COULD BE THE END FOR AUTOMATED FACEBOOK WEATHER POSTINGS. You heard us right. Due to new security policies that went into effect just after midnight on August 1st, EMWIN servers across the country (and the world) have been cut off from being able to post any further weather bulletins to Facebook pages.

Even the software author of our EMWIN server software is stumped, having tried every avenue and failed. There's nothing further we can do about it.

Facebook, after taking a publicity beating over the years of hacker, terrorist (such as al-Queda and similar jihadi groups using it to garner new recruits, encourage new attacks, and all too easily broadcast their attacks, sometimes live), and more recently - the Russian hacks (who appear to be at it yet again even as we speak with new FB pages designed to affect mid-term elections), have brought FB to this. And, you can also probably blame their want to make more money with their advertisers. Maybe mostly.

...End result, EMWIN servers are now no longer able to post any weather bulletins to Facebook. There are some workaround possibilities we could try, but unfortunately those ideas would seem to possibly violate their policies, too. And once they discovered those, we'd just be back in the same boat again.

Meantime, TWITTER still works (so far) - at least until they implement similar policies that affect automated posts going there, too. We've had mirror Twitter sites up for as long as the FB pages have been up - for Alachua County SKYWARN, the Alachua County EMWIN Project, and others.

Curious if any other services (other than EMWIN servers) have been affected, such as "Alert(CountyName)" or "Alert(StateName). If they're affected, too...that probably means that's it. If not, maybe we can find out what agreements/hoops they went through to bypass the policies. Other than that...that's my only idea for now.

We apologize for this. It's not our fault though, or the EMWIN software author's fault. It's due to a new policy that Facebook put in place on August 1st, and there's nothing that can be done about it for now. Will keep everyone advised if that changes, though.

*Note that this doers NOT affect postings to any listgroups, such as the ACSKYWARN Email Alert List, SKYWARN-L, nor any postings straight to users' cellphones or pagers. This is just a Facebook-related issue.

02 MAY 18

Alachua FreeNet is again back up after some months being down. The ACS mirror page and the Index To SKYWARN Web Sites On The Internet are as a result also back up and operating again. 21 JAN 18

The January 25th 2018 spotter training class that was to be held Thursday in the Alachua County EOC has been canceled until some time in the spring due to the government shutdown.

25 AUG 17

Sent links to eclipse videos to AC-SKYWARN Email Alert List, AC-EMWIN list, and SKYWARN-L list.
Added eclipse videos to the Announcements page.

15 AUG 17

Added information about the upcoming total solar eclipse on August 21st.

26 JUN 15

Due to a snafu on the part of Cox Communications, all email services from the AC-EMWIN server were interrupted sometime last evening until about 9:40am this morning when we called Cox and worked with their IT Techs to correct it. Email to the ACWIN-* series of listgroups, the ACEMWIN-HURR-L listgroup, ceased until the problem was resolved this morning. We apologize for any inconvenience.

25 JUN 15

Heh. The Alachua County EMWIN Project got some (very) quick mention in a news story for our contribution to a panhandle Emergency Management Agency's Facebook weather bulletin notifications. It was actually just a few words really ("...and some pretty regular weather updates..."); but we'll take it. :) [click here]

25 JUN 15

Apparently EMWIN graphics coming down the EMWIN pipeline haven't been updated since about 6/16 due to some sort of problem up the EMWIN line at DC. EMWIN admin have been notified and hopefully the problem will be attended to soon. Note that this problem does not affect weather bulletins themselves, and it does not affect listgroup, Facebook, Twitter, or web site operations. They continue as usual, normally.

19 JUN 15

Noticed that the Spotter Information Statement in our scrolling marquee at the top of the AC-SKYWARN web site was not updating when spotter activations were being called for in the HWOJAX product. Investigated and after some debug testing the problem was discovered and fixed.

07 MAY 15

Just got Bradford County EM Facebook page going again with weather bulletins.

05 MAY 15

Got weather bulletins going again to the Facebook pages for AC-SKYWARN, AC-EMWIN, GVL Storms, GVL Weather, Hurricane Bulletins-Florida, and a number of other FB pages that we run.

03 MAY 15

Installed updated beta software. ...Testing things. Patience.

30 APR 15

Working with software author to beta test changes to EMWIN software to get the weather bulletins flowing again to the Facebook pages. Will take some time.

28 APR 15

Applied for username/PW for faster ingest engine. Response may take a while.

27 APR 15

Zuckerberg made some security changes to Facebook and all weather bulletins to Facebook pages are being blocked until we can find a workaround.

09 APR 15

According to the The System for Convection Analysis and Nowcasting (SCAN) web site (at the Meteorological Development Laboratory) "the Operational 0-3 Hour Convective Weather Forecasts: Real-time Output for the Conterminous United States page in no longer available", so the AC-EMWIN server will now pull their "2-hr CTG Lightning Probability" graphic, instead. The graphic actually looks a good bit aesthetically nicer, too.

29 JAN 15

Updated the AC-EMWIN server software. It also happened to include a nice upgrade of the watch/warning map graphic with it. :)

21 AUG 14

AC-EMWIN Server went down at about 2pm unnoticed, yesterday, causing bulletins to cease being sent out. The ingest program continued collecting bulletins, however. On restart of the server all collected bulletins were distributed, some if but late. The server is now operating normally.

19 AUG 14

03:40 PM: The AC-EMWIN Server will be down for a short time while we try to fix a problem with the AV software that occurred immediately after renewing a subscription. Hopefully this won't take too long...

05:00 PM: AV problem fixed. AC-EMWIN Server again operational.

10 AUG 14

Worked a little more on the Index To EMWIN Web Sites On The Internet. Claened up the formatting a little; added a couple more links.

30 JUL 14

Took AC-EMWIN server down in the evening and overnight to perform some upgrades and setup maintenance while things were slow. Users may notice some bulletins from this evening still showing up tomorrow morning. This will go away once the bulletins become overwritten with newer ones as the day passes. Sorry for any inconvenience. This downtime will affect everything - email, cellphone, listgroups, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Been kinda wanting to do this for a while, but we tried to choose a period of time when the least amount of local weather events was going on.

09 JUL 14

Starting on the 7th, began noticing that all emails being sent to AC-EMWIN customers with Alachua County email accounts (i.e., "@alachuacounty.us") were being answered with email notices advising that our emails to them were being "delayed". The problem continued all day through the 8th, and into the early morning of the 9th, too. Alachua County ITS advised us this morning that "...one of our databases had become disconnected." Problem has been repaired by their IT department and the bulletins are again flowing smoothly to our AC/BoCC friends.

08 JUL 14

Some sort of problem going on with Alachua County government emails (i.e., those those that end with "@alachuacounty.us"). All weather bulletins being sent to customers there are being answered with notices that the emails are being "delayed". The emails do not explain what the problem is. Email notifications to IT Tech admin at Alachua County are also being blocked by this problem.

05 JUL 14

Added two new topics to the ACEMWIN-HURR-L listgroup: HLS and PSH. See here for more info.

