The Pains of Finding a Ticker

It occurred to me that Gage was doing such a good job keeping the new current (much better than just me), however there were no notices of his reports on the front page.

As such, this morning I set out to find a way to convert the page's RSS feed into a news ticker on the front page.

Sadly, finding a good quality script was harder than I thought. To have an on-sever script, we needed to have things like PHP and CGI, which is not really easily available on SMBHQ's server.

As such, I had to settle for a third party option. It should settle our needs for the time being (though the little ad tends to get in the way).

I also had to get rid of the events ticker (most because it wasn't loading along with the new ticker. Hopefully, I'll find a new way of linking site events.

Peachfan will be at I-CON!

For anyone who reads this and is going to I-CON at the end of this month, I will be attending! I'll be rather obvious, in my Princess Peach costume, so if you see me around, feel free to say hi! I half-expect to see someone dressed as Bowser try to kidnap me, eheh.

Headaches in web design

You may not have noticed it, but the new mailbag look has been giving me a headache.

Apparently, most browsers except for I.E., are very picky about how CSS (that's Cascading Style Sheets) are coding. So, some new features that were appearing in i.e. (which doesn't care about the quality of the code) did not appear in Firefox.

After hours of tinkering, I believe I finally have it acceptable.

The torment I have to go through just so you can have some nice looking pages....

What to expect in the coming weeks at SMBHQ

I thought I would update you on what's planned at SMBHQ in the near future:

• Very soon (maybe even later tonight) we will finally have the next edition of the mailbag. Hopefully, we will be able to get these out more often.
• Since Christmas, I have been very busy playing Yoshi's Island DS. You could probably expect a game page for the game within the next week or so.
• I'll probably start a new mini-contest for the 10th anniversary (I should point out that the memories have been very good so far -- it would be hard just to choose a few)

That's all I have planned in a nutshell. Kyle was planning a little something, but I'll keep under wraps until I know it's ready and/or still going to happen.

SMBHQ New Years Resolutions.....nearly a week late

• Create new game pages for most, if not all, of the Mario games
• Get someone reliable to run the Fan Fiction section
• Relaunch Super Mario Mysteries
• Find some way to get people to actually check out the chat room
• Come up with something halfway decent for SMBhq's 10th Anniversary (especially after missing the 9th anniversary)
  

Game....Pages....Hard

I noticed it's more difficult than I expected to put together new game pages. It's overwhelming trying to put so much information into one place.

Maybe, I should try and NOT to do all the subsections at once......

Still, you should expect the first new game page later today.

SMBHQ has a blog?!

I've gotta check SMBHQ more often. I'm not even trying for one and now I'm in two.

Over in the SSS Section, we've been updating the bios and adding Epics we lost. We should have a new match up sometime in December, I'm hoping. Otherwise... (pulls out a cattle prod) I shall have to interfer. MWAHAHAHA!!! =P Have a happy holiday, fans!

Era Page update

You may be wondering what happened to the Era pages.

Well, I can say that the timeline will be ready very soon.

Then we can add game pages.

Let's go shopping

I noticed today that Amazon's aStore has upgraded allowing further customization. More specifically, it now allows me to add individual products instead of adding them based on keywords.

As such, I have been busy adding products to SMBHQ's aStore using the old HTML files from SMBHQ's previous store. Now, we pretty much have every existing Mario game in the store, including a few for the Wii (though you can't order them yet).

A few sections of the store (namely Books and Toys & Games) are still based on keywords. Mostly because, there are probably too many to list in those categories and I can't be bothered.

OK, well that's enough for now. Check out the store, you'll be glad that you did.

Oooh, this is nifty.

Wow, I feel a heck of a lot more important, now that I can make blog entries! Hooray for the blog!

And just so this isn't a total waste of an entry...



The official Peachfan cosplay. (Ignore my horridly messy room.)

One more thing...

I should point out that I am NOT reviving this blog because TMK now has one of their own.

