By Travis Whidden on
5/29/2007 1:56 PM
Well today I spent the morning updating my server with the latest version of ModernBill (5.1.7.0). I had to do this because when I started to import a couple customers and update their billing, a major problem would occur. The problem was that a client ID for a customer would be updated and given a new one when you added a new payment account. Ouch. Thank god I only did a couple of them and called their support line.
Anyhow after a few manual SQL calls to fix the problems we updated the software and it appears to be working ok now.
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By Travis Whidden on
5/25/2007 6:23 PM
When an existing user goes to order a new domain name from the system, a small non-critical bug occurs. When they click "login" right before they check out, the Primary Contact Information will be populated correctly including the Service Username and Service Password, but the Confirm Password field is not filled in.
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By Travis Whidden on
5/25/2007 6:15 PM
You might be asking... "Why does this guy write about ModernBill. What the heck is it and why do I care?"
Well, the most likely answer is: You don’t need to know and you should not care unless you use it yourself.
I am currently running a web hosting company in Reno Nevada. We have 10,000 customers and we use the oldest and slowest billing system known to man (Quick Books). When we took over the company, we realized that we were not going to make it with 3 billing guys and a completely manual process for our admins and even the customers.
We decided to research the correct billing system that would scale with our business and we could extend on with our own systems. We evaluated Tucows Platypus and ModernGigabyte ModernBill software package. There were several others out there, but these two were the ones that actually responded and acted on our phone calls and gave us a great demo.
Over the last few weeks, I have been preparing our systems so we can make a smooth transition to the ModernBill System. I attended a workshop in Kentucky and learned a lot about what they have to offer.
This blog will talk about my experiences during the ModernBill migration. I will have tips and tricks, along with bugs (associated to a version number) and anything else I find interesting.
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By Travis Whidden on
5/25/2007 10:15 AM
 I love opening movies, even when they are on a Thursday. Pirates was a good movie. I wouldnt say "Great" just because they have some parts in there that are slow, and kind of retarded, but overall, it was full of adventure.
Its hard to understand what these guys are saying some times. Johnny Depp is funny. His facial expressions just make the movie even funnier.
I would give this movie a solid B. If you liked #1, you will like #3. #2 was not as good in my eyes.
There was lots of fighting on boats, lots of creatures, lots of adult like content. I feel its good for all ages.
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By Travis Whidden on
5/21/2007 3:11 AM
We went and saw Shrek 3 on Friday, opening night. We got there about 30 minutes early with food in hands ready to watch the show.
We get in, and its almost packed. We were lucky to see 4 seats next to each other (we went with our couple neighbors).
We sat, and started to watch the advertisements waiting for the previews.
After about 15 minutes, I realized that i was going to get stressed out because of the people behind me. Its not that I did not expect children to be in the theaters.... its Shrek.. its a kids movie. But what I did expect is for parents to make their children respect the other paying customers there to watch the movie.
Almost the entire time, this Spanish family was talking in Spanish (makes it worse that I can’t even understand what they are saying.. its all gibberish). The children were running up and won the row. The family was about 10 people, 8 of which were children. They were noisy, and constantly not paying attention.
Anyhow, ranting aside... the movie was great. It was filled with action, and lots of adult kind of scenes that only we would know. You can tell who the adults were in the audience because they would start to laugh, and the children were not.
This will be a movie that I end up buying when it goes to DVD (or HDDVD). Well worth the money.
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By Travis Whidden on
5/16/2007 2:04 PM
That DNN 404 page I created was a smart idea. Check this out:
404 File Not Found 1552 5/16/2007 7:03:00 AM
Scrapbook 648 5/16/2007 6:49:00 AM
Home 282 5/16/2007 7:02:00 AM
Blog 177 5/16/2007 6:43:00 AM
Videos 128 5/16/2007 7:01:00 AM
That is the table in the logs. The 404 page in the last 2 days is crazy. Search engines still have my old stuff.
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By Travis Whidden on
5/16/2007 5:03 AM
I bought a nice big Ford Super crew F150 over a year ago. It came as a dual fuel vehicle. I can run regular gasoline and I can run propane. When I bought it, I though “that’s cool, but I’ll never use it”. I would have to say that things have changed a little bit.
Gas at the lowest right now (5/15/2007) is about $3.25 a gallon. Propane when I fill up at the local U-Haul store is $2.23 a gallon ($1.91 in Las Vegas). You might thing “man, that’s way less” but there is a difference in performance and gas millage.
