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  • Michael

    Illness

    By Michael, in General,

    Where to begin, i thought 2020 was a bad year, but so far 2021 has turned out to be a pretty bad year as well.
    the year started off with loosing my business, and having to find a new job. then i got the flu, and it took me down for several weeks, and then in early may, i was attacked by a cat on my leg. I kept the wound clean and all seemed to be going fine. it barely hurt, there was no discoloration, there was some slight swelling but it "seemed" fine. then about a week after the attack, after dinner, i got really tired, like to the point, where i "passed" out at my desk and hit my head. I just thought i was just exhausted, as i hadn't gotten that much sleep the last few nights. so i went to bed, then the next 4 or 5 days, i was in and out of it and hadn't realized that 5 days had passed, till my sister showed up one morning, as i hadn't been answering my phone. she thought i was dead, and forced me out of bed and rushed me to the emergency room.
    The cat bites had become septic and i was very close to death, if my sister hadn't come when she did, i would've probably been dead the next day or so. They admitted me, and started me on a massive amounts of antibiotics. I also went thru 3 surgeries on my leg, to remove damaged or dead tissue and i have a gaping wound and under home wound care (as i have a wound vac attached to my leg to help the wound heal). I will more than likely need to under go another surgery for skin grafts.
    I was released last week, and i was unable to walk on my own (i required use of a walker or wheel chair, as i was unable to stand for more than a few seconds on my own). All last week, i had a home care nurse for physical therapy come every day, forced me up out of bed, forced me to walk around, and to get me back to doing things on my own. after about 3 days, I realized i no longer need the use of the chair or walker, and that i was able to stand and do a fair bit of walking with only a fair amount of discomfort that went away if i sat down. 
    Today i was able to walk up the 25 or so stairs to go up stairs on my own, it hurt quite a bit, but what is it they say "no pain, no gain", my PT nurse says i've made excellent progress in a very short amount of time. I am also now able to sit at my desk for than a few minutes, so i will be returning back to at least work on my apps and anything else outstanding, as i'm on extended medical leave from my other job atm (as the shop insurance wont cover me if i had any accidents or injured my leg while i was there). 
    so to say the least, i defied death once again, and i am quite eager to start doing something again, as i've been going stir crazy this last month or so (as the hospital wouldn't let me have my laptop, the reason they gave was i needed to rest, so they only left me with my phone and i watch a buttload of youtube and netflix. btw, army of the dead, what a god damn let down.)
    anyway, i hope you all are well, and if you have any questions, let me know. Like i said, i'm quite eager to be more productive again.
  • Michael

    Demo Request and Site Url's

    By Michael, in General,

    When you request a demo key, the process requires you to be registered member of the site and for you to enter your site URL.
    It is important that you enter your site url or other wise the demo will not work, as babble will use your site's url as an identifier when it connects to the chat service.
    Now i don't harvest the URL's or even keep them in a human readable format, I use a hashing algorithm. My goal is to keep as much identifying information off my servers as possible, in case of breaches or other uncontrollable things.
    for the demo keys, this is what the information looks like when I view it in the ACP and what is stored in my database:
    ACP:

    Database:

    I offer up this information freely and want to be as transparent as i can about it, to show that the data is in a virtual unusable state, and is only being used to generate the key and to connect babble to that key so it can operate. 
    If you have any questions or concerns about this, let me know and i will try to answer and/or address them.
    Regards,
    Michael
  • Michael
    This Monday 10/19/2020 I will be launching babble 3.0.0 chat service.
    2.9 chat service will continue to operate for 30 days after wards, and then i will be shutting it down and you will need to upgrade to babble 3.0.0.
    I will also be launching a 30 day "get demo" for babble, that will allow you to get a 30 day key to test babble 3.0.0 if you haven't already gotten it.
  • Michael

