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Google loves me, this I know, for they cached my blog posts so!

Friday, May 23rd, 2008 | Site Updates | No Comments

Ok, so I got clever today and had this thought that Google comes to my site enough and has a pretty good fucking memory….

Sure enough, with the help of Google’s cache and my own memory for the name of the posts I wrote, I have restored most of the posts that died. Seems they didn’t cache one called Catching Up, but we will assume there was just rubbish in there anyways.

Ok, well it took awhile to get all of those added back, so I didn’t take the time to restore the comments that were cached 2. Honestly sometimes the comments were the funniest thing, but such is life.

I put them back on one post but it was a pain to break them different people’s names, which is needed for them to make any sense. So I will just have 2 wait for people to write new / clever things.

Fudged Up Databases

Friday, May 23rd, 2008 | Site Updates | No Comments

Ok, so there was this little problem on my sites. Basically it was a permissions problem, and since I didn’t know the exact cause the easiest way to fix the problem was to move everything on my server under the smartass user to another user account.

I did this, and my control panel confirmed everything was moved and I did a check to see that all the files had moved, which they had.

So I restarted the server to confirm that my site was still running properly off the new moved files and made a change to site and confirmed that it worked from new account. So I deleted the old “empty” user account.

Then all of a sudden my site would not load…. Hmm, the files are still there.. WTF. Dug around a bit more and it seems that my databases were gone… Seems they don’t move when you change owner (like they should).

Now, I am a reasonable person. I have a backup right? Hmm… I knew there was some automated process I never got around to doing when I setup a dedicated server for myself…

Ok, I found a backup of all my 8 databases. However there is one problem with that. The backup is from March. That means that anything I have written since then is gone. Ok there is one post that “girl says” had a copy of, so I will be able to restore that one if I choose.

Well, I don’t want my history erased so I will remake the posts… but not really. Instead I will make new posts about the same things with slightly more of a current twist and hopefully more humor, since DAMN was that stupid on my part to not have a backup. I mean everything I wrote about my roadtrip in March and April is gone, and everthing I have written about living in New Zealand is also gone….

UPDATE: Google loves me, this I know for they cached my blog posts so!!!!!

So Some Shit Be Down

Friday, April 4th, 2008 | Site Updates | No Comments

I just moved my site to a dedicated server. My old host was fantastic, and had let me have free service for the past several years, but they have sold the company… Alas, all good things must come to an end.

I decided that at the same time I moved servers I would switch to PHP5 | MySQL5 and Apache 2, instead of 4|4 & 1. What does this mean to you? It means that for the moment you cannot use the chat box and you will have to fall back to old fashion communication.

-Did you use the contact form? It was broken from midnight until 10:30am CST. So emails from that time bounced.

-Hmm, all my wordpress plugins seem to be broken. Well whatever, so long as the page displays I can fix that.

-The “Fridge” was broken. I have fixed it…. sort of. I changed it from how it was because it wasn’t staying within the fridge borders. So I eliminated the actual fridge outlines and gave it 100% width. This will mean if your screen is not as wide as somebody elses screen then you might miss seeing some words. Also the “magnets” now “slide down the fridge” about a centimeter. This is really odd, but I am not going to try to figure it out right now.

-The Movies. Ok this wasn’t a direct connection to the server swap. Rather 99% of all the AVI movies on this site came from FlyUpload.com and they have gotten sick of the huge amount of extra traffic streaming videos from download links that aren’t supposed to be public.

All this means is that they made it more difficult for me to parse their site and they have added a cookie that seems to be necessary etc… I have figured out 2 out of the 3 things I need to get them working, but I haven’t cracked the third yet. So I will keep working on it, and don’t worry: Can’t guarantee them to work today but I WILL get more high quality streaming movies on the site soon.

Hmm, this APPEARS to be it. However if you see something that’s not working please leave a comment or send me an email so that I can fix it.

Hope to get chat and movies fixed today, but no guarantees.

Patience is a virtue~

James / TSA / THE Smartass / BS / Whatever else I feel like calling myself

Smartass Hits The Road

Monday, March 3rd, 2008 | Helpful, Site Updates | 6 Comments

I know you will all be devastated, but I am hitting the road this morning for my month ½ long road trip. First I have to drive to Wisconsin where the weather is absolutely shitty right now… Oh well, so what you need to know is I just added 100+ movies to site. They all worked when I put them on. However they do not auto-play. I can fix that later, but for now you will have to click the play button. I know… It’s rough.

