Archive for the ‘Site News’ Category

Whew!

After much wringing of hands and a few hiccups along the way, the Gate is now at its new home with Media Temple (who are pretty awesome as those sorts of things go).  Hopefully, everything will continue to run smoothly and we won’t have any major problems going forward.

Be that as it may, if you—our beloved readers—see anything that seems to be acting odd, that looks funny, that appears broken, or that you simply don’t like, please leave a comment or contact me via email.

Thank you for your patience throughout this process.

In addition to the server change, I have also added TweetMeme’s “ReTweet” button which has been taking the web by storm lately.  This little green button (which utterly refuses to speak to my orange-based color scheme) allows you to automatically ReTweet (or “RT”) posts from Gate 21 on your Twitter account to share with others.  For now, this button will be appearing at the top of each post (but it may eventually move).  In that same vein, you can also share content from the Gate on a bevy of other services with a single click via the line of buttons at the bottom of each post.  Finally, just in case you didn’t know, you can also subscribe to both the posts and comments here at the Gate so that all of our Big Orange Goodness will appear on your homepage or RSS reader of choice, or—if you so desire—you can even subscribe by email via the interface near the bottom of the left sidebar.  For what it is worth, I use Google Reader to read all my favorite blogs, sites, and so forth from one easy to access location.  I highly recommend it, it’s a major timesaver.

At any rate, I just wanted to pass along the news that the Gate made the journey to its new home on the web, and let you know that we should be getting back to a normal posting schedule around here shortly.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled web-surfing activities…

– So it goes…

Well, I am almost done with the migration of the Gate from its current location on the web to its new home with my new hosting provider: Media Temple.  So far, I have been nothing but impressed with what they have to offer and I hope that there are many great things to come in the future here as a result.   I anticipate the “flipping the switch” for the change over in the next day or so, thus, my prior warning about the possibility that the Gate might “go missing” stands for a little while longer.  Such is life.

At any rate, due to being tied up with all my hosting-reconfiguration activities, I haven’t really had a chance to finish up the post I had planned for today. Thus, at a minimum I wanted to pass on a few links and what-not that seemed worth giving a look.

• The Big Orange Roundtable Returneth: For those of you that remember the Vol-blogosphere’s little foray into collaboration from 2008, the roundtable is back.  Thus, the Big Orange Brethren (myself included) kickoff the 2009 Big Orange Roundtable this week with the first installment hosted by MoonDog.  For those of you who were not around for last year’s roundtable, it is a weekly roundtable discussion where a host poses a series of questions to the collective brain-trust of the Vol-blogosphere who, respond with their BS insightful and thought provoking answers.  At the end of the week, the host provides a round-up of the responses and the comments posted by each of the member Roundtable sites, along with a few parting thoughts.  It is a great series that was a lot of fun last season. Go ahead and check out this week’s questions.   I plan on posting my responses in the next day or so.
• Ray Nettles and the Long Road to Redemption: Ray Nettles was a linebacker for the Big Orange from 1969-1971, winning All-America and All-SEC honors in 1971.  Over the past 38 years since leaving Tennessee he has struggled with his demons and his own brand of inner-conflict.  Now, however, he talks of redemption and finding his way back home from battles with addiction, marital strife, and now cancer.  Throughout his journey he has been supported by his former teammates in ways that even he has a difficult time understanding.

  Video: Ray Nettles Seeks Redemption

  This is a really powerful story of success, collapse, failure, and recovery which I highly recommend. Via: Florida Times-Union • HT: The Vol Historian

• The 2008 Football Season in Seconds: Joel, “the Flashmaster General” offers up a re-cap of the entire 2008 football season in only seconds.   How, you ask? Through the miracles of the Adobe flash player, that’s how.  Check it out, just in case you forgot… Via: Rocky Top Talk

• At least I drive better than this: I am really not sure why this lady was having such a difficult time driving a golf cart. They are fairly simple inventions.  Two pedals.  One steering wheel.  Four tires.  Needless to say, I won’t be riding with her anytime soon.

  Video: How Not to Drive a Golf Cart

  Now I know where personal-injury lawyers get their clients… Via: Fandome

At any rate, I hope to have the Gate migrated to its new home and to finally be set for the upcoming football season soon.

