The server hosting ChessieDB will be moved to a new location this coming week-end. The website will be unavailable for one (or two) days starting this Friday morning, Feb 24th. The website should be back up by the following morning, Saturday the 25th.

Thank you,

js.

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There will be a 2 week delay in submission database imports. Please be patient - all contacts and dog submissions will be imported as soon as possible.

Thank you,

js.

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2-3 weeks ago I changed the power supply in our main workstation. Aftewards Windows XP wouldn't boot properly (go figure). Since changing the HD for an SSD drive was in the plans, I decided to order the SSD and upgrade to Windows 7 when it came in. This has left us without a decent workstation since then, and ChessieDB submissions have been piling up. The SSD is stuck in customs, but it shouldn't be long now. So if you're waiting for your dog / contact info to be imported, please be patient a little longer. Everything should be back to normal in another week or so.

Thanks,
js.

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Pretty soon the Winter season will be upon us, and that often means taking a break from training. If you want to keep your dog (and yourself) in shape, there are many winter sports to choose from. If you have four or more dogs, have a look at sprint dog sledding. Chessies are strong and driven -- they can run very fast for several kilometers. They might not be able to compete over long distances in extreme weather, but I bet they would kick ass in shorter / faster races. If you only have one or two dogs, have a look at Ski-Joring -- You wear a special harness around your hips, where the tugline is clipped on, and the dogs pull you along. You can also tie-off the tugline to kick scooters, kick sleds, bikes, etc. Lead-dog training is fairly easy (compared to field work) and the investment in harnesses and tuglines isn't too bad -- you can even make your own. There are certain design characteristics that go into making a harness and tugline, so if you want to make your own, please do some research first. :-) If you're set on buying a dog sled, a sprint-type sled (lighter and not meant to haul goods) is probably best. A competition sled will be more expensive, but there are very reasonable lighter dog sleds available too. Aside from the usual build quality considerations, make sure the sled allows the handle bar to rack / move side-to-side. This will move / bend the runners, making it easier to steer and go around corners.

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ChessieDB has been offline on several occasions these past few days. The city damaged our sewer pipe a few weeks ago (unbeknown to us at the time), and the damaged pipe couldn't handle the big rains from last week. Luckily the servers, etc., are up high, so they were saved, but the resulting activities (disaster team cleanup and on-going renovations) have taken their toll. Hopefully things will be a little more stable in the coming days, but there's still plenty of work to do. Once it's done, the servers will have to be moved back down to their usual location, which will cause another outage for a few hours.

So, if you find the ChessieDB website is not responding, a worker might have just un-plugged our ADSL line (as they did a few minutes ago!), and the website should return shortly. :-) Sorry for the inconvenience.

js.

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Last night, the e-mail service was moved from Dent (our old web/mail/dns server) to Stingray. During this move, the mail transfer agent (MTA) was upgraded and the configuration revised / improved. Several spam-related applications and configurations were modified. If you have any problems receiving your submission confirmations, or reaching us by e-mail, you can notify me at jsmorisset at gmail.com.

About the only thing left running on Dent now is the web service. There are several dependencies left to resolve (mostly perl CGI stuff), so it'll be another week or two before the web service is moved onto Stingray.

js.

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One of our regulars reported a problem with picture uploads when submitting a new dog. It turns out a small code change, a few months ago, had un-intended consequences. Picture uploads for existing dogs and contacts still functioned, but not for new dogs and contacts. A big thanks to Veronica for reporting this.

Our current web and mail server is getting a little too old and outdated, so I've ordered a new quad-core beast that should last us another 10 years. Consequently, you can expect some instability in the coming months -- we have to migrate the websites over to a new version of perl, apache, and various other support tools. I don't expect too many problems, but if the website is down, don't worry -- it should be back shortly.

js.

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We've had some performance issues on our ADSL line since moving last summer and it's gotten worse recently. I opened a ticket with our provider a few days ago, and on Tuesday a technician spent a few hours fixing the local street corner box. This seems to have improved the line speed, but we may have to upgrade our ADSL modem as well. A new one is on the way and will be installed shortly. Hopefully you'll notice the website is a bit more responsive in the next few days.

js.

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There are two databases maintained on the ChessieDB website: one for Dogs, and one for Contacts (breeders and owners). They both compliment each other -- when viewing a dog's information page, the breeder and owner contact information will be shown, and when viewing a contact's profile, the dogs owned and bred by that contact will listed bellow the contact information.

