Welcome to
TKA.NET!
Power has been restored.
Temporarily back online via a generator. Milton did a doozy to the power grid here
Sorted Uploads
Sorted Uploads
Updated Everything, software wise. So of course that broke something. (logins/sessions/etc). Fixed.
Sorted Uploads
Upgraded the network cards both in my main workstation and the server, they now have Intel X520-DA2 10gb dual direct-attach nics, with DAC cables to the CRS309-1G-8S+IN.
Sorted Uploads
We got a super fancy new router, a Netgear RS700, and a switch, CRS309-1G-8S+IN.
Both are in and configured, much faster internet now (old router was bottlenecking the fiber).
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I broke the server, had to back everything up and reload the OS, reinstall everything. Looking good so far.
As a result, we are now running the latest version of OpenSSL and NginX, so no issues with security.
Sorted Uploads
Sorted Uploads
Sorted Uploads
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Added the ability to change your password.
Sorted Uploads.
Rearranged the comic section per suggestions.
Status Update
Sorted Uploads
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I finally have internet at my new house.
Sorry for the unannounced downtime!
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I kind of broke the server OS updating from Ubuntu 20.04 to 22.04.
Took the time to tear it down physically and clean everything, then fixed the issues.
PHP 8 introduced some changes that bork the site, I've worked around most will be on the lookout for any remaining gremlins.
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Sorted Uploads
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Our fiber has been upgraded to 1gbps/1gbps.
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Sorted Uploads
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Fixed fancybox support for the comic reader, which shows you the comic tag file text.
Moved some comics to their proper folders.
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Sorted Uploads
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Sorted uploads.
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Added code to display the News topic on /Home
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Migrated all news posts to this topic from the static home file.
Will be adding code to display this topic's content on /home.
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Fully resolved issues with the thumbnailer and comic reader on the new OS.
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Increased upload size cap to 10Gb.
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Sorted uploads.
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The server now has a nice new 1TB Samsung Evo 860 SATA SSD, in an Icy Dock that mounts in the rear PCI-E slot and provides it it's own controller.
Due to it's greater size, the SSD is now used to serve the site files, with a nightly incremental backup to the storage mirror.
Downtime
The boot disk of the server, an 8-yr-old 64GB Lite-On mSATA SSD pulled from a netbook, has developed a fault.
All data is safe, however the server is non-functional.
Replacement Hardware has been ordered.
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Internet service restored.
Downtime
A storm took out our fiber interface's power supply.
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Sorted uploads.
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Sorted uploads.
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Created section for 'Other' comics that had already existed, just wasn't visible...
Sorted uploads.
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An update to PHP broke the rar archive library again. Fixed, so the comic reader can handle CBR's online.
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Created section for Archie Fan-Continuation - Sonic The Hedgehog Online.
Sorted uploads.
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Created section for IDW Sonic The Hedgehog.
Sorted uploads.
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Sorted uploads.
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About two weeks ago, one of the two disks that TKA reside upon began clicking and grinding. SMART reported the drive was about to fail, so out of an abundance of caution I shut down and sent that drive in under warranty.
The replacement is in place, data is sync'd between the two disks and we are back to normal.
Also, I was able to fix the rar archive library, so the comic reader can once again handle CBR's online.
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Was able to snag the fastest cpu availiable for the server cheap on ebay. Took a week to get here, but it's in!
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Sorted uploads.
New webserver had some default settings limiting uploads to 20mb. Fixed, now at 1024mb.
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Sorted uploads.
Performing code review of the site, I haven't made any major changes since January.
Bug fixes, some improved security checks, etc.
You may see random error messages in the backgrounds of pages.
Status Update
Migration Completed.
Planned
Downtime
Preparing to migrate webserver software. This will enable the other sub-sites to be re-enabled.
Downtime
The SSL cert had expired July 28th. Renewed it.
Downtime
We unexpectedly lost power for a few hours. The electric company has sorted it.
Status Update
Sorted uploads.
Removed some useless FAQ entries and clarified the one on what belongs in bug reports.
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We now have full SSL support.
Note made that we must recompile the RAR library for the comicreader whenever we update PHP.
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Server is currently moving towards full SSL support.
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Sorted uploads.
Server now has a nice shiny pair of 10TB Seagate IronWolf drives for storage. All files have been migrated.
Known Issue
Resolved
The PECL-RAR plugin has been taken up by a third-party developer and now works.
This means the comic reader can now read .cbr files again.
Known Issue
The PECL-RAR plugin that is used by the comic reader here to extract pages is not updated to match current verions of PHP.
As soon as they release a new version the comic reader will work on cbr's online. Till then, you'll have to download and read.