When I run Gas, I get about 14 – 15 MPG. That calculates out to about .22 cents a mile. When I run on Propane, I only get about 11 MPG. Propane per mile cost me about .20 cents per mile. (less when I filled up in Las Vegas). There is no difference on the highway or in the city (actually, it’s like that with gas also with this truck).
Propane has a considerable drop in performance also. I feel like I have a squishy gas pedal because there really isn’t a good throttle response. But, I do like to run it for several reasons. Besides the fact that it costs less to run (not by much), I also like to know that it’s a clean burning fuel AND it is runs my vehicle at an unbelievable cool temperatures. The water temp hardly even reaches the cold line on my gauge when I am on Propane. When I switch back to gas, it’s up to the middle of the gauge. Propane does have some strange smell you can pick up some times.
With Gas prices rising, I am sure propane will make a considerable positive dent in my pocket book. As long as they don’t raise the price of propane any time soon, I will be happy.
This month I am going to try and run totally on propane. I have heard that because it’s not a carbon based fuel that your engine oil does not darken with time and miles. I just got the oil changed and I would like to see me put 1 – 3 thousand miles on it and then test it out. I will report back on that soon.
Anyhow, if you have a car that support propane call around and see what the cost per gallon is. I have found good luck with U-Haul centers. Just ask them for their costs on Highway propane.
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By Travis Whidden on
5/14/2007 5:51 AM
I proposed to my Girlfriend (Now fiancé) April 23rd 2007, a week before we went on our Trip to Maui. I was going to propose on the airplane to Maui, but once I got this beautiful ring in my hands, I could not wait any longer, and decided to propose that very night. I took her to a Hawaiian restaurant and told her we were going to do a Pre-maui dinner. She didn’t expect it.
We ate dinner like normal. When I was planning on asking her (right before desert), she detected something was up, and said “Travis… What are you doing?” and I was like… “umm.. nothing.. why”. She then challenged me and said “Put your hands on the table”. That is a problem because I was holding the ring. I put the ring between my legs and brought up my hands like I did not know what she was talking about.
We continued.. and I kept telling her how much I love her and how special she is to me. She started to talk to me, and I could feel myself coming up the moment. I kept saying to myself.. “now is the time.. ask ask ask” but I kept feeling like I was a dear a headlight. I finally started to ask, but I nearly whispered it to her. She asked me to repeat myself and I did.
Of course she said yes. I wouldn’t have asked if I doubted it.
Here is what the ring looks like:
This is the first time I have been engaged in my life, and I feel very positive about it.
I am excited to be part of her family also. They are so warm to me when I am around and I feel so accepted by them. She has a very large family, so its easy to be intimated, but I feel like I fit right in.
Anyhow, the date has been set. We are to be married 09/19/2009. I will use this blog to talk about events we are planning and see if anyone wants to contribute ideas.
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By Travis Whidden on
5/14/2007 5:43 AM
I have been enjoying developing modules for DotNetNuke (DNN). The latest release of DNN has made my life even better. The use of AJAX (System.Web.Extentions) can be easily integrated.
The last few weeks I have been working on a Scrapbook module for my website. I intend to sell this module once I get it solid. I have bought some Scrapbook modules online, but they really suck. I hate the limits of them, and does not make it easy for search engines to see them. The biggest problems are when people use post backs to go to other pages. Search engines are not going to follow those.
So, this new Scrapbook module works off the directory structure, and uses a majorly hacked version of the lighbox scripts. My lightbox also includes support for media files such as avi, mpeg, and wmv. So far, it has been tested in IE7 and the latest version of FIreFox.
I will post more up about it as I make more progress on it.
If you are interested in a free copy of this before I go live with it, please email me travis at lvfbody.com and I will send you the beta version of it (current version as of this post is 00.01.01).
You can see it in action by clicking on “Scrapbook” or “Videos” links in the menu bar at the top of this website.
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By Travis Whidden on
5/14/2007 5:38 AM
It is amazing that we can spend 500 million on a movie where we don’t even have anything tangible like a huge building or something.
The movie I felt was enjoyable. The only disappointment was that they made these movies like little love movies. Who cares... but if you are going to make a love movie, and make a super hero cry, please don’t zoom in on their faces with their lips shaking. That is so retarded.
I enjoyed this sequel with all the villains. Almost too much action but makes it for an action rich film.
Movie Rating would have to be a B-. The love scenes and slow parts just wasted everyone’s time.
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