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Doh.

So I looked at the webserver.log and webct.log. This wasn’t the first time I’ve looked at web server logs for users who were not logged in, so my plan was just use something this to get the session id. (The username, date, and time would vary.)

SESSIONID=`grep username webserver.log* | grep 2010-08-31 | grep 16:0[78]:[0-5] | awk -F\  ’{print $5}’`

Then use this to get the web browser.

WEBBROWSER=`grep $SESSIONID webserver.log* | awk -F\” ‘{print $2}’`

Then use this to look at anything with the same browser.

grep -A 50 $SESSIONID webserver.log* | grep -A 50 $WEBBROWSER

Yeah, I know this was reeeaaaallly hokey. The web browser could be another user. The right one might not be the next one. In this case, I was dealing with a development server, so I was more confident than normal the next action would be my user.

So the logout.dowebct had an HTTP code of 200 and a GET action. The next one was a logout.dowebct with an HTTPD code of 200 and a POST action. Bingo! The user was trying to login on a logout page. No error.

Looked in webct.log for the time and there was no error for either logout. The user had a login just seconds before the first one had the familiar “invalid gotoid” which is supposedly okay. So the logs were a dead end.

Mystified by these results, I pulled up LiveHTTPHeaders and logged out and logged in again in where it failed and another institution in development where it did not fail. The failing one was sending the login to logout.dowebct. The successful one sent it to authenticateUser.dowebct.

So I was back to thinking it was the custom login page again. Over a year ago, since I have a properties file with all the relevant data, I wrote a script to generate a custom login page templates with the values filled into them for all our institutions. I hypothesized if the problem was something in the HTML, then replacing the school’s custom login page with this template at just the logout page, ought to fix the issue. It did.

Finally, I pulled up WinMerge to compare good and bad files and found the form tag contained a widget in the name attribute only when processing the logout URI. The widget was replaced with a correct value at logonDisplay. WTH? When the same HTML file used at the logonDisplay and logout URIs, they behave very differently in processing the widget. How could this be true?  The System Administrator Guide (page 384) confirmed only a single widget works at the logout URL and not this one. Guess this means the Blackboard response would be this is behaving as designed.

Ah, well. We figured out over a year ago these widgets create problems for us. Guess that is still true.

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Typically one-off updates from Blackboard has us run the updateWebctEar to replace classes in the war file. In a nutshell it…

1. opens the ear
2. opens the war
3. updates the class at the path
4. regenerates the war
5. regenerates the ear

Simple enough by hand, but very convenient in a script. I was glad when Bb gave us this functionality.

cd $WL_DOMAIN
./webct.sh updateWebctEar __some_class.class webct.war/WEB-INF/path/to/class

Verifying that this is in the Ear file is rather easy, but it takes a while manually. Also, one of the steps is to open the ear then search the webct.war. Well, the managed nodes cache the Ear so it kind of saves a step to look there. We run 14 clusters and worry about inconsistencies between various development clusters and between development and production. Plus, as this is a sanity check, why not check all of them? (Also, we use dsh, so checking all 140 production nodes with one command and not having to login to each saves the most time.)

The command…

1. changes directories to a location in the cache area,
2. confirms the location
3. uses the Java ARchive (JAR) tool to list (-t) verbosely (-v) the webct.war file (-f)

All put together…

cd$WL_DOMAIN/servers/node_name_regex/tmp/_WL_user/webct/
&& pwd && $JAVA_INSTALL/bin/jar -tvf */webct.war WEB-INF/path/to/class/__some_class.class

The output looks something like below. The time stamp appears to be when the server administrator added the file to the

118864 Fri Jul 23 11:25:42 EDT 2010 WEB-INF/path/to/class/__some_class.class

I’m thinking this could also be useful to scan for what updates the nodes have in the War just after we’ve installed it.

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1. The product appears to be designed to be used by a single institution learning context from CE/Vista systems. We have an institution (InstA) which hosts collaborative programs. Faculty quite reasonably would like to use SafeAssign at InstA just like they do at their home institution (InstB). It appears the design of SafeAssign is such that the only way to share documents across institutions is to put them in the global area meaning anyone use SafeAssign could use them. Scary!
2. Providing some sort of statistics on institution use helps administrators justify using a product. The total lack of any (like the competitor Turnitin.com) provides is a major problem.

Disappointing.

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One of the common support questions Blackboard asks for those of us CE/Vista clients running a cluster is whether we have changed the cookie domain in weblogic.xml. This has to do with specifying where the JSESSIONIDVISTA cookie is valid. By default the value in the weblogic.xml file is set to .webct.com which is not valid anywhere (not even Blackboard.com). One of the install steps is if one is running a cluster, in the administrator node Weblogic Domain directory run some commands to extract the weblogic.xml, edit it, then run some commands to add it back to the WAR file. Placing a “REFRESH” empty file on all the managed nodes deletes the staged and cached copies of the WAR.

