The Project Staff Blog

Minor addition

2009-07-20T12:20:00.000-07:00

Added an update log to the site's main menu. Should have done this ages ago, but I kept forgetting. Also, I'm putting up the new header poll...

And you may notice my name missing from previous updates at the site. Well, there were some problems with my account and I had to remove it completely. And so, posts made with that account are now nameless. Thank goodness for avatars!

Ann

Forums Down

2009-07-16T06:10:00.000-07:00

Just letting everyone know I'm aware the of the problem. Apparently, we got some malware cleaning to do, so thanks for the patience.

Update #1: Forums are back up. Please let me know if any pages are broken for you.

Ann

Ma-ma-maintenance!

2009-07-13T23:50:00.000-07:00

Nothing too huge this time, just a little sweep here and there.

In the mean time, you can waste hours going through picture lists at Oddee.
Or if you're both hungry for music, and just hungry, check out the Documentation of Food Songs.

Update #1: Forum updates done.

So is everything else.

Ann

Guest Registering

2009-03-29T19:08:00.001-07:00

If you're wondering about the amazing moving login form and random "test" comments... yes, I am trying something out.

Due to many spam, it's probably better for us to restrict comment submitting to registered users. I'm still fiddling around for the moment...

Update #1: Put out a quick guest registration feature. It's still buggy as heck but usable. Let's see if the spambot get around this...

Ann

Maintenance Woo

2009-03-27T23:59:00.000-07:00

Commencing house cleaning, shouldn't take too long. In the mean time, some videos for your entertainment:

32 songs in 8 minutes. What it says really.

How to speak Japanese without saying a word. For those of you who watch a lot of anime and dorama, or know Japanese people, you'll be nodding along and thinking that is so true.

Skittles Pinata ad. They have a lot of weird ones, but this is just inspired.

Bike Hero. Of all Guitar Hero stunts I've seen so far, including a "Violin Hero" attempt, this has got to be one of the most creative. If it's not done on a closed street, the danger factor makes it even more impressive.

And last, here's a dog yapping.

Update #1: Appears I broke nothing on the main site. Now for the forum...

Update #2: Taking a bit longer than expected due to some compatibility problems, but nothing too serious. The forum will disappear completely for a while as I restart the upgrade from a clean backup.

Update #3: Alrighty, all that's left is some fixes to see if we can lessen the spambot problem.

Update #4: I think that's it for a while. As usual, let any of the staff know if there's something off/wrong/annoying-as-heck. Unless it's the IE problem with the music player and layout wrapping. (I'll get to that... eventually.)

Update #5: Whoops, forgot one small thing. It'll only take a few minutes.

Ok. I'm done.

Ann

Commence Fixing

2008-05-26T20:07:00.001-07:00

I'll start cleaning up the mess I did yesterday, so don't be surprised if the site behaves weirdly for a while.

Interesting note about the music player... it works in IE7, but not in Firefox. I've yet figured out why and how I should fix it (or even if it's a problem affecting others), but I'll try.

Check back for real-time updates.

Update #1: Blargh, need a break. I'll tidy up a bit more later, but the bulk of the update is done. Is it still considered a "fix" if I made loading longer for everyone? XD

Update #2: You know what, I think that's enough for now. Sorry for making things load longer with the new graphics, but I had to since it was the easiest solution for the disappearing headers. So far, the Cognatio banner is still forced out of its shape and the pop-up player is off-center with IE users. I'm sure there's more, but hopefully they are minor enough. I'll see if I can fix that, or I'll just ignore it until the next big fix.

Hey, at least the graphics open up the page a bit, right? Looks less like a common template (which it is, because I'm lazy) and made things a bit more livelier.

Links aren't all there yet and the gallery hasn't been reuploaded yet either. Will get to that sometime before next year. *cough* But hey! The Featured box is something else! Isn't that amazing!?!?!?!!1!!1/!?

