Bubbles in the Bathtub

Oops, didn't even notice that the member sites weren't working. Forgot to configure it in the web server. Should all be working now so you can add new sites and edit your existing sites.

Posted by Michael Coyne at 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Futzing

More or less how I spend my day(s).

Posted by Michael Coyne at 03:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was going to code some new features into the super-secret ARGOS data manager that I am working on, but that last post took too long. And now the kids are waking up. Maybe tonight...

Sorry B&A!

Posted by Michael Coyne at 03:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As many of you have likely noticed I made the move to the new server last week. On Tuesday to be exact. I had forgotten that I was going out of town on an office retreat the next day, or I might have waited just in case there were any problems. C'est la vie. Only relatively minor issues arose, most I was expecting, and certainly nothing fatal.

The majority of problems have revolved around file permissions (the new web server runs as a different user than the old web server) and perl modules. Most of the dynamic content on the site is generated using perl scripts. You can add all kinds of extra functionality to perl through additional perl modules. Needless to say I use many, many extra perl modules (above and beyond the base perl installation) to make the fancy things on seaturtle.org happen. Unfortunately, I do a poor job of keeping track of which ones I am using so I mostly figure it out when some perl script breaks because it can't find a module it needs to operate.

Related to this are a few extra applications that make some of the tools work. GMT, the GD Graphics Library, and ImageMagick are the biggies, to help Maptool and the Image Library go. ImageMagick is by far the trickiest to get running, so Maptool and the Image Library weren't fully functional until Friday or so.

Also ImageMagick and GD have requisite perl modules to make them work with the perl scripts, so those had to be installed. There have been a scattering of other perl modules that I missed, a few to make this blog work. In fact, another suite of modules that I had to install just to write this update from my favorite blog app. If you come across any part of the site (or HerpDigest or the MTSG site for that matter) that give you script errors let me know so I can get them fixed.

As I mentioned before, file permissions have caused some slight problems. One was that page view counters, that are scattered about the site here and there, broke because the server no longer had permission to update the counter files. That's fixed. Another was that members couldn't update their sites, for the same reason. More specifically, they couldn't update existing files, but should have been able to create new one. Anyways, that's fixed too. If you come across any pages that give an error that says something about permission denied let me know so I can fix those too.

The only other issue is the mail system. I don't think there is anything wrong with it, it's just different from what I am used to. I've always just run a pop server, but the new server has an integrated pop and imap server (definitions here). I have to decide whether I want to switch it to just a pop server and keep on working as I have for eons, or change the way I work and start using imap. Decisions, decisions. My understanding is that imap is superior (depending on your needs), but NOAA has done such a poor job of implementing their imap-based mail system that I a wary of making the switch myself. They've basically tied themselves to a Netscape server, and try to discourage you from using mail clients other than Netscape. And Netscape 4.7 at that!!!!!! Which is several years out of date and extremely buggy. What idiots!

That's about it. I'll keep picking away at the problems as they turn up. You can help out by reporting any errors that you come across to me at webmaster@seaturtle.org.

Posted by Michael Coyne at 03:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm at an office retreat at the moment, one of those touchy-feeling events where an organization learns to work as a team and they craft their mission statement and core values. Woo-hoo! What fun...

(This is related to my "real" job, not seaturtle.org.)

Best one-liner of the event so far...

"I am not equipped to deal with irrational behavior."

Second favorite...

"Chicks dig coastal scientists."

Posted by Michael Coyne at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A few things I wanted to post during the week but I forgot the little cable to hook my digital camera up to my laptop. Vacation is over and I'm back home, so here's a little wrap up.

The pic above is a little gator we found in the surf, probably about 2 feet long. Seemed a bit bewildered. I'm not sure if this is normal behavior for alligators. Maybe someone else knows?

My wife ran off to call the conservancy in case they wanted to do anything about it. Lucy showed up in her PJs. Unfortunately I was not wise enough to snap a pic of that scene. She did mention that she had herd of gators turning up in the sure on previous occasions, but this was the first she had seen firsthand.

There was also a sea turtle nest right in front of the beach house we were staying in.

Quite cool as it gave me a chance to tell my daughter what it was and why it was there. She wanted to spend the rest of the vacation digging holes on the beach for the turtles to lay their eggs in :)

Speaking of which, the best part of the trip was the turtle walk we did with Lucy and the conservancy. We actually got to see a nesting loggerhead, my daughters first, and she got to stay up waaaaaay past her bedtime. But it's all she talked about for the next couple of days. She has seen turtles before, at a neat little cove in Hawaii, but she was probably too young to remember.

In any case, we're back and I feel refreshed if not well rested. It always seems to take a few days to recover from a vacation. Too bad they almost always have to end with a really long day of travel...

