TagsTagsIn a big improvement, the LGF poll application now uses Ajax (Javascript and PHP) techniques to let you vote and see the results without reloading the page. The ‘Show’ button will still take you to a separate page, where you can view and vote on any LGF polls that are currently ...
LGF, Technical Info, Database, MySQL, Abstraction Layer, PHP, Refactoring, Polls, Olmert, Israel, Winograd
Another piece of the LGF Blog Engine’s MySQL makeover was completed over the weekend—our polling application. This was kind of a tough one to convert from flat files; had to rethink the entire data model in SQL terms, and ended up with a complex but very flexible multi-table design that ...
LGF, Technical Info, Database, MySQL, Abstraction Layer, PHP, Refactoring, Polls
When I rebuilt the LGF Blog Engine to use MySQL, and revamped our login and authentication code to be more secure and more Web 2.0-ish, one of the features that didn’t survive the change was our old preferences page that let you choose which fonts were displayed for the main ...
LGF, Technical Info, Database, MySQL, Abstraction Layer, PHP, Refactoring, Comments, Login, Ajax, Security, Preferences
Yes, it’s another in the long-running series of updates and announcements about our new Ajax-driven login system. The latest enhancement makes the system much more secure. Previously, your password was being transmitted in plain text when you clicked the log in button. (In fact, it’s been this way for years at ...
LGF, Technical Info, Database, MySQL, Abstraction Layer, PHP, Refactoring, Comments, Login, Ajax, Security
Because I’m getting a bit weary of answering emails about why the login system isn’t working, from people who’ve set their browsers to refuse cookies, the requirement to have cookies enabled for logging in is now strictly enforced. Before this rule was put in place, if you turned cookies off you’d ...
LGF, Technical Info, Database, MySQL, Abstraction Layer, PHP, Refactoring, Comments, Login, Ajax, Security, Cookies
The login system has reached a fairly stable point in its development, so here’s one more post describing the changes and/or enhancements that happened over the weekend. 1) The operation of the ‘Remember me’ checkbox has been completely revamped for a) extra security for us, and b) extra convenience for you. ...
LGF, Technical Info, Database, MySQL, Abstraction Layer, PHP, Refactoring, Comments, Login, Ajax, Security
Here’s an open thread for Sunday afternoon (that’s what these login notes threads all turn into anyway). Again I’m tweaking and revamping things in the login system, so don’t be surprised if something behaves oddly. The new feature I’m working on is not fully tested yet, but it’s a change in the ...
LGF, Technical Info, Database, MySQL, Abstraction Layer, PHP, Refactoring, Comments, Login, Ajax
What have I been doing all day? Wrestling with Javascript variable scopes and JSON encoding, that’s what. Our login system is now fully integrated with the Ajax back-end server. The login form that you see (when you’re not already logged in) at the bottom of a page of comments will now ...
Login, Refactoring, Abstraction Layer, MySQL, Database, Ajax, PHP, Comments, Technical Info, LGF, JSON
I’m going to be tweaking and playing with the Ajax login system today, so please bear with me if something behaves oddly. I’m trying to keep as much of the work as possible on the offsite server, but some of it will need to be tested in a live environment. UPDATE ...
LGF, Technical Info, Database, MySQL, Abstraction Layer, PHP, Refactoring, Comments, Login, Ajax
Ajax is back in our login form tonight. Now when you log in, the system uses Ajax techniques to communicate with our server and authenticate you in the background, nearly instantly, without requiring a page reload. One hitch: I’m still working out some issues around the comment form with Ajax ...
LGF, Technical Info, Database, MySQL, Abstraction Layer, PHP, Refactoring, Comments, Login, Ajax
The login system is working very well, but we’ve had a problem with login sessions timing out too rapidly. By modifying the source code to the PEAR HTTP_Session module, I believe I’ve finally put a stake through this bug’s heart. I wasn’t using the problematic “idle” setting, so now it’s ...
LGF, Technical Info, Database, MySQL, Abstraction Layer, PHP, Refactoring, Comments, Login, Timeout, PEAR
We’re testing a major “Web 2.0” style improvement in the login feature tonight; it’s now an Ajax application, and your login happens almost instantly, without a page reload, when you click the ‘login’ button. Go ahead, log out and log back in to try it. You know you want to. (Update: ...
