Running UUpdates

Here is a list of everything that is currently in use to provide UUpdates.net as a service.

• Domain registration. Currently this is done through DirectNic, but any domain registrar will do.
• CloudFlare is used to provide IPv6 support, caching for images and in general improve site performance and protection. This is at the free level.
• Virtual Private Server through DatabaseMart. Like the others services this can be through any VPS provider. To get into a little more of the technical details the website is running on a LAMP stack with a PHP app built on the Yii 1 framework. The main driver for needing a VPS is that there is a cron task that runs to handle the fetching of the RSS feeds. I tried a few times to run this on shared hosting but wound up getting my account suspended due to activity. There are fewer active blogs now so maybe the load would be low enough, but a VPS would still be my recommendation. Currently this is $40/year if someone wants to take over the account as opposed to migrating the software, database, etc.

To keep the site running it would be useful for someone to have a technical understanding of web hosting, and internet technologies in general. Specifically the following skills would be useful.

• Ability to troubleshoot issues associated with supporting a LAMP stack website.
• Familiarity with XML and RSS formats and ability to diagnose problems with parsing site RSS feeds.
• PHP programming knowledge would be helpful. Some issues could potentially be addressed by upgrading the packages used to do the RSS parsing. The issues that the site runs into are typically handled more gracefully by other RSS parsers.

The admin tasks have decreased as the popularity of blogs has been overtaken by social media, but there is still some work to be done on occasion.

• Adding a new website to be tracked
• Sometimes as blogs are abandoned spammers take over the URL with malicious feeds, r they just go dead. There is an error log that needs to be periodically reviewed and dead blogs need to be inactivated.
• There is a Facebook page, not much to do there but it could be handed off with it as well.

I might be missing something, but I think this is the bulk of it. Currently I think email isn't working and I have not had time to fix it. So, not many messages coming through.

If anyone is interested in taking this on please comment on this post. 

Ending support

I am ending my support for UUpdates.net. if anyone is interested in taking on any portion of this, please comment on this post. Please let me know what you are interested in. Domain name only, software, whatever.

Site changes

In order to keep up with the times a few changes to the site have been made. First CloudFlare is being used to help secure and accelerate the site. CloudFlare also enables IPv6 support. This will be yet another performance increase for mobile site users.

In addition to that due to recent security breaches I decided to ditch the "promotion" buttons. The Facebook and Google+ promotion buttons are no longer on the site. Since the Google fonts used were not securly shared those have also been removed. All in all this should result in a significantly faster load time to the site due to the CDN and reduction in content that needs to be downloaded.

If you notice any issues with the site or performance after the changes please let me know.

The purpose of this church is to be the institutional incarnation of Love on earth.

Really encouraging post by Natalie Briscoe about recent turmoil at UUA. Sort of, it is really about why we should be optimistic.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10208899020456212&id=1336081554

Avoid Network Solutions

I have been working on transferring my wife's domain name away from Network Solutions. The level of service they provide is simply pathetic. I decided to do a Google search and I am not surprised to find that others have had terrible service with Network Solutions. If you happen to be looking for a domain registrar avoid them, avoid them for any and all services. The way they drop services on people transferring out is simply poor practice. Keep in mind if you do go with their services then you might be facing expected down time in the future.
Being in web development for over 15 years I have transferred many a domain name as business needs change. I have used multiple registrars. Network Solutions is the worst I have experienced by far.
I like DirectNic, never had an issue, cheap, good service. But would love to hear other recommendations.

Get your heart rate going

One of the abilities that I have added to UUpdates Is the ability to rate sites that are being aggregated. Previously the site only had the ability to filter/ignore posts from certain sites.  Someone suggested that it might be useful not to entirely block certain sites, but rather it would be good to have a way to designate certain sites so that they could view updates from only their favorites, most sites or if they wanted to review all the posts on the site depending on how much time they had to peruse the site.

By default when you log onto the site you will see an indicator saying that you are viewing sites you have rated 3 stars or higher:

You will also find (again, you must be logged in) the ability to rate each site as each post from a site is displayed, or in the list of sites.  Just hover over the hearts and click to indicate your level of interest in that site.  In this example I have rated the Interdependent Web as 5 hearts:

Other sites you might not be as interested in.  So those sites you can rate 1 or 2 hearts and they will not appear by default when you visit the site.  You can always check back on sites and change their ratings.