Before you can update your contact profile, you first have to find it. Use the Find -> Contact link on the left-side menu, enter your family name and press "Search Contacts". From the results page(s), you can choose to view each contact's profile, before using the appropriate update link. If you don't already have a contact profile, you'll have to Submit -> New Contact first. Existing contacts with similar names will be displayed for your review, in case you already have a contact profile. If none of the displayed contacts is you, or no matching contacts are shown, you may continue and submit a new contact profile.

After you update or submit a new contact, the information will be placed in a pending queue and will be imported into our database a few days later. The CONTACT STATS section in the left-side menu shows when the last contact was imported. The new or updated contact profile will be available on the website once those pending contacts have been imported.

Please note: When viewing a contact's profile page, the dogs owned and bred by that contact will listed bellow the contact information. You can affect this list by updating a dog's information (use the [Update Dog] link when viewing pedigrees, etc.). Each dog can be associated with up to three owners and breeders. The dog update page includes a lookup feature to find and associate contacts.

js.

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I took a break from coding new features for the website during the holidays. The contact search and litter submission features were almost done, so I sat down this morning and finished-up the contact search. It's a fairly simple search for the moment, and I'll be adding more advanced search options in the future (to search by state or region, for judges, club members, etc.). The current search page allows you to select a specific kennel from a list, or search for contacts by first and last names. On the results page, you can click on the [View Profile] or [Update Contact] links.

If you have any problems with the contact search, please let me know.

js.

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You can now follow the ChessieDB Weblog on Facebook -- an alternative to receiving a notification by e-mail.

As I work on the Litter Submission scripts, I've also had to improved some of the older code. The Search Results now include a thumbnail picture (when available) and the results should come up a little faster too -- especially when you move backwards and forwards through the result pages.

js.

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I've just made some significant changes to the dog submission script. When you submit a new dog, instead of showing you the full submission form, you'll first be asked for the dog's name, sire, and dam. A check will then be performed to see if those dogs, or dogs with similar names, already exist in the database. If they do, some options will be available on the full submission form to make corrections. The same checks used to be made farther along the submission process, and didn't allow the same flexibility to make corrections. I've run several tests to make sure the submission form is working properly, but it's gotten a little too complicated to test all possible scenarios, so if you spot any problems, please let us know by e-mail and I'll address the issue ASAP.

js.

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The contact database has grown enough to start coding new features based on the information it contains. There are three new items on the left-side menu: Kennel, Breeder, and Owner Directories. If you've specified a kennel name, a state or province, and a country in your contact profile, your kennel will appear in this directory (all three fields are required). If the directory gets too long, I may had a filter to show only kennels with dogs associated with their contact profile. So if you're the breeder of one or more dogs in our database, it would be best if you update those dog records and include yourself as the breeder.

The Breeder Directory is similar to the Kennel Directory, except that first and last names are displayed instead of the kennel name, and the contact profile must be associated with one or more dogs as a breeder. The Owner Directory is the same, except the contact profile must be associated as an owner. In all cases, the contact profile must include a state or province, and country.

js.

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Modifying the Owners and Breeders associated with a dog's record is now a lot easier. I just finished a Contact Lookup feature to locate contacts (by First Name, Last Name, or Kennel Name) and add them to a dog's record. When you're on an [Update Dog] page, you'll find a section titled Associated Owners and Breeders where you can enter Owner and Breeder Contact IDs. The Contact Lookup link (a popup window) in this section can be used to search for contacts, view their profile, list dogs owned and/or bred, and add their Contact IDs to the dog's update form. The Contact Lookup includes instructions in case the contact you're looking for is not in our database. You can also go straight to the New Contact Submission page and search for, update, or add a contact.

As part of the 3rd and final phase of the Contact Database functionality, I still have to code a proper Contact Search page. This will include such features as searching for all breeders, breeders by state, stud down owners, judges, etc.

js.

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Yesterday we surpassed 30,000 dogs in our database.

Today I changed the ChessieDB URL from http://www.chessiedb.org/ to http://chessiedb.org/. Hopefully this won't cause any noticeable issues, except for having to enter your name and e-mail address again when submitting your next dog (previous values are recalled from a cookie, which is based on the URL hostname).

You may not have noticed, but there's "Donate" button on the left side menu. ChessieDB is free to use by anyone, but we do appreciate a little financial help on occasion. :-) A big thanks to those of you who've donated in the past.

js.

