Category Archives: Website

Getting Going with Git, or How I Learn Not Directly Edit Webpages

First of all I have a problem I need to admit to you all.  My name is Derek Bonner and I am a command line junkie.  What is a command line junkie?  Well it is someone who needs the sweet kiss of a terminal to get the day going.  Nothing like firing up PuTTy and logging into a server with no X window system and getting things done.

As mentioned in David’s previous post, there is git usage in our current web development process.  It all started when Dan pointed me to a video post detailing some of the finer points about how git actually works.  The nerd in me loved the way it functioned and its decentralize nature.  To finish it off there were a slew of command line arguments I could learn.  I was sold.

My previous web development was the very bad practice of directly editing the file I was working on and then checking it live in the browser.  Fast and it worked well because I didn’t really have any traffic but Gaslamp is a bit different; It needed to be always working, not sometimes or after I finally fixed a feature. Always.

After crawling the web I found a setup I liked. The workflow over at joemaller.com that resonated with the way I would like to do things.  Sadly we have no second server that is constantly up to be our hub.  Instead we use gitosis to create our hub.  Gitosis provides the back-end and permissions to host multiple git repositories on a single shell account.  From a shell user which runs the webpage can be our prime repository that will pull changes.  The joemaller workflow has some details that I had to tweak to be used with the virtual repository  setup.  Overall I am very satisfied with the process and in my next article I will detail the steps I too to set this up including some tasty bits about SSH with my best practices using PuTTy.

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Dynamic Content Areas

Well since I’m the web guy I figured I would share my pitfalls that I have come across when coding the site.  One of the most important things I have come across is having my webpage size to the content that is in it.  My example will cover the main content area of Gaslamp Games with the use of three images; top, tile, and bottom.

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It Came From the Tubes!

Greetings!

My name is Derek Bonner and I am the Gaslamp server administrator, website guru, and all around nerd.  If there is a problem that isn’t game related it is probably my fault/responsibility.

As it turns out 1000 monkeys at a 1000 keyboards can actually turn out content that is ready for the world to see.  Coupled together with David’s art what you get is this website. I would highly suggest that you make frequent visits to this website as you will see many changes and improvements as our rag tag group puts together content and polishes it to a high gloss shine.

While you might not see any fancy graphics like David or any interesting coding practices from Dan or Nick, you will find a few helpful hints for the independent, self taught, wannabe web developer/server admin.

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