As most of you know, the social network that was lovingly nurtured into a 1.0 release by myself and kyrox - Cyndle, has been effectively retired. The site's still live, but any content that was there previously, is inaccessable by everyone but the founders. It wasn't exactly an easy decision - we had spent months and months learning the language, writing features, designing the user interfaces. Internally, Cyndle is roughly v5.72b1. It's gone through around 5 full-on rewrites, including two major filing system changes, a database rework, and other alterations too numerous to write.
Even after the site went live, it was constantly being changed. The avatar system was completely rewritten during the first week or two of the site being live, the friends system was rewritten about a month or two after going live, and many miscellaneous changes were made all the time.

It started with a simple IM conversation.
Honestly.
It started with me, talking to kyrox , about Pownce being shut down.
We were both users of the site, and loved it dearly. It was a really good way to send off files to each other. Then they announced the shut-down, and I casually mentioned that, with Kyrox being rather good with CSS, and learning PHP, we could probably start our own Pownce clone.
And that was that, we started work on it the next day. kyrox  had his spare laptop set up as an SSH, FTP and web server, so we'd have a centralised server for test work, and I'd started going through a few PHP guides to get started.
Skip forward half a month, and we've got an internal blog (which we were originally going to release an export of later, for others to learn from), and a working (but rather basic) Login system.
Skip forward another two months, and we've got a site design and logo finalised (which would later be thrown out the window in favour of a more simplistic interface), a login and registrations system, and I think we had the plans for the posts system drawn up.
A little while after that, we'd started work on the (soon to be scrapped) Admin interface. After Cyndle's release, we had planned to write an Admin interface (as we did administrative things using the database backend - manually), but that never happened.
Then, on Friday, 6th March 2009 (at about 4 or 5AM my time), Cyndle was released. We got a good few registrations when it was released, and had many plans for it.
A few unreleased features we'd (mostly me) written up included pulling a user's Twitter posts in, showing their last.fm recently played tracks in their Profile, and I'd written a relatively simple Privacy facility. There was a youtube link detector and auto-embedder, some AJAX/jQuery stuff done for it, a pownce importer (which ironically, was never completed until about a week or two before Cyndle's death), and at one point posts were supposed to have a Delete facility. That never happened, but they did get a(n improperly implemented) editing system (which I was fully responsible for). There was also plans to integrate the API I'd written for Cyndle v2 (in a more minimal form) into the currently released form, but none of that happened.

At the height of it's popularity, we had all of about 30 users, with about 5 of those being active users.

Then the time came for us to start work on v2, which would have been a relatively awesome reincarnation of Cyndle. But then things started to get a little ugly.
kyrox  had found the joys (according to him) of frameworks. So, being someone who's quick to jump ship, he quickly started talking about how badly organised our (actually entirely his) filing system was, and began desiring the Model-Controller-View things that most standard PHP frameworks have. Of course, I preferred writing everything by hand, and refused to join him in celebration of frameworks (I loathe them. Greatly so.)
Months pass, and I continue to stay strong. Eventually we come to make the decision - write v2 of Cyndle, or kill it. With great regret, I had to choose the more grim option of the two. I loathe frameworks, and find them impossible to work with. So with that, the entire Cyndle codebase was moved to a hidden folder, an XML-compliant export generator was written, and the whole site was replaced with a simple "We're gone" page.
It's never an easy decision to make, nor one that's ever taken lightly, to retire (or in our case, effectively kill) a project, especially when it's one you've worked on this long.
It's sad to say, but Cyndle is gone, and it's probably not coming back. If you look well enough, you can find some parts still working away, and a few hidden services running (There's a small URL shortener hidden away there, a protected file upload system, and some simple for-fun projects hidden in creatively-named subdomains).

So there you have it, the complete story of Cyndle.

You can still find Cyndle kicking around, lounging in retirement homes, complaining about the weather, or drinking martinis at a local bar, and sometimes, just sometimes, if you point your browser at the right IP at the right time, you can see him, posting up like a true microblogger.

Tags: cyndle, the true story
Current Location: United Kingdom, Dundee
Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: None

Hey internet. Yes, internet.

I never update this fecking blog because I’m flat-out lazy. What’s going on: I’m using windows 7 for the moment, life’s going pretty swell, and I have exams.