04 JUL 14

Thanks to ACEMWIN-HURR-L user Susan Burgess we discovered that due to sysop error the PWSAT bulletins were not making their way to the listgroup. This has been corrected. Fergot a little wildcard symbol in the setup for that particular bulletin. No one ever subscribed to that bulletin until now, it would seem. And it was brought to our attention by Susan, and we appreciate it.

03 JUL 14

Fixed broken link to the NHC hurricane track graphic on the ACS main page.

01 JUL 14

20 new subscribers to the ACEMWIN-HURR-L listgroup last month. We expect that this should pick up in July now that TS-One has been designated and is travelling up the Florida coastline.

So-far, so-good with the AC-EMWIN server's delivery of all tropical storm-related bulletins. Bulletins are properly making their way to all web pages, and to all subscribed Facebook and Twitter accounts, etc. Not that anything should be going wrong. There are no issues needing attention at this time. We just wanted to make sure everything was working properly since statements are now being issued for the first tropical storm of the season.

UPDATE: Discovered that the storm plot graphics posted to the ACS Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/ACSKYWARN) aren't working right on the mirror Twitter page (http://twitter.com/acskywarn) for some reason. Reason is unknown. People post pics to Twitter all the time. Right? So it should post. Hmm. Sounds like a problem between Facebook and Twitter themselves.

22 JUN 14

Got around to updating the Spotter Study Materials sub page. It had been a while and many of the links were in need of updating. To be honest, I usually dread checking this and the "Spotter Tools and Links" page because these pages contain the most dynamic links of all: personal web sites and even worse...NWS web pages. No web site ever created by the NWS ever remains at the same location for very long and they ALWAYS seem to change locations and the reason for it even nearly 20 years later still eludes me. But I can tell you that if it's a government web site, God must have said "Let them be random." (I think it's, like, Commandment Number 11...or something. I think it was on one of the lost tablets that never was located...)

02 APR 14

Looks like Alachua FreeNet email just started working again. So mail to "skywarn" and "afn09444" should work okay again. Incoming and outgoing mail to those accounts was held for about the past month due to a kinda huge server crash, there. Apologies to anyone who may have tried to get hold of me using either of those email accounts. I wasn't able to see your mail OR to respond during that time. AFN-anchored web pages were down for a short time after the crash but were one of the first things to be brought back up from backups. (HOWEVER, I've not been able to make changes to or update any of the AFN web pages due to the fact that FTP is still down.) The mail presented another kind of problem and was a little bit more difficult for the AFN admins to handle and it took some time.

26 MAR 14

Fireline server problems fixed. Backups restored. AC-SKYWARN and AC-EMWIN web pages and FTP again working.

25 MAR 14

Fireline ISP down. The Fireline server suffered some sort of a failure today. Admin has been notified. Mail, FTP, and web page services affected. AC-SKYWARN and AC-EMWIN web pages are down at this time. AC-EMWIN server itself is not affected however, and service to email, pager, listgroups, Facebook, and Twitter continues without interruption.

UPDATE: Turns out the main Fireline server apparently crashed. As well, looks like a terrabyte backup drive also crashed. A third backup exists, however. Systems will be transferred to another unit and backups should be restored to it either tonight or tomorrow.

16 FEB 14

March 2014 Spotter Training Class Scheduled. If you've recently checked the NWS-JAX web site you'll find that there is another spotter training class scheduled for Alachua County. It will be held on Thursday, March 6th, from 5:30 to 8:00 PM. It will be held at the Alachua County Health Department, 224 SE 24th St., Gainesville. For more information, contact Dave Donnelly, (352) 264-6500, or at email acem@alachuacounty.us.

15 DEC 13

Took AC-EMWIN server down for a few hours in the evening for maintenance and updates.

13 DEC 13

Email from Cape Coral FD Facebook page's admin advising that they're not seeing ANY bulletins being sent to their FB page for quite a while. On checking our server logs, we see no errors. Then again, we can confirm nothing going out to CCFD - including the daily ZFPs. On checking them again, we noted that the logs confirm that other NWS FOs are sending out ZFPs, but there are NONE WHATSOEVER noted coming out of NWS Ruskin/Tampa. This is strange. But it looks like the problem isn't on our end. Sent out a few queries to see if anyone else in EMWIN-land knows what's going on.

UPDATE: On doing further research, it appears that NWS-Ruskin (Tampa) has changed quite a number of zone codes for numerous bulletins handled within it's CWA. Many zones which were previously handled as single counties have now been divided up into "inland" and "coastal". When they made the changeover on the 3rd, the old zone codes for the affected counties suddenly ceased working.

The new zone codes have been updated into the server setup and all affected bulletins should again be working with our system.

03 OCT 13

WHOOPS! Caught an error on our hurricane graphics index page and corrected it. We prepare the index page manually and if there's a confusing situation as happened with Hernando - where it died, then reformed again, and the NHC renames the old to TC-8 and starts a completely NEW set of bulletins for a newly-formed Humberto it throws off all the rest of the naming system on our page. So post-Humberto deformation, Humberto became TC-8, Ingrid became Humberto, and Jerry became Ingrid, etc. So we added an additional line of code to handle the TC-8 graphic, and then adjusted the numbering of all the subsequent graphics so that they were correct again. Sorry for any inconvenience. Was a pain in the butt for us, too. :)

Incidently, if anyone is good with web page coding and would like to submit to us some new code which might handle all that automatically and create a page that looks the same way it does now, we'd be glad to use it.

02 OCT 13

For anyone curious, the government shutdown will NOT affect EMWIN operations.

29 SEP 13

Added "Free Text Message" (FTM) bulletins to the Facebook pages of Bradford Co EMA, Gulf County EMA, and the Cape Coral FD. These are notifications sent out by the NWS Field Offices to alert people when their radars go down, are under maintenance, and when they are back up. They're usually short and quick bulletins describing the situation and how long it will last. Thought they would come in handy in helping people to understand why a radar site might not be working at any particular time.

27 SEP 13

Added the Cape Coral Fire Department to our list of "customers". Began providing weather alert notices to their Facebook page. This means we're now serving EMAs in panhandle, north central, and southern Florida. Not bad for an organization that begs no money - dues, grants, or donations - from people to provide to provide the free service that we do. Took us a month to get it going due to a snafu on the part of Facebook which prevented "app" authorization. The problem cleared up mysteriously on its own, and when it did we were finally able to get things going for them.

15 AUG 13

09:15a - Oops! Noticed that on the AC-EMWIN Hurricane Graphics page we'd forgotten to update the storm names on the page. Not too big a problem. Users would have only noticed this if they moused OVER the links to the images, but the graphics themselves actually had theh correct names, of course. We'd forgotten to update the "ALT" statement inside of the "IMG" tag in the HTML coding. This has now been corrected. Sorry for any inconvenience.

10 AUG 13

So proud to see so much use suddenly coming of the ACEMWIN-HURR-L hurricane bulletins listgroup since NOAA listed us as an alternate source for Gulf/Atlantic hurricane bulletins after the shutdown of the GovDelivery bulletin service on July 31st. We jumped from a user base of 36 to now nearly 750 users. And this increases in big leaps and bounds whenever a tropical storm gets named. Very happy to see our efforts get such worldwide attention like this. People are checking in from countries all around the world. We're even getting subscribers in various state and federal government agencies. Nice to see we're providing a good service to so many people.

