Heya folks,

as an attempt to consolidate all the insane websites I’ve been working on, I’m switching away from wordpress (sob) and integrating everything into Joomla CMS.

the site is still getting pieced together, but the blog side of things seems to be working relatively well. Commenting is up and running, and the layout should be adjusted and finalized over the next few weeks.

RSS feeds are working (although images aren’t coming through yet.. I’m working on that).

The forum is basic, but coming along..

anyway, please point your browsers to:
http://jonhandhisdog.com/index.php

for the new forum.

If you’d like to update your RSS, ATOM, etc feeds, here are the options:
RSS 0.91
RSS 1.0
RSS 2.0
ATOM 0.3
OPML

The old site will still be accessible for browsing, but commenting is turned off (DARN SPAM!!). If you’d like to resurrect a post for more commenting.. please let me know & I’ll duplicate it on the new site!

cheers!!
-jason

So this weekend was incredibly busy.

First, my wife and i worked REALLY hard on our house.. she’s finished painting the bedrooms & we moved a bunch of furniture around. Our room finally looks like a real bedroom instead of a half-wallpapered, green-ceiling-ed, pile of arse!

My parents also came and helped out with stuff.. dad taught me how to replace wall outlets (remember, electricity OFF before trying to give a wet willy to an electric socket), mom & her partner helped us bring our freshly stripped doors into the house & we started putting them back in the door frames.

see.. we haven’t had doors in our place for.. oh.. 3 months or so?

We sent 9 doors out to be dip-stripped (i.e. removing all the paint).. but of course there was no way to MARK which door was which.. or which bit of hardware went with each door.. so now we have a gigantic puzzle of figuring out which door goes to what doorway and with which hardware.

fun!

We also moved a bunch more crap downstairs (gotta go through all that junk someday and get rid of it).

On the DVD/Masterclass front, I continued working on the back rig & working out all the details on how to present it. I’ve got a pretty simple back rig which contains some cool squash and stretch ability.. think one curve which you can use to represent the amount of volume preservation you want. Totally customizable by you, easy to use, and not accessible to the animator. Me like!

I’ve also settled on Joomla as my new website CMS. I spent a number of hours going through the documentation and trying to get a handle on how it works. It’s powerful.. frustrating.. but powerful.

I’d LOVE to integrate the myBBoard forum in there, because it’s damn fast and powerful.. but I really want to have an integrated solution, or at least a bridged one.. so for right now, I kind of have a choice between Simple Machines (bridged), Joomlaboard (integrated), and phpbb (bridged).

right now i’m leaning to wards phpbb.. but I’m not sure. haven’t really tried it yet..

anyone have any recommendations?

Oh, and if you want to check the status of the new site.. it’s in it’s VERY early stages.. I’ve basically copied the template from my blog & applied it there. Not everything is working yet (for example, the FAQ headers are really tiny for some reason…), and some bits are ugly.. but feel free to check it out anyway…

shh-LIFE!

let me know what you think!

So I’ve been getting like 3 hours.. 4 hours.. 3 hours.. it’s been nuts. Last night I was so tired that instead of working on my course, I slept.

and I slept.

and slept.

and oh my LORD, was that a nice sleep.

I woke up this morning thinking:

“YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
HHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAA!!”

and then I jumped outta bed & ran to my computer & realized that the reason I was having so much trouble getting things working on my site was that I was busy trying to work remotely (uploading constantly to my server) and it was sllooooww.. and I couldn’t experiment to really find what i wanted to find.

So I thought “screw this, I’ll install apache on my home computer!”

so I ran (well, clicked) to xampp and installed it locally on my computer.

Then I installed Joomla.

Then I downloaded Dreamweaver (the trial version).

And then followed this Joomla template tutorial and BAM, was able to get a test site running at home in about a half hour.

wow.

it’s going to be SO much easier! I can make my own mySql tables.. I can install whatever software I want to test things..

all w/out mucking up my online site!

oh lord, I’m a happy camper now!

holy crap, I can’t believe how difficult it is to find exactly what I want in a blog/forum/downloading files/help system type website!

It’s like.. every type of CMS has SOME of the features.. but something about it makes it a pain to use.

For example.. drupal was just confusing..

Joomla had everything I wanted.. mostly.. but after hacking a “sorta” blog, I couldn’t get commenting to work, and the text input uses non-integrated WYSIWYG editors which don’t work smoothly.. & image uploading from them goes off into never never land..

post-nuke, and those guys are huge bloated things..

blog:cms doesn’t have enough stuff & the forum software is kinda ehh.. and it takes two logins.. one for forum, one for blog. naahh.

e107 was starting to work, but I couldn’t get the damn forums to work with image posting..

GAH! just SOO fRUSTRATING!

Here’s what I want.. a CMS that on my front page I can have a series of blogs that I specify. It can have multiple people posting to the blogs, and the users can see all posts by various users.

Then I want a well integrated forum, that has all the features of the best forums out there, like SMF, but is totally integrated. One login!!!

I also want a downloading system which is easy to use, easy for people to search & find what they want.

And an FAQ system for frequently asked questions, with the ability for users to SUBMIT questions.

and of course, every text area should be WYSIWYG… WITH the ability to upload pictures.

and it should all be in a pretty, easily themeable package.

that shouldn’t be too hard to find.. right? right????

Okay, I’m about to speak very frankly.

If you are under 18, threatened by conflict, or a general bastard, please step away from the computer.

…

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON WITH THIS ADMINISTRATION!?!?!?!!?!