No big deal and easy.

Except when it isn’t?

Occasionally someone will distrust your work and want you to verify the right setting is there. Normally they say to extract the weblogic.xml again and verify it is correct there. I had a thought. Why not verify in each managed node’s cache it has the correct value?

It is easier than it sounds. In the Weblogic domain directory (where setEnv.sh is located), change directories to

$WL_DOMAIN/servers/node_name/tmp/_WL_user/webct

(NOTE: Anything I put in bold means it is custom to you and not something I can anticipate what you would use there.)

Here I just used these greps to look for my domain. If I get results for the first one, then all is well. If I don’t get results for the first, then the second one should confirm the world is falling because we are missing the cookie domain.

grep “.domain.edu” */war/WEB-INF/weblogic.xml
grep “.webct.com” */war/WEB-INF/weblogic.xml

Since we use dsh for a lot of this kind of thing, I would use our regex for the node name and add on the path pieces in common. I have not yet studied the pieces between webct and war to know for certain who they are derived except to say they appear to 6 characters long and sufficiently random as to not repeat. Any [ejw]ar exploded into the cache appears to get a unique one. So this might work?

grep “.domain.edu” $WL_DOMAIN/servers/node_name_regex/tmp/_WL_user/webct/??????/war/WEB-INF/weblogic.xml

If not, then try:

cd $WL_DOMAIN/servers/node_name_regex/tmp/_WL_user/webct/
&& pwd && grep “.domain.edu” */war/WEB-INF/weblogic.xml

I’m envisioning this method to verify a number of different things in the nodes. It especially confirms the managed node received what I expected not that the admin node has the correct something.

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For a while now, Outlook was telling me the “Operation Failed” in a toaster pop-up. O… kay…. After some initial poking around I was able to discover the failure was because of an RSS feed. No mention of which one. The problem didn’t go away, so I decided to delete the feeds to no improvement. So I had no RSS feeds and was still getting the error about the RSS feed. So I looked in the Deleted Items to see which feeds I should add back and noticed one I didn’t deleted. So I permanently deleted all of them.

No more errors.

So the problem was: I deleted an RSS feed. Send/Receive was unable to write new results to the deleted feed, so it told “Operation Failed.”

No, Microsoft, you are the fail.

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The topic of whether any particular device is actually useful or pleasing is a separate issue. I’m talking here about electronics as a fashion statement–an expression of personal identity. And for portable electronics, that statement is increasingly visible and public. Having a blu-ray player (when they were new) or a 3D TV (more recently) is one sort of fashion statement, but you need to mention it or have friends over for anyone to know. Having a portable device you use in public takes electronics-as-fashion to a new level. You really do “wear” it.

Me playing Nintendo with Two Broken Arms

When I was really young, the older kids walked around with blaring boom boxes where bigger was better. Over the years these devices have shrunk in size to be as small as my keys when smaller became better. I guess values changed.

That people judge others by their possessions doesn’t seem like a revelation. Why stop at clothing and iPods (and derivatives) though? Pretty much anything with a brand expresses personal identity. The more rare, the more superior people feel over their counterparts so an iPad first among the social circle is good, but it is popular as a status symbol because few can afford a Ferrari. These interactions over toys are just the modern version of chest thumping for establishing who is the Alpha. We also train our children to try to become Alphas at a young age when there is a run on the must have item for Christmas. The toys just get more rare and expensive.

More interesting to me are the subcultures filled with anti-Alphas who reject portable electronics, drive barely functioning cars, or wear pithy teeshirts. Sometimes the better strategy isn’t to compete directly but to highlight different personally advantageous strengths. I think of the “hipster” archetype as trying to fill this role. If hunting isn’t your forte, then maybe growing the food works better so become the Alpha of that.

All these mind games are why humans have the big brains.

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Guess I turned a corner when Chelsea and I planned to get together and discuss The Tipping Point about 9 months ago. In the actual book club, I enjoyed hearing other’s takes and responding to them. Better understood some areas I guess I glossed over when reading on my own. Not too much like Lit class like I expected. (Was also able to overcome the nausea of going off to meet strangers.)

Wondering if perhaps the best approach is to discuss while reading … instead of … reading then discussing? Guess people’s differences in pacing make that hard. Plus they’d have to be around each other more like daily than once a month.

By the way, in my introduction, I claimed these as the three “books” I like.