Posted by Michael Coyne at 10:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It seems like the only time I get to see turtles on the nesting beach is when I am on vacation. Not too bad, certainly makes my vacations exciting.

We did the turtle walk at the Bald Head Island Conservancy (North Carolina) last night. Before that I gave a talk about the Kemp's ridley sea turtle to a group at the conservancy. Mostly BHIC folks, a few locals and a few families on vacation (including mine :). It was quite fun and the audience was very into it. Although I don't think my daughter was impressed. I asked her if daddy's talk was boring and she said "yes". I asked her if she liked the turtle pictures and she said she likes real turtles better :)

After that we watched Lucy Hawkes give a pre-turtle was turtle talk and she took us out to see a turtle nest. Not long after a loggerhead came up to nest and we got to see the whole process. Quite exciting, especially for my family. It helped that my daughter was smitten with Lucy and insisted on holding her hand or sitting in her lap throughout!

If you have ever considered visiting the BHIC I highly recommend it. They do a great job!

Thanks Lucy!

Posted by Michael Coyne at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The others are acting suspicious... I don't like it.

I think they are out to get me...

Posted by Michael Coyne at 08:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Intereting article in the current (July 2003) MacWorld about blogging: Macworld: Macworld Magazine. The current issue isn't on their website yet, but should show up soon.

The article discusses how easy it has become for people to post content to the web, with blogs being one of the vehicles. It also rates the various blogging systems. Moveable Type, the system used by seaturtle.org is one of the better rated systems. I tried a few of them before launching Turtle Journals and have to admit that I liked Moveable Type much more than any of the others. Some are easier to set up, but not nearly as functional. It also rates some of the tools for posting. Again, I have tried many of the programs they reviewd and found their top-rated app, Kung-Log, to be my favorite as well.

In any case, the reason I went to that article first was because of the cover blurb on the magazine: "Weblog Tools Let You Build a Professional or Personal Web Site in a Flash".

Perhaps a bit of an over-statement, but the idea of using a blog system to provide people with an easy way to create a website is intriguing (so?).

I am very much interested in providing an easy way for sea turtle folks to create websites of their own to share with the rest of the sea turtle community. What better place to do this than seaturtle.org, right? I've made a go at it with the members sites, but it hasn't been as popular as I'd hoped. I don't know if that's because people don't know about it, don't know how to use it, or just don't know how to author web pages. Probably a mix of the three. I suppose it doesn't matter how easy or free you make a web site people if they don't know how to author a website in the first place. Unfortunately I can't create everyone's web sites, let alone provide help for everyone that asks in creating their own.

I've considered setting up a template system to make it easier for folks to create webpages. In other words, they wouldn't need to know any of the underlying html, just fill in some blanks. Another option could be a blog system.

The ultimate expression of this effort will hopefully be to provide web space to any sea turtle organizations that want them. But again, if they don't know how to create a web site it won't do much good. Another option would be to find a collection of html jocks to work for low or no cost to help these orgs develop, create and maintain their websites (there is nothing more annoying than stale content). Perhaps there are folks out there willing to donate their time in such endeavors or perhaps we could tap into some university students that need some practive for class projects or some such.

That's quite a ramble...

If anyone has any ideas, fire way!

Posted by Michael Coyne at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

...of a (well-deserved) vacation.

Hopefully this will give me a chance to catch up on my blogging. A million topics flitted through my head over the last week as I was trying to get the new server configured, but didn't have time to put any of them down in writing.

Now I am taking a week off to recreate on the beaches of North Carolina. Will visit with Lucy while I am here and hopefully Matthew will be able to drop in.

FWIW, the server is ready to go, just not hooked up yet. I ran out of time but will get it hooked up within a day or two upon my return.

More later...

Posted by Michael Coyne at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(*&^$#%(#

So the guy showed up last night with the two extra drives for the server and more memory. Installation was a snap (more on that later). So now we have 2GB of RAM and 4-60GB hard drives.

My plan was to use the 2 extra drives to mirror the first two drives for data redundancy (if one drive fails the mirror just takes over without a loss of service). So, drives are all installed and I sit down last night to set-up the RAID mirrors. Hmmm, how do I do that without wiping out all of the work I have done already. It suddenly occurs to me that to set-up the mirrored drives I have to reformat them (&%#$&%). It also means reinstalling the operating system and all of the upgrades from scratch! So all of the work I have done so far is for naught, unless you count the experience gained :) I'm waiting to see if there is a way to pull them off (not likely), but looks like I'll have to start over...

Posted by Michael Coyne at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Working for the government this is particularly funny (we run into a LOT of consultants)...

A shepherd is herding his flock in a remote pasture when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of the dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a Broni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and YSL tie leans out the window and asks the shepherd,

"If I tell you exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one?"