Ann

Surprise Downtime

2008-05-25T20:46:00.000-07:00

Sorry for doing this un-announced, but the site is going to be offline for a bit as I try to fix some annoying things on the back-end.

Update #1: This is going to take a while. Here watch some laser magic. Also, check out some grooving with HS kids on classical instruments.

Update #2: Somehow, somewhere, I messed up and the shoutbox is now gone. Bear with me for a bit...

Update #3: Bleh, need to do a clean install. Might as well check back tomorrow. -_-;;

Update #4: Site up but in dire need of minor fixes. Apparently the "urgent update" from Mambo was pretty buggy and incompatible with some of the modules we were using. Among them, the old shoutbox and MP3 player (don't worry, I got a new one, just need to tweak it a bit). I found replacements, but now it appears some of the module headers aren't appearing. I don't why it does that, but I'll get to it after I get some sleep.

Ann

Minor Update

2008-05-04T13:55:00.000-07:00

Merged the One-Shots and Short Comics since UC pointed out they're all one-shots anyway. Funny how I never really noticed that...

Anyway, the links are still incomplete, but I'm in my finals so I've yet gotten to sit down and add another batch. In the mean time, feel free to suggest links at the forum.

Gallery is still also in process of getting set back up, I'll find the time to get them all up eventually. XD

Ann

Bouncing Back

2008-04-13T15:31:00.000-07:00

The fixes are still going on from yesterday's exploit, but the bulk of it should be done by today. I'll get the forum back up and then put in a new gallery and start resetting the links.

Update #1: Forums are back up. Seems everything is as it should be.

Update #2: Started the chore that is re-entering all the links. Gallery is also in process of uploading.

Ann

Blank Front Page

2008-04-12T22:21:00.000-07:00

It's been buggy since this morning and I've yet figured out what's wrong. All the subdomains and the forum still work though, so feel free to visit those at the moment.

We'll try to get this fixed ASAP.

Update #1: Apparently we're going through our first hack. It seems it's a common exploit of some sort that compromised all the php files on our server. I'll be trying to get things back up and more secure, but we'll be losing some updates.

Update #2: Shutting down our forums.

Update #3: Mave is joining in on the fun! If you're wondering what exactly happened, you can get an idea here. We're fixing things now and reinstalling stuff. Mmm, tedious!

Update #4: Main site back up and so are the forums. There's minimal loss so that's good. Links and Gallery stuff will have to be reuploaded, though, so we'll do that tomorrow. There's just some small things now that we'll fix when we get around to it. ^^

Update #5: Argh, forum down again. Too tired... I'll get to it after I get some sleep...

Update #6: Check next entry for continuing updates.

Ann

First House-Keeping of 2008

2008-02-13T23:48:00.000-08:00

Gonna take down the site in a bit. But before that, I'll be updating some minor stuff around the place. If things are a bit weird, don't panic.

Here, watch some beautiful tap-dancing by Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell.

If you're really bored, here's 100-count down of 100 movie clips.

Update #1: Back online. Going to check if things are in working order.

Update #2: And I think that's it for tonight. The comments should be easier to read now. ^^

Ann

Internal Server Error

2007-11-29T13:38:00.000-08:00

If you're getting this message for the main The Project site, just know we're aware of it and the problem should go away on it's own. If it doesn't, bear with me until midnight PST tonight as that's the time I'll be back from college.

Update #1: If it's still happening to you, the easy way to bypass it is to point your browser to http://theproject.us without the "www." Dunno why it's like that, but I vaguely recall it happening before. It should go away on its own eventually.

Ann

November Maintenance

2007-11-03T22:58:00.000-07:00

Some minor updates are done, but the bigger one that requires taking the site offline will be a bit behind schedule. Mostly because the backup is taking longer than expected (great time to be slow, my beloved internet connection).

From the current speed, it'll be around another 30 minutes from the time of this post. Ergh.

Update #1: Finally finished the back-up. Site is going to be offline for a bit.

