of doing it 3 - 6 months later. ^^;

What’s sad, is that it seems to be getting a lot of use. Pretty funny for something I rarely think of. Anyway, still working on moving my eFiction mods here for my portfolio. I got that horribly long story disclaimer mod added this morning and

I wonder if I should include my fanlisting script? That’s entirely stand-alone, though not the prettiest in terms of code. It’s something I made just to see if I could do it, so it’s technically my first script that’s 100% mine.

Need to figure out how I’m going to hook up the screenshots in my portfolio too.

Description: I originally had this bright idea to write up a detailed guide to putting php in your TPLs, but my schoolwork is keeping me from doing anything decent.

Please note that I have not had the chance to try this out, but according to the Template Power web site it is possible. The keyword throughout this entire post is “should” — meaning theoretically, it should work.

At any rate, there are two ways you can do this easily. The way you do it depends on how ambitious you’re feeling. This should work in 3.0 and 2.0 but again — don’t quote me on that.

As usual, please be sure to make backups in case I’m wrong. ^^;;

Requirements: eFiction 2.0 or greater, Template Power 3.01 (should already be included)

Difficulty: Easy

Modification History:
May 31, 2006: Released untested instructions for eFiction 2.0
March 21, 2006: Determined that these instructions should also apply to eFiction 3.0

Instructions:

I normally don’t pay too much attention to the recalls. Most of them are really kind of silly or frivolous, to tell you the truth. And what aren’t silly or frivolous, don’t usually apply to me or are so minor I can easily avoid the issue.

But the pet food recall has me a little upset. While we haven’t had any in the house since Thanksgiving, I’ve given my Girls the types and brands of “cuts and gravy” foods involved in this recall. (Don’t worry, they’re all fine.)

What in the world is in this food to make it lethal to pets who only eat ONE package? Can’t they test some of these canned foods and tell us what’s in it? It’s ridiculous.

I think I smell a class action suit in the works. I think it needs to happen, to be honest. This contamination affects a huge number of brands, from tiny store brands clear up to expensive, so-called “high-quality” brands like Iams and Eukanuba. I realize some people think we pet owners have a few screws loose. And maybe we do. But a few million can’t be that wrong.

Finally, one more thing that concerns me — and you probably are going to think I’m nuts — is that I’ve known people who have eaten pet foods as part of a diet of some sort. America’s Funniest Home Videos has had numerous clips of small children eating their pet’s food. If this toxin is enough to kill a cat and make a large dog extremely ill, are there people affected by this? It’s a scary thought.

I guess this layout is as complete as it’s going to get. I need to move on to the rest of my project.

I don’t think I can take another 3am bedtime tonight, so I’m going to call it quits. There are still some things that need to be finished, like the blog comments, but I’ve been chasing CSS bugs for most of the day.

I also added screenshots of my eFiction skins and moved a few of my eFiction mods to their posts here. Next thing I have to do is figure out how I’m going to display my portfolio and other items in that section. I wonder if links to DeviantArt would be appropriate? I tried nearly every gallery plugin and they were so buggy, I didn’t want to mess with them anymore.

Next up, I need to format my resume so it will work in an online format. And finally, I think I should be done.

Yeah, I know this whole rush is partially my fault. I slacked off over at Gaia Online’s Official Naruto thread for most of this class, instead of working ahead so this wouldn’t happen to me.

Oh well, I guess. Someday, I’ll learn.