Best Of
Re: Magic: the rekindling
For those that do like MTG online you can get Magic 2015 - Duels of the Planeswalkers Special Edition (includes Garruk's Revenge Expansion) along with a bunch of other online card games in the current Humble Bundle. Deal is good for a couple more weeks and includes Mojang's Scrolls also.
Re: Web hosting resources
The theme I mentioned is a framework type thing for building a theme from the start, it isn't for everyone. Not sure how much it would help and I don't know who makes good themes these days. Ten years ago I used Rocket Theme a lot for Joomla. Maybe they are still good? I'm sure there are a million good free ones out there too.
Regarding backups, with WP you need to backup your theme and your database. How you do it is up to you. I don't know much about your host, but you can likely access cron via their control panel to run an sql dump and a dump of your theme directory every X days to an external server via ssh. Or you can manually do this stuff, but manual anything is the enemy of backups. Vaultpress also costs money, but the thing is the time it takes to use it to restore is almost zero and it pays for itself the first time you need it.
She can setup the ads without incorporating or anything like that unless things have changed over time. Adsense almost always pays out the highest because Google has highly targeted traffic and the most bidders for that traffic ... but I would very much so recommend not installing ads until the blog is at least 3-6 months along so that you can get Google indexed without Google thinking your primary reason for existence is ad revenue. Counter-intuitively (on the surface) to their business model, they don't like that. So to establish some SEO hold off on ads, because unless you get a ton traffic they aren't going to make you enough money to even get an initial payout for a while.
Also, you may want to funnel your DNS through Cloudflare which will speed things up a lot without much complication. I assume bluehost doesn't have their own caching system, and I'd recommend avoiding WP plugins that provide caching. Hence cloudflare. That will speed up the site quite a bit, and for SEO speed is nice.
Any questions at all as you go I'm here to help. Good luck fellow Dan!
Re: Web hosting resources
- pro: single logon to control DNS and files, con: pain in the but, may cost money
- in managed environments you don't do anything custom
- you more or less need to learn to use their control panel to do basic stuff, most if it is automated and with a gui. LAMP is the standard shared/managed hosting environment
- best to just setup forwarders and forward them to a gmail/yahoo/hotmail account, but you don't need to know how to setup a mail server. just how to use their control panel.
- moz.com is somewhat useful, but seo is a snake oil business for the most part. if you have specific seo questions I can answer them
- wordpress is awesome, and the more you learn it the more you realize how great it is. Just don't fall in to the void of installing a ton of plugins. I'd suggest get your hands dirty and keeping themes and functionality to a manageable minimum. I'd super highly recommend www.wpengine.com. It's a secure ultra-fast platform built for hosting WP. I use it on very high traffic sites.
- you get little javascript snipets from the ad providers and you more or less paste them in to your theme. So yes, edit your theme. There are plugins around that can help you out with that, but I'd suggest learning wordpress themes a bit if you think it will pay dividends in the future.
- How will you backup your site? I suggest vaultpress, although if you host with someone like wpengine you don't have to worry about it.
Web hosting resources
Folks,
In the coming days (weeks), I'll be setting up a website. This is something I have not done before.
Most of the online resources I have suggest it is easy. "Buy a domain," they say, "and get a host. Then, just upload your shit and you're set!"
The trouble is, I'm left with quite a few questions, which I'd like to bounce off you guys.
Now, I've done some server admin-ing, but it's all been technical shit, none of this hoofy-floofy web crap. I find myself with a domain from Gandi, a one-year hosting plan from Bluehost with no frills, and a bunch of install scripts. And heeeeeeere are my questions:
- Is there a pro/con list to transferring my domain to Bluehost vs. just pointing my domain's nameservers to Bluehost? I understand the principle behind it, but for the life of me I can't think of any situation where I'd care either way.
- Hardening a webserver - I've done some simple hardening on Ubuntu Server, but that was a home machine where I had OS-level access. Am I correct in imagining I am only responsible for hardening the packages running on my server? If not, what else might I have to harden?
- I don't have OS-level access, and I don't know how these guys do their thing. What packages generally run on hosted webservers with fancy-schmancy web interfaces that I simply won't know about? For instance, I can see right off the bat that the machine has MySQL installed, and I can't imagine it DOESN'T have Apache installed. What else? More importantly, what else that I'm responsible for understanding, configuring, and hardening?
- Managing email accounts is something I've done. Setting them up is something else entirely. Some time ago, Ars Technica did a beautiful four (or so) piece report on building your own email server from scratch, so I know email is a BIG freakin' beast. I notice in my control panel I have the OPTION to turn on spamassassin... okay, that's not hard, but just how much else do I need to handle?
