Just a quick heads up that the new RAWR DnD Update is now available.  I’m also glad to see that you guys are back to DnD-ing after a 5-month hiatus.

Hope it was fun!

I like Folaji.com.

I like it because this is probably the first site that I’ve ever created for myself, and after a year and a half online, I find nothing more relaxing than sitting back and looking at my site, which I built the way I wanted to, without the constant input from some external party about advertising revenues and traffic statistics.

Its not that I hate developing sites for other,  I’ve been doing that for as long as I can remember, and I don’t see any reason why I would stop.  But there is something liberating about creating a site that is yours and yours alone, a site where you have final say on content, look and feel, and overall organization.

And that’s what Folaji.com is for me: a place I can escape to and be myself, where I can publish ideas, stories, and videos that had once only been a sentence on a piece of paper in an old binder.  A place where others can come and read those stories, discuss them, and share their own if they would like.  (Ok, maybe the Folaji.com community isn’t big enough for that yet, but hey, I can dream, can’t I?)

Alright, so why am I writing all this?  Well, I came to the realization a few days ago that none of this would be possible if not for the array of wonderful free web tools available online.  When you look at this site, you should understand that the look and feel, the blog engine, the different tools showing up on the side bar, were all developed by a large online community of bloggers and developers that offer their products for free.  If it weren’t for these people and their willingness to share their tools with the online community, then Folaji.com would only be a shadow of its current self.

So I decided that, as a thank you for everyone’s efforts, I would take the time over the coming months to review each widget, plugin and tool I use on Folaji.com.  This would be my way of thanking the community for such great work, and for allowing me to create this site, and hopefully will encourage others to do the same.

This is an older pic (taken from a trip to Roswell 2-3 years back), and I figure it could make for an interesting Flash Imagination post, so here goes:

Taking a dump with a friend

The alien had landed only a few yards from his cottage.  Lazer gun cocked and ready for shooting, he’d stormed out of his flying saucer and demanded that Bill come with them.

It was only after a lot of talking and a few beers that Bill’d convinced the alien to stay for a while and enjoy the night sky.  In the end, the alien was so drunk he began playing games with Bill, one of which was to copy everything Bill was doing.

This was fun at first, and both alien and human laughed.  They laughed when they both chugged beers at the same time, laughed when the alien followed bill into the woods, and laughed when they both sat side by side in the outhouse, pretending to read the newspaper.

And insert bad probing joke here…

Back in June of last year, a couple of friends and I came out with a RockBand video of Disturbed’s Down With The Sickness. At the time I was unable to add the video to YouTube because of the song being copywrited.

While I was moving files around on the site, I found the video and in a fit of nostalgia decided to look at it again. I found the post on Folaji.com, and noticed the video wasn’t showing up. So I took advantage of this opportunity to try my luck with YouTube again, and I got the video to work!

So, check it out (if you hadn’t already) and enjoy!

Well, there have been a few changes to the site today.

First, the WordPress engine has been upgraded to the latest version.  This upgrade has been a long time coming, but hadn’t been applied yet due to incompatibility with certain plugins.  If you’re interested in details of the upgrade, you can view a quick video in the link below.  Its mostly back end changes that make my life easier, but hey, who doesn’t want to make my life easier, right?

WordPress 2.9 Features

Next bit of news, the Forums have been retired/removed/not there anymore.  Now this shouldn’t be a surprise as I’d explained how I planned to remove them a couple of weeks back.  I just want to say that the people at SimplePress have made a wonderful forums plugin, but when it came down too it, however, the forums were simply no longer useful for this site.

But what happened to all the cool stuff we talked about?

I did make a backup before uninstalling the plugin, so everything is still somewhere.  Also, I’ve moved the RAWR update posts to the blog, and you can now find them under the DnD Weekly Updates category (there’s also a link on the RAWR page).

Oh, and one more thing: I have another blog hidden somewhere on the web that I’ll be incorporating with Folaji.com.  I’ve been thinking about it, and although the subject matter of the other blog is not really related to this site, there’s no real reason why I can’t merge the two together and just create a different category on this site.  So, expect some different and interesting content in the coming weeks.