The Ignition Project

We just got a spam attack. I marked all of the messages spam (they were all spam). I’ve also limited the comments form so that hopefully only humans can fill it out. Unfortunately, JavaScript is involved, so to leave a comment, you need JS turned on. Additionally, after 60 days, the comments for an article will be disabled. Hopefully that quenches the spam problem.

So, I’ve finally decided to update the page with something. I’m using a Ruby on Rails powered blogging program called Typo. It’s quite awesome, I think.

About ignitionServer? It’s essentially dead, but it still works, and at some point, I will probably release 0.3.7… I need to rewrite it in a language that is supported on multiple platforms. It sucks coding when I don’t even use the platform my software runs on (I run Gentoo Linux).

And what have I been doing? I’ve been working for a company called Poseidon Imaging working on a framework called MacroDeck and an application on that framework called MacroDeck Places (for Facebook). You should check it out, because it is quite awesome.

Edit: All of the links up top should at least link to something, even if the stuff it links to isn’t much.

P.S. If you are an old regular, be sure and e-mail me and I will give you access to post articles.

I think I’ve decided to use C++ as my programming language of choice for ignitionServer NG. I keep flip-flopping on that issue, but we’ll see. As far as the current release of ignitionServer, well. Suffice it to say that I don’t like working with it, which is why little or no work has gotten done on it in the past year. Also, I’ve been busy working on some cool Web 2.0 stuff for my current employer. Feel free to check out MacroDeck, which is what I’ve been working on. Basically, our goal is to bring together things that people use (mail, blogs, RSS, calendars, etc.) and make it possible to relate between them. Google is doing this a lot too, but only within the realms of Google. We, however, have a framework in place that should allow anyone to make their program/web application relate like Gmail and Google Calendar and so on. It’ll also be all Ajaxy and simple. We’re aiming to make it intuitive and easy. It’s also partially open source. Check out the code. I know that sounds like a marketing pitch, but I am pretty excited about where this is heading. Also, I think it’d be great if I could finally condense the twenty-plus sites I’d like to visit into something fluid and related. Like, if Bit-Tech.net has a review on the Intel Core 2 Duo, what if the software could relate that with other reviews that appear in my list of feeds and tell me that this other review is available. Or, let’s say I blog about how horrible the Western Sizzlin’ is in Sallisaw, OK. What if the software could interpet that as a restaurant rating, and add that to those statistics. And maybe I can see if my friends agree with me on how badly it sucks. Or, apply the same social networking doctrine to movie reviews. It’ll be cool, seriously. And, on top of that, we’ll have website building software that kicks the ass of FrontPage in ease of use and outputs XHTML 1.1 :).

On another note, I just bought another hard drive, and I’m presently installing Gentoo on it. Except this time I’m going to make it easy on myself by dual booting. I believe that Linux has matured on high-end gaming boxes enough to warrant a switch back. Also, well. Xgl is soooo cool.

We have switched hosting providers. Previously, I was hosted by long-time Ignition Project member Bobd314. He no longer uses the server, so he decided that he’d use that money on something more important, like gas or food. So, now, we’re hosted by my current employer, Posima. This will hopefully change in September or so (I’m going to college, and I’ll use my static IP there to run a server). Anyway, there are a few slight changes I made during the switch:

1. The Ignition Project’s SVN repository is now located at http://svn.ignition-project.com/ instead of http://svn.ignition-project.com/repo/. Please switch all working copies to the new URL!
2. Bugzilla doesn’t work on the new server and I have no desire or intention on making it work. It was a dirty, awful hack to begin with, and on this server, I do not have permissions to do Perl magic (well, I do, but I can’t, because it may break some scripts that the web host depends on). I will likely be putting up Collaboa, a Rails-based ticketing system. In order to keep bug numbers sane, I will port over bugs manually (I have the database) and resolve them as needed.
3. If you were using the private SVN server on port 8080, please contact me, and I will give you new credentials and a new repository URL.
4. I still have not finished the new site. Sorry!

Also, for ignitionServer NG, I am down to the following language choices: Objective-C, C, possibly C++, and probably not D. If you have strong opinions for or against Objective-C or C, please let me know via e-mail!

No, I’m not dead. I’m officially graduated (well, er, I have been for like, a month now), so there’s no pesky school stuff in my way at least for now. Anyways, I’ve picked up the source again, and I am ashamed of myself. On a code-level, this thing is an abomination. Sure, it’s classful, but there are still issues with the VB code being unclean in nature. I mean, I look at it, remember late night coding sessions and remember the awful hack that I put in to make things work, since VB is inherently an awful language. I look at some frameworks I attempted to put in before I put it down, and I now remember why I put it down – Visual Basic sucks. I want to put in frameworks and APIs so I can easily add features in the future. But, it’s nearly impossible. I mean, it’s possible, but doing it in an object-oriented and clean way is difficult. So… I think that I will look into writing it in C++ or something. I’m itching to code on something, and my employer knows this – but unfortunately, we’re not starting his big project yet. So… I think… that uh… I might begin work on ignitionServer NG (Next Generation) sometime soon. The site’s also being worked on. The main issue is STILL forums, though I admit I haven’t really done work with it. We’ll see. I’m going to make a promise to myself that I will commit SOMETHING to the SVN repo this week.