Until then, this will have to do…

– So it goes …

Well, now that I have completely remodeled the Gate, I am no longer content to live with the constant issues I have had with my hosting provider.  Thus, over the next few days, I will be migrating the Gate to a new hosting provider.  This entails a number of risky endeavours on my part and could result in a near cataclysmic meltdown of epic proportions whereby Gate 21 simply vanishes into the ether world and ceases to exist (just ask MoonDog if you don’t believe me).

Needless to say, I’ve got my fingers crossed…

Despite these risks, a change in hosting providers will greatly improve the speed, reliability, and overall performance of the Gate immensely.  All of this occurs behind the scenes, but it is the key to making the site fizz.  Think of it as replacing the engine in your car—from thousands of miles away.  Fortunately, I have been been through this before—just not on my site.  I also have an ace up my sleeve in the form of web-guru extraordinaire GrandmasterB, who I may call upon to assist if I screw the pooch.

Why am I telling you all of this, you ask?

I am passing this along just as an FYI to both of you out there who regularly visit the Gate because it is entirely possible (read: “a sure thing”) that the Gate may “go missing” for a period of time while the migration is underway.  Furthermore, any number of web errors of the more hysterical and unreasonable sort may appear when you attempt to visit the Gate over the next few days.  I doubt this will occur until later in the week, but I figured I’d go ahead and spread the word in advance—you never know when I will get some sort of wild-haired notion.

At any rate, wish me luck as I make these upgrades to the nirvana-esque experience that is Gate 21.

Angels and Ministers of Grace Defend Us…

– So it goes…

Image(s) Courtesy of:    XaraXone

Yes, Gate 21 is “Moving on Up“…

Found at bee mp3 search engine

Gate 21 Version 2.0

It was a chore, it took far longer than it should have, and—in terms of substance—it amounts little more than putting lipstick on the pig, but here it is.  After weeks of gnashing my teeth at CSS and html which refused to do what I wanted it to do, I am pleased to announce the debut of the new and improved Gate 21.  For those of you have been around these parts before, you can see that things look a bit different.

After nearly two years of the same basic layout, I decided it was time to do a little remodeling here at the Gate.  One thing led to another and “a little remodeling” turned into me completely redesigning the Gate from the top to the bottom.  Yes, though it was a faithful servant, I have sacked the old iLeather theme that was the mainstay here are the Gate for so long.  In its place is the new completely custom look which took me far longer to pull together and design than I ever dreamed was possible.

Everything is new again (that doesn’t mean, however, that it is actually any better though … sigh.).

There are still some kinks to be worked out here and there and there are a few new content areas I hope to roll out in the coming days, but—for the most part—the project that has eaten up nearly every second of my time over the past few weeks is finally done.  Hopefully, both of you out there that regularly visit will like it.  If not, well, that’s what the comments box is for—I welcome any and all criticism.

At any rate, just to give everyone the 50-cent tour.  The main changes are … well … everything.  The highlights, however, include:

• New page and category bars at the top which feature fancy-schmancy drop-down menus.  Hopefully, that will make it easier for everyone to find what they are looking for.
• Gus, our trusty mascot here at the Gate, underwent some major plastic surgery and—all things considered—looks a bit better as a result.
• No, the rather massive blogroll that has been a staple here at the Gate did not disappear, it simply moved down to the footer to help make things a little cleaner and less cluttered.  Everything is organized by subject and the whole list (at least in theory) will now expand and collapse at a click.
• The typography is new as well, hopefully improving readability.
• I added a little more “visual direction” to the header so that people who have never been to Neyland Stadium might actually be able to figure out that the name “Gate 21” actually refers to the Real Gate 21 and have some idea of what it looks like
• Oh yeah, and following the lead of the Blackjack General (a/k/a “Lane Kiffin”), I decided to adopt a darker overall look with more black—especially in the background.

At any rate, I hope that these changes improve the experience here at the Gate.  I hope these changes make it look a little nicer.  I hope the whole site doesn’t crash and burn as I finish up converting all of the old content around here over to make it play nice with the new design.  Either way, please feel free to let me know if you like it, hate it, or could care less.  If there is something that isn’t working properly, is hard to read, or simply annoying, feel free to let me know that too.  Though Gate 21 version 2.0 is now here for the entire world to see, it is still a work in progress, so any feedback is appreciated.

