Hey True Believers!

Ever have a day that gets you feeling like this?

Today is a day like that for me.

In addition to returning to real life, and the world outside of the New York Anime Festival, I’ve been trying to make some deep technical modifications to the website. Tiny, minor things that make the whole project run more smoothly. Some of those modifications, such as the re-branding of our “Distribution” page into a more general “Help Us Out,” have gone well. Others, like changing the Geek Features over to “Updates Every Few Days” to help alleviate the pressure felt by some of our Geeks to hold a deadline, have gone mostly unaffected.

But then there’s things like the Geekshots. The Geekshots section of the page uses the very sharp and functional Wordpress plugin called Slickr Gallery. Slickr Gallery is an interesting mixture of programs that produces a very slick looking output. First, the plugin uses Flickr, the popular online photo gallery site, as its underlying structure. It draws pictures from an authorized account, and then uploads those pictures to a cache on our website through a manual updating process. It then combines its own code with that of another plugin called Lightbox. Lightbox creates that cool blurring pop-up effect that is very common to many website that use photos. The result is supposed to be a list of thumbnails - combined on the site in galleries - of photos that you can click to see the full-size photo.

Supposed to be.

Instead, the program captured the files that I selected in the original demo run of the plugin, and now claims that there is no room for new photos that Chris has posted. This is foolish, because we have 2.5 TB of space. TB…that’s terabytes for the uninitiated, or the equivalent of 2,500 gigabytes. That’s somewhere between 500 and 2,500 thumb drives. And evidently, in that massive space, of which we are currently using only a tiny fraction, there is no room for the photos.

Paint me annoyed.

So, there won’t be any functional Geekshots for a little while, as I try and get this thing running, or scrap it completely and come up with a new solution. In the meantime, please feel free to visit our photostream here. Chris will be updating the photos to include content from our trip to NYAF, as a teaser while I work on capturing the footage and editing together Episode #103.

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And then there’s the Geek Lifefeeds. As you may or may not know, the Geeks With Issues use Plurk as our social lifefeed system. The reason for this, instead of using Twitter, is two-fold. First, the features available from Plurk are a lot more flexible for our needs, and allow us to do some pretty cool things, including a more advanced conversation model, than with Twitter. Second, everyone and their mom has a Twitter, and we here at Geeks With Issues like being unique.

However, getting multiple Plurk widgets to exist on the same page is tricky. The code made by Plurk was never designed to do what we want it to do - exist side by side with four other widgets. In order to get all of the code to work together, you need to create the page all at once, and get everything lined up just right. If not…you get a Plurk link five times on the page, and nothing else. It’s possible, because I’ve gotten three Plurk widgets to run next to each other…it’s just getting all five widgets in at the same time. Magical stuff that is.

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In somewhat better news, I am pleased and proud to announce that GwI United, our very own Social Community, has finally received the attention that it needs. And that attention’s name is Trevor Flagg. That’s right - Trevor has been offically given the role of Site Administrator for GwI United, and will be helping you True Believers out there continue the discussion that we on the show start.

And one of Trevor’s first edicts will allow you True Believers out there to get involved in the creation of content here on GeeksWithIssues.com. Trevor will be watching the discussion threads throughout the GwI United Community for pieces of news and information that are worthy of being reported to and comment on by the rest of our fans. When he finds this content, he’ll be adapting it for our Wordpress configuration, and will be posting it on the front page. Because the discussion isn’t just about us - it’s about you too. We want to hear your thoughts and comments. We want to find out what news pulse you have your finger on, and we want to discover what’s important to you, our fans. So get over the GwI United, and start that discussion!

And…now that I think of it, I’m going to do one better. If one of the stories that makes it to our front page is of high enough quality to allow the Geeks to discuss it, I’m going to include it into the bi-weekly television program. And you’ll get credit for finding the news.

Hows that for interactive media?

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The bottom line is this: despite a few malfunctions, everything seems to be moving forward at a decent pace. NYAF has helped reignite the energy of our Geeks in helping to continue to provide our fans with the best programming we can, both on and off the air. Unfortunately, there are some things that aren’t quite perfect, but I’m proud to say it’s all coming along quite nicely. And, also thanks to NYAF, there are some pretty big changes in the air for Geeks With Issues, and I’m extremely exicted to see it coming our way. It’s nice to see that things are looking bright.

Except for the live feed. Don’t even begin to get me started on the live feed.

Update [10.07.08] - I’m done with the Slickr gallery. I’ve tried to get it to work, but with it in a non-supported status, it’s hard to get the help I need to make it function. I don’t want people to not use it in the future for themselves, but GwI needs a reliable solution. And I think I’ve found that solution…I’ll be making some modifications in the next day or two, and we’ll be back on our feet.