Our 2006 Events schedule has now been posted. Please visit the Events section of our website.
Our 2006 Planning Dinner was a big success. Dinner at Christopher Daniel was excellent and we have some great new events for the upcoming year. The new schedule of events will be posted soon in the Events section of our website.
Photos from our July hang gliding event have just been posted in the Gallery section of our website.
Everything's back to normal. The web provider has patched their servers, we've restored everything from either the site's content database or backup files. The galleries are all back online.
Our web server got hit with a worm. Fortunately, Rob was able to get everything back on line. Thank you Rob! The support group from the web server still needs to restore some of our photo gallery pictures, but otherwise we're in good shape.
Our gallery has just been updated with some 2003 event photos. If anyone has event photos that can be posted, just email them to us. If you have hard photos, let us know and we'll give you an address you can mail them to.
The event Photo Gallery has been updated. I've moved it into the content managment system. The chapter coordinators will soon be able to upload pictures directly to the site and post them for viewing. As the gallery grows, I'll set up some archiving so that the page doesn't get too humongous.
Hopefully, we'll now be able to have some pictures that are more recent than 2002!
I made some changes to the Contact page. I made both the forms look the same, and I provided some better instructions.
I also added some code to the script that strips out any extra leading or trailing spaces from the email address submitted. I realized that someone who was cutting and pasting their email information into the box could accidentally leave spaces before or after the text. Since the program that validates the address format rejects space characters in the mail address, it would give an error message. This should now be fixed.
Also, the error message if you should happen to submit an invalid address has been made more clear. It now gives a reason for the error, depending on which formatting rule caused the address to reject.
New site update:
You can now manage your subscription to the chapter mailing list from a web form. The new form on the Contact page allows you to enter an email address an either add it to, remove it from, or confirm it on the No Kidding Baltimore chapter news mailing list. Instructions are provided.
Hopefully, this will eliminate the delays caused by the previous system of having the webmaster manually add folks to the list. Everything should be completely automatic.
I've been a bad, bad WebDude. I've been neglecting my duties here (and elsewhere online), much to Mitch's consternation.
Tonight, I blocked out some time and sat down to make all the necessary updates to the site content. I'm also going to fix things so that Mitch doesn't have to be as dependant on my irregular update schedule.
So, the events page has been updated to be totally current. The 2004 events list has been posted in full. The old news and events entries have been aged off the pages. The White Elephant and Pot Luck events have been updated with RSVP forms.
I'll be installing some plugins and writing some code tonight to let other people do pretty much all that needs doing instead of waiting on me.
Theresa Novak has submitted an outing for December 7, 2003: Belly Dance Party at The Five Seasons Restaurant!
Please visit the outings page for details, and to RSVP if you are interested in attending.
The last of the 2003 events - The Parade of Lights at Baltimore's Inner Harbor - is posted, along with an RSVP form. Please remember to RSVP by December 1st.
The 2004 events schedule has been mailed, and is being formatted for posting on the website. Look for it soon.
Also - There's a "Save the Date" notice for January's Ladies-Only event. Details will be forthcoming as the scheduling is completed.
The events listings are fully up to date. An RSVP form for the November potluck has been posted.
Some new stuff coming:
The planning dinner event has been posted, and an RSVP form is available. If you wish to participate in the choosing of next year's event schedule, be sure to be there!
The NCR trail walk has been cancelled. Rob was the co-ordinator for the event, but work and other time demands have got out of hand. The Pumpkin Picking trip is always an October hit, however.
The crab dinner was a success! We had three new attendees show up at Bo Brooks for some good food and conversation. Hopefully, we'll be seeing them all again.
There are pictures, including the not-to-be-missed group mug shot! I'll put them up as soon as they're processed. One of these days I'll have to spend the cash on a digital camera for event pics.
Those of you that begged off for the evening - you missed lovely weather, a great evening on the patio, and a nice view of the waterfront. Thanks to Darryl and Ellen for planning this event. (BTW, if I misspelled your name yet again, Darryl, I apologize - send an email and I'll fix it. The r's and l's... they confuse my poor simian brain.)
I just realized how incredibly stupid it is for me to require that users sign up for the general mailing list, and then submit their email seperately to be notified for the news and events pages.
So, I've removed the Update Notify boxes from the news and events pages. I've set notifications to the members list, so that the central mailing list is the only one we all need to worry about.
Sorry 'bout that.
I've updated the links page.
I'm also considering re-enstating the link submission form. I'd really like to provide a space for members to submit links to their own sites.
Any comments would be appreciated on this matter.
That was easy enough.
The news page is now being handled by MT as well.
So, now you can add your own commentary to the news items by using the comment link.
The last thirty days of news will be displayed on this page. I'll be setting up an archive calendar on the left to access older news items as entries roll off.
This is actually really cool. The events page is being handled by a dynamic content publishing tool called "MovableType". This will allow site administrators (myself, Mitch, and Steve) to update the events page from anywhere using any modern web browser. It's also fully secure and account/password protected.
What does this mean to you, the end user?
First - more timely updates. I get busy, and sometimes can't post events for several days after the info becomes available. Now, Mitch and Steve can post the initial announcement themselves, and I can add forms and links as soon as I can.
Second - Comments. Each entry on the page has a comment link where you, the user, can send public feedback.
I'll soon be converting the News page over to the same scheme, so keep your eyes peeled. That will give us the ability to have an archive of every news item, as well.
Enjoy!
I've re-vamped the galleries page. I think it's a much better way of presenting our group pictures. Take a look!
Once again, Mitch and Marci's annual pool party and cookout were a success. The next event is the crab feast at Bo Brooks.
We seem to have made it through the web site transition relatively unscathed. Over the next couple days, I will be transitioning the remainder of the pages to the new format. Also, I will be configuring the new events/chapter mailing list.
Everyone on the mailing list will be required to confirm their subscription. There are almost 90 names on the list, even after pruning out those accounts that are no longer valid. Of course, not all of these are truly active. Everyone will receive an email asking them to confirm that they want to subscribe to the chapter email distribution. Simply follow the instructions included in the mail message.
The events page will be updated in the next day or so, as well.
If you're reading this, we got past most of the hard parts.
Within the next few days, if you were on our prior mailing list, you will be getting an email asking you to confirm that you want to be on the new one. The message should contain adequate instructions, but you should only have to send a simple reply to confirm that you want to subscribe.
The good news is that we'll soon be able to handle mailing list subscriptions automatically, rather than waiting for me to remember to add new users to the list.
More to come as it happens.
We're going to be moving to a new web provider. Once again, TotalWebHost's servers are not behaving, and mail isn't moving properly from the nokiddingbalto.org forwarders and mailing lists.
I've had it.
The new site will be on ICDSoft. I ordered the account, and it was up and running in 20 minutes. Once I get things configured and ported over, I'll point the nokiddingbalto.org domain to the new servers. There may be a period of wierdness for the 24 hours or so it takes for the DNS (domain name server) changes to propagate 'round the net, so be forewarned.
Your humble webslave has been hard at work on the new site layout and visual design. The home page has been transistioned to the new look. Drop me a line here: webmaster@nokiddingbalto.org and let me know what you think. Or, just click the comment link below.
I'll take any suggestions into account while I prep the remainder of the site for the move to the new look. Fortunately, the re-format is being done with style sheets, so any format changes can be done pretty much site-wide by making one edit.