May 2006

IP.Dynamic rumbles on. It’s changed a lot since the first version was used on our own website. It has an installer and everything now - and it’s not red and gray anymore.

I’ve just released alpha 4 to the beta testers which includes a few important items. The first is a search engine for the articles manager. I’ve yet to tidy this up and I want to tweak it to make it more efficient - but it does a good job as-is. Naturally, I’m using the full text capabilities of MySQL although I do want to centralize all the searchable content into one table with common words, short words and HTML stripped to make the searching faster and more efficient.

The other addition is the ability to cache your entire site to HTML files. There were a lot of design problems to overcome with this and it’s still not perfect but it’s a good start. Obviously the static site reflects a guest’s visit so it’s no good if you have a very dynamic site with many member permissions although there’s no reason why you can’t use the static site just for guests and search engine spiders.
The biggest challenge was to find a way to allow a dynamic site to be cached and that’s not as easy as you think. Take the poll component for example. This enables you to create a poll to include anywhere in your site. Now, the default website has a single poll on every page as it’s included in the side-bar. This meant that each time a vote was cast, the entire website would have to be rebuilt (and our ‘test’ site has 10,000 articles spanning 65,000 pages and nearly 10,000 polls) - so this isn’t an option.
After some headscratching, I resorted to writing a few JS functions to act as an iframe include. When a vote is cast, the poll HTML is written to a HTML file and the actual HTML page that the poll appears on has an iframe which links to that HTML file.
Ideally, one would store the poll data as an XML file and use AJAX to load the XML file and populate the poll data - but I didn’t have time for that and the “iframe include” has other uses - such as IP.Board topic importing. The IPB module reloads the topic set every 15 minutes - now it adds a HTML cache file of just the imported topics and the iframe include takes care of the rest.

Of course, if you make template changes you’ll need to rebuild your entire site. There’s not much I can do about that.

Oh and “Staralfur” by Iceland’s Sigur Ros from their album “Agaetis Byrjun” album is very good.

As a huge fan of Dan Brown’s novel (and his previous works) I was thrilled when I first heard that the Da Vinci Code was being made into a film. If there was ever a book that would do well on screen, it’s the Da Vinci Code. It’s a perfectly paced blockbuster of a book which deals with famous paintings and other symbolic imagery which could come alive on screen.

Debbie and I went to see the film last night and we weren’t disappointed. Ignore the hammering the critics have given this film and go and see it for yourself. It’s by no means perfect but it does tick enough boxes to be enjoyable.

It’s a near line by line adaption from the book which doesn’t happen too often when a book is “Hollywood-ized” which accounts for its near two and a half hour running time.

The biggest casualty of the adaptation is Robert Langdon. Hank’s Langdon is almost totally devoid of all personality. Robbed of Langdon’s inner monologue which showcases his keen intellect and radiant personality, Hank’s has virtually nothing to do apart from to stand in the corner and hold the audiences hand through the many plot themes. Director Ron Howard seems content to let Hanks slip into autopilot as he grimaces his way through the set pieces and plot revelations.

Audrey Tautou’s Neveu doesn’t have any chemistry with Hanks and her acting chops don’t lend her enough charm to pull off a leading lady role. She mumbles her way through the script in broken english pausing occasionally to arrange her face in a small variety of emotion.

The book is fairly complex and at times I found myself re-reading a few pages to make full sense of the plot and the affect it has on the other themes. Howard has pitched this adaptation at the MTV generation and explains everything three times and underlines it for good measure which does get a little tiresome for those who can think for themselves. It removes you from the core of the film and makes it more like a history lesson than a free thinking puzzle spanning from the dawn of time.

On the plus side, Paul Bettany’s Silas is absolutely note perfect. His performance is easily the best in the film. He’s as disturbing as he is threatening and is almost exactly how I imagined the character. Likewise, Ian McKellen’s Teabing is wonderful and injects some much needed humour into the film about half way through. The supporting cast is rounded off nicely with Jean Reno, excellent as Captain Fache and Das Boot’s Jurgen Prochnow as Zurich’s Vernet.

Also impressive are the visuals. The locations are beautifully captured with wonderful panoramic views and sweeping camera movements. The historic flashbacks are handled exceptionally well with paintings coming to life to help flesh out the plot. A favourite scene is where London’s past and present are super-imposed to give a feeling for Brown’s imaginative narration.

One can’t help to be impressed with such ambitious source material and the relatively pedestrian handling of the adaptation doesn’t totally detract from the pumping pace and broad scope of the book. Fortunately, Bettany and McKellen raise the film from it’s otherwise mediocre standing.

It’s well worth the admission price - just make sure you go to a comfortable movie theatre. I heard a lot of the audience tirelessly shifting in their seats and when the credits went up, the theatre deserted in near record time.

I used to think RPGs were for nerds.

Not the good type of nerds. Not the type of nerd that works for NASA with an offset of charm against a brain capable of performing complex mathematical tasks faster than the xbox360 can push out pretty polygons.

No. The type of nerd that spends all day with their bedroom curtains drawn furiously thrashing their joystick in the hope of increasing their mage skills. I used to laugh and smirk at such a thought.

Enter Elder Scrolls: Oblivion a ridicuously addictive RPG. Unless you’ve been living in a cave (or are still waiting for a PS3 (you fool)) then you’ll know it’s a game that’s currently making the Halo phenonemum look positively disinterested. It’s got me hooked. Only last night I was beating on Ogres in a cave in the hope of levelling up my blade skills. I’ve closed an oblivion gate and joined the mages guild. I’ve helped two brothers return to their ancestral home and I’ve stolen a bunch of stuff from a store in Hackdirt. I got given a horse but I prefer to run through gently swaying heather. I wear heavy armour and have a magical sword with adds +20% frost damage. I can restore my health once a day thanks to being born under the ritual sign and have collected enough scrolls to unleash a 20 second army of the undead. I still want to complete a few fighters guild assignments and I came across another oblivion gate just outside of Chorrol which I’ll need to close when I’ve levelled up as those pesky scamps and daedric mages can really take you down. I once shot a wolf in the face with a poisoned arrow and managed to retrieve it afterwards. I also stole all the clothes off two bandits and dragged their naked bodies into an amusing pose. I also need to get to Burma to find a book so King Sean Bean can tell me what to do next. There’s also a rumour about corruption in the Imperial Guards which I need to investigate.

Is that daylight I see peeping through the curtains? I’m too busy to check, but I think it might be morning now.

Mac Format (UK) magazine reviewed Invision Power Board 2.1.5 for their June ‘06 issue and awards it 4.5 stars (out of 5).

There are several features that really make Invision Power Board 2 stand out from other pre-built forums which you’ll appreciate if problems occur. People may start leaving unwanted or libellous posts, which can lead the discussion away from the original subject or get you, as the administrator, in trouble. This is where the protective administrative features of the Invision Power Board win out over the bare bones forums every time.

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