Update #2: Aaaaaand we're done. Painless, no?

Ann

Server Down

2007-09-29T03:13:00.001-07:00

Our host has recently updated the server we're on to reflect new quotas (a whole lot!) so you might be getting a "Internal Server Error" as it transitions. I'll be checking things out in the morning if it's still not working.

Thank you for your patience!

Ann

Ann turns Chinese. Wait.

2007-06-29T02:20:00.000-07:00

In less than 12 hours I'll be off for a two month language study in China at the Peking University. Considering I'm Chinese, this is pretty important, heh.

Anyway, will be back at the end of August. And with the not-always-available internet connection at the campus, I'll probably be a bit slow on fixing bugs and whatnot. Mave and UC should be a bit faster, though they too have limited connections.

So apologies in advance but please keep e-mailing us if the site goes down or whatever!

Ann

Server Down

2007-06-28T23:23:00.000-07:00

The websites are d-e-d dead from our host's end. And ours isn't the only site that's down.

Please be patient and hopefully things will pop back up soon.

In the mean time, watch "Paper Shepherd" and "Death By Luxury" (both by the same guy). You won't regret it.

Edit: And in the time it took me to refresh a dozen times, run around, and post this entry, the site is back up.

Ann

Housekeeping Tonight

2007-06-26T23:51:00.000-07:00

In another 2 hours or so.

Eh, I just realized, it's actually June 27th that the maintenance would be done. The whole "pass midnight" thing slipped my mind... But yeah, the site will go offline starting 1 a.m. (PST) later.

Addendum 1: Heh, started a bit late, forgot to glance at the clock. Currently, I'm upgrading stuff so hopefully no big conflicts with existing mods happen, forcing me to roll-back change which is very annoying. But yeah.

Addendum 2: It seems nothing has exploded. There are some whacky things going on in the CMS back-end, but it should be nothing that effect visitors. Let us know if there are bugs.

Ann

Scheduled Maintenance

2007-06-23T20:08:00.000-07:00

On this coming Tuesday (26 June) we'll be doing our scheduled maintenance. When this happens, the site will be offline between 1 a.m. - 3 a.m. (PST). If nothing major goes wrong, or if my internet isn't crawling like a snail which it frequently does now, the downtime will only last 30 minutes or so.

Ann

Repeating Feeds?

2007-06-08T12:56:00.001-07:00

Hm, I wonder if anyone else is getting old The Project feeds in bulk repeatedly. I'm not sure how this happens, and the CMS module that controls the syndication settings don't actually do much. It's a minor thing, but it bugs me, heh.

Do let us know if this happens to you or if you have an idea why this happens.

Ann

Midnight Moving

2007-06-08T00:32:00.001-07:00

Do not be alarmed to see content shuffling around and the disappearance/appearance of menu items. We're doing a bit of re-organizing to shorten the navigation menus.

Useless update? But it's so fun...

Ann

Official First Post

2007-06-06T16:31:00.000-07:00

Decided to create this blog because of current web problems and recent developments behind the scenes. Almost all updates, announcements, and news will still be posted only either at the main site or the forums, but be sure to check here if there is any down-time to see if we know what's going on.

From time to time, we might post about some non-"aaaaa where did the page go!?" stuff as well.

That said, I shall start out this post on the recent site failures that affected the main page, gallery, and forums. Basically what happened is that the MySQL databases disappeared (yes, they were actually not there, at all, in the backend) for a while before coming back on their own within 20-30 minutes.

I've contacted Hostgator's support to find out why this happens, and how to keep it from happening again, and the response is unhelpful. They say it might be happening because of too many connections, but we aren't exactly getting flooded with hits so it sounds unlikely.

Grr, it seems I would have to catch it happening again and immediately report it while the problem is still going on. In the mean time, we've been getting some traffic from spam sites so I'll just go block their ip addresses and see if that does anything.

We'll keep you guys updated if we ever find a solution.

Ann