Back in December, I bought my first smart phone…the Motorola droid.  So far, I’m completely hooked.  At first, I wanted an iPhone, but alas they are not available on Verizon’s network and I won’t be switching to AT&T as they have shoddy service in my area.

Having used the iPod Touch, I was convinced that the apple interface was superior…and don’t get me wrong, it is indeed a slick interface!  Now that I’ve had a few months with the droid, I’m loving it.  It’s intuitive and fresh…I can’t wait to dive into app development…more on that another time.

In other news, the redesign of Carfax is well underway. I’ve already corrected over 1500 errors and removed 90% of the tables that were used for formatting. The sad thing is…that was all “under the Hood” and it isn’t overly obvious unless you stare at the site every day ( like I do). Things to do? I’m still trying to standardize the color scheme across the different apps.

So, I must be the world’s worst blogger, since it was July of last year that I last posted!  I think it is more a testament of how uninteresting I am.  Anyway, as you may know, Carfax has been my pet project since 1993 when it first debuted as a 2400 baud dial-up bulletin board system.  During that time, the site has undergone various changes, and its about to undergo a new change (hopefully for the better).

I’m currently taking a web design course and its making me spend some time examining the site, and its made me realize just how many unfinished projects I’ve started here at Carfax.  So, I’m going to step back and try to fix some very basic things that should have been fixed a long time ago.  Here is a prototype “to do” list.  If you have any comments or suggestions, please don’t hesitate!  It can only help things!

• Re-Organization – Currently, the main page has two main functions.  A news portal and a links portal.  I have them organized for the time being, but it makes the page entirely too long (even though it should never be printed).  I’d like to break these two things apart…having a newspaper-esque main page and a links portal as two separate but useful features of the site.
• Code Cleanup – The last time I tried to validate Carfax was html 3.  My goal is to make Carfax adhere to xhtml strict standards.  Doing this should make it much easier to design a mobile version of the site.  The site already uses CSS, but not for layout.  I want to stop using tables for layout!
• Projects – If you go to google, they have a link for their other projects.  We need one of those…especially until those projects are ready for prime-time…  An example is the Carfaxian Cookbook and Chat Room.  They’re functional, but not clean enough to be a main feature.
• Authentication Integration – This is a long shot, but I hate the fact that we have to maintain separate usernames/passwords for different features of the site.  This is one of the strongest selling points of sites like facebook…its all integrated.  I want to work toward that goal for Carfax.

That’s it for now!  Suggestions?

I was going through some old piles of papers the other day and found an old dot matrix printout of Trade Wars information.  Talk about a nostalgia kick…  I didn’t play a *lot* of Trade Wars back in the dial-up days, but I did play.  My first impression of the game was of total frustration, which 2400 baud didn’t do anything to help.  I ended up telling Frog all about it, and it made me want to get a new game going.

When Carfax Abbey first made the switch to a telnet interface, the first thing I did was add multiple nodes (since I didn’t have to pay for multiple phone lines, this was easy!)  It was at this point that the true multiplayer aspect of Trade Wars kicked in.  We had around 10-15 players who would play their turns most days.  It was such a thrill to be in the middle of transporting colonists to your “home base” when you’d pass another player in one of the sectors.  

Then, I discovered a program that changed everything… S.W.A.T.H.   In the old days, I would keep extensive paper notes about every detail of the game, including:

• A list of all of my planets
• A list of all discovered planets
• A list of all deployed fighters
• A list of proposed areas to find other players
• A list of complimentary trading ports (ie, BBS-SSB)
• Many attempts at trying to map the known universe.

I’ve always had, in my head, an image of what Carfax Abbey “looked” like.  Some sort of vast and cavernous underground civilization, complete with the Frobozz Magic Beverage Company.  Along the way, I’ve put together some things that remind me of that prototype image.

Here’s the first.  An ad for the BBS back when it was dial-up. I’ve always liked the idea of underground canals, rivers, and lakes.  One of my side(track) projects right now is to rebuild the dial-up board and create an image of the setup so I can quickly play with it when nostalgia kicks in.

I’d also like to get some screenshots of the program running.  In particular, I’d like to play with RoboBOARD/FX again.  More on that later…

For me, part of the charm of dial-up Bulletin Boards was the stomach butterflies of “tapping” into another system.  At college, it was something I could do and get into for hours at a time.  Downloading new files to play with, posting messages, and playing against the other callers in door games.  And they were all local numbers!  (Well…they weren’t all local numbers, and thankfully the internet took over).

The site has come a long way and has gone through numerous changes…one of which is coming about now.  I always look back and think…eh…what was I thinking.    Here’s a pic from August of 2000. (Internet Archive)

Blech!  You get the picture.  I’m really happy with the current incarnation of the Abbey.  I just change backgrounds.  As a rule, I don’t care for just any background.  I like subtle backgrounds that blend well, and I absolutely hate backgrounds that move.  I guess its the Star Wars coming out, but I like to read the letters as if they’re flying over the background.  Here’s the old background, which has served us well.

Well, to make a long story short, here is where we’re at as of June 29, 2008.  So far so good.  Although, after looking at the following screen shot, I realize that the page is entirely too big!

Carfax Abbey began life as a 2400 baud dial-up Bulletin Board System (BBS).   Nearly all BBS Software shared a few things in common…for example, they had Door Games or a Message Base.  They’d also have Bulletins.  This is where the SysOp would post things that he or she thought everyone caller needed to know.  This usually would include the latest and greatest ANSI or ASCII art of Felix the Cat.

When I made the switch from dialup BBS to telnet BBS to web site, I tried to preserve the old dial-up BBS feel…including the Bulletin menu.  Well…just like the Bulletin menus of old, the new and improved HTML bulletin menu was neglected…so much in fact that there was a three year gap where the “What’s New” section went without an update.

After much thought, it occurred to me that modern blogging software could achieve the same function as the old bulletin menu, and it might actually be more interesting for the visitors to read.  (well…maybe not, but that’s okay too).

So, I went off to the good ole http://www.opensourcecms.com website in search of blogging software…and this is what I came up with.  In the future, I hope to chronical the history of the local BBS scene, post changes and improvements to CarfaxAbbey.net, as well as provide generally useless links to more things on the internet that will be sure to waste your time.  (Though, you might get a chuckle here and there).

-hatter