LGF, Technical Info, Database, MySQL, Abstraction Layer, PHP, Refactoring, Comments, Login
More notes from the login front line: 1) The email and web site URL that show up in your comment posting form are the ones you’ve entered into your user profile, which you can manage via this page. The link to this page is in the “Log In” status box near ...
LGF, Technical Info, Database, MySQL, Abstraction Layer, PHP, Refactoring, Comments, Login
More notes on the LGF Blog Engine’s new login process: 1) I know I said this already, but it doesn’t hurt to repeat that you must have cookies enabled in your browser to successfully log in. This is because the login process needs to maintain your “logged in” status as you ...
LGF, Technical Info, Database, MySQL, Abstraction Layer, PHP, Refactoring, Comments, Login
A few quick notes about the new login system: 1) You must have cookies enabled in your browser to log in; the system uses session cookies and can’t maintain your logged-in status if you turn cookies off. 2) A session will expire after an hour of no activity (update: now extended to ...
LGF, Technical Info, Database, MySQL, Abstraction Layer, PHP, Refactoring, Comments, Login
Hey, I just noticed we didn’t go offline today. Should I poke Murphy again and hope it was the effect of transferring our 100K+/day RSS feeds to Feedburner? (Oops, I guess I just did.) Don’t hurt me too much, Murphy, but cutting out all that bandwidth and server overhead has to ...
LGF, Technical Info, Database, MySQL, Abstraction Layer, PHP, Refactoring
If you’ve installed our LGF Headlines javascript at your site, you’ll be happy to know that our little widget will now stay online even if our main server goes down from traffic surges—I’ve relocated the Javascript code to server 2, which operates at much lower load levels. This means your ...
LGF, Technical Info, Database, MySQL, Abstraction Layer, PHP, Refactoring, Headlines
In the ongoing LGF Blog Engine Makeover Project, huge progress was made today on the display side of the application. I’ve settled on the database table designs for entries and comments, converted most of the existing entries/comments to MySQL, and now the display engine is capable of building and sending ...
LGF, Technical Info, Database, MySQL, Abstraction Layer, PHP, Refactoring, Design Patterns, MVC, Blog Engine
After poring over system logs, I’ve discovered another big drain on our system resources. At the bottom right of each post on the front page are links to versions of the individual post with and without comments. Sometimes people link to the pages with comments, even though they’re only interested ...
LGF, Technical Info, Database, MySQL, Abstraction Layer, PHP, Refactoring, Comments, Referrers
To decrease the load on our main server, and help us to better handle peak traffic times on weekdays, we now have a five minute cache on the front page, and a 15 minute cache on individual entry pages that don’t show comments. Judging from emails I received, some of you ...
LGF, Technical Info, Database, MySQL, Abstraction Layer, PHP, Refactoring, Cache
It took about 9 hours to read through 24,745 flat files and import 3,625,599 comments into MySQL, but it’s done. I imported all of them up to about 7 days ago, so that when I’m ready to switch the Blog Engine to MySQL entirely (and it’s not very close yet) ...
LGF, Technical Info, Database, MySQL, Abstraction Layer, PHP, Refactoring, Registration
I’m testing a script right now that, if all goes well, will add every post and every comment at LGF into our MySQL database; nearly 25,000 posts and over 3.6 million comments. The comments section is so huge and takes so long to convert (several hours, probably) that it kept ...
LGF, Technical Info, Database, MySQL, Abstraction Layer, PHP, Refactoring, Registration
The LGF Makeover project, intended to help us stay online even if/when a huge-traffic site like Drudge Report links to us (or Digg, where the Diggbats continue to furiously bury every LGF post), is proceeding. Almost all of our logging functions are now being handled by the MySQL server; this ...
LGF, Technical Info, Database, MySQL, Abstraction Layer, PHP, Refactoring, Registration
The MySQL conversion of our registration database had one small glitch on launch, quickly tracked down—I had written a variable name as $lowername instead of $lowerName. On such things do mighty lizard empires reside. To really give this thing a Texas-style workout, I’m going to open registration to the seething masses, ...
LGF, Technical Info, Database, MySQL, Abstraction Layer, PHP, Refactoring, Registration
At about 3:20 pm Pacific time (give or take a few minutes) I’ll be briefly shutting down comments while I run the conversion script to import our existing registered user database, then install the new MySQL-based registration/authentication modules. See you on the other side... UPDATE at 3/10/07 4:14:16 pm: Success! Our registration system ...
LGF, Technical Info, Database, MySQL, Abstraction Layer, PHP, Refactoring, Registration