website

If you try (or have tried) to email any address @huntsvilleswingdance.org in the last week or so, you may have gotten a notice that the email was rejected. We recently set up a spam filtering service and locked down the mail server to prevent email from avoiding the spam filter. Until all ISPs up date their records, some emails may still go to the old mail server (and be rejected). If you get a rejection, simply wait a few days and try resending. You can also leave us a voicemail at our phone number 256-369-9543. Everything should be back to normal in a week or two.

Gabe

Just a minor update: We've corrected a small mistake in the website that was causing the ical feed on the calendar to display no entries. This should allow you to import the HSDS calendar of events into whatever calendar you use (google, outlook, etc). The best way to access the ical feed for the year is to visit The Yearly Calendar and click the little calendar icon in the lower left. As always, let us know at swing@huntsvilleswingdance.org.

Ok, we should now be back with the full website. Even though, from the web, it seems like the site is down or up, on the back end I build HSDS servers 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. Five was the one in use from Saturday to today. Nine is the one in use now. 4, 6, 7, and 8 were duds. This one should have all the content from HSDS 3 (the one we were using before last Saturday) w/o the internal errors I was getting on HSDS 5.

I think I'm going to keep server HSDS5 running as a hot spair so that, if HSDS9 goes down, I can point the domain to HSDS5 while I fix 9.

Since I had the trouble with the website this weekend, I've got a version up and running. However, I'm not happy with some of the configuration issues it has. As such, I'm going to put off posting much on the site. I'm hoping to restore the original image I took before backup to a working Amazon cloud image. If I can get that working, I will switch the HSDS site over to point to it and use this as a backup site.

In the mean time, I'm going to have to put off updating the calendar, issuing the newsletter, and updating some of the HSDS events and graphics.

I'm soooo sorry. I tried to do a regular software upgrade to the server and it crashed half way through. I've spent the entire day rebuilding on a new server. We are back up and running (though missing about a weeks' worth of content. I promise I will never patch the server the day of a dance ever again!

Gabe

If you've ever looked at the Local Events list, you'll have noticed that some events had huge lists of the dates/times they recurred on. It's annoying and I've finally taken the time to fix it. Now, only the next four upcoming recurrences will be listed. If there are more than the four, the rule for recurrences will show as well. Hopefully this minor tweak improves people's experience on the site =). You'll still be able to see all dates by looking at the full event (click the title or the "read more" link).

--Gabe

Ok, posts will hopefully be showing up on the @HSVSwingDance twitter account (again). A new set of permissions was installed during the last module update. The permissions have now been correctly set.

Just a note, twitter integration is back. We had it for a while but lost it in a software update. I've got it re-integrated now though and so hopefully any post made to the HSDS site will show up in our twitter feed.

Unfortunately, the email on the website has been down for a few weeks. I caught it late last week and got it fixed today, however it means the February newsletter is just starting to send now. Also, it means any accounts created or changes made didn't receive their confirmation emails. Sorry for the mistake, but it should all be working now.

Recently, I've been seeing other swing groups become more active advertising their events in Huntsville and the south east. I try to get what I can onto our calendar, however it can be a bit time consuming.