Current projects

The main recent project was to migrate our flat file system to one that is built on top of postgresql. We had been using rdb formal flat files, and the transition has involved writing scripts that translate between the flat files and postgresql. Over time, more and more of ths site will use postgresql directly.

We are also taking a lot at industral strength open source CMS, particularly Bricolage. Bricolage makes a good fit with us because we already use mason and postgresql. The main challenge will be to find a way of integrate that technology slowly.

Hardware and Network

Our hosting has is provided by a colocation server out of Austin, Texas hosted by www.hosting.com. In general we have been quite satisfied with their service. They did have a rough patch a few months ago when they merged with Allegis, but things have sorted themselves out. We've never had a problem with their connectivity, and their customer service though not perfect has been quite good. I highly recommend them.

At some point we will be replacing our 500 Mhz with a more modern machine, probably with RAID disks for redunancy. The need to replace the machine has become less pressing since we have achieved huge speedups with better software.

Internal Tools

In order to maintain the web site, we have to develop a lot of automated tools. We have open source tools for AutomatedDataExtraction as well as tools for AutomatedTopicClassification . The AutomatedDataExtraction is available on CPAN as perl module WWW::Extractor, and packaging the ATC so that it is also a perl module is one of our priorities.

SysadminNotes DeveloperNotes^?