Minor Missives

Hello ActiveRain

Jorgen Hahn (ActiveRain Corp) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 11:16:02 -0500

I fixed spellcheck.

Chameleons

Jorgen Hahn (ActiveRain Corp) — Thu, 28 May 2009 12:00:41 -0500

Q: What's better than a new theme on Thursday?

A: Scotch. And also, infinite new themes.

I'm pleased to introduce our latest (and greatest!) theme: Chameleon. It's not much to look at on the surface. But like the crafty creature with whom it shares its namesake, there's far more than meets the eye. A leopard can change its spots, and you can now completely redecorate your Outside Blog — Chameleon supports complete and transformative customization via CSS.

After selecting the Chameleon theme, you'll notice a new "CSS Styling" menu item. This allows you to provide custom CSS which will be used to beautify your existing Outside Blog. As a bonus, you also have access to your uploaded header and sidebar images. Simply use {{ header_image_url }} and {{ sidebar_image_url }} — these special tokens will be automatically converted to URLs.

Is this theme incredibly geeky? Yes. Writing CSS requires a high level of competency in web development. Can you use this theme without knowing anything about CSS? Yes! As people start to develop and share themes, you'll be able to spruce up your Outside Blog without lifting a finger. Know a "tech guy"? Ask for some help tweaking the appearance of your Outside Blog. Looking to go hog wild? Hire a local developer to craft a custom design for you.

Chameleon is still in beta. HTML in overhead bins may shift during the flight. Documentation is non-existent. But a mountain is climbed one step at a time, assuming you don't have a helicopter. You now have the unprecedented ability to harness the incredible power of an Outside Blog while simultaneously maintaining your own unique look and feel. Enjoy!

The Sun is Rising…

Jorgen Hahn (ActiveRain Corp) — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 08:55:34 -0600

Because we can rebuild it – we have the technology – we have the capacity to make your comments beautiful.

The Great Frame Up (or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Trust ActiveRain)

Jorgen Hahn (ActiveRain Corp) — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 12:33:47 -0600

Most domain registrars offer a free feature called "forwarding" or "framing" or "masking". At first blush, it seems like a quick and easy way to setup a custom domain that displays your content. You don't have to do anything on ActiveRain, you get a cool domain that shows your blog, and everyone wins. Maybe. Let's take a closer look:

<html>
<head><title>http://www.jhahnactiverainblog.com</title></head>
<body>
<frameset rows="100%,*" border="0">
 <frame src="http://activerain.com/blogs/jhahn" frameborder="0" />
 <frame frameborder="0" noresize />
</frameset>
</body>
</html>

(Example HTML code to embed my gorgeous blog in a frame on the fictitious www.jhahnactiverainblog.com)

How does this feature work? It starts with your domain registrar hosting a small html file containing a snippet similar to what you see above. This method of embedding a "page within a page" carries no SEO benefits and could, at worst, hurt your standing with search engines.

Strike One: If you look carefully and know some basic HTML, you'll notice that your domain registrar chooses the title of this page. Instead of your carefully crafted blog title, complete with relevant keywords, you're stuck with a bland URL.

Strike Two: When your content exists within a frame, you lose the powerful links that we so carefully craft on your behalf. For example, you can find this blog post at http://activerain.com/blogsview/901499/The-Great-Frame-Up-or-How-I-Learned-to-Stop-Worrying-and-Trust-ActiveRain. The link is rich with keywords that help boost your content to the top of search results. When you're "framing" content, this benefit is completely lost.

Strike Three: Search engines hate frames. They're a bygone technology from an era long since passed. Most "crawlers" can't (or won't) traverse frames. In my example, Google will not assign any value or PageRank to the domain www.jhahnactiverainblog.com because it has no real content — it just points to ActiveRain!

Strike Four: Tangentially, "framing" content on ActiveRain creates a security problem for our users. Imagine: a member visits my example site at www.jhahnactiverainblog.com. When they click on the login link, they don't see the familiar https://activerain.com/login URL and security padlock — they see my custom domain name. With the proliferation of "phishing" attacks and other online "confidence games", our priority is to keep ActiveRain a safe haven for our users.

