What Was New: April - June 2000

Yet More NT Problems (6/24/00) In the past couple of days I've encountered some new problems with NT on both the server and my workstation.

Cheap Backup Solutions (6/23/00) This is a fairly long description of how I've got nearly fully automated backups on the Linux and NT systems without any dedicated archive media.

Switching IP addresses is a Pain (6/19/00) Though nothing remotely like the problems that I had with NT changing the IP addresses on the Linux and OpenBSD machines was not trivial.

NT Nightmare Losing Web Setup (6/16/00) Changing the IP setup on NT caused all the web and FTP configuration data to disappear TWICE. I eventually concluded that when there is a discrepancy between the IP setup for your web or FTP sites and your network configuration, Microsoft hides all the web and FTP data until the network is made to match the web/FTP settings. I didn't reach this conclusion though until after spending a long day plus un installing and reinstalling the web and FTP software, redoing all the setups from scratch. With more than a dozen virtual sites with widely varying security setups this is not trivial and I'm still not done.

Red Hat Linux Issues (6/11/00) Dealing with both UNIX like systems made me aware that I had both disk space and backup issues that I had to deal with. I ended up completely reinstalling the Red Hat 6.2 Linux system. Why I had to do this and what I encountered is described in Reinstalling Red Hat 6.2 Linux.

Microsoft Index Server Problem Update (6/6/00) Problems dealing with the Open BDS and Linux system led me back to my local Perl documentation and triggered another attempt to get Index Server working again. What I encounterd is described and some conclusions about Windows inherent instability are drawn.

Problems With Open Source Systems (6/4/00) When I tried implementing site searching on the Open BSD system I ran into an unexpected roadblock. The GDBM_File module for Perl was not installed. Problems and choices faced while trying to find it and get it installed are described in Problems With Open Source (OpenBSD) Systems.

Site Searching Update (6/2/00) I finished integrating site searching with standard GeodSoft page and adding the options that I wanted late yesterday and describe what was involved in Site Searching Update.

Site Searching (6/1/00) I've got basic site searching working on the Linux machine and describe the process in Implementing Site Searching on GeodSoft.com.

List Servers and Contracts (5/30/00) Over the past couple of days I've added greatly to Integrating a List Server With the Site and Membership which has become way too long and needs to be split. Today I wrote another new page, also in the ATLA Web Site area, on an electronic contract system I came up with in October 1998.

Current Site Overview (5/27/00) I added a new first page to the Building GeodSoft.com (formerly Making This Site) section that provides an overview of the current site.

Still More Navigation Changes (5/24/00) After spending a day or so changing the graphic navigation aids, I switched to text only links and changed the site colors as well. See Dropping Graphical Navigation Buttons for a brief explanation of why. The previous look was preserved in a copy of the home page. These changes dropped the home page from 22K to 16K total.

Site Navigation Changes (5/24/00) After spending quite a while yesterday changing the standard navigation aids for the site, I wrote a long new page describing why and how the Graphics Changes were made. The original site appearance was saved in an older home page as well the first alternative design.

Continued Work on Large Web Project (5/22/00) Finished the Security and Member Database page which will probably need to be split into seven pages because of its size. This will require modifying the site maintenance script to provide a multi level table of contents (nested unordered lists) for series of sequentially related pages. Started Integrating a List Server With the Site and Membership.

Completed the Sample Site (5/21/00) I finished removing the last traces of proprietary content from the sample site and added two significant new pages that described the problem and the solution that the sample site represents.

Linux Gnome Aside (5/20/00) Frustrations with the Gnome GUI are described.

Standardization Script Updates (5/20/00) I encountered and dealt with some discrepancies in the standardization script on NT and Linux. I discuss these in a new update section. I discuss frustrations I've been experiencing with Linux Gnome GUI in a new page.