26 APR 13

09:00am - Heads up Alachua FreeNet users... AFN appears to be down again. ...Mail, web pages, FTP. One of my own personal accounts in one drive actually returns nothing in the dir list, while another account on another drive actually shows an error. The latter one probably being just a dismount. This means the AC-SKYWARN page at AFN will not be accessible. But the mirror AC-SKYWARN page is still accessible without any problems at www.fireline.org/skywarn.

Should note that unfortunately the AFN downtime DOES also happen to affect the Index To SKYWARN Web Sites On The Internet, too.

03:00pm - Okay. Admin working on Freenet problem. Admin calling it a "kernel panic, last night". Freenet1 rebooted. Mail working again, but throwing everything since 3/25 out at people. Pages operating again. FTP operating again. Let's hope it remains stable through the weekend at least. Kudos and grateful thanks to Bruce McIntosh as usual, of AFN admin, for effecting the fix.

15 OCT 12

Starting on the 10th, Twitter apparently made a not-too-well-widely-publicized change in how it handled incoming posts from automated servers and this caused a blackout for a few days because EMWIN servers across the country suddenly found that they were not able to get through and make any posts. Most of us didnt' even notice this until a couple of days had passed because it's all handled automatically by the EMWIN server software. After discussions with our EMWIN software author, and doing some beta testing for him of some fixes, the problem now appears to have been fixed, and posts to Twitter are yet again flowing. We'll keep an eye on things for a while to make sure things continue to work without problem.

02 SEP 12

The AC-EMWIN server is now located behind a gas generator automatic backup in case the power goes out. It also has a backup internet line, now. Should one line go out, the other will automatically take over.

With Bradford County EMA (Facebook page and Bradford area cellphone/email users) and Gulf County EMA both now being supported by our system, things are starting to take on much more serious tone. Under our old setup, had the power gone out, that would have been it, and it would have been extremely embarassing. Under this new setup, should the power go out, our system will keep operating for as long as the gas holds out. And should one internet line go out, we'll have at least one backup opprtunity for things to continue.

14 AUG 12

Now providing severe weather bulletins to Gulf County area Facebook page. Impressed with what they saw at the Bradford County EM Facbook page, Gulf County EM contacted us and asked us if we could provide them with a similar service to their own Facebook page. We, of course, were only too happy to oblige.

07 JUL 12

ISP Server Maintenance. On July 5th our web site ISP upgraded their server software. After a couple days of working out some kinks which caused some odd behavior with the AC-SKYWARN and AC-EMWIN web sites, the kinks have been worked out and things are again back to normal with all web pages.

24 JUN 12

20 JUN 12

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 Bradford County Office of Emergency Management, Alachua County SKYWARN, and the Alachua County EMWIN Project. 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.

26 MAY 12

Update of AC-EMWIN Hurricane Graphics Page. Time to update the hurricane graphics page. Removed old hurricane graphics and replaced them with generic "NO ADVISORIES YET ISSUED FOR THIS STORM" graphic for storms not yet having formed. These will automatically become overwritten as the first advisory is issued for each respective storm.

Facebook Hiccup - HLSJAX Bulletin Short Links Not Working. Thanks to Kevin Rulapaugh for pointing out that the HLSJAX shortened links were not working. I forgot to actually CREATE a link for that bulletin, and of course it went undetected until the HLSJAX bulletins actually began being issued. Problem fixed.

Fireline Server Hiccup. Noticed almost as immediately as it happened that Fireline suddenly stopped painting the ACS web page. I also checked FTP and it was not responding either. Called Fireline admin and advised them of the problem. Turned out to be a loose line connection not completely pushed in after installation of some new server equipment. After pushing in all the connections, the server suddenly began responding again. Problem solved within 5 munutes of occuring.

Minor adjustment to AC-SKYWARN Alert List (Yahoo). Stopped sending TCVAT hurricane bulletins to the listgroup and replaced them with the TCPAT. The TCVAT pretty much just lists the affected areas while the TCPAT has the detail of the situation that everyone wants.

Fixed Minor Map Zone Painting Problem. Didn't realize that the TCVAT product list is limited to just the NHC-issued watches and warnings, and that it didn't include additional watches/warnings issued by local agencies. So I included watches/warnings issued in the HLSJAX bulletin, as well. Now the map should paint the Florida situation more accurately.

Marine Zones On Map. Turned on Marine Zones on the map graphic so that their outlines appear in very light blue against the ocean, hinting where they are. Now those zones should be painted in the approrpiate colors for watches or warnings as they are issued.

05 MAY 12

Server Maintenance. Since we had to move EMWIN product file handling to the alternate server, the Bitly URL pointers attached to some Facebook messages no longer worked. :( Set up new service at v.gd.

30 APR 12

Web site maintenance. Gave the ACS mirror site some attention. We'd started to create a mirror site some years ago. But due to some incompatibilities between AFN and Fireline, we were unable to truly mirror the AFN website at Fireline, and the mirror was left abandoned for some years. A few years having gone by now, and servers and softwares having been upgraded, we've begun work on getting mirror site going again. This way, if there's a major crash at AFN, the Fireline mirror site can still be used, standalone, in it's place, until the AFN problems - whatever they might be - are fixed. (And vice-versa, of course.)

Also began work on creating AC-EMWIN mirror site, too.

26 APR 12

Web site maintenance. Made some changes to the way that the web site pulls EMWIN information. The AFN ISP has been experiencing a lot of FTP failures laterly and when it does the EMWIN server is not able to connect and to throw over any updated bulletins. The web pages usually still work while FTP is down, but no new information is able to be transferred. To avoid this problem, we've moved the EMWIN data over to another server and the AFN pages point to the data on the other ISP's server. Now, if AFN's FTP processes go down again, the EMWIN processes shouldn't be affected.

20 APR 12

AC-EMWIN Gets New Server Machine. Placed a new, much faster server unit into operation. Placed the old AC-EMWIN server into backup/standby status. More information here.

16 APR 12

Storm Spotter's Field Guide Upgrade - Satellite & RADAR Animations Added. Added satellite and radar imagery animations to the ACS Storm Spotter's Field Guide. Now when researching past events within Alachua County, spotters will be able to also view the satellite and radar data for that day. Took me a couple weeks to learn the data handling software, and to download the data, and to create the animations. Yer welcome. :)

24 MAR 12

First Alachua County Tornado Photo Captured! Jonathan Baker was on break at the Walmart Distribution Center in Alachua today when an EF-0 tornado skimmed by the business - and he captured it in photo and video on his iPhone4! We've been researching tornado photography in Alachua County and haven't been able to find anything. So Jon's photo could very well be the first ever taken here in Alachua County. More on the story here!

25 SEP 11

Spent past few days trying to figure out why the EMWIN software has not been painting flood-related products to the Watch/Warning map on the ACS main front page. After a lot of time spent on it, the problem was found and fixed. The map is again painting flood-related products properly.