    Babble 3.0.0 Preview

    By Michael, in General,

    I'll be releasing Babble 3.0.0 preview this week, ONLY UPGRADE if you are wanting to test it out. this will be a post beta release, but it might still have bugs in it.
    You will also need to have IPS 4.5 installed, as 3.0.0 has been designed around to work best with it. It might work with 4.4, but there is no guarantee that it will. 
    I will be releasing the self hosted preview tomorrow, but the chat service version will come a few days later. 
    Once i move from preview to the release, there will be a 30 day period in which babble 2.x will continue to operate on the service, after this, i will be shutting down the 2.x chat service servers.  Self hosted will not be effected by this, so if you wish to continue to run the 2.x branch, you can, but no updates/bug fixes or improvements will be made to it after the 30 days.
    Regards,
    Michael
  • Michael
    There are two terms you will often hear in the FOSS world, you might think they mean the same thing but you they do not.
    Free as in beer and Free as in speech/freedom. 
    They sound like they are saying the same thing but they really don't. 
    Free as in beer, is getting something without payment. That is all it really means, you could try to find a deeper meaning in it, but you would be hard pressed to find one. This is what it means in the FOSS world too, if some one says 'Try Ubuntu, its free as in beer', they just mean it doesn't have a monetary cost. I chose these words very carefully too, it might not have a monetary cost, but it does cost you something. It will cost you your time while you learn it, it could even cost you your sanity, cause it might not be easy to use or to get use to. It will eventually cost you something, but it is still free of payment. 
    Free as in speech/freedom. This one is a bit more abstract than the one before it, you could spend hours finding deeper meaning in this one. In the United States, our founders decided that Free Speech was a inalienable right (meaning it isn't something that is given to us, its inherit/natural state. you just have it. Trying to take it away, would be like cutting off your arm or removing an eye, it is often why many american's do not see the "free speech" in other countries around the world is the same as what we have here in the states, as often times that "speech" is given to you by your government, its free as in beer, but what is given, can be taken too.). Any way back to FOSS, in FOSS however, it simple means you have liberty and not just the ability to get the software for free. In FOSS you have 4 rights that are granted under it:
    run the software however you would like. you as the user decide how the software is to be used/run, the creator/owner of the code doesn't dictate this (this is why it is ironic when you hear about people in FOSS trying to forbid use of their code under a FOSS type license, due to them disagreeing with you on some level. they gave up the right to have a say in how the software is used and by who, when they birthed it into the opensource world).  seeing how the software actually works. this is where the opensource part comes into play, you have the right to get the source code, to see for yourself what makes it tick. This would be like knowing the secret recipe that the "free as in beer" is made of. redistribution, you have the right to give the software away any way you want. you could burn cd's of it, give it away on flash drives, install it on their computer/device when they aren't looking, setting up a mirror to host a download of it, etc. you as the user can redistribute it the way you see fit, this also includes, not redistributing, its not a requirement, but a right you could exercise if you see fit.  improvement, assuming you possess the skills, you could improve/alter the software to fit your needs better. You also have the right to give those improvements back if you so desire.  So that is it really, these 2 terms explained, so if you ever come across them, you will know which is which and what they mean. Now this doesn't mean the person who are using them knows what they mean, as many think they are interchangeable due to them sounding similar. There is plenty of "free as in beer" software out there, that you don't have any liberty with.
  • Michael
    A breakdown of features of the devtoolbox for IPS.
    Repository link:
    https://github.com/codingjungle/toolbox/tree/dev
    clone the dev repository to get the latest features and fixes, the xp branch is for new features that might not be stable or complete.
     
     
  • Michael

    Babble 3.0 Beta

    By Michael, in General,

    Babble 3.0 Beta is now available, contact me if you wish to be apart of the beta. Below is the video showing off babble 3.0 and its abilities and differences. Babble 3.0 is also currently running on my site here.  (video is still uploading, so it might take some time before its available for viewing).
     
  • Michael

    Absence

    By Michael, in General,

    I am alive, I don't mean to disappoint anyone if you are  
    I had a chance to use my talents to help a few local schools out with their IT dilemma (mostly fixing their old and donated computers to hand out to children who don't have one).  So i was busy with this for a bit, and then i got sick (not with covid19, at least they told me it wasn't it, but it kicked my butt for about 5 days), but i am back now. I have a few things to get thru for a few clients, and then i will start working my way thru the backlog. 
    hope everyone is staying safe and well  
  • Michael

    Babble 2.9/3.0?

    By Michael, in General,

    since i have some free time for the next several weeks, i thought i'd jump on in on babble 2.9/3.0 (more than likely be 3.0 finally).
    but here is a quick video on the new look for babble. if you have followed the babble saga for the awhile, you will know i've never been quite happy with the layout of babble. it was archaic imho, mostly due to the original spec that babble was written under. i experimented with a "slack" like layout, but i wasn't too happy with that one either, that is why the original 3.0 was always being "delayed". also there are other chats out there and i think i need to really set babble apart from the others. 
    i thought about trying to keep both designs, but i've done that in the past with other apps of mine, and it really isn't a good thing. it delays development and can potentially add in bugs. 
    planned features:
    private rooms (this will replace the current "whispers", you will create a private room and invite a person or people to it instead). multiple rooms on the same page. globally placement of the "chatbar" (it will show up on everypage, i will more than likely give an option to limit it to specific apps). new design this isn't an exhaustive list, i have more, but they aren't well defined yet.
    features possibly being removed:
    reverse ordering...this has been the bane of my existence. this was something that was in the original spec, that i just sorta got straddled with when i made it public. i think it is time for it to die, as it has made coding around it very difficult, in a lot of regards i think it has actually held babble back in some ways. i honestly don't think i can be talked out of this, i think it will die. the order i'll be keeping is the new messages at the bottom (which i would consider to be the "natural" order, cause that is how they come out of the database and that is how most chat apps work to begin with). widget/landing page/menu - i will be removing the widget/landing page and menu navigation as it will no longer be needed.  popout - the pop out feature where you could have it open up in its own separate window, as it doesn't fit in with the new  archive - i'm really not sure how much this one is used, its made a mess of the code in some places, so i might consider moving messages into the search index, or at least giving people the option to turn it on, cause that was original the whole point of the archive was in the first place, i just don't think it is needed any longer tbh.  okay i will have more info in the coming days, maybe more videos, but as you can see in the video, its still quite buggy
  • Michael

    Babble 2.9

    By Michael, in General,

    I will begin work on babble 2.9 in the next few weeks. what features would you like to see in babble 2.9?
    https://codingjungle.com/stratagem/projects/4-babble/
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