Why in the WORLD are we spending money trying to make people second class citizens? WHY are my tax dollars paying for this CRAP?!?!?

let me quote you something:

For more than 40 years, the homosexual activist movement has sought to implement a master plan that has had as its centerpiece the utter destruction of the family. The institution of marriage, along with an often weakened and impotent Church, is all that stands in the way of its achievement of every coveted aspiration.
- Dr. James Dobson, Focus on the Family

how much crack is James Dobson smoking? HOW IN THE HELL does the act of allowing two people who love each other become legally tied together destroy the idea of “FAMILY”?!??

How does dick & bob getting hitched make MY FAMILY any weaker? How can Jane and Janet getting married affect YOUR FAMILY in ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM?

For the love of .. well. .you know who.. if you are so concerned about the “institution of marriage” becoming weakened by SOMEBODY ELSE, then you need to look at your own marriage and focus on THAT.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

damn, it pisses me off so much, I can’t even speak civily about it because it’s just SO DAMN REDICULOUS!!

Will 2008 GET HERE ALREADY!?!?

“Untitled - SLP 05″ 2005
Oil on panel
5.5 x 5 inches

One of my best friends from university, Christian Fagerlund is having a show of his paintings in NY..

“113 Ryerson - New Paintings”

June 11 - July 26, 2006
Opening Reception:
Sunday June 11, 5 - 7pm

showing at:
5+5 GALLERY
111 Front St, Suite 210, DUMBO Brooklyn, NY 11205
718-488-8383 www.5plus5gallery.com
hours: sunday - friday 11-6 and by appt.
directions: F to York St.

If you’re in new york, please please please go to the opening. And if you go, say hi to him.. he’s one of the NICEST guys I’ve ever met in my entire life. Ever. Seriously. E-V-E-R.

say hi, and give him a hug for me. If it weren’t for him.. I wouldn’t have switched majors from Communications to Art.. and I never would have gotten into animation & started working in the industry.

Heya folks,

so I have to appologize if you’ve emailed me over the past few weeks & have heard no response. I’ve been extrodinarily busy & haven’t had time to keep up with my email as much as I would like.

See, I’ve got a few things going on which are really taking up all my time, leaving me only a few hours a night of sleep.

1. Work - work is always a time priority, and I’m working really hard at the moment
2. Animator Friendly Rigging DVD - This is proving to be a HUUUGE project. I know that people will be paying good money for the dvd/masterclass and I want to make sure it lives up to their expectations. Thus, I’m spending lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of time working on it. It’s time consuming, exhausting, but in the end.. eventually worth it.
3. Re-design my web-presence - I’ve got too many blogs all over the place, I need to consolidate. As part of releasing the AFR masterclass/dvd, I want to have a new web presence which covers everything.. my shorts, my dvds, forums, etc. So I’m tyring to find the best solution for that as well.
4. Animation Mentor.com - I’m also mentoring on AM , which luckily is a little less work this semester than it has been before, but it’s still a few hours a week.
5. Home Renovations - Luckily my awesome wife is doing most of this stuff.. but it’s also NOT good for her to be doing this because she’s..
6. 8 months pregnant. So we’re doing a lot of stuff to get ready for the baby.. classes.. cleaning.. preparing.. you know how it is.
7. I’ve been sick for 3 weeks. I got that flu/cold thing that’s been going around where you have a fever for a few days & then just feel like total crap for the next few weeks. hopefully it’s going away, but man.. I’m SO tired of coughing up a lung.

So.. yeah, I’m sorry if I haven’t responded to people’s emails as quick as I normally would. I’m trying to get better, but honestly.. holy crap, I can’t see this insanity ending until august.

And at that point.. ahh.. I’ll be able to just sit with the baby & my wife and smile.

thats going to be awesome!

wow.. what an awesome lineup at Adapt 2006!

Check it out here.. if you’re going to be in montreal, or you can MAKE it to montreal.. I highly recommend you go!!

site_design

Originally uploaded by Jason Schleifer.

been working on re-designing my website.

this is a quick mockup of what I’ve got so far. I really wart to keep it clean and easy to read. the tough part is deciding on what software to use. I really want a simple CMS, but I also want a well integrated forum. I guessss I’ll figure it out somehow…

So as I’m working towards getting my masterclass finished, I’m realizing that it might be time for a total web site re-design.

See, I’ve got this site.. the jonh and his dog short film site.. and a bunch of others, all of which are totally disconnected & confusing.

My short film, Jonh and His Dog, is temporarily on hold.. and by temporarily, I mean “until I find time to do it, which could be anywhere from 1 to 20 years from now”.

That site is in serious need of updating.. the downloads section is broken.. the galleries are old.. etc. It’s got a great forum & people use that all the time for rigging and such, but I think it could be better.

This blog works pretty well, but I’m getting comment spammed like crazy.. the rss feed sometimes works, & sometimes doesn’t.. and in general, I think I’d like to make it look a little nicer.

So, I’m thinking it’s time for a merging of the two+ sites into one complete website that has everything I need in one place.

here’s what I’m thinking it will contain:

• blogs - this blog, production blogs, news items, etc.. all in one place!
• forum - discussion forums about rigging, animation, etc
• downloads - downloads sections for my tutorials, mel scripts, etc.
• inspirational material - images, animations, and things which I find inspring both technically and artistically.
• gallery - my gallery of images and movies.. I’d like this to be integrated into flickr & youtube.. I wonder if that’s possible?
• faq - frequently asked questions

Can anyone think of anything else that would be good to put in there?