Pardon Our "Dust"...

Our service provider is changing the server software to a newer version and as a result users of the AC-SKYWARN and AC-EMWIN pages may see some funky things for a little while. Please bear with us. May take a little while to work out some kinks which may pop up.

Cooperative Ventures!

We're now providing severe weather bulletins to Bradford County area users.

In the spirit of public service, we're expanding our services to now provide severe weather bulletins to email and cellphone for Bradford County area users. Sponsored by Alachua County SKYWARN, the Alachua County EMWIN Project, and the Bradford County Office of Emergency Management.

What makes our service different is the customizeability that most other services don't offer, such as the ability to either BLOCK/TRASH bulletins during certain time periods, like say, overnight; or to HOLD bulletins after hours and still send them in the morning anyway if users wish, maybe because they still want to know what happened overnight.

We've already been providing these bulletins to BCEM's Facebook and Twitter pages, too, for quite a while, now.

New AC-EMWIN Server!

We now have a brand new web server!

The Alachua County EMWIN server was switched out with a newer, much faster one this afternoon and y'all didn't even know it! :) Not a beat was missed in the switchover and everything went perfectly and smoothly. In fact, I'm kinda nervous because I'm waiting for Murphy's Law to kick in at any moment. It was as simple as installing all the Windows Updates and then transferring the weather software over to the new machine. Hmm.

The old server was a chugging 1.6 GHz, 32-bit, 256 MB RAM, 20 GB HDD clunker that was completely adequate 8 years ago; but the EMWIN software was getting more complicated as it became continually upgraded over the years and we were starting to experience more some occasional drags and lockups. So we went to TigerDirect and for $239 got a refurbished 3.4 GHz, dual core, 64-bit, 2 GB RAM, 400 GB HDD, 8 USB port monster-engined speedster. :) No more dragging or lockups, and everything works SO much faster.

The server serves both Alachua County SKYWARN and Alachua County EMWIN, and sends weather bulletins to email, pager, cellphone, and to listgroups at UF and on Yahoo, as well as to Twitter accounts, and to Facebook accounts - for FREE as a public service.

The old server will remain in inventory as a backup/standby server.

(Yer welcome!)

AFN Web Pages Back In Operation...

  The problems with AFN have now have been fixed. Summarizing...

  Early yesterday morning, around 3am, FTP access to AFN had failed. The AC-EMWIN server was logging repetitive errors in communicating with the AFN server. During this time, no weather bulletins or graphics were able to be uploaded to the AC-SKYWARN web site. However, the AFN web pages were at least *accessible*, if but for some broken image links, such as the watch/warning map, the accompanying legend, and the current readings graphic for the Gainesville Regional Airport. The problem remained for the whole day due to the fact that it was a Sunday and there was no one at CNS to take care of the problem. AFN web access and email finally died altogether sometime around 7pm, last night, and remained that way until about 9am, this morning, when AFN admin was finally able to get right on it.
  Meanwhile, AC-EMWIN services to email, cellphone, pager, FAX, listgroups, Facebook, and Twitter were NOT affected by the AFN outage, and continued uninterrupted.

  An email from AFN admin this morning confirmed that a file system had filled up and had to be manually emptied.

  The following web pages are again operational:

• Alachua County SKYWARN home page
  
• Alachua County EMWIN Project home page
  
• Index To SKYWARN Web Pages On The Internet
  
• Mobile Scanner & RADAR-Detector Laws In The US
  

  We'd like to thank everyone for their patience in dealing with this.

  Kudos to the AFN team for getting on it pronto, this morning. Thanks guys! You rock!

AFN FTP Down...

It appears AFN (Alachua FreeNet) FTP is down. The web pages seem to pull up okay, but nothing new is being sent to AFN. This means that anything
that is FTP'd to the site (bulletins, graphics) are not being updated, right now.

I've confirmed this with the AC-EMWIN server and it is definitely experiencing errors whenever it tries to connect to AFN. It began about 3am, last night. Of course, this is occuring on a SUNDAY. :( I *have* sent emails to AFN admin about it, though.

Note that this ONLY affects things under AFN, not with the entire AC-EMWIN system. That is, bulletins sent to email, pagers, cellphones, listgroup mail, Facebook, Twitter...these are all okay and unaffected.

AC-EMWIN "Adjustments"

Downloaded an additional map database for the AC-EMWIN server software which allows painting of the TS/hurricane watches/warnings along the coastline. Had to take the server down very quickly - no one really noticed - in order to implement it.

Also made a few tweaks to the software not really worth mentioning they're so insubstantial.

Added a link to the NHC to the AC-SKYWARN page's side navbar, as well.

Major (Background) Update To AC-SKYWARN Web Page

I decided to go ahead and finally upgrade the AC-SKYWARN web site with changes that I've been meaning to make to them for quite some time, now.

It used to be such a pain whenever I'd want to make the slightest little change to the ACS web pages. If I wanted to change a word, a sentence, add or remove a graphic or something...it always involved making that change multiple times. Why? ...Because of how many different "templates" that I had for just the main front page, alone. Whenever the Hazardous Weather Outlook is issued by NWS-JAX, the AC-EMWIN system reads the "Spotter Activation Statement" section and picks from an assortment of different front page templates each with different spotter activation notices used in the scrolling marquee at the top. There are something liek 8 or 9 templates, altogether. The statement could say "SPOTTER ACTIVATION IS NOT ANTICIPATED AT THIS TIME"; or it could say "SPOTTER ACTIVATION MAY BE NECESSARY LATER TODAY", or "SPOTTERS ARE REQUESTED TO ACTIVATE ATT". So if I wanted to change anything in the static text in each front page template - such as changing a news headline - I'd have to do it in all 9 templates. Same if I wanted to change a sidebar menu navigation button. You can see how frustrating that could become.

So I made use of something called "IFRAME" in HTML code, which allows me to call upon a SEPARATE EXTERNAL FILE and import that into the page. I'm doing this with the date across the top left. I import another external file for the main body text. I import yet another for the sidebar navigation menu. This way, whenever I need to change something in the calendar date script, the change occurs across every page which makes use of it. If I need to make a change to the manu sidebar, that change happens across ALL of the subpages that use it. If I make a change to the main body of the front page...ALL of the various templates will pull that one same file. I no longer have to duplicate my work. That will save me so much time and effort.