The shepherd looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully-grazing flock and calmly answers, "Sure."

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his IBM Thinkpad and connects it to a cell phone, then he surfs to a NASA page on the Internet where he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system, scans the area, and then opens up a database and an Excel spreadsheet with complex formulas. He sends an e-mail on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response. Finally, he prints out a 150 page report on his hi- tech, miniaturized printer, then turns to the shepherd and says, "You have exactly 1,586 sheep".

"That is correct, take one of the sheep," says the shepherd.

He watches the young man select one of the animals and bundle it into his car. Then the shepherd says: "If I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give it back to me?"

"Okay, why not," answers the young man.

"Clearly, you are a consultant" says the shepherd.

"That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"

"No guessing required," answers the shepherd. "You turned up here although nobody called you. You wanted to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked, and you don't know crap about my business. Now give me back my dog."

Posted by Michael Coyne at 03:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mainly for my own purposes, but if you've ever wondered what the difference was between passive and active ftp, here it is (that little toggle in your ftp client settings)...

http://slacksite.com/other/ftp.html

If you ever have problems using ftp it is likely because you are in the wrong mode.

Posted by Michael Coyne at 03:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Situation normal, all ****** up.

Don't remember if I mentioned, but they didn't have all the components in for the server when I bought it (needed a couple more hard drives and three memory cards). They were supposed to arrive yesterday, but never showed up. Just called the company I bought the server from and they said that for some reason the stuff was shipped to the store instead of straight to me (they didn't know why). It turns out that one of their techs lives near me and they say he can drop the components off at my house tonight. Yay!

On the upside I think I've figured out the directory structure I am going to use for all of the user and website home directories. Now just need to get sendmail and dns configured properly and we are all set!

Posted by Michael Coyne at 03:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Woo-hoo!

Finally got maptool running on the new server. Man is it fast. Maptool is one of the things that was pushing the old server to it's limits, really making it show it's age. I just generated a few maps that would take a minute or more to generate on the old server. The new server processes them in just a couple of seconds.

Posted by Michael Coyne at 03:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SEATURTLE.ORG had enough funds in the bank this weekend for me to run out and pick up the new server.

There was a lot going on, quite the whirlwind of a day (raquetball in the morning, naps, a trip to the library, trying to get across town to the apple reseller, and a party in the evening to celebrate a snazzy award that my boss received). The unfortunate side was that I wasn't able to fully enjoy the experience, in the way that one should enjoy a purchase of this caliber. Rushed out to get the server, rushed back home, tossed it in the office and then had to go straight out to the party. I didn't even get to open the box! *&$!^(#%^*@&%

I went round and round in my own mind about what kind of server to get. On the one hand I could just get a newer Dell, install the same operating system (RedHat 8), move everything over and call it a day. On the other hand, I could go for an XServe. Less money for a comparable or better server (depending on what you are looking for of course). Lots of really nice Apple tools (streaming QuickTime!) all sitting on top of the same tools the current server has. The downside is a new operating system and file structure that I would have to figure out, and more time spent transmogrifying all of the existing files and programs to the new server.

I finally decided to go with the XServe, mainly because if there is one thing that I know better than *nix it's mac. Double bonus! By purchasing through a local reseller instead of directly from Apple I was able to get about $500 off retail. Woo-hoo! Unfortunately they didn't have all of the components on hand and have to send a few items from the warehouse (1.5 GB of RAM and 2 more hard drives) which should arrive tomorrow.

So what did we get?
An Apple XServe with dual 1.33MHz processors, 2GB of RAM, and 4x60GB hard drives. One drive for the system, one drive for all the data (websites, user files, etc) and a drive each to mirror the first two. The two drives for the system and data are important because it helps protect the system from user error that might bring the system down. The two extra drives are obvious in that everything will be immediately backed up. If one drive fails, just switch it with the mirror and put in a new mirror drive.

I was finally able to open the box on Sunday. Started the process of copying all of the files from the old server to the new server (only took about 48 hours, actually started that on Friday night from the old server to an external hard drive). I have been playing with setting up all of the services (web, ftp, mail, dns) to see how the work and what I need to do to customize them. Almost have them all figured out. I've started the long, long process of installing all of the extra modules and extensions that seaturtle.org and the other sites need to do their fancy thang. I've actually set-up one test site (a local version of seaturtle.org) and mostly have it working. Still haven't tested everything, getting Maptool functioning for one will be a prickly pear.

Once I get seaturtle.org running properly (it's by far the most complex), I'll set up the others, shut down the old server, syncronize all of the files and databases one last time and then the new server will go live! Hopefully I will have it all figured out by the end of the week and be able to take the server to the new ISP next weekend.

I see a lot of late nights this week...

Posted by Michael Coyne at 05:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)