Sure, we at SMBHQ jumped on the blogging bandwagon WAY before the other guys did, but that doesn't mean they aren't free to, literally, post their opinions.

I'm sure there's room for more than one Mario fansite with a blog. :P

Weeeeeeeeeee're Back!

After nearly 1 year and 4 months, the SMBlogHQ is back in business.

If all goes well, you should see posts by me, Kyle, and the other staff members.

That's all for the time being, now go get ready for the release of the Wii on Sunday!

That little thing called life

This is an advanced notice to people that, after the next full SMBhq update on August 1, I am going to take a break from SMBhq for about 2 months.

I am going to be enrolling into York University in Toronto (to persue an, eventual, BA degree in Information Technology) and I don't want the stress, that comes from maintaining the site, to distract me during this transition.

Super Mario Mysteries (my main specialty section) will still be updated and, if I have time, there might even be an RPC in September.

But other than that, the site is all Jay's for August and September.

State of SMBhq and Stuff

You may have been noticing that SMBhq is lacking in the update department a bit.

Well here's why.

Kyle Orland has been wanting me to get the era pages ready and I have been trying to concentrate on that. Also, I have been having trouble finding stuff (other than the era pages) that could be updated.

There is also the fact that I tend to be lazy at times (and the fact that I hate it when a website, that I do for a hobby, feels like a job).

There should, hopefully, be something that resembles an update within the next week. However, I will then be heading to Scotland for two weeks and (unless Jay does some updating) SMBhq will pretty much be on hiatus for much of May.

Ch-Ch-Changes

You probably noticed the new, smaller logo for SMBhq.

That is the first sign of the next, and hopefully final, redesign to the SMBhq main page.

This new main page design, which will launch tommorow, is probably my best yet and will probably end up being perennial design for the main page.

Then I can move on to more important things, like the Era Pages.

Super Mario World - The Epic!

If you have a good internet connection, I recommend for you to give this Super Mario World video a looksy.

http://www.lostcreation.com/bluejello/MarioMovie_lo.zip

Disk Space Woes

I've taken notice that SMBhq's files takes up 100+ MB on my hard drive.

On my 40GB Computer that would be no problem, however on my 18 GB Laptop (which I've been using for website work since last fall), with only 7GB free, SMBhq is taking up space that could be used for something else.

My solution is that, as soon as possible, I move SMBhq's files (in fact, ALL my website-related files) onto a USB Key Drive.

That would do 2 things:
1. It would free up some space on my hard drive.
2. It would allow me to work on SMBhq anytime, anywhere (just plug in the USB Drive).

Well, that's enough ranting for today.

Updates, Icons, and Random stuff

Hey guys. It's me, Metal, again. I've been doing plenty of updating at SSQ. First thing, there's enough mirrors to choke a camel, so don't worry about it ever going down. Second thing, a new season just started, and it'd be nice if you tried to join now rather than later. Finally, I updated several story logs, the rules, and added a nice navbar to the site. Check it out when you have time. The new layout for SMBHQ is great, too.

SMBHQ's New Years Resolution

Happy New Years!

That last year featured a lot in the way of rebuilding SMBhq for the future, and 2005 will be seeing more of that.

I will try to get all the era pages up and running by years end. Hopefully we won't be bombarded with too many new Mario games for when it's comes time to do the final (and most difficult) era page.

I'll be going through the 2004 Mario Releases soon and compile a list of nominees for the second Golden Toad Awards. You should expect voting to begin towards the end of the month.

That's all and, once again, have a Happy New Year.

BOTVGH New Hosted Site

SMBhq has recieved a new hosted site in the form of the popular Fan-Fiction site Battle of the Videogame Heroes.

I was negotiating with, BOTVGH webmaster, H Cuz a few months ago, about bringing BOTVGH to SMBhq, though the deal just closed this past Monday.

According to his blog, H Cuz plans to have BOTVGH up and running on the SMBhq server by the end of the year. You should keep checking that Blog for future updates on this subject.