- I don't know shit about SEO. Does anyone have a preferred resource (obviously I'm googling, but I also like personal recommendations)? How much SEO does Icrontic do? How bout other websites forumgoers run?
- I'll be using wordpress in general - looks like Bluehost has a nice install script from it, and I'm going through wordpress tutorials... what kind of pitfalls am I looking at admining wordpress in the wild?
- We may at some point be looking at ads. How do you guys handle this? Do you collect ad revenue as a business entity? Are ads linked through wordpress, or will I need to get my hands dirty and edit my theme to include them?
- What other questions am I missing?
I feel like this is a good start! Thanks folks!
Myrmidon
Re: Magic: the rekindling
@Linc said:
Land is one of my favorite Magic mechanics. The Zendikar block, which revolved around land mechanics, was possibly the most popular of the last decade, and my favorite of all time.
Inkmoth Nexus FTW.
MAGIC
Re: Magic: the rekindling
One thing that tipped the scales for me was reading the announcement that Magic's annual release schedule is changing.
- Blocks will be 2 sets (1 large, 1 small) instead of 3.
- The Core set is ending with the 2015 set.
- There will be 2 blocks annually instead of 1 (thus exactly replacing the eliminated sets).
- Standard will be 3 blocks @ 18 months instead of 2 blocks @ 24 months.
This is really great, from my perspective.
- I was always torn between Core & the current block for drafting, and it always seemed like everyone else wanted to draft the one I didn't.
- Attempts to "freshen" the third set in each block were lackluster or overdone, usually.
- Waiting til fall for a new block was loooooong.
- It doesn't increase the number of cards released in a year, which was reigned in back at Zendikar (which I also thoroughly approved of).
- It's hard to newly enter Standard when you don't want to buy a year-old set to get up to speed, but if you don't, you have to wait a year or more.
- What if I want to skip a block that sucks? Waiting a whole year for another was super lame.
So my overall impression is, "why did it take so long to do this?" 
Linc
Re: Magic: the rekindling
I used to play a lot, but these days I'm enjoying Hearthstone more than I ever enjoyed M:TG, but I'm still usually up for a draft. I wouldn't mind trying out some Magic variant games. @Colgere keeps saying that he's going to put together a deck for playing games in which everyone draws from the same library (I think there is a name for the variant but I can't remember it.) but it's been a long time coming.
However I may play again in the future, I would want to house-rule a separate deck for lands. The most frustrating thing about Magic is getting flooded or screwed with land (almost every game of Magic I've ever played, the loser feels that the loss is at least partly, if not mostly, the cause of poor land drawing), and Hearthstone fixes this problem. Magic could fix the problem also with only slight rules changes. Actually there are some other basic elements that make so much more sense in Hearthstone that it would be disappointing to go back to the way it's done in Magic....
Okay... Here's what I apparently want to do: Let's play Hearthstone with Magic cards
CB
Re: Operation: Ninja stud
Six months later I weigh 185lbs, and I've been 'stuck' here for months. It's a bit discouraging because I've been unable to make any significant progress. Still, there are some facts that make it a bit better: First, that 185lbs isn't any higher. Second, that weight is fully hydrated and maintaining my exercise schedule (more on that in a moment). Third, I'm wearing 34" jeans and medium shirts now. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, my strength has increased significantly. I'm able to do eight pullups in a single set, followed by smaller sets in the biweekly office group. Decline pushups are now with feet on desk for added insanity.
Karate just hasn't been cutting it for a workout anymore. I've tried increasing intensity and speed, but I seem to have reached a plateau. There's a CrossFit place that opened up near my house a few months ago. A few e-mails back and forth with the owner, and I have a couple of intro classes to see if it's right for me. My first session was today. One hour of intense exercise has never gone by so quickly. The most surprising thing was pushing past my 'limits' and how quickly I cooled down afterwards. I may be hooked. The owners and customers are pretty cool - no dudebros asking if I even lift, the staff are more concerned about form than repetitions, and everyone was encouraging each other. In my mind it's like what an IC fitness center would be.
In other news, I'm in the final prep stages for my next belt test (delayed significantly due to surgery and being sick a lot last year). This time I'll try not to block punches with my face.
mertesn
Re: Magic: the rekindling
@RahnalH102 said:
A year or so ago he really got into high end tournament level decks and it became no fun to play against him since I was still on the casual level.
My thinking is that when you move to that level, if you want to maintain the social aspect, you need to keep casual decks around to bring you back down to earth. If I used a nearly Classic-caliber deck to teach someone to play, that would suck. Build a fucking goblin deck and screw around.
Linc