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[Jan. 29th, 2008|07:18 pm] |
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The main site is FINALLY back up. I'm still researching good server companies so I'm just crossing my fingers and hoping it stays back up.... |
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| Main Site Down |
[Jan. 26th, 2008|09:54 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  frustrated | ] |
I'm going to guess that a lot of you viewing the site right now are wondering where picatrix.net went. I would like to know that as well but as of right now, my service provider who, by the way, has had me on hold on the phone for, quite literally, an hour and a half and hasn't replied to my email from when the site crashed SEVERAL DAYS AGO has been utterly and completely unresponsive. Ahhhh, sorry, I'm ranting but StartLogic has to be the worst host I've ever signed up with. I would not recommend them. Anyway, getting on to why you're here (most likely), Picatrix is still alive and kicking at the mirror sites:
Picatrix at Drunk Duck,
Picatrix at Comic Genesis
or
Picatrix at SmackJeeves
Please visit a mirror until I can get this straightened out (and move to a new host!) I'll post here and in the mirror sites when the main site is back up.... |
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| It's been a while since anyone posted here... |
[Mar. 27th, 2007|10:35 am] |
Okay, so, I don't think the intention of this community was to use it for simply news, right...? Right?
(And the forum's down, so...)
I saw this in a post on another community by a certain person:
"I hate how in fantasy stories people usually fall for that emotional crap the villain starts spewing. It's nice to see typical fantasy conventions being broken."
The page in reference.
It got me thinking: Will we see this kind of stuff in Picatrix in the upcoming redraw of a redraw? Maybe not from a villian, but perhaps from Winnie or someone else?
Just a passing-as-I-check-my-stuff-whilst-half-awake thought. |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 3rd, 2007|03:09 pm] |
Okay, lots of news to get through here. First off, I apologize for not getting this update up sooner. The past week has been all snowstorms and blizzards here and my satellite internet hasn't been very reliable because of it >-<
Okay, news. Some good, some bad. Getting the bad news out of the way, I'm still scannerless here. That's my fault... I'm still researching what type I want to get since a good A3 size scanner is a pretty big investment. That's the first part of the bad. The next is that I'm changing the update schedule to once a month. No, not one page a month (we'd never get anywhere in the story that way! ^-^;) What I mean is that I plan to update with one chapter (28-36 pages) on the first of each month. So, less updates but more pages overall. The bad part about it? We're starting over from the beginning again... but with a chapter a month, we'll be caught up again before very long. The reason I've decided to go this route is that up until recently, I've been working on two versions of Picatrix... one for print and the other for web. They were seperate because the company I was working with didn't want me to put the print stuff up on the site. That ended up being a big issue of contention and we decided to go seperate ways. So now I've got this other version (a much better version, in my opinion) and I would rather put that up and go from there.
The monthly update works much better for me also because, by working on the pages a chapter at a time, the story flows much more smoothly. And then, of course, there's the issue of my unreliable internet service... I've missed so many updates because the internet has been down here >-< One big update should eliminate that problem.
The other news I've got is in regards to the website. Mainly that I've given up on creating and maintaining it on my own and have contracted out to a third party. So yay, I can stop spending all the time learning web design and spend that time working on more pages ^-^ The downside of this will be that the main page (picatrix.net) may be down at various times over the next two weeks. I think it'll be pretty cool when it's all back up and running.
So, when will the next update be? I'm hoping the first of April but possibly the first of May. I've a close relative who's very sick and will probably pass on within the next couple of months and the update will depend on the timing of that. But for right now, I'm planning on April.
And finally... I'll be posting the new pages in my DeviantArt (http://picatrix.deviantart.com) account as I go, so if you really can't wait for the new ones, they'll be over there as I finish up editing and texting them and stuff (that'll probably be a week or two before I get them in there.... the reason I'm putting them there first is so that I can get some feedback and fix stuff before it goes up on the main page.) There's also a new color one of Eric and another of Mara over there (for those of you who have read the original). I'll also be tossing WIPs (works in progress) into my SheezyArt account (http://picatrix.sheezyart.com) as I go.
Okay, I've gone on long enough... time to get back to work ^-^ |
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| News |
[Jan. 15th, 2007|09:24 pm] |
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1.15.06
Thanks everyone for being patient while I got over being sick ^-^
There will be daily updates through Saturday to make up for last
week.
