BCN October TAC Meeting

October 7th 5:15 - 7:00pm

Proposed Minutes

IN ATTENDANCE

Joelle Bonnett
Bob Echelmeir
Howard Harbison
Jim Harrington
Neal McBurnett
John Pope
Art Rifkin
Ernie Stiltner
Paul Von Behren
Jim Waterman

AGENDA

Review, Revise & Accepted Agenda

Accept previous minutes

Review previous Action Items

1. Domain Name Policy Documents - Neal, Jim W.

2. BCN Server space issues Jim W.

3. Page Counters Ernie, Jim H.

4. Statistic reports for BCN / Onestop Marc S, Ernie, Jim H

5. City web sites on server? Jim H.

police?

parks and recreation?

library

accounts

6. TAC War Room Neal

7. Flash/SWF Neal

"open(?) format" for web vector graphics

CURRENT ACTION ITEMS

1. JIM H. / TONI / PAUL T Will schedule a meeting in October to coordinate the task of collecting the URL addresses and contact information for every nonprofit BCN hosts. JIM W & ROY will be CCd on meetings and as project progresses will be solicited for help. Roy recommends we use both DIPP and server file information in our search

2. NEAL - FAQ / Review of Jim Ws document is coming

http://bcn.boulder.co.us/faq/domain.html

3. NEAL, JIM W, JOHN P. & ERNIE Will assess how bad of a problem are CGI scripts on BCN server. John P will be looking at logs on CGI scripts.

Jim W. recommends not just looking for files that end in .cgi but also .pl

4. NEAL & JIM W. will review xwebcos domain registration

form http://www.xwebco.com/cgi-

5. JOHN P. & PAUL: T. is there a possibility to take one of the donated computers and make it into a linux box for BCN volunteers to play on?

6. PAUL will seek a donation of a disk storage device for BCN from Storage Tek

7. ERNIE will research the optimal counters group may use on BCN. His research will focus on mutipath bug issues as well as concerns for administration and technical support for BCN

8. JOHN will do a sanitized log file report for the United Methodist Mountain View Church so they can find out how many monthly hits they get on their page.

9. JOELLE & NEAL will meet to discuss what needs to be done to improve the stats information for the general public and as a management tool.

10. KAREN K - email the request for a new library account to TAC list.

11. JOHN will bring laptop with connection wires to next TAC meeting

12. Jim H. will schedule the Spring Center developer meeting an an additional 1 or 2 TAC meetings or BCN project teams in the computer lab. Request to be made for the Sprin g 2000.

13. BOB Will research the possibility of BCN using the services of Web Mechanic and send out an e-mail to the list.

1. Domain Name Policy Documents - Update- Neal & Jim W.

UPDATE

************************************************************************

Mike Lewinski <mjl@nilenet.com>

I have a domain registration form ready for usage on our servers now. It's the same URL I sent you before:

http://www.xwebco.com/cgi-bin/bcn.cgi?

SEE ATTACHMENT

Functionally it is complete. I could still work on the verbiage to clarify things a bit more, but I don't think it's too bad. Let me know if you see anything that's confusing. Feel free to post the URL to the BCN lists.

Mike

************************************************************************

DO YOU WANT A DOMAIN?

Paragraph to describe it

BCN does not do this but others do and this is how they can do it our way)

STEP ONE - See if the domain name is available and cost to acquire and register

STEP TWO - If you want to pursue options check out BCNs approved ISP domain name host & redirect providers

xwebco/ rockynet

Indra?? Top of the organization was not communicating with the bottom of the organization. Swing in Action. Does Indra want to be listed as an ISP providing this service for BCN clients?

IF YOU ARE A INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER and want to provide redirects to BCN pages check out (Process by which other ISPs may join the list)

QUALIFICATIONs to be an approved ISP domain name host and redirect provider

MODEL HOW IT CAN BE DONE

CONCERNS were raised about how to deal with older browsers that can not be redirected:

internet explorer 2, mosiac, Netscape 2 WEBCO has proposed doing an index page from which older browsers can get to where they want to go

OTHER QUESTIONS

bookmarks

why do they say BCN instead of www.nonprofit.org

why BCN doesnt host domain names ect

BCN CUSTOMERS SHOULD ASK THESE QUESTION AND THE ISP SHOULD ANSWER NOT

HAVING ANSWERS TO THESE QUESTIONS COULD HURT BCN IN THE ENSUING HASSLES BCN WILL HAVE TO DEAL WITH

1. How to register with Internic making VERY sure ownership of the name and the administrative contact be at an e-mail address and account different from the ISP address that is hosting and redirecting the domain name

2. contact info at the ISP. Who is the technical person?

