[volunteers] (forw) Next month Silicon Valley Linux Users Group presentation

[Rick Moen]

> ----- Forwarded message from John Sokol <john.sokol at gmail.com> -----
> 
> Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2011 19:49:45 -0800
> From: John Sokol <john.sokol at gmail.com>
> To: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>, Jesse Monroy <jesse650 at gmail.com>
> Subject: Next month Silicon Valley Linux Users Group presentation
> 
> I would like to give a presentation next month at the Silicon Valley Linux
> Users Group on Content Distributions networks and Broadcast video.
[...] 
> ----- End forwarded message -----



I forwarded John's communication here in hopes that someone would run
with it.

Nobody ran with it.

Nobody wrote back to John accepting his offer.

Nobody updated www.svlug.org/meetings.php, prevmeet.php, events.html to
reflect updating the meeting schedule.


Let's go through the update process again.  ssh into www.svlug.org.
cd into the html tree.

vi meetings.php

Hmm, entire March 2011 entry is still there.  Has to be moved to
prevmeet.php.  The safe way to 'move' is copy, then confirm, then delete
original.  So, copy all _four_ of the constituent sections of the March 
entry (each bounded by a <tr></tr> pair) onto your choice of
clipboard-like thing, and exit from meetings.php leaving it unchanged.

vi prevmeet.php

You need to find the _correct_ place to insert the March data.  That's 
right under the <table> line and _above_ the first 'tr' stuff for
February, that being the 'tr' section with February's 'th' table header
tags.

(People keep screwing up the fragile table structure of the prevmeet.php
page through lack of attention.)

Insert March text.  _Try_ to not do linewrapping damage:  It's useful to
do ':tw=500' before such major text insertions, to avoid letting
wrapping introduce spurious linebreaks.  You can always do ':tw=72'
later to set it back.

Load www.svlug.org/prevmeet.php in a Web browser, and look at it.  You
haven't saved your changes to prevmeet.php, yet, so, if it's broken, at
least you'll know your current editing didn't do it.  Assuming the page
is OK, save your changes (':w!'), then reload the page and make sure it
_still_ isn't broken with the new changes.  Exit editor program.  (You
didn't exit editor until _after_ saving changes because remaining in the
editor means you have the still ability to revert recent changes.)

vi meetings.php

You're now back where you were, and need to lose the March data and
replace it with April's.  Before doing so, notice the "Next Meeting" 
blurb above the table, near the top of the page:

<p>
<font face="arial,helvetica">
<strong>Next Meeting:</strong><br>
Wednesday March 2<sup><font size="-1">nd</font></sup>, 2011, 7PM-9PM<br>
Speaker:  Jesse Monroy<br>
Location: <a href="directions/veritas.php">Symantec (formerly Veritas)</a>, Mountain View<br>
Topic: How to Shoot Yourself in the Foot with MySQL
<br>
</font>
</p>
 

This needs to also be updated, so let's do it now.  Change to:

<p>
<font face="arial,helvetica">
<strong>Next Meeting:</strong><br>
Wednesday April 6<sup><font size="-1">th</font></sup>, 2011, 7PM-9PM<br>
Speaker:  John Sokol<br>
Location: <a href="directions/veritas.php">Symantec (formerly
Veritas)</a>, Mountain View<br>
Topic: Content Distribution Networks and Broadcast Video
<br>
</font>
</p>


I've fixed the grammar and capitalisation in the Topic line (e.g., fixed
'Content Distributions Networks' to 'Content Distribution Networks').
Never assume that computer geeks' English mechanics can be trusted, as
it's very often broken and would represent us poorly in public.


Notice that the 'nd' following 'March 2' needed to be changed to 'th'
for April, or we'd have ended up saying 'April 6nd', which would be
awfully silly.  (This is another reason to check work by reloading the
page in a browser, as the 'April 6nd' would stick out in a way that it
doesn't in raw HTML.)

Now, proceed to do the main April speaker blurb, further down the page,
below the start of the table and below the 'template for speaker
blurbs'.  One can create the April entry _either_ be deleting all lines
of the March entry and then copying the template lines as a starting
point _or_ just reusing the March lines and replacing their contents.
I usually do the latter.