27 AUG 11

Readjusted AC-EMWIN server software to only paint the map for tropical-related watches and warnings which affect FLORIDA and the immediately-surrounding states. Otherwise, the software continues to paint the legend for watches and warnings which are occuring all up and down the eastern seaboard - even when we're actually experiencing nothing here, at all.

25 AUG 2011

Updated the AC-EMWIN software's map database to allow inclusion of tropical and marine-related watches and warnings to be painted on the map. Up until now, only land-related watches and warnings had been painted.

17 AUG 11

Rrr. Found another error in my HTML templates. Fixed it. I'd forgotten to make a change in the EMWIN software so that it would rename the main web page template to MAIN.HTML instead of INDEX.HTML.

08 AUG 2011

Corrected HTML error in main page. Noticed that the GRA metar graphic wasn't updating. I'd created a pointer to a JPG that didn't exist when the graphic was actually a PNG. The graphic now works properly.

04-06 AUG 11

Busy fine-tuning all the relevant pages, debugging, tweaking. Think I've got most of it worked out, now.

03 AUG 11

Updated ACS main page with new design. Was getting irritated that every time I needed to make a change to the navbar, or to the main body, I had to make this adjustment across something like 10 other duplicate pages with the only thing being different between them being what the marquee displayed regarding spotter activation. I needed a way to be able to update ONE navbar, and have it shared between ALL of those template pages, and update ONE body, and have it update between ALL of the template pages.

Inserted IFRAME sections into the main index page templates which now CALL upon an external navbar file, and an external main body file. This way, the spotter activation status marquee templates can still be changed by the EMWIN software, while all I have to do is update the navbar once, or the main body once, in one file. This saves me a bunch of work.

Unfortunately, Alachua Freeenet has everything important that matters turned off: CSS, PHP, SSI. so none of that can be utilized.

27 MAY 11

Updated this "What's New!" subpage. Reformatted it. Removed old background. Brought it up to date with other subpage designs.

Finished editing Waldo Wall Cloud video. Added captioning. Added starting title and end copyright. Included section showing what happened after the wall cloud passed over, when Jim and Penny chased behind it and ended up effectively doing something close to "core punching" and ending up in driving winds and rains.

26 MAY 11

Neatened up the subpages so that the side navbars all matched.

Removed the "fairsky" background from some of the pages and made them all match with the "Alachua County SKYWARN" background.

27 APR 11:

A common question people are asking of late, especially now that the shuttle era is winding down, is whether one can actually see a shuttle launch from Gainesville. The next natural question that goes along with it is WHERE you can go to see a launch. The answer is "yes". You CAN see a shuttle launch from Gainesville. See this page for some examples of what a launch looks like from here, as well as the answer as to where to find a good location to view a launch.

Added more international links to SKYWARN Index.

14 APR 11

Took AC-EMWIN server down for clean-up, maintenance, and software upgrade.

07 APR 11

Performed yet another links check on the Index To SKYWARN Web Pages On The Internet. AWFUL lot of broken and missing links. DO have to tell yuh...keeping that page up and current is a neverending job. Someone will come along and beg me to add thier new web page to the list, and I SWEAR...THREE MONTHS LATER...the page is already missing. That happens a LOT.

I'm also adding something new to the site. I've decided to go ahead and start adding related Blogspot, Facebook, and Twitter pages that any organizations may have, as well. Haftuh keep up with the times! If you have a link you'd like me to add to the Index, let me know.

23 OCT 10

Added news about Dec. 9th spotter training class to News & Announcements page, main index page, ACS blog, ACS Twitter page, AC-EMWIN blog and Twitter pages.

30 MAY 10

Centered NWR information in left-side sidebar.

Added four new buttons to left-side navbar for AC-SKYWARN Twitter, Blogger, Facebook, and Yahoo links.

Added same to AC-EMWIN main, graphics, and text products pages.

Gave AC-EMWIN graphics products main page a facelift so that it matched the other pages.

25 MAY 10

Gave Severe Weather Photography page a slight facelift - adding contents at the top.

20 MAY 10

Added a few new links to Severe Weather Photography page. Added links to some associated videography.

04 MAY 10

Per Dave Donnelly, the May 14th spotter training class has been cancelled. The official reason given was "...due to unforeseen circumstances." Alternate date is now (sigh) October 15th.

24 APR 10

The EMWIN transmissions on GOES-East have now been transitioned to EMWIN-N. Users not able to receive EMWIN-N transmissions should re-point to GOES-West. More information on the AC-SKYWARN News & Announcements page.

23 MAR 10

There will be a Basic & Advanced SKYWARN spotter training class for Alachua County on Friday, May 14th, from 6 to 9pm, at the Alachua County EMA, 1100 SE 27th Street, Gainesville, FL. Contact is Dave Donnelly, (352) 264-6500, or at email dad@alachuacounty.us. Instructor will be Angie Enyedi.

17 MAR 10

Uploaded a ton of weather-related videos that I've taken over the years and I've made them now available, online. They include videos of downburst events, hail events, a wall cloud seen in Waldo, and more. They can be found under "Weather-related videos" at Todd Sherman's Video Pages. While there feel free to also browse other videos I've taken - including space shuttle launches, various vacations videos, and more. Enjoy!

As for the weather-related videos, if you'd like to use any for educational purposes, let me know.

23 FEB 10

There will be a Basic & Advanced SKYWARN spotter training class for Columbia County on Tuesday, March 23, 2010, from 6 to 9pm, at the Shiloh Baptist Church, 173 SW Shiloh Street, Ft. White, FL. Instructor will be Angie Enyedi, from NWS Jacksonville. Event will be sponsored by the Columbia County Emergency Services. Pre-registration is preferred so that they can plan on the number of handouts to bring, as well as how much FOOD to bring. (Their group likes to bring food like subs and stuff for attendees.) :o)

Please try to register by March 18th, if possible.

For more information and to register, please contact Leila Lindsey at (352) 339-4018 (preferred), or (386) 454-2872 (leave a message and she will return your call).

18 DEC 09

Fixed problem with map legend not updating on the main front page. A bug in the EMWIN software (being worked on) was preventing upload of the image to the web site. Apparently it hasn't been fixed as thought. Created a temporary workaround. It's working again.

Problem with RADAR images not FTPing over also fixed.

10 DEC 09

Sent reminder email to John re traffic reports to EMWIN bulletins. John said he's still having meetings with the powers that be about it.

07 DEC 09

Created new blog entry in my personal Blogspot page which goes into GREAT detail on the stalking and harassments that I've been having to endure for many, many years at the hands of a handful of local ham radio operators, and the problems they've caused me, and other people, and other organizations and agencies. I've been doing a lot of research and I've been uncovering a great many shocking things about these hams - who many people look up to. They've been involved in stalking, harassment, computer hacking, domestic violence, threatening officers, arms-related violations, check forgery, etc. These are not good people. More information on my Blogspot Blog, under "Where'd Todd Go?...", a December, 2009 entry. (See also mirror web site here.)

27 NOV 09

EMWIN software author came out with upgrade to software, today. Should correct problem with map legend in map client where I was not able to save the map legend to the web site without unorthodox thinking/measures. I was also not able to view it inside the viewer software, or save the file to other additional places. It should all work properly now. Upgraded server software.

