Blog

By Stefan Sojka

We operate in an industry that is built on an incredibly complex array of technology.  One of the most frustrating aspects for us and our customers is just how many different opportunities there are for technology to go wrong – on or off-line – with computers.

There are literally thousands of links in any chain between people on the Internet – even inside a single computer!  There are dozens of service providers.  Some we know about:

• Your ISP
• Your domain name registrar
• The company who built your computer
• The company who built your Website visitor’s computer
• Your Web developer – us

…and some we don’t:

• The owner of the submarine cable or satellite
• ISP installation contractors
• Server maintenance company
• Domain name authority
• Browser software developer community
• International Internet standards bodies
• Network router suppliers, like Cisco Systems
• The list goes on and on.

Besides all of the above, a successful Internet experience depends on the people at either end of the exchange.  Here are some issues that can and do happen along the way:

• Sound is used, but the end user doesn’t have speakers
• Visitors to a Website run an ancient browser, so the site doesn’t display correctly for them
• People run security software with settings that disrupt even safe activity
• An ISP’s DNS server has issues, causing some sites to be inaccessible
• An ISP like Telstra can get a massive surge of Spam and slow everything down
• Software gets installed and causes a conflict
• Website hosting software gets upgraded and some functions stop working due to a different configuration
• This list also goes on and on!

Over the past 15-20 years we have seen it all.  One day we will probably write a book about it.  Suffice to say we have come to accept technological issues as part of day-to-day life in the computer world.

When things go wrong, we are often the first people to hear about it, even if it is not our fault.  Sometimes we are not informed, when we should be – as customers think that perhaps their ISP is to blame.

What we would like to say about all of this is that we hope you understand a little about the scope of the industry we are all participating in.  We hope you accept that it is in the very nature of something so complex that things will go wrong.

In saying this, we are always here to help.  If you need advice or are becoming frustrated with a technical issue or service issue, please let us know.  We might just be able to help you work out where the real problem lies and who the real culprit is.  Sometimes it is something we can fix.  At the very least we can point you in the right direction.

If after we investigate a problem, we find it is our fault, we are bound to sort it out for you at no charge.  If it turns out to be one of the other many links in the chain beyond our responsibility, we will either recommend a solution, or arrange to fix it for you.  In these cases, we will charge a service fee for our time.

As one of your business service providers, we are here to help you manage this very complicated maze of technology that impacts – and helps – your business.  Nobody likes the ‘issues’ part of the equation – it certainly doesn’t seem very productive.  However, by effectively managing these inevitable problems, we do get to enjoy the huge benefits of the technology for all the times things are running smoothly.

With your understanding and our support, we can all move forward in this exciting digital world.

By Stefan Sojka

Here are a few messages that come up in your Internet Site statistics, and a brief explanation of what they mean.  These are some of the 'hits' to a Web page that don't amount to a person viewing an actual page on your site.

Code 206 (Partial Content) means that only part of the file was transferred.  This error is generated when a user clicks the stop button on their browser while downloading a page, or aborts a file download while it is still downloading.

Code 301 – Moved Permanently – The requested data was found at a different URL to the one given.  301 usually occurs if a user entered the address of a directory instead of a specific file.

Code 304 – Not Modified – This does not really indicate an error, but rather indicates that the resource for the requested URL has not changed since last accessed or cached.

Code 404 – Not Found – Your Web server thinks that the HTTP data stream sent by the client (e.g. your Web browser) was correct, but simply can not provide the access to the resource specified by your URL.  This is equivalent to the 'return to sender – address unknown' response for conventional postal mail services.  This error is easily created if someone tries a URL with valid domain name but invalid page, e.g. http://www.ibm.com/aaaaaaaaa.html.

