Secret Firefox Bug Fix Helps Site

Friday, December 19th, 2008 | Site Updates | No Comments

So I discovered a wonderful new issue that Firefox has finally fixed. In version 3.05 my artwork button works. It works over and over again instead of showing just one new piece of artwork and then needing to reload the page.

Now previously I had a “fix” where I told you to edit about:config and search for caching and turn off memory caching. If you were doing that before you might want to turn it back on since it does speed up a couple websites to have it on. It was a very annoying bug in Firefox that had caused me to want memory caching off so I am glad they have fixed the bug.

Now I just need to fix everything else that’s broken :)

Good times ~

260 New Pieces of Artwork

Sunday, November 16th, 2008 | Site Updates | 4 Comments

I was bored with the current art. So I spent a bit extra time collecting new artwork. Now I normally go and do a “new artwork week” and then I mix the old art with the new art but now I think I will leave this up until December since there is enough artwork to maintain the random without the 600 old pieces of art.

Now today I am also going through the old artwork and throwing it in a folder called “bored” so even when I mix the new artwork with the old stuff I will have cleaned out all the artwork I was bored of seeing. I mean I am not joking when I say there were 600 pieces of art on random, but if you visit the site every day like I do then you would know that it still likes to show you the same 40 pieces of art all the time for some crazy annoying reason.

I have seriously tried 3 different random scripts to fix this but there really is no such thing as a good random script. I need to write one myself that has some kind of memory so it knows how often it is spitting out the same artworks… Anyways that is for another day.

For now, if you don’t like the artwork that shows up click the artwork button to the upper left corner and change it. If your browser doesn’t load a new piece of artwork hold the shift key on the keyboard and click the browsers reload button. This will force it to reload my page without using the cached artwork.

Enjoy the new art ~ Soon it will be in a database and you can pick and chose only your favorite artists to show up.

Server Problems Compounded

Wednesday, October 15th, 2008 | Site Updates | 1 Comment

So as if the site going down frequently hasn’t been enough, today the hard drive took a shit.

Site has been down virtually all day. Now the hard drive for my server has been replaced and the data for it cloned to a different server.

So that’s one less issue for site to have.

Lets hope site stops having meltdowns, so I can work on it and then get it to the point where a new, better server could be purchased.

README: Fixed Issues (sort of)

Saturday, October 11th, 2008 | Site Updates | No Comments

So for about 24 hours there has been a script that my friend so generously made for some beer (yeah, beer) that helps make sure my site can be loaded and my email can download. All it does is “restart apache” every time the load jacks up too high. Apache is the web server for those not in the know, and it’s what is causing all the issues.

You load the games page and each game you load will very briefly use 1 to 3 % of the CPU power of my server. Once the game is loaded it is no longer using any of the server CPU and is just using your CPU. However ever since the additional traffic came to the site from collegehumor.com, 80% of my traffic just plays games. So if 90 people decided to load a game at the same time, the server flips out because it is using too much processing power and it prevents anything from working. So when this happens the site becomes unreachable and those people not able to load their games probably still can’t load the games.

So now, when too many people are doing things at once the web server will go off for a couple seconds, which will prevent whatever they were trying to load from working, however in a couple seconds they would be able to load their game and new people will still be able to get to the site.

Okay, it is obvious this is just a “quick fix” and not a real solution. I’m sure nobody likes it when apache is restarting and they can’t load their game or change page. So my more permanent solutions will be:

1) Cut down the CPU load of my games page. Hopefully the new design will do this, though honestly I have no idea if it’s the java applet or the current design causing the extra processor load, so new design may not fix it. This however will need to come pretty soon in case it is the design and the way the games load.

2) My dedicated server only has one processor. Seems as my site is getting more popular it can’t handle the extra traffic with just one processor. So I need a more expensive dedicated server with 3 times the ram and 4 times the processor. Funny thing though. I lose money on the site as it is paying for my current server. Not enough to bother me, but enough to not be willing to pay for the new server myself.

So as soon as I get the new games page up I will be looking for a good deal on a new dedicated server (I’d like to stay with current company as they don’t bitch about my content at all) however I WILL NOT buy it until I can get at least 2 months worth of the cost of a fast new server in donations.

Site is expanding, and I have been spending too much time trying to fix the speed instead of making new content. Not to mention that I have been working on the site and not on my computer repair business so I am starting to go broke :(

Anybody have a good cloning device?

Server Down for an hour or so.

Monday, September 29th, 2008 | Site Updates | No Comments

Wow, that was confusing to fix.  I needed help to find the problem.  Seems that when I added a new domain name to my server through my control panel somehow the configuration got reset to the default so it was looking in the wrong directory for my website and showing a forbidden file for the main page and a 404 error for everything else. 