<tr valign="top">
  <th><font face="arial,helvetica">Date</font></th>
  <th><font face="arial,helvetica">Location</font></th>
  <th><font face="arial,helvetica">Speaker</font></th>
</tr>

<tr valign="top">
  <td><font face="arial,helvetica">April 6<sup>nd</sup>, 2011</font></td>
  <td><font face="arial,helvetica"><a href="directions/veritas.php">Symantec
  (formerly Veritas)</a>, Mountain View</font></td>
  <td><font face="arial,helvetica"><strong>John Sokol</strong>
  <br><strong>Topic: Content Distribution Networks and Broadcast Video</strong>  
  </font>
  </td>
</tr>

<tr>
  <td colspan="3">
  <p>
  <font face="arial,helvetica">
  John Sokol, our speaker, has considerable experience designing and
  operating content-distribution networks (CDNs) on free Unixes.  He will
  talk to us about design and operation issues relating to all varieties
  of contents on CDNs, and then more specifically about issues unique to
  large-scale streaming of video.
  </font>
  </p>
  </td>
</tr>

<tr>
  <td colspan="3">
  <font face="arial,helvetica">
  <br><strong>MORE ABOUT THE SPEAKER:</strong>
  John is an Internet video pioneer, having developed streaming video
  systems for Sun Microsystems in 1990, and the "Livecam" in 1994.  In
  1995, he built was was probably the very first CDN.  His recent work
  involed automating management of a global network of 1300 Linux
  servers across 20 data centers for Citrix Online's GoToMeeting,
  GoToMyPc, and GoToAssist products.
  </font>
  </td>
</tr>


Again, _four_ (count them, _four_) <tr></tr> pairs.  All tags closed.
None of the sadly frequent editing breakage where a text block ends like this:


<tr>
  <td colspan="3">
  <p>
  <font face="arial,helvetica">
  John Sokol, our speaker, has considerable experience designing and
  operating content-distribution networks (CDNs) on free Unixes.  He will
  talk to us about design and operation issues relating to all varieties
  of contents on CDNs, and then more specifically about issues unique to
  large-scale streaming of video.
  </font>
  </p>


Hey?  How can the Web Team members who do that fail to notice that lines 
are missing?  That's why the indentation is there:  To make it really
bloody obvious if you've accidentally failed to include the </td> and </tr>
tags.

Anyway, again, save edits.  Reload page in browser.  Looks good. 
Exit editor.

Last edit but arguably most important:  events.html, which is the 'Events'
column on the site front page.

vi events.html

We always want to have entries for the _two_ next meeting dates.  By the 
way, don't take anyone's word that the first Wednesday in April is the 6th, 
or that the first Wednesday in May is the 4th:  You should check.
'cal -y' is your friend!

So, the two events become:

<p>
<dt>Wednesday, April 6<font size=-1><sup>th</sup></font>, 2011 <a href="meetings.php">General Meeting</a>
<br>
<dd><strong> John Sokol</strong>
<br><strong>Topic:</strong> Content Distribution Networks and Broadcast Video
</p>

<p>
<dt>Wednesday, May 4<font size=-1><sup>nd</sup></font>, 2011 <a href="meetings.php">General Meeting</a>
<br>
<dd><strong> Jesse Monroy</strong>
<br><strong>Topic:</strong> Something About RSS
</p>

Save.  Load page to check.  See my mistake?  I didn't see it until I loaded
the page in a browser.  It's 'May 4nd'.  Fix.  Re-save.  Load page to 
re-check.  Looks good.  Exit.

Last, changes should _always_ be saved to version control (Subversion).

rick at gruyere:~/www$ svn ci -m 'Add April and first details for May' prevmeet.php meetings.php events.html
Sending        events.html
Sending        meetings.php
Sending        prevmeet.php
Transmitting file data ...
Committed revision 156.
rick at gruyere:~/www$


And we're done.

Someone want to have another chance at running with the job of writing back
to John Sokol?  Reminder:  Nobody's yet written saying 'Yes, thank you.
We'd love to have your talk, and have written you in for Wednesday,
April 6th, 2011 at 7 pm at our Mountain View location.  We look forward
to hearing you.'