Code 500 – Internal Server Error – Your Web server encountered an unexpected condition that prevented it from fulfilling the request by the client (e.g. your Web browser or our CheckUpDown robot) for access to the requested URL.
This is a 'catch-all' error generated by your Web server.  Basically something has gone wrong, but the server cannot be more specific about the error condition in its response to the client.  In addition to the 500 error notified back to the client, the Web server should generate some kind of internal error log which gives more details of what went wrong.  It is up to the operators of your Web server site to locate and analyze these logs.

Feel free to Google any of these and other messages that you might receive, for more information.  All servers generate a bunch of these over time for all the above reasons.  If Code 500 happened a lot, there would be something to worry about.

The 404 message count in your stats can get large because it is likely that spammers and hackers run applications that look for possible files to attack, so they might run a script that looks for numerous files that your site might have – ones that have a statistically higher probability of having security vulnerabilities.  "submit_data.html" for example... or "log_in.html" that someone might have embedded the password into the page.  Since they try a few of these on millions of Websites, every site gets a certain amount of 404 messages.  The other reason could be people simply typing in the address wrong, though on our server we have a spell checker that automatically corrects all of these.

By Stefan Sojka

Dear Customer,

I have had a look at your newsletter and images.  There is a problem that needs fixing at your end to ensure this doesn’t happen again.

Whether you email a file or upload it, you have to ensure all files are optimised to be as small as possible.

5 Megabytes is usually the absolute limit, this is especially true for email but also can be true for Web uploads.

The reasons are because:

1) Australia’s Internet is very slow and expensive.
2) ISPs will often block emails with attachments with a combined size that exceeds 5MB.
3) Uploading to Websites takes too long and you might get time-outs.
4) People who either download or receive large emails are often on very slow connections and the emails and downloads will either take a very long time, or will time out and fail.
5) All of this is contrary to the way computers and technology is going, where large files are normal, especially photographs.  Your average phone these days is able to take photographs larger than 5MB.
6) Kevin Rudd really needs to get his “Broadband Revolution” happening as soon as possible! :-)

So, for anyone trying to run a club newsletter, Website, email list, etc, the most important thing at the moment is to know how to keep file sizes down, and to do that every single time.

If a photo is going to print, it is OK to be large, as print quality is better with a big file.  But that is only possible if you are taking the file to a printer on a disc.

If the newsletter is being emailed or uploaded you must convert the photos to screen resolution small files – i.e. 72dpi JPGs.  A typical 5MB photo might be able to be reduced to 30–40KB – even less.  Even a screen resolution newsletter will print fine on most people's domestic printers.

So you need to:
a) Prepare all photos BEFORE importing them into the newsletter.
b) Optimise the newsletter itself.  If you are using Adobe Acrobat to generate the PDF, it should give you options for screen resolution and file size optimisation.

That way, you will not have any more problems with file size.

You might also need to look at image file formats.  If you send people EPS files, then whatever program you use should also convert these to JPGs, if you intend to send them to end-users or upload them to the Website.  EPS files are usually for print industry or graphic designers to work with.

I hope this information helps you.

Since this is an urgent issue right now, we can solve this immediate problem for you if you want.  He is the fastest and the best.

He will:

a) Pull the newsletter apart and extract the images.
b) Optimise all the images in the screen size they need to be displayed.
c) Re-build the newsletter with the new images
d) Discover and fix any other potential issues with the PDF file.
e) Optimise the final file.
f) Upload it and email it back to you, ready for distribution.

We will charge accordingly for this work.  /hour + GST.  I can’t tell you exactly how long it will take, because we have to pull the file apart to see what is going on.  As a guide, it might take 1–1.5 hours.

Or maybe you could take the advice above and solve the problem yourself.

Please let me know if you would like us to solve this urgent issue.  Hopefully you can manage things better from now on.

Just to let you know the above advice and research I did looking into your problem is one of the services we usually charge for.  However, I am not charging for this, I am doing it in good will.  I want to see you running things more smoothly and with less stress :-)

Looking forward to hearing from you soon.

Cheers,

Stefan