Now the reason it was tricky to figure out is the control panel still said it was pointing to the correct path and why wouldn’t I trust my control panel? 

I will be leaving nasty posts on the control panel forum tonight.

The Future of The Smartass

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 | Site Updates | 3 Comments

By putting this in writing, I am setting myself up to make sure I actually do these things. If I don’t do these things in a reasonable amount of time I fully expect the visitors of this site to bitch about it.

So here is the road map of what I plan to do with this site in the next 6 months.

Rip-Off Theater (Top Priority)

1) Speed Increase: Currently there is 20,000 videos on the theater page. However because of how I am having it pull information from the database it is taking too long to load the page. I didn’t foresee this and will have to make it pull the information differently.

2) Edit in place for all visitors: The plan is that each video has a description, a thumbnail, a year, imdb link, etc.. So I am making it so that you can just click on those text fields and edit the information and when you are done it submits the information to my moderation queue where I can approve or discard these changes.

3) Comments on each video: Basically I want to clone the comment system from digg.com, which means I won’t really have to moderate it since other people will just vote the comment down

4) Other small tweaks: New content colored different color for 48 hours. Thumbnails, Screenshots, RSS feeds for each individual category & sub-category so you can keep track of or just

Site Login

1) Need for creation: This has become essential, to give people only one vote on comments, and the ability to take credit for what they write and content they submit I need to make a user login for the site.

2) Instant Universal Login: I am not content with just another perpetual registration form. I plan to integrate “prefpass” or something similar into the site. What this means is that to register on my page all you will need is an email address and if you are logged into any other popular site (myspace, yahoo, openid, aim, aol, facebook) you will then be logged into my site. Registration will only take a couple seconds.

3) Merge all my databases together so there is just one login: Then when you go to my blogs, the forum, the theater, games page etc.. you will only need to be logged into the main site and your username/profile will follow. When I first launch the login though it won’t be so nicely merged in the forums/blogs, but I do plan to fix this.

User Profile

1) Create your own site: Choose your own radio station, pick artists that you like and only have their artwork show up on page, or upload your own background and avatar. Set a favorite last.fm or pandora radio station, generate a friends list with other people on the site. Choose a bunch of forms that you use a lot (login to gmail, or myspace, a google search engine, torrent search etc..) to have appear on your profile.

Artwork

1) Database Conversion: I am going to take all the artwork and insert them one by one into a database listing the artist name, title of the artwork, and the website for the artist or a place to get the artwork. This information will output in a corner of the site everytime new art loads.

2) Ability to submit new artwork: Great for actual artists, or just for somebody who wants a certain picture on the site. You will be able to choose public or private if you want to just have your own selection of pictures to load when you load the site.

3) Profile integration to choose your favorite artists, and turn off the ones you don’t want to show up. These will also probably be given tags to help sort them.

New Games Page

1) Clone Theater + Toggle Opitions: This will happen as soon as I finish the theater page. What this means is that to load a game you will choose the type of games and the system (even offline games/emulators). An alphabetical list of all games will load, but you can then filter it down to just a genre. Then before the game loads you will have checkbox options like disabling sound, Choosing size, graphic smoothing, etc and it will load the game.

Things on the theater like descriptions, comments, thumbnails, screenshots will all be included.

2) Ability to upload new games: Basically same as the theater page, only with an upload option. You will be able to upload flash, offline games, roms for the systems we have on site.

Okay I was in the process of writing more things when I stopped writing and am now in the middle of a conversation and a good documentary series in my theater (7 Ages of Rock).

This is part 1. Look for part 2 soon.

New Theater Launched!

Monday, August 18th, 2008 | Site Updates | 1 Comment

New Theater Launched: Please add all comments and suggestions below. I plan to keep adding features to the page so if there are any you would like to see please tell me below.

New Theater Launch Tonight (Seriously)

Monday, August 18th, 2008 | GP, Site Updates | 2 Comments

So if you haven’t yet heard I am launching a new version of Rip-Off Theater.

It will be AMAZING and all the visitors will be able to add information about the videos and submit new content, report broken links etc.. When everything is working how I want it to I will also adapt the games page to use the same format.

Anyway, I REALLY wanted to launch the theater page today. However (skip next part of paragraph if you don’t want to hear a bunch of excuses) foresee an internet explorer bug that would set me back 3 hours, then 3 phone calls from family members to set me back another hour and a half. Lastly I got through those issues and decided I could launch it tonight, however I just happen to notice that my filter menu seems to have broken today.

