This could be a pretty lengthy update by the time I have finished… depends how much I get interrupted.

IRCWhore’s

There’s major changes happening at IRCWhore’s, including a massive revamp of the system back-end, a new front-end theme, and how the system interfaces with the database, statistics engine, and the chat daemon. As it stands, development is a little slow at the moment, but the features that are being implemented are being put in place securely, and measures are being taken to ensure that the systems insecure.

Another key development is the way the website integrates with an advanced table structure. More tables and stronger relationships mean that data can be accessed quicker, and highly normalised structures result in a superior system. In addition, indexes are being added to increase the performance of the database server, and the server-side back-end. UNIQUE fields are being used to ensure that repetitive data cannot be added, and measures have been put in place on the server-side scripting to ensure that the system doesn’t have to keep checking if the field is unique.

IRCWhore Title and TopNav snapshot

In addition to the back end being optimized for superior performance, the client-side scripts (JavaScript, Cascading Style Sheets and Hypertext MarkUp Language) have been optimised to be delivered in the fastest possible way. This is done by adding caching to images, style sheets and scripts, while removing caching from the main content. Also, the scripting is optimised by removing all unnecessary line breaks and white space. This might make the script ugly, but with a 34% decrease in download time, it’s worth it.

In addition to performance, security is another key area of the development. The main security protocols installed in the system are automatic reporting of break-in/injection attacks, and the automatic banning/suspending of users should they be detected performing a break-in attempt. In addition to the security protocols being developed, various child safety policies and protocols are being developed. These include:

• Child-Parent Profile Linking – This allows parents to take control over their child’s account with limited permissions. This could be use to see who the child is making contact with via the online messaging system, and to see who the child has made friends with online. Obviously, ethics and morals will restrict what features we do implement here, and we are still working on a way to enforce parent-child relationships without people adding them to any account they wish. All relationships will expire once the younger of the relationship reaches 18.
• Restricted Access to Minors – The amount of access an under 16 year old will get determines on the parent-child relationship being made. The most basic restriction (with no relationships) potentially prevent the child from making friends with people older than 16, not messaging anyone that’s not in their friends list, restricting how the user interacts with certain features on the website (including the personal weblog, forum and the personals section).
• Strict Profile/Image/Post Screening – While moderating images and profiles can often be a laborious task, we think that it is a critical feature of our systems. The moderators will obviously be trained to the highest possible standard in what to allow and of course, disallow. They will have a full set of tools to either delete, report, suspend or ban based on the content of the image. This feature will not be abusable, as all actions across the site are logged into the Administration Control Panel. If a picture is regarded as illegal, IRCWhore and its regulatory board will report the user to the respective authority.

IRCWhore is solely based around security and safety, and this is taken into consideration while coding the core features of the website. As we are ensuring we are not promoting illegal activities, or allowing them to take place on our server, we are proud to report that we have been awarded ICRA certification as a child-friendly website. We are also going to work with other Child Protection Agencies to ensure that we are recognised as the first, and only child-friendly webchat website.

While protecting the children, we also thought about what we can do for adults. Ever been lonely and needed someone to talk to? Ever wanted someone that is like you? That’s where IRCWhore’s Singles comes into play. We will implement the most significant features of the leading singles websites, while adding some of our own random spice to give you a list of people we think you will like. Unfortunately, due to the implementation of the features mentioned above, parents will NOT be able to apply as a single. In addition to the previous restriction, we also regret we can only provide the singles service to our premium customers which are genuine members who have verified their authenticity by donating via PayPal or Google Checkout.

More and more features will be implemented over the coming months, and yes, we will keep you up-to-date. Follow us on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/ircwhorestatus.

I’ve been thinking over the past few days, I have no clear-cut plan for what I want to do in the future, so here goes.

Programming

I’ve been dabbling with a couple of languages over the past few months, mainly Perl and PHP, but I don’t know them as well as I should. I am currently coding a website (as described in the past post), but it is nowhere near of a professional standard. The PHP is all over the place and has no definitive structure. Hopefully, once I have the site launched, I can spend a bit of time turning it into a proper site with pretty much everything being in objects, making it easier to re-use code without having to copy and paste large blocks of code.