At any rate, here it is in all of its radiant glory—the new Gate 21.

I do sincerely hope you like it…

– So it goes…

Just in case you were wondering, I have not abandoned the Gate this week.  In fact, I have been working harder on this joint this week than I have in months.  Unfortunately, all of that work has been behind the scenes…

…for the moment.

Let’s just say that I am taking advantage of the current off-season lull to make a few changes around here and to do a bit of remodeling.  Let’s just call it “Gate 21 — 2.0.”  Hopefully, all of this work will not be for naught.  Hopefully, I’ll be done with this marathon soon.  Hopefully, there will still be more than three people around to read once I bring the changes live.  Who knew this whole “blogging thing” would be so much work?

In the meantime, I’ll just leave you with this little visual representation of where this ship is headed.  Trust me, this is but one very small part of what I have in store for everyone in the near future:

The Changing Face of the Gate…

November 2007	February 2008	?? July 2009 ?? (I sure hope so)

Hopefully, I will actually get a little chance to write a few things here this weekend which I have had to put off a bit.  Yeah, yeah … excuses, excuses.  At any rate, please bear with us—there are exciting things to come in the near future.

In the meantime, just try to remember that Gate 21 does exist, and check back with us soon…

– So it goes…

Gate 21 is Currently Experiencing Server Problems

(a/k/a Lawvol must have screwed things up)

For anyone out there who reads, views, rips-off, hacks, or otherwise visits the Gate, please be advise that we are experiencing rather massive technical difficulties at present which intermittently result in the site simply not appearing.  Thus, if you attempt to visit the Gate and instead are greeted by an offer of hosting services from Host-I-Can, then you know that the problem is not yet fixed.

I am in the process of trying to figure out what the issue is and to fix it.  Until then, however, please bear with us as we try to sort out the mess that is my creation.  We appreciate your patience and (hopefully) I will have them resolved soon.

Until then, if for any reason Gate 21 does not appear when you attempt to navigate to the site, please try again a few minutes later. Sorry for the inconvenience.

With any luck, we’ll be back up to our usual low standards as soon as possible (we really, really, hope)…

» Updated:  9 June 2009 — 2:30pm

The problems appear to have been fixed.  Thus, you can return to your regularly scheduled aimless wandering throughout the Gate.  Thanks for your patience.

– So it goes

Well, after taking the better part of two weeks off here at the Gate, and enjoying a little vacation in my “real” life, I am back once more.  If anyone noticed that I was gone, that is.

At any rate, now that I am back I am hoping to get a few features back up and running while we wait for football season to finally get here.  Apparently the mainstream media is feeling the same pressure to find something … anything … to write about at present.  Hence the News Sentinel’s in-depth focus on some old Tennessee football photographs (which are pretty cool, I must say) and observations on Lane Kiffin’s meteoric rise to prominence in the world of college football.

Slim pickings…

Since my other team, the Carolina Hurricanes, lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins in the NHL Eastern Conference Playoffs (ouch) I can’t even talk about hockey anymore.  I guess we’re just going to have to depend on HSH for any real substance until the season rolls around (no pressure or anything).

The good news is that, as the little tell-tale countdown in the right sidebar ticker confirms, we now officially have less than 100 days until kickoff.  Furthermore, things are heating up in the race to win the Fulmer Cup.  Still, football season has a ways to go before it arrives.

Needless, to say I am counting the days…

So, you might ask, is there a point to this post?  Well, in short, no.  Then again, I have never been one to sweat the small stuff such as accurately and succinctly conveying a message.

Minor details, minor details...

Sometimes we all fail, no matter how hard we try.  I think this is one of those times, not that I tried all that hard.

Anyway, go check out the old Tennessee football photos I mentioned above.  Oh, and make sure you go to see the new Star Trek movie, it rocks!  Other than that, I’ve got nothing for you today.

Yeah, this off season thing is a killer…

– So it goes…

Image(s) Courtesy of: The Fail Blog