Windows 7 = the sex. It’s like Vista, but not a steaming pile of shit.

The end.

HI

I don't really know where this meme came from but I like it and I am going to do it and nothing you can do will stop me from doing it because I am writing this on a laptop so you can't even cut the power wait that will turn the internet off I HAVE A MOBILE PHONE.


Current mood: Cold and bored. My hands are cold >:C
Current music: UH nothing actually my song just finished :<
Current taste: PEPSI MAX oh god i love this stuff
Current hair: The same hair I have all the time.
Current clothes: SKIN TIGHT top and jeans. >3
Current annoyance: THE COLD. Gawd it's like really cold and my arms are cold too
Current smell: The smell of the living room containing four laptops three humans and a DOG <3
Current thing I ought to be doing: Uhh probably stuff for Cyndle or School but I am a lazybutt.
Current windows open: FIREFOX and BBC iPLAYER and BANSHEE and SEVERAL NAUTILUS WINDOWS and DOWNthemALL and THUNDERBIRD and FIREFOX ADDONS which I haven't restarted yet and EMPATHY and TOTEM and TRANSMISSION. I have alot of windows open because I am the use linux. Also DRIVEL which I use to update LIVEJOURNAL.
Current desktop picture:


Current favorite band: PENDULUM they are awesome.
Current book: I haven't read a book in a while :{{{
Current cd in stereo: Probably Viva La Vida (by Coldplay) but I dunno because it's my dad's car and therefor I don't know about all this CDness.
Current crush: Spotify omgit'sgreat
Current favorite celeb: NOBODY. ;D
Current hate: Photoshop not being on linux >:C

=DO YOU=
Smoke? Ewno.
Do drugs? Only from the DOCTOR.
Have a dream that keeps coming back?: This one where somehow I can fly :ooo
Read the newspaper? AHAHAHA no :c
Have any gay or lesbian friends? Ratio of gay/lesbian/bi/trans friends to straight friends: 4:1
Believe in miracles? SO WHERE YOU FROM? YOU SEXY THIIING~!
Believe it's possible to remain faithful forever? Oyes.
Consider yourself tolerant of others? Maybe too tolerant.
Consider love a mistake? Nup.
Like the taste of alcohol? SOMETIMES.
Have a favorite candy? CHOCOLATECHOCOLATECHOCOLATE fudge.
Believe in astrology? Uh isn't that a recognized science?
Believe in magic? AHAHAHAHAHAHno.
Believe in God? Nu C:
Have any pets? ONE DOG. :3
Go to or plan to go to college? Skip college go DIRECT to university. ;D
Have any piercings? Nope :D
Hate yourself? Nope. Mostly.
Have an obsession? UhFURRIES.
Have a secret crush? Nuh
Do they know yet? NO DON'T EVER TELL NOBODY THAT I DON'T CRUSH THEM or something.
Care about looks? Sortayesno.

=LOVE LIFE=
Ever been in love? Yesh.
Do you believe in love at first sight? Depends if it actually works out o:
Do you believe in "the one"? YES KEANU REEVES IS GOD.
Describe your ideal significant other: Good sense of humour, ability to be SERIOUS, not sarcastic GAWD I HATE SARCASM, snuggly, snuggly, SNUGGLY.

=JUICY STUFF=
Have you ever played a game that required removal of clothing? Nu o:
Have you ever been intoxicated? AHAHAHAwait yes.
Height: Um like, 6ft or something.

=LAST THING YOU=
Bought: JUSTICE's album CROSS.
Ate: Frosties. My parents slept in and we didn't have time to have PROPER food and I'm starving. We'll probably be having biscuits for supper OH WELL >:C
Drank: PEPSI.
Read: See left.
Watched on tv: I can't remember, the thing hasn't been turned on in like, forever. Forever being like, a day, of course.

=WHO DO YOU WANT TO=
Kill: Bill.
Look like: I dunno o:
Be like: I dunno o:
Avoid: All those people at schoool but I have to go OH WELL >:C

=LAST PERSON YOU=
Talked to: My MUM. I was asking what was for supper and COMPLAINING about the lack of tasty food.
Hugged: MUM.
Instant messaged: Uh, I haven't talked to anyone like, all day, lazy people keep going to bed.

