Adam Hardens Blog

Some of our viewers may have noticed the web sites for WATVA and Trail Patrol were not accessible Saturday to Monday. So I thought I would give the low down on what happened. If you have no interest in the inner workings of the internet, you can stop here. Might I suggest this page instead: http://metobs.ssec.wisc.edu/aoss/cameras/hawkcam-flash.html

So where to start? I think i will start at where the problem came from. The web servers upgrade. A lot of people love to update, but those of us that deal with IT dread upgrades. Why? It usually means something is not going to work like it supposed to, and that means sheer panic for the folks the depend on the said technology.

A few weeks ago I noticed that our web server, which is sitting a comfortable air conditioned warehouse in San Jose, California (we share a rented dedicated server from HostGator.com), had some things that just didn't work right on it. However, they were not pressing issue, just things that made life a little harder to deal with on the server. That is until I noticed the server was running a Linux operating system that was a few versions old. A few versions isn't so bad actually, as it was a solid operating system in terms of reliability. However the upgrades offered some things that I really wanted to make my job a little easier and more reliable. How often does our web server go down or get restarted? In the last year, the web server has been restarted once. 364 solid days of running! I can't go more than a week without restarting my desktop. So I decided that the benefits outweighed the potential drawbacks to upgrading, even though I knew some headaches would come up.

The server was taken offline Friday May 11th at 11pm CST. The update, from HostGator, would take about 5 hours. They sent me emails during critical moments of the upgrade, which was nice. Around 4am the update was complete. HostGator sent me an email saying they would retain the old server for 48 hours before recycling the hard drive. 

On our systems down in Sheboygan, all the web sites came back without an issue. Not only did they come back without a problem, they loaded a lot faster. I thought wow, no problem, this is rare! Then Sunday came. Sunday afternoon we received an email from a great WATVA member in the north woods that said she was unable to access the site. We sent off some emails to our Regional Coordinators in the north to confirm this. Most said they could not access it, while one said if he used his wireless data he could but not cable internet. To me, that made no sense. So, where did we go wrong?

I started to look at the setup of the server. Everything seemed to be in order. Hmm. So I had the person send me a screen shot of what error they were getting or what their screen looked like. This helps me to get pointed in the right direction. I figured out it wasn't the hardware of the server, this was a software glitch, most likely a DNS issue. 

DNS? What is that?!? DNS, or Domain Name Server, is like the internet's white pages. They are computers setup all over the world that keep the physical address of a web site in a directory. Physical Address? Let me explain! When you go to the web site www.watva.org, you're not really viewing a page from the web address of watva.org. Nope, sorry. The fancy letters that make up www.watva.org are actually a mask! A mask for what? This: 50.23.12.151, and IP address. That's the true address for this server (among other sites that are sitting on this server). Computers and such on the internet have no idea what www.watva.org means, but they do know what the IP address means. An IP address is much like your house address or phone number, more like your phone number. If you really want to learn more about IP addresses, see the wikipedia document here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_address. I tried to find a nice graphic of DNS and the internet, but they made my head hurt, so I shall spare you.

So where does DNS fit in with IP addresses? Right here! A domain name server is a giant list that says if you want to visit www.watva.org, your computer needs to send it's request the web server at the address of 50.23.125.151. If your going to a web server that has multiple web sites on it, such as the server WATVA has (it shares its web site with National Motorsports, Rider Network, NOHVIS, etc.), the DNS server knows what page to show you based on your request. Again, a giant directory is all DNS is. 

Back to the main topic here, the settings for the DNS on our server were incorrect, but only slightly. Each internet service is different, and each domain name server is different. Some understood that the error with WATVA was only partial, so it did find a way to send its requests here. Domain name servers in the north, did not understand this and gave users a web site not found page. So, with some researching and pulling of some hairs, I resolved those issues on the server. Only, users were still not getting there, and furthermore I now could not access the site. 

