[dvlug] Is there a meeting at Cafe La Scala today?, etc. ...

Sat Apr 11 07:00:19 PDT 2015

Well ...

I'm guestimating a bit more than "just" DNS was "fixed".
I notice:
$ 2>&1 whois -H dvlug.org | fgrep -i update | head -n 1
Updated Date: 2015-04-11T08:12:13Z
$
Yesterday, I noted a bit earlier on list:
! Hmmm, whois(1) tells me autoRenewPeriod, among other things.
! Updated Date: 2015-04-06T01:26:49Z

And, depending upon definition (relative to yesterday) that may or
may not (quite) count as what was then, "tonight" ... but comes
pretty close ... within about 12 minutes and 13 seconds, if we go
by local time and take the more limited conservative definition.  ;-)

And ... why do I think [hey, just my opinion?] that [L]UGs ought have,
at least in part, a "rule"/practice such as:
"you have to go, you have to be on time" ...
[ref: http://bad.debian.net/shotgun_rules.txt]
... I mean, well, won't name group(s), but ... I've seen some
that are like, from the meeting's lead/principal/main (dis)organizer:
[paraphrasing]: "The meeting may or may not occur, if you RSVP I
*may* show up.".  I mean (/wonder) - does it even satisfy the
definition of "meeting", if zero people show up? ... and also
can be highly disappointing if any newbies (or even others) show up,
and, well, it turns out they - most notably and specifically, only
and exactly one of them show up, and no one else to meeting ... can be
a rather disappointing "first user experience" of a [L]UG ... and rather
a one that most - especially new attendees - would be relatively
unlikely to wish to repeat.  Now, ... on the other hand, at least if
website and/or list suitably "warns"(/cautions) - and sufficiently well
in advance (at least 24 hours, but preferably more) that there may or
may not be anyone (or anyone else) coming to the meeting(s) - so as to
set the expectation level appropriately, ... then that may not be
quite so bad ... but if it's very short advance notice to none at all,
that does run risk of rather negative user experience - and especially
first experience, I'd think, eh?  I've also seen [L]UGs that fade
out of existence ... or fade in and out of existence notably on
account of meetings sometimes/often not occurring - or being
theoretically occurring (schedules 'n all that), but often zero
attendees.  That may be quite okay *if* that's very much the
expectation and well/clearly set/communicated ... but probably
not something most users would consider acceptable if it's not
stated rather to quite clearly, and reasonably well in advance.
And, ... I think it *is* okay for some [L]UGs, which often rather
quite do - to sometimes have meetings, and sometimes not - with
sufficient and clear advance notification on that.  E.g.
Bay Area Debian (BAD) http://bad.debian.net/
is quite good about that - just read its well written info
about meetings and meeting algorithm/procedure, and apply that
to recent bit 'o (highly reliable) list archive ... and one quite
knows if there's a meeting or not.  Likewise,
Ubuntu Hour San Francisco - sometimes it happens, sometimes not - but
quite predictable as to when (if it does) and where (or at least quite
approximately) and communicated well in advance (weeks or more every
time) - if there's meeting, it's communicated, there's RSVP URL 'n
location details and all that, and, though not persistent URL location,
the URL for any given such meeting is relatively easily findable by
applying suitable algorithm from reasonably well documented persistent
URLs (debatable if can be called a LUG, per se, but probably "close
enough" that to fair extent it rather well functions as/like one ... or
... as/like an outreach arm of larger organization, and at least kind'a
approximating something LUG-like).  Anyway, ... just my (not-quite-so?)
humble opinion on all that ;-) ... "yours" (and/or damn near everyone
else's) may vary, and quite possibly even very significantly (and that's
good too - would be kind'a boring if we all thought exactly the same
thing).

And ... list(s).  Uhm, DVLUG has "new" list?  Hmmm, and that "new" list,
it has an archive ... public ... which ... shows me all of two whole
messages back in September of this last year.  Uhm, I suspect that list
has at least a (semi-)broken/missing archive - or most contents
thereof.  Now, it may not have much stuff that's been sent on that
list, ... but I think in recent month(s) I've sent at least some
messages also to that "new" list, and I certainly don't see 'em in that
list's archive.  So, ... I'm thinking that "new" list, if that archive
content is (already!) missing ... is, quite possibly (or at least its
archive portion thereof) less reliable (thinking uptime & availability
& such) than those lists on linuxmafia.com.  Heck, given how abhorrent
DreamHost has been in the last couple of years with their repeated and
ongoing list problems - and impacting many sites/customers, I'd say
linuxmafia.com hosted lists have much higher overall uptime - well, at
least of the archive portion - and much smaller scale of negative
impact on customers (using the term "customers" highly loosely) notably
in terms of numbers of "customers" impacted, compared to DreamHost.

Ah, yes, ... registrars & renewals and such ...
Very true - some allow *anyone* to renew an expiring/expired
domain (e.g. despite all its issues, especially more recently,
Network Solutions would, at least in past, allow anyone to renew an
expiring domain before it expired - I'd renewed balug.org slightly in
advance of its expiration on multiple occasions in past before I was
registrant) - so that is a nice/handy "feature" to have.  As to
particular timings on lifecycle of a domain's renewal/expiration -
notably if the renewal doesn't happen before the start of expiration -
the precise details seem to vary - at least a bit, both by registrar,
and also some TLDs.  I recently had occasion to familiarize myself with
the process and research it and such (and there are some very good web
pages out there that well document and cover the lifecycle process -
some of which even give information on some specific differences among
registrars and some TLDs).  In any case, seems to the extent feasible,
most registrars, unsurprisingly, optimize to the extent they're allowed
to, their revenue, for the various TLDs.  Notably they hang onto
domains as long as they can without actually reaching into their pocket
and paying anything more than they have to, and ... may vary somewhat
among registrars, but they generally like to milk the customers out of
as much money as feasible - but this is also optimized for overall
profits in relatively competitive market space.  Yes, ... not too long
ago, wee cool project I thought of ... thought it ought have a domain
name, thought of perfect domain name for it ... but alas, it was
already registered.  However, it was quite close to expiring, and
seemed rather to highly inactive, so ... I patiently waited and
watched, ... did become familiar with the cycle and ... snatched it up
- at no extra costs - quite shortly after it became available (I wanted
it, yes, but I wasn't willing/interested to pay more to get it and I
certainly didn't want to get into any bidding war to try and get it).

> From: "I L" <droid1836 at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [dvlug] Is there a meeting at Cafe La Scala today?
> Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2015 20:04:35 -0700

> We've determined that the website issue is due to a problem with the DNS.
> Grant will be fixing it tonight.
>
> Ian
> On Apr 10, 2015 6:31 PM, "Rick Moen" <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:
>
>> Quoting I L (droid1836 at gmail.com):
>>
>> > Thank you for reaching out and informing us about the website. We'll
>> > take a look at what's going on as soon as we can.
>>
>> It's _not_ the Web site.
>>
>> Pay the domain renewal, and you'll be fine.
>>
>> Registrars differ about whether they permit someone other than the
>> Registrant to pay for renewal.  Some do; some don't.  One of the many
>> reasons I like Joker.com as a registrar is that they're fine with
>> getting paid for renewals by anyone.  If this registrar differs, then
>> Grant as Registrant may be the only person with access to fix the
>> problem.
>>
>> Maybe y'all should switch to a better registrar?  $35 is also _not_ a
>> very good price for annual charge on .org domains.
>>
>> You should consider running domain-check (the Perl version) in the
>> future to alert yourselves to pending domain expirations.
>> http://linuxmafia.com/pub/linux/network/