Also, I’m going to save all you programmers a big long search through the greater depths of hell..er..the MSDN Library. You can find the full VB language reference here. It’s impossible to search for because the page is nearly blank and is titled “Reference”. I spent HOURS looking for this page, only to find it in my bookmarks. So, I’m doing the world a favor.

It’s been quite some time since an update. I know how irate you people get without your updates… So here I go. I’ve been rewriting the site in Ruby on Rails. My progress in this endeavor can be seen in our Subversion respository in the www module. The basic site is fully functioning, but right now I’m focusing on getting content editing working (pretty much done), and then the more important part: a forum engine. I have found that Rails Engines is a very powerful plugin system for Rails, and I see no reason to tie the forum code to our Rails. Why not make it an engine? It’d certainly make things easier for anyone wanting to implement their own forum in Rails.

On the ignitionServer side of things, well. I did some tinkering with the code, and found out something that didn’t dawn on me until just a few days ago: there is no way that it would be a good idea to embed the MSXML runtime and use it to parse XML files. I originally thought the overhead that the XML parser introduced wasn’t really that bad, but I noticed that the server responds VERY slowly with XML parsing happening. And, well, a-duh. That makes perfect sense, it’s an XML PARSER! So… I need to figure out another data format. The configuration file format from the 80’s needs to go, but I need to use something that will both last for an infinite number of updates AND be simple to implement. I’ve been looking at two or three things. The first format I looked at is JSON, or JavaScript Object Notation. It’s pretty complex in the amount of data it can represent, and shouldn’t be difficult to make a parser for. I’ve also looked at YAML, mainly because YAML is the format used by Ruby in many locations. It’s simple to write, but I don’t know if the complex syntax (i.e. if you leave out a space, it spews everywhere) is worth my use of it. I’ve also thought of some other stuff that would work.. but it’s not as elegant as I would like. Honestly, I don’t know. But I do need to find a good, simple, data representation format.

Essentially, with ignitionServer… I need to do a few things to be able to release 0.3.7. First and foremost, I need to rewrite the configuration file reader and format. Then, I need to write the authentication framework. Pretty much, I need to start laying the brickwork for role based access control. Role based access control makes the most logical sense, and also is the most customizable for server administrators/owners. Then, I need to make ignitionServer run as a Windows service so I can nuke the monitor’s funky-munky connectivity. By running as a Windows service, ignitionServer will be able to run without people being logged in to the machine (so, for example, it will be useful for Windows Server users). It also makes it more secure in that it can run in the security context of a special user (i.e. “IRCX Server” or “ignitionServer”). This prevents ignitionServer from accessing other users’ data and whatnot, should a bug crop up that lets such behavior happen. Then, I need to make graphical administration tools. Like a control panel applet or something. I’m not sure how I’ll do this yet. I think that the best course of action is to only allow Administrators to run it. Anyways. All this, and then I’ll be able to release 0.3.7. Then, 0.3.8 will come out with more improvements, hopefully a remote administration program, real documentation (YAY!), and so on.

I have a lot of stuff to do, honestly. To me, getting the site up is top priority, because I’m sure that you are all tired of Sir William doing the Macarena by now. I’m working hard in this respect, as you can see if you look in Subversion. Then, I’ll work on ignitionServer. Pretty much, I want everyone to understand that most of the changes I did before Christmas will have to be reverted because of the XML parser crap. I’m deeply sorry about it, honest. But I think you guys want smooth, fast software more than you want bloated, slow software. So I think that it’ll work out in the long run.

You might be wondering why I have a picture of Bill Gates doing the Macarena. Well, it’s because I have reached my anger threshold with my hardware. You see, on the Socket 939 motherboards that have decent sound (i.e. the ones made by VIA), the LAN chipset is unsupported in Linux. I use Linux, and I use my Ethernet port, so this is a no-go. On every other board (i.e. nForce4 – the ones I like better), the sound is some crappy Realtek chipset, which has mixing issues in Linux. In Windows, there aren’t any (major) issues aside from the driver needing to do mixing. Which happens with ALSA but not OSS in Linux.

Translation? I can’t stand the driver problems anymore. I am defecting. I am switching to Windows, at least until Apple starts releasing their OS as software or I buy a Mac.

Project-related.. well.. I have some news you probably already knew. I haven’t done ANYTHING to ignitionServer since September 2005, and really… I wish I had time to do more. As for the site, I need to decide what I’m going to do with it. I’ve been wanting to make it a MediaWiki, but their theme system is so complex I didn’t want to learn it. So we’ll see.

Honestly, the thing I want to do is get 0.3.7 out (or, revert a few things, and call it 0.3.7), and begin working on ignitionServer NG. ignitionServer NG will be much more complex, and a much more viable enterprise communications solution. From the start, I’m going to make it integrate with directory services (LDAP + AD). It’ll be managable in the MMC, and a way to manage it in Unix/Linux will be possible too (and the UI will be the same). There’ll be users, groups, and groups can nest indefinitely. Users can be members of more than one group. Seriously, it’ll rule. The problem is I lack time.

Basically. I’m not giving up on Ignition stuff. But I can’t give you a timeline for anything.

Well, we went ahead and put a flat file page up in the mean time. I promise, we really really are working on getting the site up and running, but it’s being a major hassle with Christmas time and all. Anyway, hopefully we’ll have the entire site up (forums and all) by the end of the year. I’m going to attempt to get 0.3.7 out by February. And from there? Well. We’ll see.