VerseLogic » working

Megatokyo Site Redesign PROJECT

Alan J Castonguay — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 13:29:06 +0000

Public beta for new website for Megatokyo webcomic. CountAlpicola, Kalium, Dark Morford and I were working on this in secret for the last 10 months. I’m glad it’s finally seen the light of day.

This was started by another team some three years ago, but restarted from scratch by our team in January 2007.

Features are numerous, and mostly invisible: There’s a completely re-written back-end support structure with normalized database. The site sports the same 1990’s-style public interface rewritten in clean, fast-loading html/css. The drop-down-of-doom is gone, with a transcript search engine in its place. Some slight changes have been made in the site artwork, like the top banner and navigation buttons. We embedded twitter feeds to replace the old status box.

Primary goal for this endeavor was to streamline administration by the Artist, so he can focus more time and energy on his Art, and less on website maintenance. Thus, most of the work will never be seen by the public. The RSS feed is now generated from the database, rather than maintained by hand. Strip and rant-image uploading is built-in, no more FTP. Rant authorship uses TinyMCE for Dom-friendly goodness.

Performance was also a focus. In recreating the site with xhtml/css, the deliverable html and css was reduced from 94k to 25k. The site’s design allows for scaling out across a farm of http servers, front-ending it with a load balancer like a squid reverse proxy.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on this project for a while, looking for performance and render problems. If you have any critique or bug reports on the site functionality, send an email to core@megatokyo.com.

Moving Day

Alan J Castonguay — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 20:16:45 +0000

I’ve move to Hamilton, to work for VMware Canada, out of their Burlington office. I’ll be supporting VMware Infastructure 3, in the Fault group.

My last day at MNSi was Friday September 21st, 2007. The position served me well these past 33 months. I look forward to taking the skills I’ve developed and going forward. If anyone in the Windsor area needs an internet tech support job with no sales component, apply.

This is my apartment building, 70 Jerome Crescent.

Initially, it was pretty empty.

But the view is pretty awesome.

Temporally Relative

Alan J Castonguay — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 13:40:55 +0000

I’ve been working midnight shifts this week, covering for the regular off on vacation. Work 0000h midnight til 0830h, driving home, eating dinner (usually small & leftovery), and going to bed. Wake up some 7 hours later mid-afternoon, eat breakfast, do whatever for 5+ hours, then back to work I go.
I find that I continue to think of and use Morning, Evening, Tomorrow, etc with respect to their contemporary clock-time anchors, rather than my sleep cycle. So, I work and sleep in the morning.

Overall the 8-12 hour phase-shifted day-cycle is not significantly different than it’s unshifted counterpart. I’ve commonly held odd schedules, so a full rotation through is not unwelcome.
I don’t work tomorrow morning; I have the night off.

Technology is nothing but a tool at the service of art

Alan J Castonguay — Sun, 10 Apr 2005 20:19:42 +0000

Computers, code, networks, these can be beautiful, magical things. Not a sort of mystical blackboxedness, but intricate intertwined systems. There’s a steady decay present, in all walks of life, from these magical places to one far darker. This haven for banality is one I strive to avoid, for I fear it. These magical energies were not intended to fulfill greed of this race of men. I cannot errect castle walls to keep the banality out. Doing so would be mere posponement of one’s inevitable distruction. Instead one quests outward, seeking artistry whever it may be found.

Mankind was not intended to sit in front of little boxy screens all day.

Computers, code, networks, these are tools. Tools with which to create art.

Scheduling Summer Plans

Alan J Castonguay — Fri, 11 Mar 2005 04:41:26 +0000

There are numerous plans that have been, that could have been. Far fewer are ever set in motion.

Freshwind, March 24.25.26 2005, at Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship (Toronto Ontario), with Barb, Scott and crew. 130$CA
Jasmine’s Spring Visit, March 25.26.27.28.29.30.31 April 01,02,03, with JRandom in AnnArbor, MI.
ACen, May 13.14.15 2005, with _Quinn and JRandom in Rosemont, IL. ~500$CA(wiki)
Washington Summer Gathering, July 20.21.22.23.24.25.26.27 2005.

Citing a host of different reasons, I’m not going to be in Washingon this summer. It’s pricy, 400$USD+ for the airfare alone. I have working committments. I don’t enjoy large groups much. I’m already chilling with _Quinn and J in May, and likely Jasmine and J in late March.

MNSi and Matt

Alan J Castonguay — Tue, 11 Jan 2005 00:00:21 +0000

I just got an interesting phone call at work from Matt, looking for MNSi’s prices for static ip. Quite fun and unexpected. I wonder whether he had intended to talk to myself..

2005 Winter Class Schedule

Alan J Castonguay — Fri, 31 Dec 2004 18:05:41 +0000

Here is my class Class Schedule for Winter2005. We’ll figure out how to make work fit around this. Which, as I might observe, affects J and Garran’s plans for next week.

Guys, give me a shout when you’re back.

Work and Shannon’s Tire

Alan J Castonguay — Tue, 28 Dec 2004 01:53:17 +0000

I found out upon arrival to work, that I wasn’t scheduled today, as it was my holiday. But since I was there anyway, I might as well get to work. Yay!

Promptly post-work I bumped over to change Shannon’s tire today, which was stubborn. ’twas rusted on quite good, but a liberal dousing with WD40 ate it up right good. A BNP finally loosened the wheel off its mounts. After a lengthy wait at Canadian Tire, we returned with a new tire, installed it, and sent Shannon off to bed. I drove home, blogged this, and played HalfLife2, pwnzing much headcrab. I hope.

These comment spam filter guys need to get cracking on their RBL implementation.

Work, Matt Back, Toyota Corolla

Alan J Castonguay — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 05:11:43 +0000

Work was more good. Learned some DSL troubleshooting stuff.

Matt is Back. I will be meeting with him tomorrow for a little long-missed socialization.

I visited the Toyota dealership again today, testdrove a 2001 Corolla (163,000Km highway, 7.5k$CA, AC, Automatic, Power doors+windows). The ride was better than the Tercel.

MNSi Lackey

Alan J Castonguay — Tue, 14 Dec 2004 04:30:08 +0000

I have completed my first day of training at Managed Network Systems.

I was overdressed, being the only person there with a tie on. Clayton (the owner) was there in a tshirt and jeans. Nearly everyone wore denim.

I spent almost the entire time talking with Gorden, Level2 tech, about the company structure and history, with a brief break for a crash course in Radius authentication. Twas interesting.