They are aware of this issue. PECL Rar
Status Update
Sorted uploads.
Patched file identifier generation code. Was causing the uploads folder issue.
Added code that strips # and & from file names upon upload.
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Happy Pi Day to everyone.
I do still live. Sorted uploads. Also, faster internet connection now.
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The boot and database drive of the server is now a PCI-E SSD. Forum pages/etc should load much faster.
The database will be backed up at regular intervals to the mirrored storage drives.
Minor Update
Removing the footer and integrating some of it's parts into the menu, more how it used to be. Should give more space on small screens for images/etc.
Planned
Downtime
New server is up and running. Thanks for your patience..
Planned
Downtime
New server hardware has arrived.
TKA is moving from a pile of random parts (c)2008 to a nice Dell PowerEdge R210 rackmount server. It's new-old stock, made in 2012, just unboxed today.
Expect random downtimes and slowdowns over this weekend, with full service restored by Monday.
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Apologies for the long delay in sorting the uploads.
Life.
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Extensive testing with Project Spartan (Microsoft's new browser, to replace IE) shows no signs of issues, Clean, Simple, Standards-based design wins out.
A user's complaint about missing Sonic X episodes (for some reason in Public Chat instead of Bug Reports...) led to the discovery of some misnamed folders. Fixing.
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Fixed an edge case in filename encodings under Uploads.
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Finished HTML5 conversion, most of the site validates, working on the few exceptions.
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Short downtime to do a full disk check and verification. No bad sectors found, filesystem clean.
Preparing to do some cleanup and doctype changes, HTML5 is go.
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Links now use defined categories, newly added links are in a 'Needing Review' category.
Link Categories now have descriptions. I.E, the disclaimer on 'Needing Review', indicating possible danger of said links.
Added flag to forum topics to indicate wether or not to show post times.
Moved the to-do list to it's own forum topic.
Created files tables to store identifiers of unique files, filenames, descriptions, and tags. (Tags, Laying groundwork for new Search)
Backed up database due to all the changes.
Added Sonic Boom (first four eps) to Shows.
Noticed a directory structure problem with Other/Fan videos that no one had reported, that prevented those from showing up. Fixed.
Began converting videos in Other/Fan to MP4.
Downtime
The electric company shut off our power to do some line maintenance.
Status Update
Fixed a security hole in the api reguarding forums. Any signed-in user could have edited any post.
Moved registration over to the api and applied infobox layout to it, simplifying the html.
Full Backup of server completed.
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Fixed a permissions issue that was preventing the storage of new thumbnails.
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Applied filtering to file uploads that removes accented characters that cause issues with windows filesystems from filenames. Ex: ñ → n.
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Rearranged some db schema and built indexes to optimize speed.
Full backup of db.
Full backup of site code.
Full backup site content underway.
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Resolved issue where raid array wasn't remounting on reboot of server.
Reworked sections detection so / is home.
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Resolved minor bug where login persistence was causing issues with logging out. You could log out in /comics and go to /forum, be logged back in.
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Verified functionality of permissions system and standardized method for accessing/updating it.
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Added the ability for site users to add Links. User-added links cannot currently have icons. This will be added later.
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Restored right-click functionality to download links in Comics.
Restored right-click functionality to Menu links.
Working on standardizing file-display into a block for reuse.
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Began laying database structures for user-created topics.
Nerfed issue reported by JaxTH with shows.
Finally finished stripping the last of the non-OO db code out of the site.
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Applied infobox design to User Profile.
Resolved bug report wherein you could not view other users' profiles via clicking their avatar/name.
Resolved design request.. using normal href links for downloads, allowing rightclick save-as.
Resolved design request.. now recording when someone last viewed a topic, the index will display if any posts are new.
Fixed a typo introduced in implementing infobox design on forum.. prevented some users from being able to post.
Updated the new post box to infobox design.
Updated the logout process to properly remove cookies domainwide.
Fixed some broken security checks.
Performed complete database backup including schema.
Status Update
Applied infobox design to Uploads, Links.
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Converted the forum-post aka 'infobox' design into a generic CSS class that can be over-ridden to customize.
Applied infobox design to Home, Forum, Characters, Comics, Shows, Music, Gaming, Fancontent, Users, Sorting, VideoViewer, and ComicReader.
Updated Users to only show those with descriptions by default, togglable.
Retrieved comics and shows titles into a json object and used that for the selector, instead of numbers.
Added normalize.css to get more consistent crossbrowser support.
Fixed encoding errors in the comics section.
Status Update
Tweaked forum-post design a bit more.
