Blog Wall 2.0

Blog Wall.
Leave your mark. Vandalize my blog. Create chaos!

The old blog wall was broken b/c the site that was hosting the code for it was down. It did the job, but I wasn't totally happy with it. The new version looks nicer, has an undo/refresh button, and shows you the last time the wall was updated.

Searching around, I couldn't find anything else on the Internet that was a suitable replacement. So, I coded it up myself!

It took me a few hours and it was pretty straight forward. I even managed to create a Google Gadget and put it on my personalized homepage :), though I didn't make it public. I'm hosting it on my school's web server and all I used was a form and some PHP code. It's not every day that you can say that you learnt a new language! PHP is actually a really easy language and had very few surprises/quirks. Add in some html forms, a bit of css, some xml (for the gadget), and there you have it!

Don't be fooled by the "2.0" in its name, it's not Web 2.0 (yet). Ok, well, parts of it are in that it's collaborative and it brings about interaction with the visitors and between visitors, but the underlying technology is very Web 1.0. The old version saved it as you typed, but now you have to hit the "Save" button. I think the existence of the save button is good in that it will prevent accidental modifications by people just curious with it and decide to say, delete everything. This would be a good chance for me to play around with AJAX if you guys want the "auto-save" / "save as you type" feature. Might have some issues though if multiple people are editing it at the same time, though there are issues with the current implementation as well (the last person to save overrides even if it was based on an older version of the wall).

The blog is still anonymous and is just as chaotic as before. I was pleased with the use of the wall so far and I hope that it will continue. I love the randomness of it and the interaction on it. There are no guidelines as to what you can write on it. The messages don't even have to be for me. The only thing is that I won't tolerate advertisements. If I see something I don't like, I remove it. Well, anyone can do it for that matter. Everyone can change the wall however they please, so don't blame me if your message gets changed or removed :). I don't know who did it and everyone will feign innocent :) *cough* Rob *cough*

So, write on the wall. Write whatever you want...