=WHERE DO YOU=
Eat: Le table o:
Cry: Wherever I want to. o:
Wish you were: In somebodies arms. In a food shop.

=HAVE YOU EVER=
Dated one of your best friends? Nope. And almost all of my best friends are guys.
Loved somebody so much it makes you cry? Yus.
Drank alcohol? You already asked this ALSO I have drank it a number of times.
Done drugs? YOU ASKED THIS ALREADY
Broken the law? Ther was this one time when I started downloading music, and it just sorta went on from there. C:
Run away from home? AHAHAHAno. You mistake me for someone who's silly enough to do that.
Broken a bone? Nup.
Played Truth Or Dare? Many times.
Kissed someone you didn't know? Not that I can remember.
Been in a fight? HAHAno. I don't fight, I stand there and get beaten up.
Come close to dying? uhhyes? <.<

=WHAT IS=
The most embarrassing CD in your collection?


Your bedroom like? The opening scene to Saving Private Ryan. Replacing blood with nondescript liquids and replacing dead bodies with god only knows what.
Your favorite thing for breakfast? Fooooooooood.
Your favorite restaurant? BURGER KIINNNGGGG.

=RANDOM QUESTIONS=
What's on your bedside table? A portable TV, PS2, some perfume and random girly things.
What do you eat when you raid the fridge late at night? Baby-bells omnomnomnomnom.
What is your secret guaranteed weeping movie? None, actually.
What is your biggest fear? Gmail going down. o:
What feature are you most insecure about? My everything. O;
Do you ever have to beg? Nuh :)
Are you a pyromaniac? No, and if you think any different I will set fire to you and your fambly BUT NOT YOUR DOG ;D
Crushes? How many times are you going to repeat the same question again and again?
Do you know anyone famous? I met some footballer once at his wedding when I was like, 9.
Describe your bed: Single bed, uber comfy, THREE PILLOWS~ with superblue sheets everywhere and a drop of blood somewhere I think because I had this epic nosebleed.
Spontaneous or plain? Spontaneous, and it's aging me horribly ;D
Do you know how to play poker? Pokawhut
What do you carry with you at all times? MY iPOD AND MY MOBILE PHONE they are surgically attached to me
What do you miss most about being little? Having to worry about nothing~~
Are you happy with your given name? MATTHEW WILLIAM CONOR CONNELLYYYYY it is not long enough >:C
How much money would it take to get you to give up the Internet for one year? AN APOCOLYPSE or whatever way you spell that MY LIVEJOURNAL EDITOR HAS NO SPELLCHECK
What color is your bedroom? YELLOW. My sister decorated it.
What was the last song you were listening to? Smash Mouth - Hang On
Do you talk a lot? Sometimes, usually not unless I feel comfortable.
Do you like yourself and believe in yourself? OH MY TWO QUESTIONS IN ONE I LOVE TWO THINGS IN ONE wait my answers are NO and NO. Oh well.
Do you think you're cute? AHAHAHAno but peter and james constantly disagree.
Do poor, homeless, or starving people sometimes annoy you? YES. >C
Do you consider yourself to be a nice person? Too nice if you ask me >:
Do you spend more time with your girlfriend, boyfriend, or your friends? Friends :(
holding hands? If I could actually see him in real life, holding hands would be a must.
Have you ever been caught "doing something?" Nup :D
Are you a tease? Nope o:
Shy to make the first move? Eheheheyes.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Smash Mouth - You Are My Number One

(Most things are an approximation due to my laptop only having a quarter of my music)
How many songs total: 6,986
How many hours or days of music: 34.2GB - Average 224kbps - 1.9mb/minute, 23 days of music.
Most recently played: The Journey Continues - Mark Brown & Sarah Cracknell
Most played: Foxyfluffs - Renard
Most recently added: Fox Amoore - The Forest

Sort by song title:

First Song: AM. AL. Funk. - Electric Keet
Last Song: 99 Ways To Die - Megadeth. Wat.

Sort by time:

Shortest Song: Aurea Project: Title (BGM:01) - Aureametaphus (0:11)
Longest Song: Alive 1997 - Daft Punk (61 minutes approx.)