3. Variations on name standards

4. for e-mail, FTP and other protocols

are these services supported by the ISP?

what is the charge?

where will webmaster for domain name e-mail go?

BCN clients can do a TekMatch project if they need help following these instructions

At end of BCN hosted web page have Brought to you by BCN Please send comments to XXXX / not BCN

AN ISP MUST accept mail under the domain name and not send/bounce the mail to BCN

MEMO OF UNDERSTANDING WITH ISP

Technical concerns

E-mail FTP protocols

ISP answers all domain name questions

if ISP stops hosting they need to let client know not just BCN

BCN is outlining a process for a third party to do Domain names

BCN does not do DNS

BCN does not do IP allocation

ADDITIONAL DOMAIN NAME COMMENTS

Please review these documents. The reason BCN doesnt do domain name hosting is that we dont want a lot of questions.

What do you do if this document doesnt answer your questions

If you have further questions DONT ask BCN for a personal answer.

PLEASE do give comments if you thin they will help others understand the process as well BCN should list who can help them

Multi domain SMTP

Jim W. reports if they don't configure it the real host NOT BCN gets the mail

1. BCN Server disk space issues -update-decision Jim W & Jim H.

Lynn has notified us that again it is time to clean up our accounts.

Should BCN add more disk space to its home directory or should we reallocate space set aside for video and audio streaming and use it in the home directory? other options?

2. COPY OF DISK USAGE BY ACCOUNTS WAS AT THE MEETING

DISCUSSION

The process to repartition the disk space is involved enough to not be a desirable solution

Immediate solution is to move projects out of the home directory into their particions and for people to individually clean up their accounts,

Longer term solution is to acquire additional storage space for the HOME directory either through a donation or a purchase.

3 . Page Counters Introduction Discussion-

Ernie, Jim

The United Methodist Church called and asked how it could find outhow many hits it is getting.

Can web sites hosted on BCN have a page counter?

.DISCUSSION

concerns about counters

1. server load

2. intended use

3. Administration and technical support for the system

4. bugs (multi -path)

BCN shall discourage the use of counters and encourage the use of more user frinedly stats page. If people do have counters BCN wants the optimal ones to be used.

the issue of page counters and stats have come up before for reporting requirements on the One Stop Career Network and will return for both Virtual Chautauqua and BASIN

4. Statistic reports for BCN / Onestop Introduction, Discussion

Marc S.

Ernie Jim H.

We basically need the page counts for the Request Report for onestop.

Marc is proposing a log analysis of the http log files on

> onestop.colorado.edu. Ernie and I have been discussing page counters. Log

> analysis statistics and page counters will be on the next TAC meeting

> agenda 5:15pm Thursday October 7th at BCN

> Please take a look at the BCN statistics page at

> http://bcn.boulder.co.us/stats/analog.html

> Whatever we do on Onestop we will probably want to have on BCN as well.

> We want to have a consistent analysis of activity on the BCN and Onestop

> servers.

> Ernie and I discussed having page counters on BCN pages and some security

> concerns were raised. (see forthcoming forwarded e-mail) The BCN

> statistics page did not list pages getting less than the 20 hits threshold

> and was very difficult to use to find one particular web sites activity.

> Suggested changes:

1. For internal management we would like to lower the threshold.

2. Have the ability to search and sort results from the statistics page

3. Be able to use the statistics page to list all pages on BCN. (Part of our search the BCN server project to list all the organizations we are hosting and remove old sites)

4. Have a very readable, quickly downloaded summary of BCN's statistics.

Something we will point potential donors to.

5. Have the same log analysis / statistics on Onestop as on BCN.

6. other changes ????