The last week of January/ first week of February, we'll be making
a move over to a new server and all the fixes to the site will be
put into place then. So if there's anything you want to see changed,
. Here's the current list of fixes:
1) The comment system. Sometimes, messeges must be posted twice
to show up and when you try to log in with a username and password,
you must hit the log-in button or it won't log you in (hitting enter
won't log you in). Both up to be fixed with the move.
2) I'm going to break the story thus far into chapters and set
up an archive system based on those chapters. I'm also planning
on making the chapters available for download, which will make reading
the comic easier for new readers and much easier for dial-up users.
3) The gift art gallery will finally go live with the new update.
4) The webcomiclist.com rating on the front page will finally start
updating properly (I have some code to put on the page to make that
happen).
5) The FAQ page has been updated.
6) The forum is going to be heavily pruned to clear out old posts.
7) There are quite a few cosmetic changes I'll be making to the
front page.
And now for some bad news. Well, not horrible but not good. I ended
up losing a lot of data moving my files over when my computer died
and a lot of data I lost was email related. I'm trying to recover
what I can but it's going to be a while before I can get to them
to answer them. This doesn't apply to emails sent last week and
beyond, as those of you who have emailed probably already know.
So what I'm going to do now instead is try to answer here those
questions that I remember (that aren't personal to the writer) and
then when I get my email back, I'll email back, as well. I apologize
that I can't remember who asked what and I'm sure I'll miss at least
a couple of questions >-< Okay, so here goes:
1) The tone question: How to avoid moires when layering tone. Make
sure the line number on the tone you're layering is the same as
the bottom tone. Adjust the darkness by user a higher percentage
tone on the top. Resizing a toned image usually results in moires
(which is why they show up in Picatrix so often... I should really
start toning to size....)
2) The archive question: I'm setting it up so that the comic can
be downloaded by chapter which should really help out for dial up
users... at least you'll be able to start a download and go do something
else for awhile while the files are downloading. I don't have it
set up yet but if you email me again, I'll forward a folder with
the files in it to you. (this goes for all new readers, by the way).
3) The preference question: Eric is my favorite Picatrix character
(he's not in the story in the current version yet), my favorite
anime/manga characters are Sosuke from Full Metal Panic and Captain
Kuchiki from Bleach and my favorite manga characters are Alice from
Alice 19th and Raenef from Demon Diary. I don't have a favorite
webcomic but my favorite webcomic character is Kevin from Kevin
and Kel. Um, I know you asked something else but for the life
of me, I can't remember what ^-^;
4) The GaiaOnline username
question: I changed my username at gaiaonline from Picatrix to Kimaris.
The spammer that caused me to change names found my new one anyway,
though, so my messege center is pretty much useless >-<
5) The language question: I used to offer empty text pages for
translation but I kept getting back translations that were grossly
innaccurate or meant to be jokes (maybe they thought I wouldn't
notice?) So for the time being, Picatrix is only in English.
6) The gift art question: Coloring pages are a great idea ^-^ If
I can come up with some nice lineart, I'll post it and post colorings
people have made.
7) The other comics question: Picatrix is my only comic on the
web right now. I've got several short stories and three other longer
comics I'm working on. On rare occasions, I'll post snippits of
those comics as vote incentives or in my DeviantArt
account.
8) The comic genesis question: You need three *'s surrounding each
of your tags... that's why they're not working.
Okay, that's all I can remember, so if I missed your question,
please email me again or just sit back and wait for me to get my
email back ^-^
And that's it for this update ^-^
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| News for 12/18/06 |
[Dec. 18th, 2006|10:43 am] |
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12.18.06
More snafus to fix this week ^-^; But first of all, thank you everybody
for being so patient while I get the new site up to speed. Okay,
on to the stuff that did get fixed ^-^
The forum: It was letting new users sign up for accounts but then
not log in. I'd set up a system that I'd hoped would keep spammers
out but it ended up keeping a lot of legitimate users out, too >-<
But now that's been lifted, so if you've signed up at the forum,
you should be able to use your username and password to get in and
change your avvie and post if you like. This also means the spammers
will be back in the forum so I would like to welcome a new moderator
- SilverPhoenix- to help keep the spam clear. One note on the avvies-
I've got it set right now to let users upload your own if you like
but please, no hentai avvies ^-^; I don't think it will be a problem
but I figure, I'd better say it anyway.
I'm still working on some fixes to the commenting system. Just
a reminder that if you're logging in to post with a username, you
must hit the "log in" button after entering your username
and password. Just hitting enter won't work. I've got that on my
list of things to fix this week, along with fixing the banners in
the middle of the page (right now, they open up onto the main page
itself. I want to try to get them to open up in a new window.)