Also, if you open a video and it says “Buffering 0%” and stays that way for awhile it is probably trying to “resume downloading” of one that you opened b4. What you need to do is right click on the divx player and choose Preferences. Then click Download Cache. Then Disable Download Cache and click Clear Cache. Also clear your browser cache and reload my theater page.

Problem should be solved unless the movie is actually gone.

I will be on site now and then during my trip, but not nearly as often as I was before. So if you have messages for me please use the contact form to email me.

Good Times.

New Video Streaming Method (updated)

Thursday, February 28th, 2008 | Helpful, Site Updates | No Comments

So this morning I was frustrated to see that my entire top 10 was dead as well as most of my other links from other sources. Since then I have been searching for other movies that people have already uploaded to the net. Having found a ton of AVI files in open directories etc.. (thanks Google) I was happy. Then I found a site listing a bunch of AVI movies on FlyUpload.com. Of course they were listed as “Download Only / No Streaming”.

So I figured if I could fix that problem then there is already a massive quantity of full length movies uploaded to FlyUpload. So I studied how it worked and I have found a new method that lets me convert videos on their site, into ones that stream on mine, and though I like having streaming movies that nobody else has, I have told the method to a couple other sites; in hopes that having them knowing this will let them keep uploading and finding more videos there, so that I do not have to do all the work myself.

I am just putting the links I find onto the site and though I THINK they are in English and not messed up, there are no comments where I found them, so please tell me if you see videos in foreign languages without subs, or find some other problem with the videos.

I am hoping this is the new “Veoh videos in DivX player” that I used to have until they locked it down (when they locked it down I had 163 working movies from their site). I am confident in this so I have started converting a ton of these videos I have found into videos for the site. If they all die in 1 day I am going to be rather annoyed. So lets hope that doesn’t happen.

UPDATE: BAH…. Seems as soon as one person opens the video the link changes itself. Yes, this means that I just spent a long time adding movies only to be removing them all at the end of the night. I won’t delete them. I can make them work quickly, but if I leave them in the menu it will confuse people since I can’t be here every minute to explain the movies and then fix the broken links.

UPDATE (again, but after a good nights sleep): Oh look all my stage6 links stopped working today. Well that was expected, but still sucks. I figured out the way to fix all these links so they will fix themselves without me doing it, however I am crazy busy today and it requires I make a script. They will be back soon.

UPDATE 3: All the FlyUpload videos work again!

Stage6.com To Shutdown, Theater To Be Ruined

Monday, February 25th, 2008 | Rants, Site Updates | 2 Comments

There is an announcement at stage6.com saying that on Feb 28th they are permanently shutting down. What does this mean to you? It means that ALL of my anime/documentaries/tv shows/stand-up/etc.. will be destroyed. Not that there just won’t be any new content, all the old content that’s already here will be ruined.

There will still be movies from “other sources”, and FLV files for various sections, but who the fuck wants to watch everything with FLV’s? To survive I probably have to embed the veoh player or something lame into the site.

This is truly a sad day for all who like high quality divx movies online, and what’s worse is I have been putting a lot of time into automating my theater and writing tutorials on how to find movies on stage6.com so that I could have other people help me maintain the content instead of just me doing everything all the time. Grr…..

Below is the notice that is posted on stage6.com:

I’m Tom (aka Spinner), a Stage6 user and an employee of DivX, Inc., the company behind the service. I’m writing this message today to inform you that we plan to shut down Stage6 on February 28, 2008. Upload functionality has already been turned off, and you’ll be able to view and download videos until Thursday.

I know this news will come as a shock and disappointment to many Stage6 users, and I’d like to take a few moments to explain the reasons behind our decision.

We created Stage6 with the mission of empowering content creators and viewers to discover a new kind of video experience. Stage6 began as an experiment, and we always knew there was a chance that it might not succeed.

In many ways, though, the service did succeed, beyond even our own initial expectations. Stage6 became very popular very quickly. We helped gain exposure for some talented filmmakers who brought great videos to the attention of an engaged community. We helped prove that it’s possible to distribute true high definition video on the Internet. And we helped broaden the Internet video experience by offering content that is compatible with DVD players, mobile devices and other products beyond the PC.