Sort by album:

First album: Absolution - Muse
Last album: ...Go Down Swinging! - The Acro-Brats
First song that comes up on Shuffle: Eight Melodies - Renard

Search the following and state how many songs come up:

Death - 27
Life - 31
Love - 22
Hate – 28
You - 212
Sex – 15

Yeah there'd be a much better meme here if I had the monstrously large collection of music on this laptop, that I do on my other PC.

SO.
I got the wrong bus to school today.
Remind me never to get the 22C to school.

Ended up getting off just a little from menishill, walked to some roundabout and started walking aimlessly, and talking on the phone.
Ten minutes later: School knew of the situation, I was walking along Glamis Road to get to school.
Ten minutes after: I'm walking back the way I came because there's TWO roads called Glamis Road and I went down the wrong one.
Ten minutes after that: I'm walking down the other glamis road, after realising I have Google Maps on my phone.
Fast forward to 9:25AM: I'm arriving at school and recieving a late slip, with fogged-up glasses and a rather sore foot.

The moral of the story: Always ensure you've got a phone with google maps installed, a GPS device in it, and a decent mobile broadband connection. It may just save your butt.

In other news: I'm hungry and stuff.

Okay, I had some crazy big meme to post here about 21 days ago, but jee whizz, I completely forgot to finish writing it.

So d'erased, started over, stuff.

WHAT'S UP YOU GUYS.

Some stuff's been going on.
Prelim exams are about a week and a half away now, really trying to get my head around all the studying.
I can officially say HEY GUYS I'M WRITING A SOCIAL NETWORK THING with my friend Kyrox who is also on LJ somewhere but I can't remember his username or how to insert LJ Usernames.
This social network is called Cyndle.
You can find it here, but be warned, it's naught but a placeholder page.

v1 will be out eventually when we get everything coded.

I don't update LJ much any more.
This is mostly for personal reasons, which I'm not gonna talk about even on my LJ which is apparently pretty private since hardly any people visit it.
If you're my friend to any great degree, you'll either know already what's up, or have some way to contact me privately, so if you want to talk, hit me up at some point.

Xbox live. It's pretty darn' awesome.
I don't have gold YET, but I'mma get it the moment I can afford it.
Meantime, I'm a silver member with a helluvalot of content on his 60GB 360.

Creativity.
I've not been doing much HERE, either. My usual excuse is "I'm pressed for time", which means "I'm a lazybutt".
I have however, recently made up a few manipulat'd wallpapers that're not being released online.
Why? Because I really don't want to have the problems of finding who's made what, and asking for permission, so if anyone wants, I'll email. (c) is whoever.

So yeah
This thing's pretty awesome
Already completed Call of Duty 4. Just waiting until I have enough money to get a gold account so I can play online.
Because I spent the rest of my money on CoD4 and the wireless adapter for the 360.

And:

Ohhhhyesss.

310 gamerpoints |3

I'm so selling LOST as soon as I can.
And deleting Kung Fu Panda/Lego Indy as soon as I can.
AND HEY I'M GETTING GTA IV later when I can afford it.

Merry Christmas, you guys. C:

THINGS I GOT:
Monies
Monies
XBOX 360
Monies
Chocolate
Monies
Pringles
Monies
Monies
Cards
Monies
Monies
Monies


Monies.

What did you all get?

Also yeah, xbox live. MudtailW. Add meh. :P

Won't be online TODAY, since I don't yet have the internet. Hooked it up to the router for a few hours to download some demos, get the NXE (damn, that's sexy), and a few other stuffs. Oh yeah, Mirrors Edge rocks. And, um, yeah. Downloaded 1016MB in about 10 minutes. 10mbps. Faster than I've ever had in my entire life.


News update to follow eventually.

Okay so linux broke. :C
I'm stuck with windows because ubuntu won't logon. Graphics drivers crash.
So meh. I miss stability.

ANYWAY ON TO SCHOOL
School's been crazy, very hectic and stuff.

And I was off for a week and a half (collectively), the flu ain't very good.

Also I'm listening to some very silly radio broadcast thing on the internet. http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1784762/

I've been working on a secret social network project with a friend, <lj:kyroxarashi />. So HAH.
PHP is fun when you're developing the biggest thing ever, and you don't even know how to work PHP. :P
But I think I'm getting the hang of it >.>

Gwah. Just got home from school, I'm pretty tired out. D;