Friday 21 September 2012

Strange Web Hosting from Easily.co.uk



We have been long term users of the services of Easily - initially to buy and maintain domain names and then to provide hosting for a set of small but important web sites. We noticed a while back that they were reducing their offerings – virtual servers are no longer available and yes, to be honest, their own web interface is a bit clumsy and very dated – but things worked once you were used to them. Thus when we started a new Windows based web project we were happy enough to set up the public test web site with them. This site makes extensive use of an SQL Server database.

This week we found that we could not access the database from SQL Server Management Studio to make adjustments to one of the tables and the related stored procedures.

First off a wise developer always suspects his own set up – what had changed that might block remote access from our Windows 7 desktops and laptops? Fortunately we maintain web sites hosted elsewhere and were able to attach and manipulate SQL Server instances at those service providers. So no problems at our end.

Rang the Easily 0800 support number and after a reasonable wait was able to explain the problem. The support person dropped off the line for a bit to “check on something” and then said the issue would be raised as a problem at their end. I asked for a “ticket number” and was told (strangely) that there was not one yet but it would be sent to me in an email shortly.
An Email arrived a hair under an hour alter – and this is it: (names etc. elided)

Thank you for contacting Easily.
The reason you have not been able to connect to the MsSQL database using your database management software is because we have improved our security and require IPs for users to connect from now on.
Please can you confirm the IP address you are trying to connect from, please confirm whether it is a static or dynamic IP address you are connecting from.

Now, I don’t know about you but I don’t work from a location with a fixed IP address and I like to be able to maintain web applications I am responsible for even when away from my normal desk.
There is another issue here as well – Easily introduced a breaking change without notification and without putting up any sort of a notice on their support page. This has probably left many others to undertake unnecessary work trying to resolve the issue – it certainly burned up a chunk of my time that should have been dedicated to project work.
In case you were wondering about the Easily support page – this is what it shows this morning (Friday 21st September):

Wednesday 19th September 2012 

Some customers may be experiencing a problem viewing their Easilyme websites.This issue is being looked into by our engineers and has been classified as extreme high priority. 

We hope to resolve this issue as soon as possible and would like to take this opportunity to apologise for any inconvenience caused. 

Is that issue still open do you think or do they just not keep the support page up to date?
My response to the Easily email was as follows:

Nice to hear you guys are keen on security - but it makes good sense to contact customers in advance of changes that break things - or perhaps to put a notice on the web site where folks check for ongoing issues - just a thought.

I do not have a fixed IP address - it is assigned by my Internet provider BT or (when I am out and about) by Vodafone - or perhaps by any kindly wi-fi visitor provision at sites I and visiting on business. I might even from time to time change my Internet providers as well.

Even my local office network IP address is supplied dynamically when I connect to the local network.

I very much doubt that many of your customers will have fixed IP addresses or that they would be keen to only manage their databases from a fixed location if they have such.

Demanding fixed IP addresses to connect from does not look like a very sound idea.

How do you suggest that I (and probably most other customers) continue to manage their databases? Or are you suggesting we "up sticks" and move elsewhere?

No response so far except an automated acknowledgement of the email to their support email address.
Interestingly, the SQL server in question has a URL  of xxx.netbenefit.com
Netbenefit.com seem to be another hosting company. They are owned in turn by Peer  1 Hosting while Easily are owned by Group NBT. Thus I assume that Netbenefit or Peer 1 are providing the SQL server resources for Easily. Thus it is perfectly possible that it is Netbenefit who have implemented this barrier to our web site database – who knows?

I just need this to be resolved quickly with access to our database fully restored.

Thursday 21 June 2012

Progress report

This blog has been rather quiet of late as we have been working hard completing the “All Wales Trip Plan” service design and writing the code.

Our primary objective has been to get a service up and running for the Anglesey coast. Anglesey is a popular destination for sea kayakers and is as challenging in many ways as it is beautiful. Our service will present trip plan suggestions matched to a sea kayaker’s skills but selected with a close eye on the forecast winds and tides.

Effective trip planning can be a fairly time consuming (perhaps daunting) task that is sometimes rushed or even not done at all. The SKW project has taken on the challenge of automating the process of creating custom trip plan templates and then serving up detailed trip plans for a specific time and date.  The trip selection process itself is complex and has to crunch a lot of values to come up with a suitable list.

So how are we doing? We plan to invite a group of experienced paddlers to act as alpha testers around the end of this month. We will be looking to them to assess our trip suggestions and trip plans and give us some expert feedback. They know the waters around Anglesey very well and have a good feel for the capabilities of kayakers at a variety of skill levels. If that does not result in too much additional development work then we should be able to open our doors to all comers shortly thereafter.