10 NOV 09

Can't figure out why the Base Velocity and Storm Motion RADAR images won't FTP over to the AC-EMWIN site. All the other RADAR images do.

Pulling new version of the National Threat Level graphic. Now visible in the AC-EMWIN graphics page,

Revamping the AC-EMWIN weather bulletin product lineup. Creating pre-set "packages" that people can now pick and choose. Rather than letting people just pick and choose random bulletins, I'm laying down pre-set groups of bulletins. It's complicated to explain, but this will save me a TON of extra work by doing it this way. Had first subscriber using the new method, today. Users may now pick from a number of packages dealing with watches/warnings, forecasts, civil emergency messages, etc. And they can pick which counties they wish to receive them for. More information can be found here.

17 OCT 09

Added a few more new image pulls to the EMWIN lineup. These will be available off of the EMWIN Graphics page. They include a couple of GOES Surface Wind Composite images of the southeastern US and Gulf Hurricane sector, and the current Dept of Homeland Defense National Threat Level graphic.

10 OCT 09

Email to John Fleming regarding an idea about going back to getting the NWS to handle civil messages like the CEM and CAE again. JAX sort of has an unspoken policy against it because they didn't like how in the beginning they were kinda being abused, especially out in TX. Things have become more stabilized, now, and it's probably worth another look.

Also threw a brand new idea at John: I noticed how other states had Road Condition reports which some states also used to disseminate traffic accident and such-like information. Since the bulletins were already available in the EMWIN datastream, I asked John if it wasn't possible for FHP/DHSMV to spit the information now available on the FHP page to EMWIN bulletins, too. Then we can actually send out live traffic reports to pager and cellphone to the public! I thought it would be a GREAT idea. John is looking into it in meetings with FHP and Fla. DHSMV.

20 JUN 09

Corrected a few broken links on the AC-EMWIN Graphics Products page. Removed some older products that are no longer being issued. Added a couple of new GOES satellite images - visible and water vapor images of the Gulf region.

17 JUN 09

Authorized UF Listserv management to create three new listgroups:

• ACWIN-FL-ALACHUA
• ACWIN-FL-ALACHUA-SEVERE
• ACWIN-FL-ALACHUA-CIVIL

ACWIN is a new acronym that will now stand for the "Alachua County Weather Information Network". The "FL" identifies the listgroup as serving the state of Florida. (We may branch out in the future. We'll see. I reserved the state abbreviation in the listname for just that reason.) The county name identifies the county that the listgroup serves. The additional identifier on the end of the listgroup name identifies the alternate specialized purpose of the listgroup: "SEVERE" for severe weather bulletins, and "CIVIL" for local area civil emergency bulletins.

The "master plan" is to eventually end up duplicating these lists for other northern Florida counties, as well. The following counties are in my mind as possible candidates for service:

...ALACHUA, BAKER, BRADFORD, CLAY, COLUMBIA, DIXIE, DUVAL, FLAGLER, GILCHRIST, HAMILTON, LEVY, MARION, NASSAU, PUTNAM, SUWANNEE, UNION, and VOLUSIA. I include the beach commuities because many students and other Alachua County area tourists like to go to the beach for a break now and then.

These lists will be archived, as well, for those who wish to do past storms research.

The bulletins provided to the list come from the Alachua Co. EMWIN Project's server, which sends bulletins and alerts to cellphones, pagers, PDAs, listgroups, websites, and more. Benefits of using the AC-EMWIN service as opposed to other more widespread commercial services include faster bulletin dissemination (we download directly from the GOES satellite), we don't have tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of users to disseminate to, because we're a local operation. Again...faster dissemination results. We don't cookie you to death, track you, ask for any personal information, SHARE your information with other sources, etc. We live here in Gainesville. We're well known. We're easy to reach. But most of all, it's all provided FREE, as a public service.

For more information about the ACWIN Project, see:
http://alachuaskywarn.org/emwin/acwin.

?? JUN 09

Busy, busy, busy.

Modified the ACEMWIN-HURR-L Hurricane Bulletin Listgroup to allow users to be able to add or remove which bulletins they want. Previously up until now, users were forced to subscribe to all of the bulletins that were being sent to the list, and when hurricanes came, and things got busy, people would get overwhelmed. This is no longer a problem. Each hurricaqne bulletin has now been assigned to it's own "topic", and as a result, users can now turn topics on or off at their own will. This is a vast improvement that we think users will appreciate.

Turned on archiving for the ACEMWIN-HURR-L listgroup. Users can now peruse past bulletins for research.

Now to begin work on my next grand idea: creating weather bulletin listgroups for Alachua and all surrounding counties. Each county will have lists for: general weather bulletins (current weather, forecasts, public info statements), severe weather, and civil emergency bulletins. Each counties bulletins will be customized for that county. Users will have the ability to choose which bulletins they want, and to turn them on or off at their own will.

06 MAY 09

Created Alachua County SKYWARN Blogspot blog
(http://acskywarn.blogspot.com)
- This will be used for news and updates about Alachua County SKYWARN.

Created Alachua County SKYWARN Twitter page
(http://twitter.com/acskywarn)
- This site can be used by AC-SKYWARN members to keep in touch, and maybe even as a secondary means of relaying spotter reports, locally.

Created Alachua County EMWIN Project Blogspot blog
(http://acemwin.blogspot.com)
- This will be used for news and updates about the Alachua County EMWIN Project.

Created Alachua County EMWIN Project Twitter page
(http://twitter.com/acemwin)
- This is a special use project allowing local area users to receive Alachua County severe storm-related weather bulletins for free as a public service, provided by the Alachua County SKYWARN and the Alachua County EMWIN Project.

16 FEB 09

Caught someone remoting into the AC-EMWIN server without authorization. Short version: Reported incident to UF police. UF PD blew me off. Gator ARC Faculty Advisor Dr. Jay Garlitz blew me off; wanted AC-EMWIN system removed from club station and rooftop.

