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Well it took a while to get around to it but I finally upgraded the site to ExpressionEngine 1.3.1.  It’s been out for a while now but I’ve just been kinda busy in real life.

I’m not fully finished with the upgrade though.  Currently, this is a stopgap while I do some major overhauling.  I’m going to move the install around so that I can use EE to run all my different sites that I have.  I want to create a central location where I can manage all my sites from one single location.  It’ll take some time to get this job finished but when it is it will be well worth the effort I’m sure.

Anyhoo, this new version has many new features and bug fixes from the old 1.2.1 version I have been running since like January of this year.

The fine folks at pMachines have released an updated version of ExpressionEngine.  Compared to the previous releases this one is pretty minor in scale as far as changes/updates go.

The main new features they added are:
* A stand-alone version of the “publish” form, so weblog entries can be submitted from any page.
* An improved plugin manager. Plugins can now be browsed and installed directly from your control panel. Big thanks to Chris Ruzin for this feature.
* URL mapping for people who migrated from pMachine Pro, allowing pM style links to point to their new EE location.
* Redesigned template installer which allows new template designs to be incorporated more easily.

I’m downloading the new version right now.  As usual I’ll be testing this release out for about a week on my private test server before I install it on the live site.  No offense to pMachines but every time they’ve done a new release they end up putting out bugfix releases within a few days.  So, I figure it’s best to just play with the new version for a while in the safety of a test environment while I wait for the bugfixes to come out.  It seems rather silly to install the new version on the live site only to install the bugfix version a few days later.  I’m out in the boonies and only have dialup!  Doing major uploading like when you install a new version of EE takes a long time for me.  Once a week is my limit.

I decided today to get back into programming after being burned out from work for so long.  I work at UPS loading boxes every day.  Loading boxes all day is about the most brain-dead a job you can do.  You would think I would come home and want to programming just to use my brain. Yet, I just don’t feel like it.

I haven’t written a line of code since the middle of October.  So, today I made the effort to get back into coding.  I had started several programming projects a while ago and just stopped.  They projects were add-ons for the ExpressionEngine web publishing system that I’m using.

I really haven’t done any coding today.  Today was just prep and setup.  I’m making a FreeBSD 5.3 test server to do the development work on.  Right now I have the OS installed but I’m doing a buildworld on it in order to update everything and patch security holes.  Tomorrow I’ll get apache, mysql, php, etc installed and running.  The next day I’ll finally get ExpressionEngine installed and my special backup/rollback procedure configured and running.

Then after all that I’ll actually get around to start coding!

I’m sure I’ll have enough on my plate for a while but I’m already thinking of some other programming projects I’d love to work on so we’ll just see how much I manage to get done.

quote:

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ExpressionEngine Version 1.2 has officially been released.  Version 1.2 comes with the ExpressionEngine Photo Gallery, enabling users to display their digital photos on the web.

With its intuitive interface, users can upload, edit, and display photos organized into categories.  As an ExpressionEngine Module, the Photo Gallery integrates seamlessly into the ExpressionEngine publishing system.

The ExpressionEngine Photo Gallery supports advanced features such as image watermarking, cropping, resizing, rotation, thumbnailing, user commenting, nested categories, batch importing, multiple galleries, and more.  Photos
can even be emailed to the gallery!

Version 1.2 also delivers several new core features and improvements.  For a complete list please see the change log in the ExpressionEngine user guide.

Version 1.2 is a free update for existing ExpressionEngine users.  It can be downloaded by visiting the download page at www.pmachine.com.

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I’ve already downloaded 1.2 but it’ll probabbly be another week before I update this website.  I’ll install the new version on my private test server to play around and check for any bugs/quirks plus just wait to see if they release an update between now and next weekend.  If all looks good then I’ll switch over. 

I’m really excited becuase I’d like to start using the built in Photo Gallery to manage all my picture archives.  It’s an impressive list of features and something I’ve been waiting a while for.

This is really for my own use more than anything for the public… sorry

1) File Manager - A basic web based file manager that includes all your usual file and directory tools.  create, edit (text files like html, php, xml, css, etc), rename, delete, copy, move, upload, etc.

2) Page Counter - website stats system to track page hits on comments, monthly, daily, archives, etc.

3) Download Manager - provide functionality similar to places like fileplanet.  setup controlable downloads with restrictions based on members, number of concurent users, etc.

4) Live Chat / IM - some sort of live or semi-live text chat system to integrate into EE user system.  Not sure on this one.  Might require some java applet work????

5) ...

That’s what I have in the queue for right now.  The file manager is about 50% finished right now.  I hope to get my first beta out by end of next week.  That’s if everything goes good.