Archive for August, 2006

So I was approached by a friend whose son, a student at Winship Middle School, is trying to raise money for a student exchange trip to Japan. One of the ways he is doing this is collecting old cell phones that can be recycled. I said, “Sure, I think I have a couple old cell phones sitting around the house collecting dust.” Then, coincidentally, I read this article about how data, you think has been cleared off your old phone can be dredged up and used against you. It’s not enough you have to sand blast your hard drive before you get rid of a computer. Soon, with so many devices collecting and sharing data about you, everything you own will have to be shredded before dumping else someone will learn what moldy food we tend to leave in the refrigerator and how often we leave our back door unlocked. I heard about toilets in Japan that not only have pre-warmed seats, they run tests on the deposits you make to them and send the data wirelessly to your PC. Man where’s the firewall when you need one!

When your whole life is displayed on the network like a dissected frog, will there be any more need for lawsuits against NSA wiretapping?

Thanks to Fred’s Humboldt Lib Blog where he commented on the Plazoid’s Blog being for sale, I visited the same site and found out this blog is worth $17,500.74. It must not be the amount of traffic or comments that I get. Somehow it must know the quality and importance of the people who read this blog. Right? Right??! Sure. You know who you are. Don’t be shy. Let us hear from you.

At long last there is some movement on various levels, grassroots to government, toward providing wireless networks in some communities, building alternative fiber to the region, and strategic telecommunications planning. I’ll start with the communities where wireless network efforts are unfolding. Of course if you can’t wait for citywide wireless in your area you can always check out the growing list of hotspots posted to Humboldt Hotspots.

Orick
The County recently initiated a project for bringing broadband to Orick. Orick sits in a no man’s land between 2 phone companies, neither of which are interested in providing DSL. And cable will be long in coming. There apparently is plenty of interest in broadband access in Orick. Three companies (Neratech in Eureka, Planwest Partners in Arcata and Sparling from Portland) are working together to create a business plan that will make the case for a viable wireless network for the community. It’s a first and necessary step that should be delivered this Fall. The hope is that the plan will encourage a company to provide service to the area. If successful, the project could provide a model for other rural, underservered areas.

The Airport
Many airports now offer free or fee based wireless access. The Arcata/Eureka airport is now working with the Redwood Technology Consortium to create a wireless hotspot at the terminal. This will be a great boon for travelers stranded due to weather or security delays.

Arcata
Some members of the city council have been pushing for the development of a wireless network for the downtown area. Currently, though, the City is looking at a private network to support city services. According to councilmember Rick Pitino, there is some concern that offering a public wireless network would conflict with or be redundant to many existing hotspots.

Other grassroots efforts are underway, though. Some businesses are interested in offering unused bandwidth that could provide the backhaul for a wireless network.

Meanwhile if you are a student at Humboldt State University, you have access to a pretty extensive wireless network on campus.

Eureka
The City of Eureka is hoping to invest in a feasibility study for implementing a citywide wireless mesh network. RTC has had discussion with city officials about the steps needed for building and maintain a network. The initial direction, like in Arcata would be to improve efficiencies in City communication and services, but the network could easiy be extended to the public. Given the slow pace of things (the funds for the study haven’t even been allocated yet) it could be years before anything concrete happens. We (RTC) have also proposed helping the city install wireless hotspots in various city owned properties such as the Wharfinger Building and the Adorni Center. This interim step would be inexpensive and relatively easy to maintain. So far, even this idea has not gained much traction.

Not waiting for the slow turning wheels of bureaucracy, a lose-knit group of volunteers are about to install a three node wireless network for Old Town. This is being put together with inexpensive hardware and open source software. I will post here when the network is launched.

Fortuna
Some neighborhoods in Fortuna already have small wireless access networks. I understand a private company is working on a network for the downtown area, but I have yet to learn any details as to when it might roll out, what area it will cover and what it might cost, if anything, to access.

County and Region
Redwood Region Rural Action, a coalition of various organizations and power players (Humboldt Area Foundation, Humboldt State University, RTC, Redwood Region Economic Development Commission, Arcata Economic Development Commission, North Coast Small Business Development Center, Connie Stewart,aide to State Rep. Patty Berg) is looking toward the development of a coounty wide telecommunications planning committee. The idea would be to bring together representatives of local and county entities to develop strategic plans and coordinate efforts on broadband and wirless efforts. This would work in some way similarly to the Humboldt County Association of Governments which has a mandate to coordinate on transportation issues.

RCRA which works in a wider regional arena would like to have similar entities established in the counties of Trinity, Del Norte and Mendocino. An overaching committee of representatives from all four counties would enable the entire region to make long term strategic plans in telecommunications, save cost on economy of scale and have a louder voice at the state level.