Not only did I find that some settings were wrong on the web server, but there were some incorrect settings with some of the domain name setup itself (which we use GoDaddy for our domains)! That's a larger problem however, in terms of trouble shooting. Why? Each time you visit www.watva.org your computer remembers that the web site watva.org goes to the specific IP address. It remembers this for around 12-24 hours unless a setting says to forget it at a different time. So if I made a change, I would have to wait 12-24 hours to see if it worked. That's a pain. I was able to get around this a little by using some handy tools that dont make me wait. However, all of my users didnt have these tools and I wouldn't expect anyone to have them either. 

In the end, we got the issues resolved with both the domain server and the domain name. It took a few days but that's the nature of the beast with DNS issues. 

For those that read this and are thinking:

Don't worry. The problem was fixed!

We are starting to see them pop up in advertising, magazines and textbooks. In fact, WATVA has been using them for more than a year now on some of our hand outs and magazine Trail Tales. In case you're not aware of what I am talking about, see the following images:

Spoiler alert! That's the upcoming Trail Tales cover for winter 2011 which is being printed as I type this.

Anyways, the 2nd image is a true QR code. Let's get into the specifics about what they are.

Cloud based something or other... and you don't even have wireless? No worries!

If you have ever watched an amazon commercial advertising their "cloud" you might be scratching your head as to what that has anything to do with books. Ha. Well, I am going to go over cloud based publishing. More specifically, cloud based publishing as there are various levels of the "cloud."

But, before I do that, let's take a look at Google's cloud based publishing tools to better understand what the "cloud" really is. I will go over in detail what it is after this short non-product placement endorsement video!

Woah! That's pretty slick! But, I still don't get what the "cloud" is!?!?

Ok, let's see if I can tackle this term. Cloud, or cloud based computing, is using a companies server computers (in the videos case, Googles) to do publishing vs. your computer running software to publish documents. In a nut shell, when you hear the "cloud," it really means anything that is done on the internet. It's that simple.

When I was taking my web design classes we spent a good 20 minutes debating the term cloud and came to a group conclusion that it is, in fact, a good term. Our conclusion was the internet is so massive, reaching every corner of the planet (you could argue the solar system), that a broad term such as cloud covers everything easily. That was about eight years ago, before the invention of Google Documents, Microsoft Office Online or content management. 

So, what am I getting at in this blog? 

Let's think of an example together. Say we have a club that is writing a press release about their upcoming trail opening ceremony. It's an important document that is going in a few newspapers. The club secretary, Joe, was tasked with writing the article. He takes a stab at it using Microsoft Word 2000 and sends it to the club officers. One club officer uses a Mac and doesn't have word for mac. She can still open the document, but in the transition something got messed up and she doesn't bother reading it. Meanwhile, the club President opens the document on Word 2011 and makes some changes. He sends it back to Joe, however Joe can't open the document because it was saved in a newer format. Drat! Two other officers make their own changes and send it back to Joe, as to which he can open it but now has two sets of documents to merge into his own. Shortly after spending 20 minutes of cussing out the process, the President finally sends his revisions over saved in an older format. #@!$$@!! is all that comes out of Joe's mouth.

Enter cloud based publishing. Because Google was nice enough to supply us with that video, I am going to endorse use their product as an example (I am not a Google fan boy... *cough*). 

Joe decides to take his press release with the current revisions and open it in Google Docs. He opens his web browser Microsoft Internet Explorer (see, I could have said he opens it in Google Chrome), goes to the web site http://www.google.com/docs and clicks on the upload tool. He selects his word document and a few seconds later his word document is now on his screen in his web browser, fully editable. Not only can he edit, save and print it, he can also invite the other club officers to log into Google Documents and make changes live! That's right, you can be watching the others make changes in front of you. It does have a small amount of creepiness to it, but amazing none the less. At the end of the day, all the revisions are made, everyone signs off on the document and away to the presses.

Sounds like a neat story right? Let's try a real world example, in fact, let's use my personal Google account. I want to share the WATVA Image Team Guidelines for Parades. It's in a word 2010 document. Hold on to your hats, im going to post screen shots!!!

Step 1 - Log into Google Docs. I don't think i need to screen capture me logging into Google documents. You need a Google account, it's free and easy. The screen shot is blurry, as I blurred the actual documents in my list as some of them are personal, so no offense internet. On the left side there is a button called Create, next to it, is the upload button.

