Thomas Penwell

Two big things in today's update on THEPENWELLS.COM
1. People can now be added to the directory from the webpage (no more using phpMyAdmin)
2. Users can now self-register

The "add person" form is for the most part is straight forward.

The user registration system allows anyone who does not have a username to register and create one. Of course users cannot register if they do not have an email address in the directory. Any user who wishes to register only needs to have a current registered user add their email address to their profile. The registration system does have a security measure in place as it asks for their date of birth. Once a user successfully passes the security checks, they will receive a confirmation email with an activation link.

Blogs are now live on thepenwells.com

I decided to go with the same blog system I am currently using right here. I took a look at wordpress and decided it would not work that great for my purpose. Since wordpress does not allow creation of multiple blogs (at least not that I could see or figure out) so I went with b2evolution.

This one did not make it easy to bridge with. This bridge was constructed a bit different than the image gallery bridge. This bridge gives the user an option to either use the blog system hosted on thepenwells.com or create a link to their existing blog page.

The blog bridge also took way more sql queries to make it function than the image gallery system. I was scratching my head for about 2 hours trying to figure out 2 things: 1) how to see the different elements (widgets if you will) on the newly created blog. Solution to this was simple. needed to insert the widget information for the newly created blog. 2) For some reason the blog itself would work but the user isn't able to write to it (gave a server error). Solution to this was to create a post category for the newly created blog (pita they need unique identifiers.)

Tom's Webdesign has a new logo! Check it out.
Honestly, I had no idea where to begin with a logo so I hired out to the folks at Phoenix Reaction (http://www.phoenixreaction.com/) to design a logo for me. This is what they come up with and I am quite pleased. Thank you Sam @ PhoenixReaction!

http://www.ThePenwells.com/ is now a much live website. Currently I have a family directory (which is only accessable to my family members who are registered on the site. I have also been able to link the directory login to an image gallery system called 4images.

I then spent countless hours trying to figure out how the 4images php scripts creates sessions and then try to duplicate that functionality with the help of a bridge script (a script to link the directory users with the gallery users.) I tried setting the cookies used by the gallery system and creating sessions in the sessions table of the gallery database. Had no luck.

So I had to cheat on this one to bridge the directory to the photo gallery. What I had to do is create a bridge script that duplicates the login form for the gallery system and automatically fill out and submit this login form to log the user in to the gallery system. The directory database has a table to hold the information (username and password) used by the bridge to make it look seemless to the end user. If a bridge has not yet been created, the user is prompted to "create the bridge". The bridge only needs to be created once. When the bridge is created, the bridge script goes to work and 1) creates a user in photo gallery system with a randomized password (this password is stored in the bridge table of the directory database otherwise the bridge script is unable to log the user into the photo gallery system.) 2) Adds appropriate photo albums (or categories) for the user. 3) Sets the user's permissions on those albums so they are able to upload to them. All links to the photo gallery system are then pointed to the bridge script. The bridge then "redirects" users to the actual gallery system and logs them into it.

While I was on my last vacation, I decided to put together a website for my family to use to keep in touch and post pictures. I bought the domain thepenwells.com to host this site.

You can view my work in progress on the test site at http://www.doomhead.net/penwells/prod/