Finally, RCRA is close to hiring a consultant to develop a business plan for building an alternate fiber route running east/west that would serve the county and providing backup to the single fiber line (running north/south) as well as much needed competition with AT&T.

Man, I just love WordPress as a blogging tool and am thinking about using it for a general CMS for small sites, or even larger sites, depending on the required functions. It is so easy to install, upgrade, change themes, manipulate themes and maintain content. I upgraded to the latest version this morning. Including doing all the necessary backups, it took me about 10 minutes. And then I uploaded this theme and deployed it just for fun. What do you think? The header graphic of Stewy from the The Family Guy cartoon show is a kick. But probably not appropriate for this site. I can change that out in a few minutes with another image (as soon as I have time to make one).

The Eureka Reporter has conveniently posted a list of local blog sites. I was happy to see this blog listed. Thanks ER! Plenty to read if you like the local scene. Especially since Iran’s President Ahmadinejad hasn’t updated his blog lately.

I just got an email from a web hosting client about whether or not to renew his domain name registration with Domain Registry of America or not. This question comes up easily once or twice per month. Someone receives a letter in the mail or an email from this company that appears to indicate their domain name is about to expire and they should renew right away. What they don’t realize is that this a scam! Invariably the person’s domain is not registered with Domain Registry of America. Often their domain is not due for renewal for months. By reading the fine print, you learn that renewing with DRoA actually means switching your registration of your domain to this company. Given their unscrupulous practices, this is something I would never recommend to anyone.

The problem is that many people don’t keep track of where their domain names are registered and when their registration renewals are actually due. It’s fairly easy to determine by doing a whois lookup. I recommend everyone who owns a domain name (or think they do) and is not aware of what the whois record states, do this search and read the record carefully.

Why do I say “or think they do”? I continually run in to instances where a client believes they own a domain name (indeed, have even been paying the registration renewal fees for years), but the whois record indicates something else. Often this has happened because a web developer originally registered the domain for the client as a service. But instead of entering the client as the domain owner, the developer has listed themselves! Now, some years later, the client wants to work with someone else, wants to move the domain to a new host, etc. but, technically they have no control to do this.

Sometimes, this can be handled easily, as the former developer is happy to cooperate by transferring the domain to the proper owner. But I have seen several instances where this was not the case, and regaining control of the domain by the rightful owner became a painful process.

So, if you are looking to register a new domain name but don’t know how to begin, what should you do? Here are a few simple steps I would recommend:

Be sure your domain name is actually available
Many people assume that if they type their desired domain name in to their browser’s location or address field and no web site comes up, it means the domain is available. Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as that. Millions of domain names are already registered, meaning they are owned by someone, even though the domain doesn’t point to a web site. Because domain name registration is inexpensive, people often register domains that they might use in the future, that they think someone else might want in the future (and might pay them for transferring the domain) or simply to prevent anyone else from owning the domain. Domaintools.com has a nice tool for finding available domain names. Remember there are other possibilities besides domainname.com. If your desired domainname.com is taken, perhaps domainname.net would work for you.

Find a reputable registrar
Before their monopoly was broken up back in 1999, Network Solutions was the only place to register a domain name. Since then, thousands of registrars have gotten in to the business. The International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is currently responsible for certifying registrars. If you come across a domain name registrar that you think you would like to use, but you are unfamiliar with, you might want to search ICANN’s list. Otherwise, domain registration is wide open. Get a recommendation from your host company or web developer (they may be a reseller of registration). Compare prices: Network Solutions is one of the most expensive. Many registrars now offer bundles of services such as hosting and marketing and try to up sell you at every turn making simple domain regisration and maintenance a nightmare of declining offers. Other registrars are much more straightforward, keeping the focus on registration and domain management. I’ve used a company in Germany for years. But I am sure there a many others.

Control domain ownership
If you are going to register your domain yourself, this is not an issue. However, if you ask a consultant, web host, or web developer to register a domain for you, be sure to insist they register the domain with you as the owner. You should also have a record of the registration purchase, and login access to the account so you may make changes. Keep these records someplace safe! Situations change over the years and you should be sure you can access your domain name registration account now and for years in to the future.

Just a note. According to publisher David Lippman, the Times-Standard is making archives of artilces freely available going bax six months. So that means if you link to an article, that link will no longer be valid after six months. They are considering extending that to a year. He did not say why they started doing this, nor when they might extend it to a year. nor why there is a cutoff period at all. Still, this is a big improvement over the 14 day cut off.