So why are we shutting the service down? Well, the short answer is that the continued operation of Stage6 is a very expensive enterprise that requires an enormous amount of attention and resources that we are not in a position to continue to provide. There are a lot of other details involved, but at the end of the day it’s really as simple as that.

Now, why didn’t we think of that before we decided to create Stage6 in the first place, you may ask? That’s a good question. When we first created Stage6, there was a clear need for a service that would offer a true high quality video experience online because other video destinations on the Internet simply weren’t providing that to users. A gap existed, and Stage6 arrived to fill it.

As Stage6 grew quickly and dramatically (accompanied by an explosion of other sites delivering high quality video), it became clear that operating the service as a part of the larger DivX business no longer made sense. We couldn’t continue to run Stage6 and focus on our broader strategy to make it possible for anyone to enjoy high quality video on any device. So, in July of last year we announced that we were kicking off an effort to explore strategic alternatives for Stage6, which is a fancy way of saying we decided we would either have to sell it, spin it out into a private company or shut it down.

I won’t (and can’t, really) go into too much detail on those first two options other than to say that we tried really hard to find a way to keep Stage6 alive, either as its own private entity or by selling it to another company. Ultimately neither of those two scenarios was possible, and we made the hard decision to turn the lights off and cease operation of the service.

So that’s where we are today. After February 28, Stage6 will cease to exist as an online destination. But the larger DivX universe will continue to thrive. Every day new DivX Certified devices arrive on the market making it easy to move video beyond the PC. Products powered by DivX Connected, our new initiative that lets users stream video, photos, music and Internet services from the PC to the TV, are hitting retail outlets. We remain committed to empowering content creators to deliver high quality video to a wide audience, and we’ll continue to offer services that will make it easy to find videos online in the DivX format.

It’s been a wild ride, and none of it would have been possible without the support of our users. Thank you for making Stage6 everything that it was.

–Tom

Write More Blog Posts

Friday, December 21st, 2007 | Site Updates | 2 Comments

Tim D: “When are you going to write more blog posts?  There haven’t been any at all for December.”
James: “When I feel like it / get around to it.”

Yes, I know. In ‘05 if I hadn’t written a post in 3 days I would go back and write posts for previous days. I wrote some pure gold towards the end of that year. Well ya know what? There is just not enough time in the day anymore. For 3 weeks straight I was actually exercising every night for an hour or more! Yes, I have pretty much dropped that like a bad habit (even though it was a good habit) but my point is it took time. Then it takes time to update the movies on the site everyday. Some days I only spend a few minutes on it but often it takes me over an hour because I have so many links I have to check to see if they are broken and then maybe I find a ton of good ones to put up in their place.

I rather enjoy writing tutorials for A Smartass Education however I so rarely ever do it anymore. Ask-a-Smartass is way behind and I’m sure with all the worthless questions there were still a couple good ones to answer. You can’t really see them because whenever somebody tries to submit a script to it the “unanswered feed” gets fucked up and doesn’t show the questions because it can’t validate the feed anymore, so you probably can’t see how many zillion of those questions there are.

So here’s the thing. Despite me enjoying working on my own site and making new shit, there are too many projects on the site for me to choose which ones to do anymore. Unless I become self employed again, I just can’t get caught up on everything. So I am going to create a page called ‘Help The Smartass’ which is going to do several things all of which will help me get shit done.

1) It will have a donation button, however below it there will be a “to do list”. This list will cover all the things I want to do for the site but haven’t been able to choose or get done. Everything from making new WTF pages, to adding more full anime series to the site. Writing tutorials (feel free to request one upon donation) and answering questions. Automating my theater, rewriting my links page, making a massive page of every helpful form on the net, making a broken link reporter for games and movies etc.. etc…

Yes, I will eventually do the things on the list without a donation, however the list will always be expanding so the things that you want done quicker can get done quicker because you will be able to help me shift my focus.

2) I will not put banners on my main pages, nobody likes banners and it takes away from the design and if you are like me at this point you use firefox and have adblock turned on so you don’t seven see banners anymore. However I am not opposed to having affiliate links. So there will be links to Amazon | Newegg | etc… so the places that you ALREADY shop at you can simply click the links b4 purchasing stuff and I will get credit… There will also be links to products that I personally recommend and own like Absinthe / Swords etc..

I figure it’s not advertising at you, it’s just helping me if you choose to buy from there. ..