Step 2 - Uploading the document is easy. So like I said in step 1, I click the upload tool, a little box folds out where I can click files (I didn't screen capture that, but it also says how much storage space I have left in my account). So I clicked files and this is what I get:

Step 3 - I clicked ok and another box popped up. It's asking me if I want to convert the word document to Google Docs. I do, so I can use the online sharing and such. I can also convert text from a PDF file that I can later edit (pretty nifty). Then I click start upload. To save on my large screen shots, this screen just shows the window after the files been uploaded.

So, from the screen shot above, I can see it was been uploaded, converted and ready to be shared. It also reminds me I am using 84 megs of my 1,024 meg limit of free space. Thanks Google for the friendly reminder!

Step 4 - Let's go ahead and share that beast. After it's uploaded, I clicked the document in the little box that is shown above and it takes me to the document editor. From here, it looks like a word processor. I can change font sizes, alignment, styles, justify yadda, yadda, yadda. What I want to do is share this with the world. Over on the right side, near the top is a share button. I move my mouse over it and it says "Private to only me" meaning that only my Google account can see this document. 

Step 5 - Let's share it, really this time! I clicked the dark box under the share button and this is what comes up. A box that lets me control who can see it. Initially, it's setup as a private document that only I can see. I can invite others to view and / or edit the document, but keep it locked down. A nice feature as well. People can be added via my Gmail contact list or via email. To make this the entire process easier, be sure to have people make a google account first, it's much easier than using email login that confuses people. 

Anyways, I went ahead and clicked the "Change..." link next to private access, as I want the world to be able to view, not edit it. 

Step 6 - Opening the document to the internet (or... cloud.... dun dun dun!). From this screen, I can say the document can be public where anyone can search for it, semi-public where only people with the link can get it to, or private. For this example, it's going to be semi public as you will be able to check it out near the bottom of the blog.

Step 7 - I clicked "Anyone with the link" option, and this is where I can change how it's accessed. For this example, I am going to let people view it and make comments, that's all. I don't want the internet to edit it, that'd be a mistake.

Step... I lost count... Oh yeah, 8! - Once I clicked save, another box popped up with the link to the document. In this case, you can actually view it by visiting https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BQjhtTks9QJ2kYWVO_KEWF91CP2JgR5Wj7OwM6UrwOc/edit, and you can leave me a comment if you wish.

Ok, so that's about it. My document is out on the web for you to view. If I wanted the world to edit it, I could have. Or I could have invited a select few to edit it. How easy is that right?

Google doesn't stop at documents. You can also do spreadsheets (excel), slide shows (powerpoint) or PDF documents. They also don't stop at using computers to access them. I can pull up my documents on my Android phone or tablet.

For me, this tool is really handy for doing work from home and work. I don't need to email myself the document back and forth. I just log into Google Docs.

As for WATVA, we use Google Docs for tracking the TREADY awards (so I can add them into our database at home on the weekends), workshop registrations, document editing and other things I can't think of.

What if you're not a Google fan boy open to using google? You do have some other choices.

• http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/ - Microsoft's approach to cloud documents. For a small businesses, this might be a good option if you don't trust Google. We use their email cloud service called Exchange as it was pretty much the same price as Google's but easier to use. Once you start using Outlook it's hard to switch. 
• http://www.apple.com/iwork/iwork-dot-com/ - Ah yes, Apple Fan Boys will be pleased to see they have embraced the document cloud services as well. However, their product is in beta yet. I use the term fan boy loose of course, no offense mac users :P
• http://www.box.com/ - Looks like a nice service. I can't comment on it because I have not used it. Curses Google and your grasp on me!
• https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/learnmore - Amazons cloud based services don't actually allow you to edit the files, just store them online for free.
• https://www.dropbox.com/ - Same as Amazon, you can't edit them but you can store them online and access them from almost any device.

We all hear the terms on the street... Twitter, Facebook, Google+, MySpace (old), etc. etc. etc.

What is all this jazz about? It's called Social Networking, and it's the new way to communicate online it seems. 