Even though we finally got our fiber line completed connecting us to the Internet backbone, some of us have continued to push for additional fiber. Why? This excellent article from the Seatle-Times illustrates just what better, faster more secure broadband connections can do for a rural community. If you have questions about what additional fiber could possibly mean for our area you should take the time to read the article. One paragraph is worth quoting:

Internet-based businesses require speed, redundancy and stable electricity. The first enables quick transfer of lots of data, important for streaming video. The second guards against static, shut-down and information loss in case, say, lines get sliced by a backhoe. The third keeps everything going.

I just read on Fred’s Humboldt Blog that the Times-Standard did away with their paid archives. Seems odd that they did so without fanfare. It makes me wonder if this is mistake. Let’s hope not. I have complained several times on this blog about the archives being hidden behind a payment system. Made no sense. I can’t imagine they made much money from that, and what little they did make should easily be offset by increased advertising displayed on past article pages. At the moment they don’t have much advertising on the archives.

If they maintain this policy it means I’ll be able to link to articles. And others will, too. Good for everyone.

I wonder if the policy change is in response to the Eureka Reporter’s web site which has never archived articles behind a payment system.

Apropo to yesterday’s post, it appears Iran’s President Ahmadinejad has a new blog. How exciting! Fortunately, someone has already translated the initial post so we may better understand the President’s thinking.

Some of his thinking can be understood by this article on how Iran is shutting down other blogger sites.

NPR had a report this morning on the ever growing heap of blogs. Seems there are 175,000 new blogs created every day and 1.6 million blog posts every day. Here’s the link to the current report by the founder of Technorati Dave Sifry.

So much to read…so little time.

In my last post I talked about the process we went through for choosing an open source Content Management System (CMS) for the new Redwood Technology Consortium web site. But let me back up a little and talk about why we even wanted a to begin with. After all many web sites are built and maintained by web developers who can update content quickly and easily. What is it that a CMS does that made us go in that direction in the first place? After all aren’t we, the members of RTC technologically savvy enough to maintain our site the old fashioned way? Isn’t a CMS designed for organizations that don’t have the expertise to manage their own sites?

The simple answer to both questions is “No.” While many of the people in RTC could spend the time manually updating content, the truth is, as an all volunteer organization, no single person has the time to keep up with the content changes on the site. So, various people are given the responsibility to update different aspects of the site. Some of them know web programming and some of them don’t. It’s much easier then to provide access to web site maintainers to manage content through a web browser. As any good CMS separates content from presentation, this process ensures the look and feel of the site retains its integerity and consistency.

In addition to content management, today’s CMSs come with a wide range of features that can be added by plugging in a module. And popular systems receive module contributions from developers on a daily basis. Looking at the current and potential needs of RTC we realized it would be most cost effective to adopt a system that had these features built in or can be easily added. Otherwise we would continually need to be paying programmers to develop and integrate these features as our organizational needs changes.

So why isn’t every site built with a CMS? The truth is, nearly every site probably should have some way for the organization to update information easily. The days of static sites with unchanging content are over. Web sites, to be effective, and to have visitors return, need to be dynamic, with content being kept fresh and up to date. This might mean just having a calendar of upcoming events, or Tip of the Month, or Photo of the Day or recent news. It doesn’t always require a full-blown CMS, but sites should at least have simple tools that make keeping these kinds of things current by site owners. Otherwise they will always be at the mercy of a webmaster and his or her schedule. I don’t know how many times we have worked with clients who have complained that their site hasn’t changed in months because they can’t get their ‘web guy’ to update it.

So, RTC decided to go for an CMS that would make updating the content easy for a team of people and would allow for easy expansion of features as the organization’s needs changes. We did not want the expense of purchasing a closed, proprietary system that would require being locked in to a single web development company to make changes to the system. So, we decided to look for an open source system.

As I pointed out earlier there are a huge number of these systems most with a large community of enthusiastic developers behind them. After looking at many and trying to match our specifications with the systems’ featuresets it came down to two possibilities: Joomla, and Drupal. Don’t ask me where these names come from - I haven’t a clue. Both systems came close to meeting our needs. Both seemed easy to use and extendable. Joomla, however, is an off shoot of another system called Mambo. And while its seemed stable this tipped the balance a bit toward Drupal which has had a steady history of development for several years. The final decision came down not the merits of the software, but to a person. We knew a local developer (Rob Wohleb of Blue Ant Media) who has a great deal of experience with Drupal. He’d worked for me previously and he was willing to take on this task becasue of his support of RTC and our area. That sealed the deal. Drupal it was.

Next: Why using a CMS is not always the smoothest, easiest process.