3) The merchandise store “good stuff” will be moved in there… they don’t sell much, but I see no reason to totally remove them.

Yes, this is the master plan. See if it’s possible that the site can make money purely on people wanting the site to continually expand. If the site can make money I will want to work on it more and this will also help to give me direction. So look for this new section soon and help out The Smartass.

My site is a smartass without me!

Monday, November 12th, 2007 | Life, Site Updates | 1 Comment

So get this, I have a “.htaccess” file that’s like a book. I mean I must have 2000 redirects in it based on who you are, and what you are trying to do. It’s so big I have written tutorials on how to help other people to make their file big and mean. Why would you want to do that? Well in my case it’s a necessity because a lot of people try to hack into my site on a daily basis. When they aren’t trying to hack in they might be dickheads in the chat. They could be using a program to try to “rip” my site and download everything, which is a huge hit to my bandwidth etc.. They could be a copyright search engine going around looking for stolen artwork ;) etc… I have a zillion reasons to want to redirect people to different places.

I have gotten so “good” with my htaccess file that I can make it so certain people get redirected to English lessons only when they try to “ask-a-smartass” question.

Well it seems that you can know everything at the time you are doing it but troubleshooting something caused by it that you don’t expect is a pain.

So I am hosting my friend Jacob at fivecows.thesmartass.info and he comes to my chat tonight and says “Greetings from the recluse. Hoe are things going here? Busy as always? Just thought I’d mention that if you try going to my blog and get the message to go F yourself, please know I’m sorry.”.

Now I am freaking out, I am thinking I pissed off my friend and he is telling me to go fuck myself if I visit his blog~! Well I had to go check it out… and I instantly noticed that when you clicked on his archives it redirected you instantly to a google search result for “go fuck yourself”. Now I know damn well that I redirect people that are spamming / harassing people on my site to this page. So it had to be my fault. Sure enough, If I mucked with the line in the htaccess file it gave me an internal server error for that page.

At the moment I need to go to bed so I renamed his index.php to index.htm (since there didn’t appear to be any php in it at the time it won’t hurt his page to be named that. However I cannot pinpoint exactly what is causing it to redirect. Technically it should only direct a few exact things and hooligans :). So I need to muck through my big ass file tomorrow and figure out why his blog archives are telling everybody to go fuck themselves!

You raise it from when it’s very small and nurture it and low and behold my site has truly grown into it’s own smartass…

They grow up so fast.

Will fix the broken anime links tonight… (updated)

Sunday, September 2nd, 2007 | Site Updates | No Comments

Yes yes, make a broken link reporter soon… Once I do create that it will still be a time consuming job updating links on anime series if I keep adding new series.

Is there anybody who wants to help me maintain this? I mean everything on this site was made by me, but it’s too bloody big to keep it that way so once I automate this I will need a moderator to update dead links and I may be posting a Help Wanted Ad. First I will make the broken link reporter, and then I will try to automate my submission (can you believe that I add ALL the video links by manually editing the code everyday?).

See I love my theater page however it is taking WAY WAY WAY TOO much time and I am not working on any of the other areas of the site like the tutorials etc.. If I can cut down the time on the theater then everything else can be improved again.

Update: Since I didn’t mention it then, I fixed all the anime links last night. That’s not to say that no new ones will go down, but they all worked as of last night.

Had to remove Berserk (my favorite) and Samurai Champloo since there were too many broken links to bother looking to repair it… I also totally replaced Elfen Lied with a DivX Copy of the show.

Fixed a ton of IE7 Bullshit with DivX Player

Saturday, August 25th, 2007 | Site Updates | No Comments

Yesterday I thought I came up with a solution to shrink my url’s again.  A nice short url that went directly to all DivX files.  Well I didn’t think it would make any bloody difference which browser I was using since it’s just a url to a video file right?  wrong.  Seems IE is too stupid to play a a video file unless it has a specific extension of that video file, despite the player being made just to play a specific file.  I was lucky to catch this problem because the Only reason I checked in IE was because all of a sudden it’s showing the “small player” on my site, which is annoying the piss out of me and I wanted to see if it was in both browsers.  I even hardset the variable to make the player big but it stays small.   lame, way to muck up your own player stage 6.

Also I had to fix a TON of flv links because Google changed the IP address of their cache server and I had been linking directly to the ip.  well links all fixed and working as far as I know.

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