1. Piers Anthony’s A Spell for Chameleon (the Xanth series) started my obsession with getting a hold of new books. One of my aunts gave me the first three books. I then had to buy the rest of the books the day they dropped in bookstores. That was before Amazon existed.
2. George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series (first book is A Game of Thrones) Ended my obsession of getting a hold of new books. After all, I spent months checking in with a certain bookstore asking when Storm would drop. Feast spent a year on pre-order through several slipped drop dates. I no longer pre-order books.
3. Not sure why I named Lincoln’s Melancholy except the other books which came to mind were about physical sciences. I less than stellarly try to be more partial to behavioral sciences.

Naturally quantum mechanics came up. For the life of me, I could not remember name Michio Kaku. His book Hyperspace was where I learned the about the concept of using worm holes to travel massive distances or even time travel. (Actually I read that one at the request of another aunt so I could explain it to her.)

Now… Off to read Ender’s Game again.

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• Jesup, Georgia
• publishes newspapers
• nice guy

Dink dropped by to tour our facility and answer questions.

One of the more interesting answers to a question about expanding distance learning had to do Dink’s belief online is the direction of the future and with the University of Phoenix operating in our state. He would rather see the money students give them come to us instead. The sense I get is Georgia ONmyLINE intends to help Georgians locate the online class options available to students. The project I work on, GeorgiaVIEW, provides the online class infrastructure. Another project I help intends to provide a more seamless integration between schools for those registering with Georgia ONmyLINE. Guess we are cutting edge?

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A couple of my takes:

Flickr Groups featuring photos from Athens and other walks:

• 2010 Scott Kelby Worldwide Photowalk – Athens, GA
• Scott Kelby’s 3rd Annual Worldwide Photo Walk – July 24, 2010

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Check which famous writer you write like with this statistical analysis tool, which analyzes your word choice and writing style and compares them with those of the famous writers.

Not trusting a single sample, I tested fifteen writing samples including stories and blog posts (excluding those with block quotes). The Cory Doctorow result was the most common at six.

I also received David Foster Wallace (3), Arthur Conan Doyle (3), J.K. Rowling (2), Isaac Asimov (1).

There was a clear pattern to the results.

1. Cory Doctorow: Topic was work. Analyzer probably keyed on the dispassionately objective word choice.
2. David Foster Wallace: Topic was my personal life. Analyzer probably keyed on me portraying the  absurdities.
3. Arthur Conan Doyle: Topic was adventure story originated in high school. I probably thought too much like Sherlock Holmes then.
4. J.K. Rowling: Topic was also adventure story composed in early college. I probably thought too much like Harry Potter then.
5. Isaac Asimov: Topic was science. Its hard not to use scientific jargon when writing about science.

That there would be a difference between my high school and college story writing was interesting. The difference depending on whether I was writing about work, personal, or science was also interesting. I would have liked to see almost every sample I chose of my writing to reflect a single author. Otherwise, it seems results skewed towards word choice not style.

From the developer, Dmitry Chestnykh on how this works.

Actually, the algorithm is not a rocket science, and you can find it on every computer today. It’s a Bayesian classifier, which is widely used to fight spam on the Internet. Take for example the “Mark as spam” button in Gmail or Outlook. When you receive a message that you think is spam, you click this button, and the internal database gets trained to recognize future messages similar to this one as spam. This is basically how “I Write Like” works on my side: I feed it with “Frankenstein” and tell it, “This is Mary Shelley. Recognize works similar to this as Mary Shelley.” Of course, the algorithm is slightly different from the one used to detect spam, because it takes into account more stylistic features of the text, such as the number of words in sentences, the number of commas, semicolons, and whether the sentence is a direct speech or a quotation.

Bayesian filters I’ve seen given an item a score to how likely an item is something. I would like to see the strength of the scores, including distributions, and comparison of a given result to other close results. Guess I am just someone who wants to know why?

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It annoys me to find a design I like for a reasonable price only to discover there is no size available to me. In bricks and mortar stores, it means never returning until I hear they have a “Big and Tall” section hidden somewhere not obvious.

Here is a place where the Long Tail falls down. According to it, online stores, with their enormous warehouses can better afford to carry a more broad selection of less frequently selling items. They give us more choice. Therefore, it means I ought to find more choice online. For things not in my size, this is true. There is tons of choice. The same stores in a mall who carry clothing in the right sizes seem perfectly capable of offering a wider selection. Yet, an online store like Amazon can’t make it easy for me to find clothing that fits?

My main beef with Worldsoccershop.com is the lack of product in a size I can wear. (The one jersey would make me a Chelsea supporter.) They do get a couple things right.

1. Quality search: I can put 4xl in the search and get back items with a size of 4xl. All these sites have a search. However, for many sites, size doesn’t appear to be a relevant word. The term “4XL” lands items with “XL” in the name. Useless!
2. Narrow results by size: Brand, price, and seller are options Amazon offers for narrowing the search to more useful options. How is size not important enough to include? Useless!