I feel I can competently program in Perl, but the only problem is the Regular Expressions which throw me off course. I can do some basic regular expressions, such as finding a word in a sentence, but when it comes to replacing text mid-string based on a complex regular expression search…. its like a morning without coffee…

University

I have been somewhat lazy when it comes to my University course. Leaving the assignments until the last minute, not re-reading all the lectures to help them sink in, and just generally being lazy. I need to step-up the game if I want that first in my 3rd year. I was pretty disappointed when I got my exam results, 68, now I need to bargain to get myself onto the A+ exam, and prove I can do the exam. I also need to go over all of my CISCO CCNA stuff and revise all of that, then go over all the IOS commands, and etch them into my brain.

As much as I despise Windows, I have to use it for my MCP/MCDST. I just wish VirtualBox worked with the Windows XP disk I have…

Personal Health

I am going to quit smoking again. I felt so much better without nicotine, and I felt I could breath so much easier without all the shit in my lungs.I am also going to take up one physical activity, such as walking, or going to the gym. I just feel I need to change my lifestyle and get myself healthy, do something different with it. I don’t want to be one of those stupidly muscly vain idiots that spend so much time at the gym, they might as well be a piece of the equipment… I just want to feel good about myself.

I also plan to quit drinking energy drinks like Monster and Relentless. I’m sure 2 cans a day can’t be good for you, not to mention the dependency to caffeine… Sleep… I can get about 6 hours of sleep a night, but surely the caffeine can’t be good for me, putting me into a light, restless sleep.

Employment

I need to get work experience in the IT field, be it through a work placement, or employment, but I really do need to get some form of experience. The number of jobs I was turned down for because I lacked experience is scary, so now that I am at Uni, it might be easier to get a job in IT. Hopefully, dealing with building PC’s or networking.

FLIRC was over. Stolen-Enterprise was slowly coming back to its former glory. I was later approached by FSIRC if I wanted to join their network. How could I refuse an offer like this?! 12 months on, and Stolen-Enterprise is failing. Aversion has become to greedy and careless that he’s let his own network fall under its own corruption!
The End of an Era posted April 9th 2009 by KingTarquin

It appears that moving on is the key to building new skills. After running my own network and website once before, I’ve now decided to do it again, but with flair. From January 2010, I’ve been working on IRCWhore’s. I’ve owned the domain since about 2008, but never really had a use for it, but I guess, now I do.

There were a couple of reasons why I could no longer keep my server over at FSIRC;

• Server Traffic – Over the time I was a network administrator at FSIRC, I had certainly noticed a major decline in traffic. Whether their target users were moving on in life, or they didn’t like the way the server was run. Who knows, but all I can say is that my server was being wasted on FSIRC, as it was averaging about 150MB of transfer per month. I’m still currently working out what to do with that, might run a few of my websites round-robin styleee..
• No Pressure – I know this might seem a bit of a harsh thing to say, but the rest of the staff really didn’t care about the network. I was the one to repair it when it went down, I was the one to update all the systems, I maintained all the websites, and I was the one to issue bans for the network. I don’t wish to work for a network, and run it for them. That’s not how I see helping someone. I’d much rather spend the time running my own network, and putting the time and the effort into maintaining my own systems.

Over the next 12 months, there will be several stages of rapid development for IRCWhore’s, including the completion of the main website back-end, the inclusion of forums/message boards (tbc), the addition of more customisable profile pages, and the coding of an entirely customised chat browser (where the chatter can change the aspects of the page the chat window is on, not just the chat window). I also plan to get a bot coded for the Backend/IRC Server integration system. There will be more plans on this released at a later date.

Some of the PHP stuff I’ve been working on (tidying up and increasing efficiency) is way past my level of coding, like customised PHP sockets and timers. I understand PHP enough to work on a simple website, but I like building PHP scripts which get executed in a command line. Like coding the file, hard coding the input variables, running the script, and jumping for joy when it executes how I want it to!

The biggest downfall I have, is coding HTML/CSS. I cannot design for shit! Nothing I actually design looks good! It works (to a certain extent), but looks like something you put your foot in while walking through a field of cow burgers!

I really do need to work on design, but if I can find a decent enough template, I can work around that, and make it work the way I want it to.