A little background on social networking from my memory and experience. Way back in high school, about ten years ago (ugh!), the popular thing to do was start a MySpace page. This was different than the free web sites people were building such as Angel Fire, Geocities, etc (I am really dating myself here), which I was really into doing as I loved writing my own code and such. Anyways, when MySpace came about, it became a very fast craze. Everyone had to get their "space" on there. So I gave in. However, I was apprehensive towards it as I thought it was just a phase and put little effort into it. Turns out I was right with MySpace, wrong with Social Networking thing.

I have to friend who? Facebook? Eh?

Fast forward ten years. Now MySpace, though still active, has far fewer members than Facebook. Facebook now is not only a gateway into ones life, but a platform for businesses and associations to spread their products / missions, and so forth. I do have my own Facebook page (granted it's very limited to classmates and family only) and I enjoy being able to share photos of my kids to other family members, or see where my parents are, etc. I also enjoy some Facebook group pages such as WATVA, NASA's various pages, National Weather Service's pages and other geeky weather / fire fighting related pages.

As for an association, it's really a great tool to not only promote your missions but to show members and non members that you are actually active, that is, if you choose to keep it up to date. If you would take a look at WATVA's group page (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Wisconsin-ATV-Association-Inc/110943402259329) you will notice that about twice a week we try to post something. That's not to say we only commit two days to WATVA work (trust me, we do far more time), but we choose what we want to publish and not spam the feed. A quick glance at what our Facebook page looks like:

We post everything from upcoming meetings, to videos we produce about various things. I will also post trail closings, or political things that require membership support with, or random photos. Randy, WATVA President also posts right to WATVA's page. That's the nice part of Facebook pages, you can set multiple people to post on behalf of the association. 

This also allows other Facebook members to ask questions to the association. Usually Randy will answer them. Keeping an open line of communication to our members is very important. This is why we engage in all the social networking platforms.  

On the page, the middle portion really is the important part. It shows the status updates, comments on the status, etc. Mostly, everything else is not really important. This is where twitter comes in above facebook, it's less cluttered. Speaking of twitter...

What the heck is a tweet? 

To be honest, I didn't pay much attention to Twitter as my focus was more on Facebook and enjoying a non social internet experience. I always gave the tweeters a stereotype of a bunch of apple fan boys that say meaningless things. However, about six months ago I started exploring how to use twitter and really sat down and found some interesting things about it. 

Twitter is a social networking platform allowing someone to publish "tweets" or messages, in 250 characters or less which shows up on your followers home twitter page. A username in twitter always starts with the "@" character. So, WATVA's twitter account is @WATVA and mine is @skyz0rz. Here is a quick snapshot of my personal twitter page (WATVA's doesn't have much of anything on it, so let's use mine as an example):

So, the first thing in this screen shot is from a twitter account called "Sheboyganscan". This account monitors Sheboygan County emergency radio traffic and puts out short messages on what he hears. Honestly, I an unsure what this guy does for a living, but hey, it's a neat thing to have.

As I started to explore twitter, I found an account for @CarlileTrans which is the transportation company featured on the History Channels Ice Road Truckers. I found them from following Lisa Kelly's account (a female driver featured on the show). Once you start following one account, you tend to find accounts with similar interest and it just goes on and on.

On the right side of the screen, near the top it shows Following and Followers. Following is the accounts I choose to have published to my main page. Followers shows how many people "subscribed" or "follow" my posts. I don't actually push tweets all that often, so my 12 followers makes me laugh a little. In retrospect, Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) as 9,963,993 followers, and yes, I am one of them. I like Taylor's tweets as she usually tweets cell phone pictures from her phone. My daughters love to see that. On the right side of the screen, we also have a list of who else follows that account, and accounts similar to it. 

I could go on a little more about twitter, but perhaps that's another blog by itself.

Google steps up with Google+!

A new stream of social networking that's important to know about is Google+. Basically, they are taking the feel of facebook and cleaning it up for the better. I won't really get into Google+ now, but just know it's out there and picking up a little steam.

So, in the end, should your club have a facebook page? Yes. Should your club have a twitter account? Wouldn't hurt, but I wouldn't spend too much time on it. Should my club still have our own web site? YES. A lot of people still fail to see how having a web site is good for business. That too, is for another blog.