The service will then be in a public beta. We have a massive list of features to add to the site and we will be rolling those out on a continuous basis – helped on (we hope) by suggestions and constructive criticism from paddlers trying out our service and the suggested trips.

Why are we calling the public service a beta? Well partly because there are lots of extra facilities we have yet to build but also because we have the rest of the Welsh coast to include. Once we are satisfied that we have the facilities that the majority of our users need in place and we have started to “roll out” to the rest of the coast then we will probably be confident enough to declare Sea Kayak Wales properly “live”.

Right from the start we will be encouraging Sea Kayak Wales members to record their own trip plans so they can be included in their personal trip suggestions lists. Such private trips will remain private to individual members unless they choose to share them with the community. Members will be able to build their private paddling routes taking advantage of the Sea Kayak Wales database of launch points and key coastal waypoints.

The Sea Kayak Wales web site service is free – so sign up now, if you have not already done so, and be one of the first to access our trip planning service as soon as it is available.

To sign up, just click the login link towards the top right of the page at SeaKayakWales. If you have a Google or other OpenID account then just click on the appropriate icon but if you need to set up an account just for SKW then follow the link on the page.

Friday 10 February 2012

Who owns a Sea Kayak News poll?

When working up the new facility on the Sea Kayak News page that allows members to present a poll of options to the community for their votes we had to make some decisions about ownership. The problem arose while we were working on the facility to edit a news post. Normally the edit function would be used to correct typos in the title or web site URL. In parallel with the ability to edit a comment (available for all comments created by any user) the new ability to edit a poll potentially made it possible for the person that posed the poll to change the results after other members had voted.

We decided that the originator owned the poll overall and had the right to edit the title and to delete the poll if they felt they wanted to. However we also decided to restrict the poll’s originator from deleting or changing the text of an option that had attracted one or more votes. The idea being that votes belong to the voters and not the pollster. Clearly, there will be occasions where a poll originator will want to clarify a poll option even after it has attracted some votes – we feel that this can be handled by adding text to the available section above the poll options that allows for additional details.

A feature of the page that allows Sea Kayak Wales members to post a poll is a checkbox that (when checked) will automatically add an option to the poll with the text “Other (please leave a comment)”. This is a deliberate ploy to encourage pollsters to keep their poll open. I, for one,  am often frustrated by polls that do not allow for my opinion or circumstance in the options available. Now, should that checkbox default to be checked or unchecked?

So – now you can poll our sea kayaking members on just about any relevant topic which is a nice extension to the option to ask questions that had already been added to this dedicated social bookmarking facility.

Friday 27 January 2012

Markdown

Strangely, Markdown is a markup “language” and was created by John Gruber and Aaron Swartz. The idea is to allow anyone to generate plain text and have that text re-formatted into valid HTML giving it some structure. The basics are very simple to learn and allow anyone applying this technique to add emphasis and style to their words in a very simple manner.

We thought it would be a great idea to allow members of the Sea Kayak Wales web site to post comments using markdown. We encourage our users to comment and discuss items posted to the news page (a social bookmarking facility for sea kayakers). Anyone can just enter their comments as plain text and that is (more or less) how they will be displayed.

Keen observers might note that when a web URL is entered then it is automatically converted into a link to that URL. They might also notice that some attempt is made to organise what is entered into paragraphs and that whitespace is often trimmed. This is all done by the Markdown processing supporting the discussion pages.

Markdown can be used to emphasise text. Putting an asterisk before and after a piece of text will have it rendered in italics [ *display in italics* ].
Put two asterisks before and after a section of text and it will appear bold [ **this will be bold** ].

Lists can be displayed in a “bulleted” format using this markdown:
* List Item 1
*List Item 2
* List Item 3 etc

Headings can be denoted with hashes or in a more literal manner:
### A Level 3 Heading
or
A level two Heading
--------------------------

Full details of Markdown can be found in the Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown) or on the Daring Fireball web site (http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/basics)

Have fun but please don’t overdo it.

Friday 20 January 2012

Bookmarklet

The word Bookmarkelet, correctly,  has all of the hallmarks of being made up. “Book mark” – fine I use those when reading – sometimes the ones bought for me by family and friends but more often just corners of envelopes or till receipts found quickly when needed.  We are also familiar with “bookmarking” web site pages with the co-operation of our browsers so we can find a web resource again without another major search and filter operation. I suppose we have also seen the use of the term “social bookmarking” where we share gems from the web with others. Which certainly brings me along nicely to the Sea Kayak Wales News Page which is just such an Internet resource.