Looks right but doesn’t work and well, that is a rather important feature and I do not want to be dickin’ with the database and php code very much when the theater is launched.

I have to go to court later today(very confusing writing a blog post just after midnight. Is it today, or tomorrow.), but when I get back I will work on fixing the issues and launching the theater.

Then I will start adding a massive amount of data to it.

It’s worth it folks. When I am done adding all the features I plan to add this will be the best movie site on the net!

More Crap People Email Me!!

Friday, July 25th, 2008 | Site Updates | 4 Comments

I am soon going to start a section just junk like this. It will be called the “Wall of Shame” and will go right next to the “Wall of Fame” (also a work in progress), so that people can feel better about themselves for not being so stupid.

If you haven’t read the previous post you should read that too. Today I got a good laugh before I banned this kid from my website.

Originally he had just emailed me very stupid questions about how to play games, because he was too stupid to find the pull-down menu at the top of the page. However then he kept emailing me… Read to see the full back/forth on this guy.

Mike Says: hay smart ass how come none of youre games work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TSA Says: As if.

They all work just fine

Java.com > download newest java

Then be sure to click on applet and use the controls listed in menu.

Mike Says: I have java and they dont work fine!

TSA Says: To humor you, I just tested both the sega and the nes

They work just fine in both firefox and internet explorer.

Something wrong with your browser if u can’t load them.

If u see white or gray box with an x you don’t have java Just Microsoft java which is NOT java.

Mike Says: I to have fire fox and the regualar internet and i have2 kinds of javas that i downloaded!

TSA Says: What is your Exact problem.

Take a screenshot if possible.

Mike Says: ok listen on my laptop I checked if it had java and it did and then when I went on thesmartass.info I went on games and I went on nes games and then it showed a picture of donkey kong and then when i put my mouse on him itsaid 2180 or 180 games playabelle online.

TSA Says: Um, clicking the picture just reloads the page

The menus with all the games in them are at the top of the page…. Little pull-down menus.

Mike Says: what aree the controls?

TSA Says: All the controls are in the menu above the games And on the front page And in the forums

They are a bit different for each emulator.

Mike Says: thanks for the help but what letters are a and bthanks for the help but what letters are a and b

Mike Says: Can you please put less bad pics on your web?

TSA Says: Haha.. No.

But feel free to go directly to the page of your choice.

thesmartass.info/sega

or

/nes
/othergames
/theater

Etc…

Mike Says: I wouldnt sleep If I were you Im three blox away from you I have any kind of weapon that can kill u.I even have a lock pic because my dad friends with the cia fbi and the army

TSA Says: Maybe you do. Lets see… Your name is Mikael Mortikyan. You live near Los Angeles, CA.. It is a unique spelling of your name so I am guessing you were named after your grandfather, who was born in 1953 and is currently living at 1488 Allen Ave in Pasadena… But this is just a guess and I have only done 30 seconds of research. I could be wrong, I mean your IP address actually ends in Irvine CA… But still if I am, a threat is typically enough to get a subpoena from your DSL Provider to release your address and I don’t appreciate being threatened.

So tell ya what. You can walk down the street and just nock on my door and I will teach you how to properly use the lock pick you posess to break into my place.

It’s the least I can do since I know you will have lots of free time now that I have banned you from my website.

~Have a nice day.

Spinning Dick Catastrophy!!!!

Thursday, May 29th, 2008 | Site Updates | 3 Comments

Haha, so I re-opened my forums today right? AWESOME!!!! WOOO!!! YEAH!!!!!

Ok now that you are done cheering, I launched it today. Confident in my coding skills I did some fancy mod_rewrite rules real quick and told everybody it was launched… before I tested it….

Seems that I had been “stopping hotlinking assholes” by taking ALL forums and forcing them to see “Meat Spin” when they tried to link to images or content on my site. This was working GREAT since I didn’t have a forum.

However, silly me I go and bring the forum back and don’t test my rewrite rule and then tell everybody to go check it out. Then they all start freaking out. So I open Internet Explorer and sure enough, all the images that looked fine in MY firefox browser started showing up as meatspin. I mean every single image was being replaced w/the freaky tranny getting ass-packed.

Hour earlier I had even been told that the logo was nasty and I should get rid of it. I said yeah, it’s not that great but I’ll get rid of it eventually”. Of course I thought people were seeing some green lines… NOT a tranny mess.

Yes, it even made a grown werewolf cry.

..::sigh::..

Oh well, all better now. Temporarly making forum open in new window until i fix layering issues and make popup for the chat so it doesn’t take up same scrollbar space.