In a hurry and only want to see the content you really love?  Just click the filter to only show the sites rated as 4 or 5 stars.  Log in on your phone, tablet or any device and all your selections come with you.

Hopefully this wil prove to be a quick and easy way to be more selective about the content you follow.

Anonymous, not exactly

I have not tried to stay anonymous, certain things would give away my identity, but I certainly have tried to keep a low profile.  I declined an offer to be interviewed by Peter Bowden of UU Planet because I know how I get tongue tied in front of a camera.

On of my favorite hymns says:

“If you cannot sing like angels, if you cannot speak before thousands, you can give from deep within you. You can change the world with your love.”

Yep, I am not the kind of person who can speak before thousands.  But fortunately there are other ways to contribute.  That is why I set up UUpdates.net. it is my labor of love.

Farewell Categories

One of the deficiencies I wanted to address with the latest release of http://UUpdates.net was to get rid of the categories for sites.  I had "other" which really meant I had not put it into a category yet and "Personal reflections" which was really just my way of denoting it didn't fit into any other category.  Not particularly helpful.  Now, taking a hint from most blog software, the sites have labels associated with them.  I wanted to create a special category for OWL folks who were interested in following bloggers who tend to focus on sexuality and related topics.  This would be difficult with categories, but it is easy with labels.

I don't want to create too many labels, but I would certainly be willing to add labels that folks would find useful, especially if they would help identify the sites that should be tagged with a particular label.

Another label that folks might find particularly useful are the sites tagged with UUA.  The sites tagged with UUA are all the blogs that are maintained by the UUA, UU World, etc.  Especially for folks that are webmasters this might make a great feed to include on a church's or districts home page if you don't want to include them all.

If you have any suggestions for other labels please feel free to comment.

Chalice Image available on UUA Site

When I made my previous RSS inspired chalice image it hadn't actually occurred to me that others might be interested in using it.  I did find that at least one other site was using the image.  For those who are not aware the UUA maintains a set of images for folks to use, and this time I actually made the image to comply with the submission guidelines.  Now the image can be found here on the UUA chalice clip art page.

New site is live

The new version of UUpdates UU RSS aggregator is live, and as far as I can tell any legacy functionality is still working.  For example the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of St. Petersburg is using UUpdates to generate a list of UU Quotes.  If you notice any issues with the site please do let me know.  I am taking a look at what it would take to make the site a little better on Internet Explorer 8, but aside from that I am not noticing any major issues.  If you do notice anything wacky going on please do let me know!

Teaser #2 for new site.

OK, final teaser before going live with the new site.  I will continue blogging about new features and soliciting feedback, but I will do more of that when the site is live and folks can check it out.  But for the teaser shot there are 2 things to show here.  First the much improved tag cloud, and second the much improved look on a mobile device.

The new site is ready to roll, but before I turn it loose I need to ensure that I don't break anything for folks using the utilities or distributing updates via javascript/rss.  This should not take too long, and I really don't want to break anything in migration.

In terms of Unitarian universalist blogs I really like this cloud: Religion, Theology, Social Justice, Love Spirituality... good stuff.

New UUpdates Logo

It has been a while since I have made any substantial changes to UUpdates.  But after a few job changes, a career change, major surgery, moving cities, etc. etc. I finally got the time and was able to set to work on fixing some of the deficiencies with the current site.  It is not quite ready to go live, but things are definitely in the home stretch as I put it through the paces to make sure it is ready to go live.  Hopefully more will be coming soon, but in the meantime I have created a new chalice for the new site.  I have also submitted this to the UUA, for anyone who would like to reuse this for spreading the word about Unitarian Universalism please feel free. 

Roller Derby, what is the big deal?

It has been interesting to watch the Roller Derby Reverend story progress.  Along the way there have been a number of comments left on sites along the lines of "what is the big deal" about being a roller girl. Sometimes talking about how other ministers participate in other semi-pro or pro sports.  Well, if you are one of those folks I would suggest checking out this article about Roller Derby Names.  The question in the article being something along the lines of "do we want our sport to be taken seriously?" and giving examples of how the sport can sometimes be not so family friendly.  I am really glad that the Derby City Roller Girls are a great family friendly league.