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On November 3rd I announced the 1st Phase of a Breeder/Owner Contact database. This consisted of a Contact Profile page that displayed their postal address, phone numbers, website, etc., along with a list of dogs owned and/or bred by that contact. As expected, the reaction to this new feature was very positive -- I already knew of several Breeders waiting patiently for this. :-) Of course the usefulness of these new pages was limited since the Contact Update (2nd Phase) and Contact Search (3rd Phase) functionality was not available yet. It took a lot of hard work, but I've finally finished the 2nd Phase: the Contact Updates. There are a couple of ways to update a contact; On the left-side menu you'll find a new "SUBMIT A New Contact" link, on the Dog Info pages you'll find an [Update Contact] link for associated Owners and Breeders, and finally on the Contact Profile page there's also an [Update Contact] link. I've tried to test everything as best I can, but there could still be one or two bugs left. If you have any problems, even if it's just a page layout issue, please let me know.

Aside from updating the contact profiles, you can also add / change the Owner and Breeder IDs when updating a dog. For now, there's no way to easily find those ID numbers -- that's part of the 3rd and final phase. If you try and submit a new contact using your First and Last Names, you might be able to locate your Contact ID from it's simple name check. The actual search pages will offer many more options, including some small pop-up search windows in strategic locations.

js.

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After you update or submit a new dog, the relationship you selected between yourself and this dog (Owner, Owner of Descendant, Breeder, etc.) will be saved for later recall. When you update this dog's record again, the relationship you declared earlier will be selected automatically.

js.

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I've been working on the Contact database features for the past few weeks, and as a consequence I've had modify quite a bit of old code. Although it may not look like it, the ChessieDB website uses upwards of 30,000 lines of code, in dozens of small and large perl scripts. Some of this code is common to many scripts, and one small change (good or bad) affects the whole website. On occasion a small bug that I didn't catch may make it's way to the website. I rely on you to report any features that are not working properly -- even if it's just a small page layout issue. Once all the Contact features are done, the website should be stable and reliable once again.

As part of the Contact database overhaul, you'll note that submission related e-mails are now in HTML. This should make it easier to review the information contained in the e-mail. The Contact update script (the second of three Contact related scripts) is coming along nicely and should be finished in the next week or two. I may have to code the search script before allowing Contact updates, since Contacts are based on ID numbers, and a search feature will be necessary to locate those numbers.

js.

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The ChessieDB Dog Info, Pedigree, Reverse Pedigree, Breeding, and part of the new contact Profile page, can all be embed into another web page, on a completely different website. The idea is to allow web site owners (kennels, breeders, and dog owners) to use our database information, and reduce the time they spend maintaining the same information on their website. The pages we provide for embedding have been simplified, stripped of their ChessieDB branding (menus, etc.), and provide links to other pages also designed for an embedded window frame.

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A few days ago I finally had an idea on how to add breeder and owner contact information to the database. We could have used a drop-down list with all the breeder/owner names, but this is really not scalable. We could have also used a text box to let people enter contact names, then checked for existing contacts with those names, but this is error prone and complicated, especially for duplicate names. It finally occurred to me that I could use the contact's record ID. Once created, a contact's ID number never changes. This will allow someone to simply enter an ID number to link a contact to a dog. I'll have to provide a small pop-up search box to find those ID numbers, but this will be a lot more elegant and less error prone than using contact names. I still have to rely on the contact's first and last names to import updates to their profile (a small limitation of the Breeder's Assistant application we use), so this means that once a contact record has been created, the first and last names cannot be changed (except if you send an e-mail and we update the database record manually). All other information, like postal address, e-mail address, telephone numbers, etc. can all be modified. I've also found a way to allow duplicate names, which is essential for the number of contacts we expect to maintain (we already have close to 1,000 contacts in the database).

There are three big steps to implementing this, each taking several days to code: creating a profile page to view the contact's information, an update page to allow additions of new contacts and modifying existing contacts, and finally a search page to find contact IDs, breeders by location, etc. I've been working on the first phase (creating a profile page) for the past few days, and finally have something that looks pretty good. You can view Janet Wilson's, Jane Pappler's, or my own profile page for an example. You can also view Pete's Info Page to see how the owner and breeder links will be presented. I know everyone will want to create their own contact page now, and depending on how much time I have available, the update feature might be done in another week or two. After that I'll work on the search page, and then we can finally allow contact changes on the dog [Update] page. I expect everything will be finished by Xmas or so.

js.

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