Then, oddly, Dr. Garlitz changed his tactic. He suddenly began trying to make my life difficult; tried to take AC-EMWIN equipment, calling it "UF property." Then tried to give ACOEM a chance to lay claim to the equipment. Dave Donnelly sent email demanding immediate removal of equipment and delivery to ACOEM. After arguing with Jay that this was a civil matter and that he did not have right or authority to decide the fate of the AC-EMWIN system. I threatened a lawsuit against GARC and threatened to call attention to illicit project handling practices that Jeff Capehart had engaged in and apparently kept secret from me during installation of the EMWIN system on the DSB rooftop. (The system was placed into my possession by John Fleming of the Florida Division of Emergency Management. Apparently, to get approval for the system to be placed in the club station and on the DSB rooftop, Jeff had done an end run around me and signed paperwork with DSB admin and without my knowledge put responsibility and ownership claim into the hands of the Gator ARC, and he never told me about this. Thus, I was never shown any documentation regarding it, or regarding any UF rules that claimed that anything placed on UF property became UF property, and there are no signatures with my name on it anywhere to prove such a transfer legally took place. Jeff signed these documents in his own name. When I brought this to Jay's attention, he decided not to give system to Dave Donnelly and ACOEM, and backed off copmpletely. He did not wish to bring this kind of attention to his club. I also sent Dave an email myself, threatening lawsuit and exposure of his previous involvement in causing a GPD cop to sabotage a previous harrassment case I'd filed in the past against Melissa Royce. (Someone in emergency management apparently convinced the cop who was investigating the harassment case that I was a "problem", and the cop deliberately delayed subpoenaeing IP logs from Bellsouth and Yahoo for six months to prevent me from discovering who had sent me a harassing email. Emergency Management had engaged in a matter of personal opinion based completely on gossip and did not verify anything in the rumor or do any personal investigating to prove or dispel it. I'd also complained to Dave Donnelly on earlier occasion during a personal meeting with him that I had about six different ham radio operators harassing and stalking me, who were so bad that I had been forced to go into hiding from the public. For some time, I stopped attending meetings in public, I produced very little email traffic to listgroups to "remind" these nutcases that I existed, I stayed away from hams...hoping that by being out of sight I would be out of everyone's thoughts. Dave's own advice was that if I was being harassed and stalked, that I needed to go to the police. He offered no other help or effort than that. The harassments only continued even worse after that, because my harassers saw that government wasn't doing anything to help me.)

Jeff caused me SO much trouble, here! ...SO much unbelievably unnecesary trouble. And it called to my attention hos he is so readily willing to break rules to do things. ...Things which can get a whole BUNCH of people into a SHITLOAD of trouble and he NEVER thinks about the future consequences that his rash actions could cause! It's just not a concern with him!

Flash back to today... Not wanting any attention on this matter, Dave backed off on making attempt to obtain the EMWIN system. He sent Dr. Garlitz an additional email advising that he was suddenly no longer interested. (They already HAVE an EMWIN system of their own, anyway. They don't need another one, and there was no point or REASON for trying to take our's.)

Since we were the only ones who had taken rooftop safety training, I was forced to remove the EMWIN equipment with my stalker - Jeff Capehart. (!!!!) As we removed the equipment alone, Jeff Capehart admitted to me that it WAS him who had hacked into the AC-EMWIN server. His reason? "...You PISSED me OFF!!! You were taking too LONG!!!"

There was a problem in early February with Jeff's pager and someone else's. On February 14th, in the AC-SKYWARN Email Alert List I made mention of the problems. I had removed his pager setup from the system temporarily because of too many errors from his service provider. Apparently they had changed their way of handling incoming pages, and his bulletins were being continually rejected by us. So I turned his off while we figured things out. Meanwhile, I temporarily set his pager up for reception using it's EMAIL address as an alternative so that he could continue to receive his bulletins. I guess I didn't work fast enough for Jeff. He couldn't even wait a 12 hours. So on the night of February 15th, at 12:30am, he decided to take matters into his own hands, and VNC'd into the server. He was able to do this by AC-EMWIN system by swiping the passwords. Here's how the conversation went:

"How were you able to get into the system, then? I kept changing the passwords!"

He read them off to me: "Oh you mean ****?...****?...****?"

I stared at him in shock. I shook my head, and realized that I had an angry look on my face, and tried to correct it, but then I realized and thought to myself, "Why bother?"

"WHY???", I asked. "Why would you DO that?"

"...because you PISSED me OFF!!! You were taking too long to fix the problem! So I was gonna try to figure out what the problem was and take care of it, myself!"

"Yah but, WHERE did you get those passwords FROM?"

"...Oh! (laughing) ...From your system registry!"

Again, I stared, and I got scared. This man BROKE into my computer, he was someone in powerful positions, in LEAGUE with people of power...inside the University of Florida, in the UF's Office of Inspector General, IT Auditing, in the Alachua County Office of Emergency Management, in Alachua County Fire/Rescue, in the Red Cross, the National Weather Service, in the Gainesville Amateur Radio Society, in the Gator Amateur Radio Club, the American Radio Relay League... He had contacts EVERYWHERE. He knew EVERYBODY. He VOLUNTEERED his way into everyone's hearts. He was ingratiated in with EVERYBODY. He's always doing favors for people - networking computers, electronics help. Everyone TRUSTS him. Everyone thinks this man is such a GOD, such a GOOD GUY, that he could do NO wrong! Nothing I would ever be able to say about this man would be listened to by anyone. I stood there, realizing that this man had the power to do whatever he WANTED to me and NO ONE would ever challenge him, or even ATTEMPT to because by default they'd simply accuse me of being nuts and of accusing a "good" man of something he could "NEVER" do. Jeff Capehart was acting like a definition psychopath.

I was standing there with a man who was staring me straight in the face and showing anger at me for not doing something his way, and who hacked into the server by stealing passwords, and he was showing NO apologetic feelings or guilt or remorse about what he did. In fact, he was placing the blame on ME for "forcing" him to do this. This is not a man who can be "reasoned" with.

So apparently, according to Jeff, whenever he'd visit the club station he would make it a point to sit down in front of the EMWIN station and access the AC-EMWIN computer and go into the registry and write down the latest password changes for Windows access, and for the EMWIN software access.

I remember there was a time where I had a suspicion that this might be going on. I still HAVE the emails where I asked the GARC system administrator if he would be able to write up a routine that would check for file sniffing...unauthorized checks to password files, logging where the lookup or file change had come from, and recording it to a log, and notifying both he and I when it happened. The sysop thought I was being rediculous, and did not respond to me...

(And that's typically been the response: ...that I'm ridiculous, everybody ignores me and BEST one..."I just don't want to get involved".)

I specifically told Jeff in the past that I did not want him accessing the computer anymore because he had a bad habit of doing whatever he wanted without authhorization whenever he disagreed on how I should do anything. He was not an EMWIN admin in the first place. Never was. He was never a GARC systems admin, either. Never was. He had friends in admin who did him FAVORS, and he knew some tricks to BYPASS those admins, sometimes, to do what he wanted. I didn't like how he occcasionally did that, and it bothered me. He also had a habit of trying to leave himself backdoor ways in to systems, which I'd seen him try to do with the "ham" server, as the GARC server was called. He was always trying to kiss butt with Ray and get Ray to allow him some temporary access to do something and I always thought it was funny how Ray was always wary of this wasn't always ewasy for Jeff to convince and I felt there was a distrust thing going on in there, and I wondered why. I just figured that Jeff must have tried to pull something with Ray in the past and that Ray was on to him. At any rate... So I'd even turned off the Remote Desktop feature built into Windows. On discovery of someone breaking in, I checked around, and I was VERY surprised to discover that someone had INDEED turned the Windows Remote Desktop feature back on again!