The gallery is about 75% complete. I'm planning to upload those
files early on Friday morning when (hopefully) the slowdown will
affect less users. The character page is coming along... slowly
but it's coming along. The image for Hector is complete and can
be previewed over at my DeviantArt
Gallery. I'm working on Azrael's character page image next ^-^
That's it for this update. Next comic will be up today (Monday
the 18th) at around 5pm.
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 11th, 2006|08:57 pm] |
Ahhhh, I forgot to update the news to this page last week >-< Oh well, I'll include both with this update ^-^
News for 12/11/06
Almost a week in and I've got a list of little things to fix a
mile long. But the important thing is that the comic is getting
updated.... the rest of the site will come ^-^ I'm planning to get
the gallery page finished tomorrow, with the exception of the Character
Page which I'll be working on throughout the course of the week
and probably into next week, as well. As always, I'll be dropping
all new images into my DeviantArt
account so you can get an early look at them, if you like ^-^ First
one should be up Tuesday afternoon. Let's see, what else.... ah,
the test site (test.picatrix.net) is being taken down so please
switch your bookmarks to the main site (www.picatrix.net). Okay,
that's all for this update ^-^
News for 12/06/06
Welcome back! Or maybe welcome in general for everyone coming here for the first time... Picatrix comes out of its hiatus today and returns to a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule. As you've probably already noticed, we've got a new site design and parts of the site are not yet complete, namely the Gallery portion and an update to the forum. The goal here is to have that finished up by the weekend. Some of the changes here include new contact email addresses (the old one has more spam than I can deal with, with an average of one to two spam messeges a minute. I'm still trying to find the legitimate emails from that account so those of you still waiting for a reply will receive one from the new account), updated FAQ and About pages, a new News page (thank you to those of you who pointed out that the LiveJournal page gets blocked by parental filters) and new organization of the gallery page.
A few important things, the links page has been updated with some great new comics so head over and check them out if you get the chance. For those individuals with links on the links page, if there's a different banner you would like used, now is a good time to let me know. Also, there's a very good chance I've agreed to do a link exchange with someone and have forgotten to add you to the list. If this is the case, please email me and I'll get your link right up.
I hope everyone is enjoying the new comment archive system. I plan on going back and filling in comments on the past pages so please feel free to comment if you're browsing through the archives.
The vote incentives have been updated. The same images can be found in my DeviantArt gallery for those of you that aren't into voting.
That's all for this update ^-^ |
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| Taking a break.... |
[Oct. 31st, 2006|04:03 pm] |
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Recently, I was offered the opportunity to spend the greater part of November bumming around Europe. And since I haven't had a real vacation in three years, I'm going ^-^ But that means that updates for November are going to be sporatic, at best... I'm unsure of my computer status but I'm guessing that I'll have a tough time finding a scanner. So.... updates are pretty well on hold and I'll be back in a month or so ^-^ |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 22nd, 2006|10:02 pm] |
Wow, first of all, a big thank you for the advice and support over the spammer problem! He's really backed off since I wrote that last news update... I'm hoping he got scared off by all the advice I've been armed with to deal with him ^-^
On a related note, I'm finally able to catch up with my email and messeges within site accounts (neopets, myspace, gaiaonline, etc) so some of you who have written will finally be getting a very very late response... but better late than never ^-^
So, on to the good stuff ^-^ I've started moving the new site over to a test site. Tonight, we started by moving over the new archived comment system. Users can post as a guest (and get a default Hector avvie) or they can sign in using their forum account username and password. The benefit of that is that you can choose your own avvie (or upload your own) and also, you get your unique username. A nice benefit of the new archive system is that it archives comments to certain pages in the comic so if you have a comment for a past page, the comment stays with that page ^-^
So feel free to head on over to the test site and play around if you like ^-^ There are a couple of things to note about signing up for forum accounts, though: 1) All sign-ups from the links provided on the test page go to a test forum... so if you sign up there, you won't show up in the main forum until I bring the new site live.... I'll carry over all new sign-ups to the database then. Not a big deal if you don't plan on using the forum but if you do and want to post in the next week, sign up at the main forum and use your username and password from there on the test page login. and 2) my hosting company has something against certain email addresses... yahoo and msn come to mind but there may be others that I'm unaware of. So if you're unable to create a forum account and your only email is one of those, email me and I'll get your account set up manually.
Hmmmm, I think that's all I need to say about that.... anyway, I hope the new comment archive system will be a nice improvement to the site ^-^ And I'll be adding more improvements to that test site as the week progresses ^-^ |
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