Melville

- I've added GZIP compression to the TNG pages for those browsers that support it. Let me know if any strange problems or slow-downs occur because of it. Ideally it should make some of the larger pages quicker to download at the cost of the smaller pages taking a little bit longer to load (because of the overhead of the compression). The best reason for doing it is because I found out how easy it is to do, and because it should save me tons of bandwidth.

- Well, I must say, that was a bit of a break between news updates. I don't know if anyone noticed, but recently a security hole was uncovered in the TNG software I run on this part of my Web server. The attacks actually started back in mid-March, and at some point between then and a few days ago, the server was hacked by some people using pre-made scripts to try and take over portions of the site. I have since closed the security hole, repaired the damaged, and, just for the heck of it, upgraded the versions of some of the sotware used here. Currently, I'm using a pre-fabbed template, so the site will look a little bit different, but the underlying interface shouldn't have changed much. In fact, there may be quite a few new nice features made available through the upgrade, but I haven't had much time to play with the site myself. Also, sadly, I haven't uploaded any new data, so this is still the same data from 2004 as before. I just haven't found the time to finish the huge stack of data entry I still have to do in my genealogy software.

- I haven't updated the database with any new data, but I have been trying out a new web application for browsing my family tree. I've been playing with it for some time, and feel comfortable enough to make it available to the public. Please try out the new application and let me know what you think. It's called The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding or TNG by Darrin Lythgoe.

- I purchased 3 sticks of 512MB SDRAM from NCIX.com and installed them in the server this evening for a total of 1.5GB of RAM. That should make things run a little more smoothly.

- I've update the database structure to allow multiple events of the same type for a single person. For example, the system can now list all censuses for a single person. Along with that change, the sources for an event type are also broken into their unique parts (i.e. sources for a census in 1871 will be separate from a census in 1881, etc...). Another change I added was to put a person's relation under their name in a family sheet (m = mother; f = father; b = brother; s = sister; z = son; d = daughter; h = husband; w = wife). Relations are how they are related to me and were generated by LifeLines. Lastly, I got the stats page working again.

- I've been in the process of upgrading the server to Apache 2, PHP 5, and MySQL 5, so the site may go down randomly for short periods of time as I migrate everything over.

- Found some more info about my direct ancestors and some records from Sarata. I've added a new GEDCOM marked with today's date.

- I've updated the tables and while I was at it I imported a newer GEDCOM. I've trimmed out people that aren't actually related in any way.

- I've updated my database server to a newer version and have to update the tables, so the Family Tree stuff will be broken for now. I plan to update it tonight, but it might not be for a couple days.

- I noticed that in some cases, pages were reporting PHP runtime errors and would stop loading. That error has been resolved.

- The city replaced the power pole behind my house, so the power was out for a while, during which the server was not available.

- My mail server has been acting strangely since Thursday. I have been unable to send or receive mail since then. I've switched over to a different product that is supposed to behave transparently to what I had before. So far, the few tests I've done with it have passed, and everything seems back to normal. If you've tried to send me mail in the last few days, feel free to try again now.

- As of last Tuesday, I am now gainfully employed. I won't be able to devote as much time to the website as I've been able to over the last couple of months. But then I haven't really made any new inroads into any new information, so it works out alright. Happy (Belated) Valentine's Day!

- Happy New Year to all our Chinese friends out there! I believe it is the year of the goat. And speaking of goats and sheep, a happy Robbie Burns' Day to all those who celebrated it last weekend. I've uploaded an updated GEDCOM to the database, and have also kept the older one up for the time being. Go check them out! Also, I've noticed in many places that some fields are beeing cut off short. The only way to fix that is to change the database schema and reload the GEDCOMs, so that leaves me with something further to do. Oh, and the stats page is still broken.

- The switch has been made to the new version of the viewer. You won't have to update your bookmarks. Accompanying the new viewer is an updated set of data, albeit with only slight modifications. I've got newer data in the queue, but haven't added it to the database yet as I'm still going over it. Oh and I just noticed the stats page is busted again... *sigh*

- Nearly finished with the new version of the viewer. It's in the testing phase, so barring any huge problems I'll likely make the switch during the weekend. It's got some nice low-level stuff, so even though it may look the same, it should load faster. There's also a languages feature for those who would prefer to peruse the data in something other than English. Most of the languages will have a few words or phrases that are either still in English, or some weird display problems. I'm open to any language additions people may have.

- Stats are fixed now. Also, the PHP-based Gedcom viewer I use has been updated, and I'm eventually go to upgrade to it. It's essentially a complete rewrite, so it won't happen all at once.

- As you may or may not know, the Statistics page in the Gedcom viewer is broken (and has been for some time). I almost started fixing it today, but now that it's on my mind I'll get to it shortly.

- Purchased Leister Productions' Reunion 8 which supports Mac OS X, and means I'll probably never have to use Mac OS 9 again (seeing as I just discovered OpenOffice.org, as well). I've already begun working on my genealogy data again, mainly verifying sources and the like. Also, I removed the forums. Not a single person posted anything.

- Okay, MySQL is back up and running. I haven't fully tested it, yet, so there may still be bugs with it.

- Remember, I've only changed my emergency e-mail. You should still contact me at maguirer@rjmaguire.com for all regular mail.

- Sigh... I installed Mac OS X 10.2 last night, and just discovered MySQL needs to be recompiled for it to work. I probably won't have the time to get around to it this long weekend, but if I'm feeling particularly full of energy one of these evenings, I may do it then. In the meantime, please bear with me. Also, I've changed my emergency e-mail to maguirer@accesscomm.ca, so please make a note of it.