Long story short, I called UPD. I made a complaint to Detective Micheal Metz. But instead of handling things carefully, UPD was sloppy. Dr. Garlitz vouched for Jeff, and also implied that I was a problem. UPD then distrusted me and all I could do was watch while UPD gave full trust and cooperation with Jeff and GARC Faculty Advisor Dr. Jay Garlitz. I told Jay NOT to share anything with Jeff or to give him any responsibilities in this. (I still have the emails.) I told UPD same. (I still have the emails.) Dr. Garlitz used his title and countermanded me and told them to fully cooperate with Jeff and to direct all computer and networking-related questions to him, REAGARDLESS. UPD thus asked JEFF is there were any logs to determine if the access had occurred, and of course, Jeff said no, and he was believed. UPD also gave me this drivel that because the equipment was my own, and not owned by UF - even though the crime had occurred on UF property, that the "jurisdiction" was not theirs. When asked who's jurisdiction it was, they had no clue. (I doubted that.) The case was closed. Nothing was done. The bad guy got away.

In handling the case this way, however, UPD had tainted everything. There was now no WAY for me to take this case to the "proper" jurisdiction anymore because of the way that they had so badly handled the case. They had gone to the accused and fully cooperated with him and given him all intel he needed to prepare a defense and to delete logs if necessary. They listened to the Faculty Advisor over the victim. They completely ignored me, and my suggestions and warnings. This case can now no longer be handled at ALL because of mishandling by the University of Florida Police Department.

So my key to the club station was confiscated and the AC-EMWIN equipment was forced out of GARC club station and from the Dental Science Building's rooftop. The AC-EMWIN equipment has now been relocated to my home. It's probably for the better, anyway. While now no one can connect directly to our server for live bulletins and map updates anymore, this WILL keep hackers like Jeff Capehart out of the system - without having to do some pretty unorthodox things to get in which would risk them being noticed or getting caught.

Downside of all of this is this: The ham radio community is not willing to help. It has numerous hams in it's midst who are and who have consistently been a danger to me. They are not willing to police their own, They are not willing to take any responsibility. Therefore, for these reasons, I will no longer allow myself or any of my projects to have direct connection or to cooperate with any local area ham radio hams or their organizations due to the fact that they have time and again proven themselves to be hostile, and a DELIBERATE danger to others. Until the local ham community shows a lot more responsibility, and does what it can to try to stop the bad hams in it's midst from harming others, then I cannot in good conscience allow myself to continue to cooperate with them, or to recommend them, or to allow people who associate with Alachua County SKYWARN, or the Alachua County EMWIN Project, or any other projects or organizations that we sponsor - to associate with them without accepting responsibility for putting other people's lives at risk of some form of harm from the hams.

And I will not support agencies or governments which support those hams without any investigation. I cannot do that.

28 AUG 01

Copied A.C. SKYWARN site over to www.fireline.org in order to create a second mirror site for times when AFN goes down. (Thanks to Jim Carr/KC4MHH for loaning the space on his server to do this.) Now to get busy on adjusting URLs and working out any bugs that will inevitably be there.

27 AUG 01

Working on Spotter Rosters (the ones on the SKYWARN Home Page). Updated the roster that was sorted by Spotter ID Number - adding new members, updating last classes taken, etc. Replaced all occasions of @-symbol with "&-#-64" to try to thwart any webpage-surfing spambots from swiping e-mail addresses. E-mails will still work just fine, though. (Now to do same for rosters sorted by Name and by Callsign.)

Becoming apparent that a few class attendants grabbed more than one Spotter ID card (apparently forgetting they already had one from a previous class), and that some out-of-county attenders grabbed cards when they should not have - now having an Alachua Co. ID number where they should have one for their own county. (sigh!) Also, it must be stressed in future classes that members MUST provide complete and accurate location and contact information. Many early rosters had little or no information. I can understand the want for privacy, but there's a point where so little information is provided that the info is useless.

26-27 AUG 01

Uploaded A.C. SKYWARN business card templates, A.C. SKYWARN NCS Ops Manual to FILES area of the ACSKYWARN Yahoo listgroup site.

Uploaded (created, actually) multiple spotter class attendance rosters in the DATABASE section of the ACSKYWARN Yahoo listgroup site. Also created MASTER SPOTTER ROSTER, there. Now members can check these class rosters to see when they last took a spotter training class.

Created MEMBER MUG SHOTS, MEMBER PETS, MEMBER STORM PHOTOS, and MEMBER UNUSUAL WEATHER PHOTOS folders inthe FILES section of the ACSKYWARN Yahoo list group site as beginning places for members to upload photos to.

Added a bunch or organized links to the BOOKMARKS section of the ACSKYWARN Yahoo list group site, including pointers to other related list groups in our County Warning Area - Yahoo, or otherwise.

25 AUG 01

Alert List moved over to YahooGroups. Online group web site set up and ready. This allows for assigning multiple moderators who can still get the weather alerts out if I am not available, myself; providing multiple redundancy.

Added our logo to the ACSKYWARN Yahoo list group page; edited group description; set listgroup/membership defaults/rules.

14 JUL 00

Updated link to NWS-JAX. It changed - again.

20 JUN 00

Updated all links related to NWS-JAX and ACOEM to reflect new URLs of these agencies.

11 JUN 00

Minor cosmetic changes to main page.

Added info about Hurricane Awareness presentation to Announcements section of main page.

Reinserted link to NWS-JAX Hurricane Local Statement on main page.

02 JUN 00

Updated Important Numbers page.

Added map to new ACFR HQ to Spotter Classes page.

01 JUN 00

More cosmetic changes to SOP Manual.

31 MAY 00

Some cosmetic changes to SOP Manual.

30 MAR 00

Added link to Map of Surrounding County Names to Spotter Tools & Links page.

29 JAN 00

Added new spotter ID # for one spotter on spotter ID lists. Corrected last names of two spotters.

25 JAN 00

Added new animated banner ad to main page advertising Alachua County SKYWARN.

16 JAN 00

Added new link to SKYWARN Materials page for magnetic, reflective REACT-SKYWARN signs, from the Orlando Metro REACT-SKYWARN #4778.

14 JAN 00

From August 17, 1999 until present, have been experimenting with Adobe PhotoShop 5.0, trying to learn it, creating banners for the web page, fancying-up old graphics, adding 3-D effects, adding left-side clickable buttons, and generally trying to make the A.C. SKYWARN web pages look more professional.

Created and added some new mouseover SKYWARN icon buttons.

17 AUG 99

Gave the A.C. SKYWARN front page a facelift.

16 MAY 99

Updated all links to GARS-related web sites, which URL changed today.

14 MAY 99

Added announcements regarding upcoming presentation by John Holley, and the Advanced Spotter Training Class, to main page.

02 FEB 99

Updated LINKS page.

Added link to the new Flagler Co. SKYWARN (FCEM/Comm & Warning) program.

17 NOV 98

Added new form for use with reporting malicious interference events.

14 NOV 98

Updated Spotter Rosters to reflect new people trained in the November 7th ADVANCED Spotter Training course.

22 OCT 98

Updated Spotter Rosters to reflect new people trained in two consecutive BASIC Spotter Training courses held last month -- one at the GARS meeting and one at ACFR Headquarters.

18 SEP 98

`Bob' at United Way Information & Referral Service calls to confirm information obtained about Alachua County SKYWARN for an official listing with them. Information includes a detailed description gleaned from our main web page, a contact name and phone number, our e-mail address, and our web page URL! Thier number is (352) 375-4636. They are an excellent resource, by the way, with so much more information than you could ever get from often even a full-page Yellow Pages advertisement, and they are FREE!