New Pages in George Shaffer's Largest Web Project (5/19/00) I've been working on the large page on Security and the Member Database in George Shaffer's Largest Web Project area. I also made a trivial change on the Terms of Use page and large changes to the Privacy Policy page. The privacy changes were prompted by comments on grc.com that it's meaningless to say that a site collects no personal information on its visitors. Steve Gibson correctly made the point that it is a privacy violation to secretly track an individual's motions across the Internet to determine that that individual is likely to like Miles Davis even if the tracking software does not know if the tracked individual is George Shaffer or Steve Gibson or someone else.

Time for Content Development (5/17/00) After a week working on paid projects I've come back and changed the "About Us" button to "About GeodSoft" and fixed a little bug in the standardization script. Except for site searching there don't seem to be any site wide issues left so it looks like a good time to start focusing on new page content.

Describing the Implementation of the Script (5/10/00) I wrote a new page in the Designing GeodSoft.com (formerly Making This Site) section that describes some of the issues I encountered while implementing the script. If I'd had a little more foresight I could have saved myself a lot of time and I discovered a mistake that turned out to be quite fortuitous.

Standardization Script Written (5/9/00) I pretty much completed the standardization script today and have run it on the entire site several times experimenting with some minor changes. I've started splitting the "Large Web Project" document into separate documents in /about/project/ but have not linked to these yet. I used the new script to generate the table of contents and page navigation aids.

More NT Quirks (5/8/00) Started another page on NT problems, this time with Index Server which has stopped working for no apparent reason.

Perl and CGI on NT (5/8/00) Added a significant new section the previous page discussing more problems with running Perl on an NT system or perhaps more accurately some of NT's more serious problems.

Planning the Maintenance Script (5/7/00)Another large new page in the Designing GeodSoft.com (formerly Making This Site) area discussing in some detail how a maintenance script works.

CGI and Perl (5/6/00) Added a large new page to the Building GeodSoft.com (formerly Making this Site) area discussing Perl and CGI and comparing problems on NT, Linux and BSD.

Time to Script Site Maintenance (5/5/00) Added a new page to Designing GeodSoft.com (formerly Making This Site) describing why its time to write a site maintenance script and what the script would need to do.

Designing GeodSoft.com (formerly Making This Site) (5/4/00) I've split what was previously a single large page into a new Designing GeodSoft.com (formerly Making This Site) third level area with eleven separate pages including three entirely new pages describing the process and what's to come. This includes making the graphics for the new sequential page navigation. The first of the new pages is Splitting Large Pages.

Multiple Servers (5/3/00) I got a new virtual web site running on the Open BSD server today and decided to use some graphics to distinguish which server was which. Slightly modified versions (color reduced and resized where necessary) of the "powered by" graphics for Microsoft's IIS and BackOffice, Apache, RedHat Linux and Open BSD have been added to the Search/Site Map bar on the left. I've put a pretty detailed description of this in the Building GeodSoft.com (formerly Making This Site) page.

Book (5/2/00) Replaced place holder text with first description of what I was planning to do in this area.

Largest Web Project (5/2/00) Moved first draft of ATLA's web history from WordPerfect to HTML and continued working on. Also added to Making This Site.

Multiple Web Servers (5/1/00) After experiencing frustrations with NT server decided to go ahead with Linux and BSD. On Monday I got a virtual server running on Linux.

Making this Site (4/28/00) Introduced idea of keeping track of the decision and development process for this site before it's too late and I've forgotten the early steps.

Rates (4/27/00) First draft of billing practices completed.

Resume (4/27/00) First draft of general resume completed. Description of ATLA's web project begun.

Policies (4/26/00) First drafts of Terms and Conditions of Use and a privacy non policy put in place.

Sample site (4/26/00) I've just finished the first pass adding all the pages linked to by the navigation aids. All the page layouts and navigation should be functional. Still remaining are to remove the last traces that identify the original client and to fix all links within the page contents to point to a suitable dummy page. Also I want to shorten the commentary on the problem and solution that starts on the home page of the sample and move this to new much more detailed pages that cover the design process and why the various choices were made and what some of the alternative approaches might have been. I want to create an Introduction to the whole sample section. The Introduction, Problem and Solution pages, as well as any sup-pages, will be included in the site map in the left column.

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