Where though does the “let” bit come from? We at the Sea Kayak Wales project came across the term when we were looking for ways to make it easy for others to post those very web gems (of particular interest to sea kayakers). Turns out that wrapping a line of JavaScript into a smidgeon of HTML creates an object (called a bookmarklet) that can be dragged onto the bookmark bar of a modern web browser. Once there, it can be left in place until the user of this natty little tool comes across a web page or blog post that they would like to add to the Sea Kayak Wales news page. When that happens then all they have to do is click the SKW News bookmarlet  and that line of JavaScript will leap into action and take the user to the Sea Kayak Wales news insertion page and pre-load the web page address (URL) and title into the form there ready for submission. An amazing time saving utility. The “let” presumably indicates that this is not yet a complete bookmark but that it will become one as soon as you let it.

Anyone interested, can find the SKW News bookmarklet  on the SKW News submissions guide page ( www.seakayakwales.com/WhatToPost.aspx ). If you are using a first class browser such as Firefox, Chrome, Safari or Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) then you can make use of this simple but effective widget. You might need to make the bookmark bar visible on your browser, if it has not been previously used, before dragging the SKW News bookmarklet into position.

The bookmark bar can be activated in Firefox from the View/Toolbars menu option list. In Chrome, click the spanner to get the tools menu, click bookmarks and then select the first option “show bookmarks bar”.  In IE9, (simple but harder to find) just right click on a space in the browser top area to the right of an opened tab and select the “Favourites bar” option from the pop-up menu.

Happy bookmarking

Friday 13 January 2012

I Don’t know

I read a Freeakonomics blog entry on “Why is ‘I don’t know’ so hard to say?”   the other day – you can catch it as a podcast as well.

It was pertinent because we were just launching a new facility on the Sea Kayak Wales news page to allow our members to ask questions of the sea kayaking community.  We were aware that for some people asking a question is hard – in some fields and circumstances it is hard to let others know that you don’t know something.

We know from having run a support forum for a product dedicated to a specific field of knowledge that many professional practitioners (in that meadow at least) are reluctant to reveal any chinks in their armour. They would avoid asking questions in a public arena and always try and elicit a private response. 

These experts were very reluctant to ask their peers for help – although (we divined) they were collectively grateful when we published an anonymised answer for all. This always felt strange – we thought not knowing everything was the normal.

I have an almost endless list of things I don’t know. I enjoy finding out though – and then in many instances promptly forgetting the answers again.  Modern technology allows the comfort of just having to remember where you can find a given answer - not the detail of the answers themselves. You might be amazed at the trivial data I just can’t be bothered to commit to memory.

More importantly though – any software developer is very aware that it is impossible to accumulate expertise on everything – in any case “everything” grows at what feels like an exponential rate. People who work with technology (and software in particular) get used to not knowing the answers.

Some Internet Question and Answer sites are of a questionable value – indeed many are simply designed to flood the search engines and to catch up the unwary into a flood of advertising (and worse) – they truly “don’t know”.  Others are supported by a community of users who are happy to share their ideas in the knowledge that others will help them in turn.

We aim to make the Sea Kayak Wales site  just such a resource – not just for Welsh coastal trips but for every aspect of sea kayaking anywhere.  We hope that Sea Kayak Wales (well the site users) will know and will be happy to answer your questions – beginner or expert without prejudice.

We also hope that questions that have no answer are identified by the community as such – we can debate them, perhaps decide on some effective strategy – but if we don’t know, we resolve not to pretend to know.

Sunday 8 January 2012

Standing on the shoulders of giants

This handy expression can be used by anyone shamelessly incorporating the work and experience of others into their latest project – it even sounds a bit humble.

In fact anyone building a modern interactive web site like us at SeaKayakWales is going to be humbled by both the quality of what is already out there and the generosity with which so much skill and experience is shared with those that follow.

We know that we have some unique problems to solve in devising, presenting and then evaluating the sea kayak trips we will be presenting to users during 2012 and beyond. However, many of these problems can be broken down into sub-problems that have been successfully solved elsewhere. While we have to ensure that our style and processes meet the needs of our intended audience we will always be happy to learn from best practice elsewhere. We don’t want to be “the same” but we do aspire to be “as good” as the best.

There is a potential conflict between the aspiration to be as good as we can get and the desire to ship. “Ship early and ship often” is a great mantra for getting things done but it does mean that the polish might get left behind.  We have come up with a new phrase that might cover it – “pragmatic perfectionism”. 

We will keep trying to improve the way everything works but not at the expense of shipping new stuff – we will have to see how we get on.
We will be acknowledging the primary influences on our user interfaces and technology stack decisions in due course – once the bugs and worst errors have been removed from our efforts.

It would not be a great compliment to others to say we built upon some of their ideas if all we had to expose was our incompetence.

In the mean time, if you have some web sites, blog posts, photographs or what have you likely to be of interest to sea kayakers then please pop over to www.seakayakwales.com sign in and add a link to our news page. While you are there, take a look at the other items being posted – they might well entertain you.