Website Connectivity Problems

These problems seemed to be resolved, but if you saw any issues with the pages loading on the dcrand website, they were probably due to powweb having connectivity issues.  Here's the announcement:

Network Slowness and Connectivity Issues - HAVE BEEN RESOLVED

UPDATE 6:50 PM EST

Repairs took longer than expected, but network status has been returned to normal.

 

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Our Network Operations team is currently working to repair a network issue that may be causing slowness or connectivity issues with our control panel, e-mail and ftp services, as well as customer websites loading slowly.  We are currently working with our upstream bandwidth providers as well as hardware manufacturers to isolate the issue and restore full service as quickly as possible.  We apologize for this service degradation and will update this alert with more information as it becomes available as well as when the issue has been isolated and resolved.

- 02/12/09 at 18:49 ET

Club Info Updated

• The latest membership renewals and event registrations were processed this evening.
• Board Officers list has been updated.

Moved Webmaster blog to external site

Posting to an external blog will allow those who would like to receive or review updates to the website.  It also allows for updates to be sent to interested parties if, perhaps, the website is unavailable.   

If you find interest in hearing about website updates, please feel free to come back to this blog often, subscribe to the rss feed, or the google group.   

Thanks,

Steve

Archive of old Webmaster Blog

2009-01-10

• Calendar
• Switched Weekend Rides listing from a table version to a blog version. Old versions of the weekend pages are not available at this time. The blog version of the page allows for automated updates via e-mail posts eliminating the delay between getting the e-mail and manually formatting the posting for web consumption.

2009-01-04

• Results
• Back filled Feb 23, 2008 brevet results.
• Added 2009 results link on results page
• Verified results entry and display will continue to work for 2009 rides as they approach

2008-12-29

Updates:

• Images/Logo
  • Created a couple new resized images of the new logos, and created a transparent background for use on the website. The new logo is now live.
• Old ACP Articles and Information
  • Moved ACP articles for general randonneuring, audax info, and lighting requirements from the old website to the new website.

2008-08-08

Updates:

• Registrations
  • Updated ride and member registration forms with the new treasurer address.

2008-05-30

New Features:

• Results
  • Wrote a results entry form and companion results display pages and forms. The entry form allows the CBA to enter results data as soon as the riders arrive (if internet access is available). Results are then displayed immediately after posting. Only current members can have results entered. (35 hours)
  • Having an electonic store of the results allowed for an immediate query of the data for results display. I am pleased to announce that results are dynamically pulled from the above results, which will allow for the webmaster to design more options for displaying results to satisfy everyone's desire to compare stats. (initial design and implementation of yearly results 16 hours)

2008-05-18

Updates:

• Ride registration
  • Completed ride registration which gives a form to fill in, records data in a table and then pops an e-mail off to the webmaster and treasurer. The registrant is then asked to send payment via postal mail and a check to the treasurer. (7 hrs)
• Main Page
  • Changed color of Old Website link and added a popup string asking for comments about keeping this item. The goal is to remove all links to these outdated and unmaintained pages. Missing information on the current DCR site should be relayed to the webmaster. (15min)

2008-05-10

Updates:

• Main page
  • Removed link to old website and updated the newflash section to highlight upcoming rides information. (30 min)

2008-04-29

Fixes:

• PHP Broken
  • It appears that POWWEB decided to set us back to php version 4, but to take advantage of some new features this site uses php version 5. This broke many of the dynamic pages such as the memberhip roster, the event list...etc.

2008-04-13

Updates:

• Event List
  • Added database email link for the organizer

2008-04-04

Updates:

• Contacts
  • Updated Contacts list to include new members and some committees
• Club Info
  • Updated Board members

2008-04-03

Updates:

• Calendar
  • Updated event lists with official information -- ride start locations...etc. All info is now posted via the blog.

2008-02-26

Updates:

• Calendar
  • Removed all events that used to be sponsored by DCR from event lists and google calendar. Also posted information about regional clubs offering brevets.
• Main page
  • Updated text to reflect the current plan for DC Randonneurs
  • Added Links button to menu bar
  • Updated RSS feeds to provide top 2 entries for DCR and top 3 entries for The Daily Randonneur (which used to only provide a feed for PBP stories)
  • Added link to "left" menu list for DCrand e-mail discussion list
• Links
  • Added and updated all links to related information (orgs, regional clubs, RM events...etc)

2008-02-25

Updates:

• Clubinfo
  • Removed Matt Settle from Board and added Nick Bull as President
• Results
  • Updated Rookie page with a new photo.

2008-02-22

Updates:

• Event List
  • Updated code to allow for starting SITE URLS and for detailed EVENT URLs. These will link to more information, maps, or directions. (5 hours)
• Results
  • Added 2007 Rookie page provided by Bill Beck (1 hour)
  • Added 2007 stats page provided by Nick Bull (1 hour)

2008-02-21

Updates:

• Voting
  • Completed results reporting and inserted code to block results display until end of voting period. (8 hours)

2008-02-09

Updates:

• Voting
  • Completed simple forms and e-mail process for nominations (4 hours)
  • Completed major write for new voting interface with url/email authentication (22 hours)

2008-01-22

Updates:

• Results
  Completed Results for 2007 table. (2 hours)

2008-01-20

Updates:

• Contacts
  Added the Shenandoah 1200 K Committee, so they can be contacted directly. ( 15 min)

2008-01-16

Updates:

• Stories/Info
  Started Randonneuring FAQ (1 hour)
• Unpublished work
  Continued work on weekend rides for integration with new site -- started rewriting all database code. (1 hour)

2008-01-11

Updates:

• Powweb Hosting
  Connectivity Issues for websites hosted on PowWeb
  
  Update 11:54AM EST - Our Network Operations team has identified the issue, and are working as quickly as possible to resolve it.
  