14 SEP 98

Corrected changed URLs for Alachua County RACES and for SFCC-ARS.

11 SEP 98

Added another spotter to the Spotter Roster and to the E-mail Alert List.

09 SEP 98

Cut the front page in half in size. Cut out the links and made them a separate page pointed to from the main page to try to cut down the loading time and to make things a little easier on the eye.

08 SEP 98

Another spotter came to the rescue and uploaded the missing graphics. So now graphics are again back to normal. Guess that makes us completely healed. 8-)

07 SEP 98

Already, SKYWARN web page largely back up to normal again. Still a few map images missing, but the most important stuff is already back to pre-crash state. Gee, I'm good!

06 SEP 98 - EARLY am

Sigh. Just finished uploading latest copies of SOP Manual...AGAIN. Worked on text, HTML and WP60/61 versions. Will have to get Jeff to upload me the Word version. Think I've finally got the main page back to normal again. Still missing some of the maps we used to have. Maybe Jeff knows how to export them from his word processor copy? Otherwise, no idea where I'd originally found them. I can probably do it but I first have to re-learn the process. I'm such an idiot when it comes to these things. As I get older I find more and more how my memory fails me so quickly! Need Block Diagram, County Map, and Surrounding Counties Map.

05 SEP 98

Uploaded our old backups. At least we've got a web page up again for people to see. Missing some files and graphics. It's limping, but its there, at least.

Discovered that in creating the new home fileshell dir all files that were previously there - like the address book that we had - ended up deleted. Sigh! (Does this end anyplace?) This means I'll have to try to REMEMBER now all the names that were on the SKYWARN E-mail Alert Activation List.

Sent out e-mails to those people I COULD remember advising them that the web page was back up, and of the current status of things.

Who took my aspirin bottle?!

04 SEP 98

AFN opened our fileshell for us! Now we can upload our backups and start working on getting things back to normal again!

07 JUL 98

Alachua FreeNet suffers "hard drive crash" according to Main Menu login bulletin.

Anyway, SKYWARN fileshell affected. All web page files lost. Latest available tape backups at AFN are from August of 97, a couple months BEFORE SKYWARN's account was created -- meaning they had no backups for us. AFN's January 98 backups found to be corrupted. My OWN tape backup found to be either degraded or corrupted; either way...inaccessible. Sigh! Figures! Never rains; it pours. Alternate backup from Jan 98 on my hard drive but means some work in getting back to normal since many changes were made since Jan. Meaningless anyway, since AFN Admin seems to have disappeared, or is not acknowledging e-mails and calls. With noone to re-open access to fileshell home directory, can't upload our backups. SKYWARN account must endure without web page until things get moving again.

17 JAN 98

Added a somewhat preliminary statement about the reason for having a SKYWARN in our area.

15 JAN 98

Added information about our new SKYWARN-L Mailing List.

14 JAN 98

On Spotter Roster, corrected name-typo for one spotter, and added e-mail pointer for another.

13 JAN 98

Added another spotter to Spotter Roster.

07 JAN 98

Added notice regarding upcoming SKYWARN Admin Meeting on Jan. 19th at 7pm, and duplicated pointer in the Newsletters area.

29 DEC 97

Added information on Places to Purchase SKYWARN-related Materials, such as t-shirts, caps, magnetic signs, reflective stuff, etc.

26 DEC 97

Added NetMinder service to main page. Upon subscription, it allows users to be automatically notified whenever any changes are made to the main SKYWARN page.

24 DEC 97

Added new page: Online Spotter Registration/Questionnaire.

(Minor cosmetic changes to main page.)

23 DEC 97

Updated Classes Taken column in the Spotter Roster page for three hams. I had them listed as having taken BASIC only when they also took the ADVANCED class.

22 DEC 97

Added another ham to Spotter Roster.

21 DEC 97

Added pointer to Spotter's Travel Kit off main page.

20 DEC 97

Added pointer to Reporting Criteria off main page.

16 DEC 97

Added Beaufort Wind Speed Chart as an alternative wind speed measuring chart.

13 DEC 97

Added another idea to THINGS TO THINK ABOUT page.

Added more names to the Spotter Roster.

12 DEC 97

Corrected spotter class info on Bill Franks in the Spotter Roster page.

12 DEC 97

Added December ARES/RACES/SKYWARN Newsletter.

10 DEC 97

Updated spotter training class status for three more local SKYWARN members on the Spotter Roster page.

02 DEC 97

Added e-mail address for another spotter to the Spotter Roster.

29 NOV 97

(Minor cosmetic changes to main page.)

Added list of actual frequencies currently used by ARES/RACES in emergency operations, and moved frequency idea plan to its own URL.

26 NOV 97 Added new page: Local Field Spotting Location Reviews. Offers some comments on various places around Alachua County which might possibly serve as spotter field observing locations.

25 NOV 97

Added a few more names to the member roster to reflect those names for which I recieved Basic class spotter cards in the mail from Fred.

Placed a pointer to this site on Yahoo!.

23 NOV 97

Added new page: Cities and Thier Counties. Lists cities, sorted alphabetically, and the counties they belong to.

22 NOV 97

Added a link allowing users to subscribe to the Alachua Co. ARES/RACES/SKYWARN Newsletter.

Added new page: What's New! Depicts any changes to the Alachua County SKYWARN Home Page.

Added new page: Surrounding Counties and Thier Cities. Lists each county and then lists each city in that county alphabetically. (Also intend to create a list, later, of CITIES in the surrounding counties sorted alphabetically, and listing which COUNTY they reside in.)

21 NOV 97

Placed Jeff's ARES/RACES/SKYWARN newsletter up for viewing.

Correction to Spotter Roster. Info for one spotter. Had only his e-mail address, but no other info. Added his name, call, and city of residence.

Updated Spotter Roster, changing it from a text file to an HTML file, and adding clickable e-mail pointers for each member.

Minor cosmetic changes to main page.

19 NOV 97

(Announced the availability of the Alachua County SKYWARN Home Page at the GARS meeting.)

18 NOV 97

Received copy of Memorandum of Understanding between the NWS and the ARRL from Rick Palm/K1CE, at ARRL HQ. Retranscribed the document to text and HTML and then placed it up for viewing. Since ARRL did not have thier own copy available off thier own web page, and since this document does not seem to be available anywhere on the Internet, sent ARRL both copies as well, for thier own use.

17 NOV 97

Problem with access to SKYWARN account fixed. There was a problem with AFN's password file, apparently. Finally able to gain access to the account.

Got the SKYWARN account set up and ready for use.

Sent account passwords to relevant others.

15 NOV 97

Discovered SKYWARN account activated. When attempts were made to log into the account, AFN refused to recognize the password.

09 NOV 97

Added new page: Things For Us To Think About. Lists some ideas we might consider to get SKYWARN going smoothly.

Minor cosmetic changes to main page.

07 NOV 97

Mailed off application to AFN to create a new SKYWARN organizational account.

While waiting for the creation of the account, began work on creating a preliminary Alachua County SKYWARN Home Page, and tested it interim using my own personal account.