Testing Testing 123.. creations first words ..

Creating an online application Drama Part 1
Not sure when part two will come out, but i'm sure it wont be long.

I have spent a large chunk of my day, testing a wonderful product called ImageMagick. Most developers have heard of this and more than likely know the pain of it all.

ImageMagick is awesome at what it does, but its installation method is like kissing a donkeys rear and enjoying it.

Warning to you all, you will have a hundred and one web hosts telling you that they have ImageMagick installed on their servers, what they dont tell you is 90% dont have the libraries installed which makes ImageMagick useless in many ways. The reason we want imagemagick is because of all the fancy classes it comes with, if it weren't for that we would just use Gd.

So after finding out that the server my client has, does have ImageMagick I got excited and went ahead, put my files on the server and set up a test image.. B'bum b'bum.. what was the error you ask.. (well all the tech heads did) Imagick class not found.

So here I am, listening to Adam on the phone to godaddy support.. who had no idea about what we were asking them..

" ohh you want the absolute path? "

"Noooooo, I want to know the path you have the Imagick class stored under"

"Well, to get the absolute path, you should blaa blaa blaa"

So we did more research and end up finding out that the only method of having ImageMagick and its classes (which as i mentioned are necessary to use the damn thing) is by having a virtual dedicated server. Not on shared server. Shared server have the program installed but not the class.. WHAT??

Now let me stop there for a sec.. "Why on this morbid planet, would you Install ImageMagic without the classes then go advertise left right and center that you have ImageMagick.." answer me this.. What is the point? Was it just to drive me crazy? Did you all think it would be fun to not have the class there and sit back and wait till i called support??? To watch little miss Me go crazy while attepting to explain what ImageMagic was to to you people?? Oh ye, Great support library you guys have btw. One Paragraph on ImageMagick. pfft..

Anyway, we ring up support again and say we want to upgrade the account to a virtual, which normally costs about 450 a year. So we do so, on a guarantee that on a virtual we can install imageMagick and all its classes..

So we all get excited we can see the finish line..
only 10 steps to go, step 1, great, step 2: fantastic, step 3: brilliant, step 4: ecstatic, step 5: amazed, step 6: soo excited nearly there, step 7: woot, step 8: Soo close now, step 9 : Server pooped itself.

ARE YOU SERIOUS????? no wonder half these hosts gave up and only installed half of it.
Anyway, due to the brilliance of my partner in crime the co developer, we got it working..
thank god..

Just another exciting day in the office.. I'm sure tomorrow will be just as good.