  Customer sites should start working properly again in the very near future. However, in order to ensure that no data is lost in the restoration of the hardware that failed, any sites that are store in that location will be unable to make any edits, changes, or modifications to their websites for the next 12 hours, while the storage device is restored.
  
  We realize this is not an optimal situation for anyone, but need to take this precaution to ensure that no data is lost during this time.
  
  Please note that this may or may not affect you and your account. We believe this restriction will only be placed on accounts stored on a specific storage device at one of our data center locations. At this point, Customer Support is unable to obtain a list of those affected accounts to message those customers directly. We are therefore unable to specifically notify you if your account will be unable to make changes. However, if you attempt to upload a file via FTP, or FileManager, it will fail with an unspecified error message.
  
  We regret that we've needed to take these steps, but wanted to ensure that any changes you've already made were not lost. We sincerely appreciate your patience while we continue to resolve the issues we're faced with.
  
  -------------
  
  We're currently experiencing issues with customer websites being served correctly, and email being delivered on PowWeb.
  
  We are looking to resolve the issue as quickly as possible, and appreciate your patience.
  
  - 01/11/08 at 12:06 EDT

2008-01-10

Updates:

• Calendar
  • Event List: updated css and added data field to table for an event url. This work included updating site headers. (3 hours)
  • Continued work on integrating weekend rides, unpublished updates include listing the rides outside the iframes table. Will need to generate the table listings of rides with new code as a new CGI upgrade is happening to powweb that will break the current implementation. Work so far: (7 hours)

2008-01-03

Updates:

• Calendar
  • Event List: Integrated event list to remove iframes implementation and have the list seamlessly integrated with the new layout. (2.5 hours)
  • The default view under calender is now the event listing. The google calendar interface, integrating both weekend rides and official DCR events is still available via the "calendar interface" link. (.5 hour)

2007-12-27

Updates:

• Calendar
  • Weekend rides: updated disclaimer text and ensured it is posted on each page of the weekend rides area. (1 hour)

2007-12-26

Updates:

• Calendar
  • Integrated dynamic event list (2 hours)
  • Integrated Pre-registration list (2 hours)
  • Integrated Weekend rides (2 hours)

2007-12-22

Outages:

• Website Outage
  • The dcrand.org website was down for most of the afternoon and evening on Dec 22nd due to a dns issue at our hosting company powweb.com. Here are the details:

    Resolved: Service Issues on Saturday

    On Saturday, December 22, 2007, two of our primary DNS servers experienced performance issues, which caused many customer sites to be largely inaccessible, including the PowWeb site and the OPS control panel, for a period of approximately four hours. These issues have been resolved, and all services should be running as normal.

    Because the issue was at the DNS level, there is a possibility that some e-mail may not have been delivered on Saturday afternoon (EST). If that is the case, such mail would have been returned to sender.

    We want to convey our sincerest apologies for any service interruptions you may have encountered. Like you, we rely heavily on our Web site and e-mail in managing our business and our personal affairs, and we understand the powerful impact a service interruption can have.

    We also apologize for the delay in communications. Our internal communications systems are designed to alert customers when we experience performance issues, and those systems were not utilized in this instance. We are committed to keeping customers up to date with systems-related issues that may impact the services you receive, and in the future, we will endeavor to communicate potential issues more expediently.

    - 12/24/07 at 12:54 EDT

2007-12-06

Updates:

• Membership Roster
  • Added last updated stats for both the roster data and member data separately so peple will know when the list has just been added to or if actual member data has changed.

Fixed:

• Membership Roster
  • Updated roster page to include link for e-mailing updated photos.

2007-11-27

Updates:

• Membership Roster
  • Updated membership roster so that only users for the current year are displayed. (45 min)
  • Added feature that allows one to see one previous year and one future year of registration data. (45 min)
  • Cleaned up code so it doesn't run in an iframe anymore and adjusted some formatting to get everything looking right again. (30 min)
• Shenandoah 1200K
  • Added Mike Dayton's interview with Matt (45 min)

2007-11-26

Updates:

• Registration
  • Updated form and data store to set newsletter option. (30 min)

2007-11-19

Updates:

• Results
  • The detailed 2007 results has been updated through the Applicacian Double Cross (Oct 6-9). No later results are available at this time. They will be posted as soon as they are available. (1 hour)

2007-11-05

This update includes some fixes and recommendations.

• Additional Asks and recommendations completed
  • Change title to DC Randonneurs (.1 hour)
  • Add old DCR logo and Rusa Logs (1 hour)
  • Updated Club Info menu list to clearly indentify the Membership Roster (.1 hour)
  • Added Captcha to contacts form submission to prevent spammer activity (2 hours)
  • Updated Google Calendar integration to separate Weekend Rides from Brevets via two calendars with different colors. Made the Brevet calendar use red. (1 hour)

2007-11-01

Welcome to the NEW DC Randonneurs Website. You'll notice that I still use parts of the old website as I haven't yet ported those pages to the new layout. You can still get to any of the old content by clicking the link to the left, and hopefully I haven't broken too many links. The new layout is still missing a ton of content which I'm currently back filling now. Please feel free to send me info about missing content and broken links via the contacts page.

• Intial Layout work
  • Tabs and basic header, content pages layout, footer (56 hours)
• Porting Content
  • Basic Homepage load (2 hours)
  • RSS Blog feed on front page (.75 hour)
  • Club Info Page - Bylaws, membership roster (1 hour)
  • Results - 2007 and 2006 years, rookie pages (4 hours)
• Additional Features
  • Google Calendar setup and embedded feed (10 hours)
  • Contacts page (5 hours)
  • Electronic Membership form for recording information, while still sending check for payment (10 hours)