Fixed bug preventing post editing introduced on Oct 6. Oops.
Added cancel button to post editing.
Added asyncimage function to tool.js.
Reworked user-profile images to use asyncimage, and interpolation/array newline-implosion for allgeneration.
Removed some deprecated browser-specific selectors from CSS, used CSS3 standardized replacements.
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Redid forum-post design to work better on mobile devices and remove an unnecessary table.
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Tightened up the API's security a bit.
Added functionality to update user profile and redid those calls in jQuery.
Tweaked CSS to hide the section-indicator div.
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Merged the improved pagination system from ComicReader into Comics.
Redid much of the pagination JS using jQuery.
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Sonic Underground (SONICU) episode conversion completed.
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Adventures of Sonic The Hedgehog (AOSTH) episode conversion completed.
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Merged the user profile editing function 'portrait_delete' into the API and made sure it was functional.
Noticed an issue with the thumbnailer where caching was still going on for images set to not cache. (like user ports)
Sonic The Hedgehog (SATAM) episode conversion completed.
Sonic Anime Movie (SAnime) episode conversion completed. Note that the matroska multi-audio/multi-sub has been left as-is.
Status Update
Fixed the url-encoding bug that was preventing some comics from being downloadeable.
Finished tweaking new mp4 video codec settings due to an update of ffmpeg, significant size reduction without much loss of quality.
Tested the new codec settings, works in FF, FF Mobile, Chrome, IE, Safari, Safari (iOS 7+).
Began converting existing videos to the new format, going back to the AVI sources.
Status Update
Working on streamlining the JavaScript and switching a lot of it over to JQuery from Tool.js since my knowledge of JQuery has improved.
Wrote a tool to merge the JavaScripts into one file, reducing number of HTTP calls (speed improvement).
Merged the improved pagination system from ComicReader into Forum.
Status Update
Due to some automated search bot trying a bunch of different invalid links, the error log on the server exploded.
This caused the root disk for the server to become full, thus the database to reject any new data.
Tweaked settings to reduce logfile size, implemented log rotation with expiration.
Status Update
Some more issues with login (enter in fields logs you in, etc) resolved.
Thumbnailer refactored to use in-memory copies for significant decrease in render time, and a better caching system to prevent incorrect thumbnails.
ComicReader updated to use fileheader based detection of archive type instead of extension.
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Forum Post editing/deletion restored.
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Have been building an API to lay behind the site's functions, some of the site already uses it.
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Hello!
Sorting and cleaning mainly.
Added code to push undesirable uploaded stuff to.. other sites.
Status Update
Good Day!
I'm updating this page so people know that I am actually still alive and working.
As you know, there've been some rather seismic shifts in how the site code works, some to others' delight, some to others' dismay.. I'm doing my best to satisfy everyone.
The database is running nice and smoothly, I'm working on designing out better UI though for some sections (comics mainly, that Sonic The Hedgehog comic having so many issues.. sheesh).
I have recently reworked my database code into a class, and am slowly converting existing pages to it.
For those without technical knowledge: This means it is now easier/simpler for me to do fancy things with the database. Yay.
I am thinking of adding a seperate section to the site for it's updates/changes.. though really nobody cares, I know.
Status Update
Well, it's that time again! A few years have passed and I've over-engineered the site and gotten fed up with it again. Time to re-redo it and make it more awesome than before!
You will shortly be able to access more sections as they get re-created. Until then, each section will simply show a folder tree-view.
This time, it:
- Has been completely rewritten FROM SCRATCH. There is 0 code from the old site in this one.
- Has a redesigned menu that hides when not needed. This provides significantly more usable page space.
- Uses industry-standard login and statekeeping techniques. The old custom method was unreliable and messy.
- Uses completely validated 4.01 Strict, ready for HTML5 when it is officially released.
- Uses completely validated CSS 2, ready for CSS 3 when it is officially released.
- Uses 0 deprecated inline tags, CSS will handle all layout.
- Uses MariaDB, a drop-in, high-performance replacement for MySQL, instead of my own custom flatfile database.
- Uses the PHP MySQLi functions and parameterized queries to prevent most if not all SQL Injection vectors. MySQL_ functions are deprecated by php, might as well learn the newer while designing. This was needed because unlike my flatfile db, MySQL has known vulnerabilities that are often exploited.
- Will use a captcha for registrations that actually works, reliably, unlike before.
- Will have a much more robust forum with user-created topics/etc.
- Will have better handling of the uploads folder including a permissions-based folder list. Certain people who've earned it will even be able to create new folders/etc under comics, fancontent.
- Will provide all users of the site, free cake.
- That last one might be a lie.