DISCUSSION

Dont give general public access to all logs due to danger of harassment of

users

Logs need to be improved for use as a management tool

Logs need to be user friendly.

Logs available to the genral public need to be stereilized.

1. The analog Cgi script need to be checked for security issues

2. It needs to be checked for privacy issue

referer

agent

host

time

3. need write up FAQ on stats

5. City Web sites on Server -Background / Update -Jim H.

Can we determine what sites for the city we are still hosting for?

Seems like we may still be proving service to:

police?

parks and recreation?

(FTP problems)

library

BCN asked to create an account for

JIM W WILL NOT ANSWER ANY MORE TECHNICAL QUESTIONS FROM THE CITY OF
BOULDER

BCN will still host information from the city that is relevant to the public.

It is uncertain if the city hosting payment is to OCT 1st or through Oct.

Jim H. will track hours spent on city of Boulder and bill them . Joelle will track down what the agreement is currently with the city

Library is no longer hosted by BCN. BCN does not make accounts for them

6. TAC War Room- introduction & brainstorm - Neal & Jim H.

BCN needs a clubhouse of multiple computers large enough where a couple small groups can be working on a project during a meeting. Can turn TAC meetings into brain intensive work sessions to get things done - Neal

DISCUSSION

BCN event in computer lab scavanger hunt or LAN party gaming for fun

or

group work environment for BCN project

TAC event or Center developer event

sit talk and be online working to fix stuff together.

ties in well with BCN developing a community clubhouse of about 12 machine

TAC meetings should have one computer connected to BCN during the meetings in conference room. Problem using phone jack because all phones are digital accept the one in the kitchen

7. Flash/SWF "open(?) format" for web vector graphics

FLASH is open spec but not open control. The company Shockwave maintains contral. The future standards for vector graphics from the World Wide Web consortium is Standard Vector Graphis that is based upon XML

FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS

1. Indexing searching BCN Roy

FEB TAC Meeting (Roy is swamped until the end of 99)

How do we want searches on the BCN server to work?

What method do we want to use to find things?

How can we help people to quickly find the meat of the BCN

website / community?

Roy may research Glimpse, Webbot and evaluate in general search engines for BCN to use

2. Accessibility Standards for BCN - discussion-Pierre

WHAT ARE THE TECHNICAL CONCERNS AND WEB SITE STANDARDS BCN SHOULD HAVE TO MEET THE NEW ADA STANDARDS?

All web sites associated with the federal government (and an increasing number of states) will need to comply with the Americans With Disabilities\ Act by early next year. This will affect web publications, software\ development, and hardware and software procurement standards.

http://aware.hwg.org/

http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2243282,00.html

http://dir.yahoo.com/Arts/Design_Arts/Graphic_Design/Web_Page_Design_and_Layout/

Accessibility/

http://www.w3.org/WAI/

http://evolt.org/index.cfm?menu=8&catid=20&cid=381

http://www.knowbility.org/

My recollection of previous discussions on this issue is that we should wait until the federal government officially releases its standards before making this a TAC / Center Developer priority. While we wait do some preliminary work assessing the BCN site with Bobbie I have some concerns about BASIN and Virtual Chautauqua as federal grant funded sites being developed under current standards but delivered to the governmentwhen these new standards are in effect. (Jim H.)

3. Server Statistics - Implementation

BCN nonprofit clients want info of use / sterilized logs

BASIN help meet reporting requirements

Virtual Chautauqua help meet reporting requirements

Internal management tool -inventory of sites and activity

4. XML- introduction & discussion

Pierre

http://www.w3.org/XML/

5. BCN Disk Storage Space

IF Paul V. is not able to secure a donation of a disk storage device shall TAC recommend to the board the purchase of a disk storage device for the BCN server. The additional disk storage is to enhance the Home partision of the BCN server. Staff, Board & volunteers should first seek additional sources for a donation bbefore making a purchase. Estimated cost if the stoage device is purchased to be about $500 - $750.

6. TAC / BCN outreach shall TAC propose a wish list to the Board, staff, friends and volunteer for the purchase / donation of a laptop and screen projector for use at TAC meetings and BCN outreach events?

7. Domain Name Update