Staff Digest: Dec. 22, 2002-Jan. 11, 2003 |
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| Author:
| snarkles
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| Submitted: |
12-Jan-2003 09:08:33 |
| Imported From: |
zZine (original author: snarkles)
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| This is yet another delayed edition. :\ Over the holiday season some people insisted on being with their families for some weird reason, so there hadn't been much to report until now. ;) But, without further ado...
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Blockhouse back in black!: Gen. Goliath's Blockhouse hosting http://www.block-house.com is officially making money for CA! Blockhouse's huge range of features and low price offers an excellent deal for CA Brigade sites, aspiring web developers, or anyone else who is looking for hosting, and you help CA in the process! Additionally, Blockhouse offers 2MB free hosting for anyone who needs it for hosting pictures, small websites, etc.
New CA Layout finalized!: The new layout for the next version of CyberArmy has been more or less finalized for the next version of the site. It contains the following features:
- CA Brigade Navigation - At the top of each page will be icons leading to the brigade sites. This should help increase the visibility as well as traffic to the brigade sites, and help make brigades the main focus of the site (as they should be)
- Tabbed navigation - Creates a more hierarchical structure with the site, and should also help with the navigation
- CA Time - The server time is displayed on each page, so it's easier to coordinate meetings, tell when forum posts were made, etc.
- Unread cMS notification - Each page contains a section that tells how many unread cMSes you have, which should allow people to tell more or less instantaneously when they have a new message
- Current Red Mission - Each page will also contain a link to the current Red Mission, also at the top so the visibility is increased
- NewsFlash - An announcements system for CA-wide news to be displayed on each page
- More 'professional' look and feel - Of course this point is debatable. ;) But the new layout features a lighter blue background color for the content, rounded corners on various site sections, etc. Of course, the good ol' "CA Blue" still remains as the site's main background color. :)
- Footer - At the bottom of each place is a centralized place for links to external sites, such as CA Gallery, Philosophy, etc.
- Banner ad space - Included as well is a space for a banner ad for our affiliates, or so brigades can develop advertisements, etc.
- XHTML 1.0 Transitional Compliance - All code for the template has been verified to be 100% XHTML 1.0 Transitional. This ensures the HTML is written in proper form with closing tags, quoted attributes, etc. and ensures the site will be viewable in all browsers from lynx to Netscape 3.0 to the newest versions of Internet Explorer.
- PNG graphics - CyberArmy has moved away from the proprietary GIF standard and the new site's graphics are all in the open PNG graphics standard.
Other features of Dinah 0.6 will include enhancements to cMS (checkbox deletion, deletion confirmation, folders) and office.
Thanks go to gabbana, snarkles, and wa1800z for developing the template, and to all the other staff members for their tireless input through about 700 or so revisions. ;) Screenshots will follow in a future edition, so be sure to watch this space!
CyberArmy Mission Statement: Staff is currently in talks about revamping the CA mission statement to be clearer and more accurately reflect CA's goals. Once basic ideas are hammered out, we hope to receive input from all members on improving this important part of CA.
New Rank-based Forums: In an attempt to both include non-staff members in important organization-wide decisions, provide a spot for members to discuss topics with their peers, as well as provide a 'perk' for working hard and increasing your rank, three new forums were added this week: LtKer/Ker, Cap/Maj, and 2nd Lt/Lt.
Freenet Search Engine: Gen. Goliath is in the process of developing a universal Freenet portal, code-named named FreeSpyder. This is an important project, because Freenet currently lacks any cohesive way of easily finding information. The Freenet Project is a java application designed to allow the free flow of information and ideas on the Internet without fear of censorship of any kind. More information about the project can be found from: http://www.freenetproject.org/ or http://sourceforge.net/projects/freenet/
Fong Device 2.0: Gen. gabbana and Mar. ion6ix will be heading up development of Fong Device 2.0, which integrates MySQL/LWP to provide more power and flexibility. This project will be hosted on OSI's forthcoming CVS system, so it will be a public project during the entire development phase. Mar TheGame, the main developer of the latest Fong Device is going to support the development and review the finished product. Ker Revelation is going to work as well on the new code and the new features. Every CA member interested in helping is hereby invited to contribute code and his/her help and time. We want to keep it as open source as possible :)
CyberArmy Univiersity Knowledge Bank Online!: <a href=http://knowledge-bank.cauniversity.org/>CAU's knowledge bank[/url] is now online. The knowledge bank is a virtual library of tutorials, ebooks, etc. on a number of different technical topics. In the future, the old CA Armoury will also be integrated to act as a historical archive of information. Feel free to submit any tutorials you've written, or to browse around and learn something!
CyberArmy manual: LtKer. Hisim and Ker. sieco are working on a project to create a centralized place for all CA-related FAQs, tutorials, documents, and more which should help people find information they might be looking for.
Welcome to CyberArmy Message: Vice Cinc barnesyboy is leading an effort to write an introductory e-mail/cMS message to new recruits explaining where some of the features are on the site, what CyberArmy does, how to get involved in brigades, and so on. Hopefully this will help newcomers become acquainted with CyberArmy a bit faster. Another ideas centered around this is the creation of an interactive tour of the site, proposed by Gen. Goliath.
Affiliates: Gen. Gabbana is currently in the process of developing an upcoming "Link to us" page, to help facilitate developing external relations with other organizations. Interest from other communities in developing relations with CyberArmy has been positive so far, and talks are currently being held with other technical organizations about possible partnerships.
New staff members: Kernels Highwaystar and Darkzeratul1 are currently in phase 2 of the Staff in Training program, and are acting staff members on a trial basis. These are two very promising candidates, and we hope to see them as permanent staff members very soon!
This article was originally published by CyberArmy.net in the CyberArmy Library.
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