The story was picked up by CNN, but they post a shorter version of the story.  Also, they got rid of any suspense and imply declared in the title that a Pastor came out as a Roller Derby girl.  Last I checked the short version of the story only had a few hundred Facebook shares, and not the 10,000+ shares the original story has.  The CNN version cutting out the "moment of acceptance" which is what I think made the original story so great.

In addition to Facebook it has been shared by Feministe as the Holy Roller (a name Liv Fearless considered but rejected). It also made it to Fark.  It even sparked a theological question for the Roller Derby commissioner.

It has been great to see people asking about Unitarian Universalism, and Roller Derby, and hopefully everyone has learned a bit about both.  It has been really great to see a positive new piece be so popular.  For CNN it was in the top 100 stories in a 24 hour period, and was the top in their lifestyle category. 


Update 9/27/2011:
Another version on YouTube: Local Reverend rolls out big secret this version is the full WHAS version minus the context of the actual news cast.

Another post I will be checking on to see the commentary (but likely won't create an account) is Would your (church?) hire a Roller Derby Girl to be a Senior Minister?  The way the question is framed it isn't really what happened (she was not involved with Roller Derby while a candidate), but could be interesting.

My wife is in the news

I have a few nitpicks with the story, but overall i think they did a good job: Local reverend rolls out big secret.

TV show Theology

The questions was asked: "What tv shows get you thinking about theology and ethics the most?"

In terms of theology I would have to go with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or most any vampire show. The vampire mythos involve mechanics based on theology and so certain questions arise. Would a vampire recoil from any symbol of faith (chalice, cross, star of David, etc.)? Can all clergy create Holy Water? Does the symbol of faith have an inherent power over vampires, or is it the faith of the person wielding it that imbues it with the power? If it is the wielder then would an atheist have any symbol? If someone saw that certain holy items protected against vampires would they still be an atheist? In the context of Buffy some of these questions are answered, so the question then becomes if "you" were writing a vampire tale how would you handle these questions. What aspects of the vampire mythos would need to change to be consistent with your worldview?

Mobile site

I have set up a mobile site at http://m.uupdates.net/.  I had already set up a css for small screens, but it was not working on my new phone.  If anyone with a mobile phone could let me know how the new mobile site looks I would appreciate it.

Better mobile version on the horizon.

Down for maintenance

Minor issue with the new host (mostly my own fault) will cause some downtime tonight should be starting at 9:00 PM Eastern Time. I am getting to know the new hosting offering. I went with http://myhosting.com/ because they had a pretty good deal on VPS plans. So far, not so bad., a lot to like but customer service seems difficult to get a hold of. If you are going the VPS route with them be prepared to fend for yourself. On the plus side you have lots of power, on the down side you can use that power to shoot yourself in the foot. Kinda like I did. What the company lack in service is made up in the offering. The CPU, RAM, etc. for the price is way better than any other VPS (with a decent track record) I could find. Downtime is expected to be anywhere from an hour to two (hopefully not much more).

Hosting Migration

UUpdates is migrating to a new host. Unless you are a big fan of the Wiki (and judging by the usage no one was) you probably won't even notice the change. Or hopefully you won't. If anything seems odd or there are hiccups in the process please let me know.

Theology in Theater Class

So my daughter came home with a scene that she needs to rehearse for theater class. It was especially interesting because there were a number of lines that she didn't get, she couldn't understand how to say the lines. What is a saint? What is a monsignor? Why would you have to sue to be a priest (after all, mommy is a minister)? Why is nun/sister used interchangeably? What does it mean to bounce and cross yourself?

The scene takes place in a Catholic church, with two little girls escaping the mass for a bit under the pretense of heading to the bathroom. It was actually a fun way to learn about for her. And having been raised catholic easy enough to explain.

Hardest part had to be the ending. The scene ends with a silly version of the Lord's Prayer and the characters ask for forgiveness of various trespasses. So how do you explain to a nine year old who Vanilla Ice was and why he is a trespass to be forgiven?

Feedback

Occasionally when UUpdates has had issues the feedback pages have also had issues. So, I am just opening up this post for any feedback in case the email or other feedback mechanisms are broken.