Ultimately, I guess not enough people my size have enough interest in soccer jerseys. They end up American football or basketball or baseball fans which have clothes large enough for me. Maybe I should switch sports allegiances? It would help my political allegiances.

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Shutterbug

Originally uploaded by Ezra S F

Amy sent me an email out of blue suggesting I buy this shirt. Puns? I love ‘em, so I love this shirt.

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I also read about an issue regarding employees who are frustrated with mediocre performance by their organizations and low expectations which appeared in Federal Computer Week. (I’ve heard about people talking about this happening mostly everywhere.) Plus, I have an aunt who recently retired from federal service with interesting stories.

It seems like some organizations focus on the bad performance and ways of bringing everyone up to certain level. So they set new policies, hire many managers who focus is compliance, and focus on past screw ups not happening again. It’s like they have yet to learn focusing on those past screw ups make them vulnerable to new screw ups. For example, if everyone focuses on their blow out preventer to not have another BP oil spill, then they miss other components so the next accident will be in something like the riser cap containment system.

Okay, sure there was a problem. Our focus ought to be on identifying what people do well and having them do that thing. Then we offload the responsibilities they don’t do well on to people who will.

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It hadn’t occurred to me it was the exchange of objects leads to specialization which leads to improvement of both objects and ideas as individuals attain expertise. It also means we as a society are all working for each other. We all depend on each other as we have reached the point where no one knows how to make everything in every day items we use.

The fewer people in the social network, the less exchange, the less specialization so isolation leads to regressions. So as we get better at communicating world wide and having global conversations, technology will increase at an even faster pace.

How well we communicate is more important than our individual intelligence.

Matt Ridley, author of The Rational Optimist.

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Select a Date Range for the Report

Including here the most recent time the tracking was processed (which the application already displays to the server administrator in background jobs) would help the instructor know whether the data is as recent as 4:00 am or 1:00pm.

Maybe when Tracking will run again ought to be displayed to the instructor so he or she knows it will run within the hour or the next morning. That might cut down on instructors running it again and again expecting it to magically show data which won’t be available until many hours later.

Administrators some times have to pick the best operational time to run Tracking. We have direct login checks running several times per hour. When Tracking is run every hour and these checks run at the same time, the time these direct login checks took spiked. Users also complained about poor performance. So we have these run in the wee hours of the morning when users are not generally on the system.

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What are examples of a bought software company where the bought product flourished better than before the buyout? I forget the name of the company who built a Twitter search only to be bought by Twitter. However, it Summize stands alone as the good example of a buyer well integrating something into the existing product. Of course, I’m not an authority on buyouts, so maybe there some other good examples.

From what I recall, typically the buyout means the software either dies or languishes for up to years before getting re-released as either a new brand or features in the buyer’s product. Blackboard bought WebCT back in 2005. The next 3 years were release after release of fixes to problems which often made things worse to the point customers looked to each other to be the fool who would install the release first. The grand merging of the two was pretty much just the grade center into the Classic product line. Another example, Grand Central was bought by Google in 2007 and re-launched in 2009 as Google Voice. When Microsoft bought Hotmail, the horrible performance in the years after practically built Yahoo Mail.

Because of this, I guess I ought to start researching alternatives to Brizzly…. Boo.

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German Flag

Beirut-born Ibrahim (or Youssef) Bassal displayed a 70′ x 20′ German flag to show his family’s solidarity during the World Cup where millions of smaller flags are everywhere. Only people keep vandalizing the flags because they brings up painful memories. It speaks volumes about the tension over national pride when people resort to vigilantism over something like a flag. Also, there is something ironic about people stealing a flag because to them it represents the Fourth Reich from someone who would be a victim if true.

“This time we’re not going to let them attack it. We’re going to guard our flag. We are sleeping here in the shop and waiting for Saturday. We’re not going to let the left-wingers destroy us — or the right-wingers. We live here. Our kids are born here. We want them to keep living here,” Bassal says.

Personally, I think the anti-nationalists forget their history. Of the many, many opportunities for Adolf Hitler to watch soccer, he only attended one and left early from it because Germany was losing to Norway. Since Hitler disliked football, this national pride in something he disliked should be a good thing.

One more thing… Long before Jackie Robinson integrated baseball, South American countries found black players could be very skilled and promoted integration. Hitler would oppose the team because of the racial diversity of the German team like Aogo, Cacau, Boeteng. Therefore, a win by the German national soccer team is a win against Hitler.

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When I saw this, I immediate thought of that conversation. (This is more or less a test to see if those people read my blog.)

(click image for larger)

Infographic by PPC Blog

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