The Psychotic Factor

WoWWiki, an incredibly popular and VERY useful World of Warcraft is having a contest to celebrate the Beijing 2008 Olympics. It seems Clopper Whizbang has lost his WoWlympic gear and he needs your help to find them!

This is a great competition and I’ve successfully completed it (and it’s not easy, let me tell you now). What can you, I hear you ask? Well simple: Wrath of the Lich King Beta Keys and, what I personally believe to be the best of the two - A Tyrael minipet!

Interested in winning if you’re a WoW player? Then head on over to the WoWWiki WoWlympics page for more information!

Here’s the Age of Conan layout in a darker shade of… blue. What’s it for and why does it look different? Simple. This is the version I’ll be using for The Death Reapers, an RP Guild I’m setting up on World of Warcraft’s Steamwheedle Cartel realm.

It will also most likely used for The Ownerz, my Social Guild on the Barthilas realm (that is yet to get members, but then, I’ve yet to reach level 70, lol). There isn’t much difference to the layout except that the background is different and everything is blue. Some may argue that WoW isn’t blue, but I beg to differ.

Also note that the title was misspelled, not deliberately, I just couldn’t be screwed correcting it. As for the slogan, for those of you who have never looked up Warcraft lore - 26 is the year that World of Warcraft is set in.

And I’m done, for the three days I’ve been working on an Age of Conan based template (based off the game, not the site). 18-20 hours later and I’m done!

The end result can be seen right here! Don’t hesitate to tell me your thoughts and opinions on it.

I’ve nearly completed the Age of Conan layout I’ve been working on the past 3 days (about 18 of that being work time, lol). And I think it’s coming along damn nicely, if I do say so myself… which I do, =P.

I’ve redone the navigation bar again, just a teeny tiny tad, it may not even be noticable to some of you, who knows (it should be though, because if it isn’t then you’re bloody blind!). Also changed the background to how I wanted it.

The only problems I’ve encountered so far is, as usual, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer loves being a bitch on me and so it has slowed down production time, which really pisses me off. It’s not completely working in IE as of this post, because I prefer getting it to work in Mozilla first before anything else. But it will work eventually.

I won’t post a preview, sorry guys! Reason is because it’s so near it’s completion that it’d be rather pointless of me to do so. So you can sit on your ass and wait, just like I’ve been doing during it’s creation.

Here’s another preview of my upcoming Age of Conan themed website interface. You may not notice much but there is a big difference. A rundown on the new previews changes just below.

I’ve changed the banner again. I hate making banners and I believe I really REALLY suck at them. This one also incorporates the redone navigation bar on it, as well. My original plan for the navbar didn’t turn out as planned but I like it how it is, nonetheless.

Footer (copyright area) changed to look like the other headers. These will be subject to a change though because I want to personalise them more. I need them to look more Age of Conan-like, and to me, at this point in time, they just don’t.

And the last change is an updates are. For all the latest content. The idea is to only ever have three bars there, anymore and you’d have to make those bars much smaller and doing so makes them just look damn weird. Besides, three is enough, in my opinion. These will be subjected to imagery updates too so they also look more AoC-like.

The background hasn’t changed but I’ve got plans for that tomorrow, if I finish the updates bit. So far it’s taken me, I’d say, around 12 hours to get it like this. I’m not sure on the current working time I’ve put into this but it’s been around that, so that’s not too bad.

Well that’s it for now guys, check back in a few days and I should have another preview, if not the finished product, up for you to gawk at. I say a few days because I honestly don’t know how long it’ll take and because timezones suck, =P

Well I’ve had to remove the whole Friendly URLs option. Hover over a link and check it in the status bar, you’ll notice it says something like: http://randomtastic.com/?page_id=131. Friendly URLs change the links from that to something like http://www.randomtastic.com/development-journal/.

Since then I’ve had a few problems with updating Wordpress (which I will get around to, if it doesn’t screw up again) because every time I do, the whole Friendly URL option stuffs up and I’m left with a ton of goddamn 404 errors everywhere I look.

The Wordpress development team really need to look into an auto-installer in the next release, because that would be so damn helpful. Something that you could upload the zip file, have the CMS unzip the file and then put all the updates wherever and you can specify certain options (like if you’ve got custom templates, settings and plugins).

Some software does it, take a look at SMF (Simple Machines Forum). It can update the whole thing just by uploading the latest zip file. It can even add new templates and modifications by using the same procedure. It’s bloody useful, the forum software in general however is crap. Never use it, no seriously, don’t. It’s bloody shit and phpBB will serve you better. A damn ton better.

Here’s a screenshot of my latest work in progress. It’s an Age of Conan based layout (Age of Conan is a very recent online video game, for those not aware). I was suggested to make one when I was asking around for ideas. More after the jump.

It, of course, is not finished yet and there is still a ton I can do with and want to do with it, so I will do it. Well anyways, here’s the template. See for yourself what I’ve been up to as of late (besides slacking off and playing WoW).

Click the image to enlarge. Uploaded at TinyPic.

I’ve been using a CMS as of late called MODx. It’s a pretty nice CMS, it’s very clean and fairly easy to understand. One core feature I admire the developers for is the fact that any website template can be implemented into it. With no previous coding or anything.

All you have to do is make a new template (via the CMS’ manager), copy and paste the XHTML from your own template into it (and any CSS sheet or images will have to be uploaded to your server, of course) and then you just edit it a bit to include the CMS’ content. It’s bloody easy and bloody efficient.

MODx can be found at www.modxcms.com and the site I’m implementing it in to can be found at www.theownerz.com. You may notice it as a template from my Portfolio, you may also notice the fact that it doesn’t really look CMS-like. Not to me anyway, that’s the magic of MODx.

I recommend anyone who loves Content Management Systems to go check it out, especially if you’re getting sick of your current one. Two systems I love now is Wordpress (good for blogs, like this one) and MODx (perfect for other sites).

A good example of a website which uses the MODx CMS is www.dxalpha.co.uk (a community website/forum for the game Deus Ex, released in 2001).

I am in dire need of some new glitches for Glitches Exposed. I haven’t updated that site for so long that it may start to grow a bit stale in the middle, a bit like bread does when you leave it out in the open air for too long (bread does, don’t ya know!).

Looking for glitches isn’t the easiest job in the world but if you have managed to find any please, PLEASE, contact me with them or you can send me them at submissions@glitchesexposed.com.

I don’t care how you format them. You can send me the glitch in whole text format or you can upload it to me in a Notepad (which will require you send it to me by the direct e-mail and the file will, of course, be scanned upon entry).

All help in this is greatly appreciated. As said, I am in dire need for glitches. Glitch videos, glitch screenshots, just plain and simple glitches. It doesn’t matter! Thanks for all your help.

As promised, here is some screenshots of my current User Interface for World of Warcraft. Look if you’re interested, ignore if you think I’m a psychopathic freak of nature who is going to Hell because I play World of Warcraft (when, in fact, I’m a psychopathic freak of nature who is going to Hell for completely other reasons, but that’s a story for another day).

You can find all the screenshots by clicking on this handy dandy awesomeness link. Yes, that’s how awesome it is. It’s awesome because it takes you from one page, to another. And that, my friends, is why it is awesome.

I may make a page for all my gaming screenshots (which I have a fair amount of) but until that day, the above system works fine. Especially for lazy people who don’t get out of bed until four in the afternoon.

Thank you and good night. I shall be watching you in your dreams… I mean… ah crap… disregard that last sentence…