Write without reservation and continue sharing your knowledge with the world — we'll take care of the arcane SEO bits.

Winning Wednesday: Introducing New Team and Individual Blogs

Jorgen Hahn (ActiveRain Corp) — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 14:00:02 -0600

Even though it's Wednesday, I can't keep quiet. I have a confession – we've been working on more than fixing bugs for the past few weeks! I'm delighted to announce the immediate availability of our new Team and Individual Blogs. These replace the antiquated (and hilariously dilapidated) Outside Blogs.

Eh?! What's this! What happened to my old Outside Blog? Nothing! Your existing Outside Blogs will continue to function normally. If you'd like to upgrade an old Outside Blog to a new Team or Individual Blog, just click on the "Upgrade" link.

Grrr. Why would I want to upgrade? We've put a lot of effort into making this new platform the best (and easiest) way to supercharge your blogging efforts. A few delicious highlights include:

Gorgeous new themes: Find 15 new ways to play dress-up with your blog. And this is just the beginning – we've got a stack of themes waiting in the wings!
SEO-Optimized: We've been around the block a few times when it comes to playing nicely with search engines. You could read books and blogs for hours trying to optimize your site… or you could let us take care of the difficult bits while you concentrate on blogging and making connections.
Hyper-local: Remember the grueling work you did to prepare your posts for Localism? Watch it pay off in spades – your posts are automatically categorized by location, all the way down to the community level. Without being too much of a tease, this is just the beginning; we have several exciting features planned in this space!
Custom Domains: Wave goodbye to DNS servers, registrars, and hours of confusion. The process for adding a custom domain couldn't be simpler – just provide the domain name you want, and we take care of the rest! Absolutely no technical skill is required.

Amazing! Unprecedented! I'm willing to pay $96,543 per month. But how much does it really cost? Individual Blogs are $19/mo., and Team Blogs are $79/mo.

Pictures, please.

Choosing a theme

Claiming a custom domain… it couldn't be any easier!

A view of contributors to a Team Blog

Your posts… categorized by location! Google will eat this up

Enjoy! I've already upgraded to an Individual Blog (minormissives.com) and can't wait to see how you utilize this new platform!

Burning Questions Answered: Column Widths in the New [New] Localism

Jorgen Hahn (ActiveRain Corp) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 11:31:52 -0500

Late last night, the new [new] design for Localism went live. This is like the new Coke, only delicious, and with less rioting (we hope!)

The display of your ActiveRain posts in this new design has been an issue of contention for some. I'm here to explain the rules:

The left column is 493 pixels wide. This is where your blog posts are displayed.
The right column is 379 pixels wide. This is where your profile is displayed.
Believe it (or not) — we employ some pretty fancy algorithms in an attempt to make everything fit and look "nice":
- Images and embedded videos wider than 493 or 379 pixels (as the case may be) are automatically resized to fit
- All images are displayed on their own "line" and left-aligned. We tried to allow for inline and floating images, but the resulting mess was too much to bear!
- Tables are shrunk to fit in the columns, but this doesn't always work :)
- Text size and font selection is regulated
- JavaScript and excessive embedded CSS is verboten

Although we do our best to ensure your content looks great on Localism, we walk a very fine line. If your (admittedly lovely) custom HTML blog post is spilling outside the confines of its column, it'll be truncated. We apologize in advance!

What can I do? I'm scared/angry/depressed and I just want my content on Localism to look good! If you stick with the WYSIWYG editor, you'll be fine. If you decide to create a custom HTML post, avoid large tables with fixed widths.

I hope this brief explanation helps. If you spot a post on Localism that's been mangled, let me know in the comments.

Localism: Striving to better, oft we mar what's well

Jorgen Hahn (ActiveRain Corp) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:31:13 -0500

Contrary to popular belief, Jon didn't hire me solely on the basis of my spellchecking fixing abilities. (the shock!) I have a confession to make, loyal readers: instead of working on spellcheck for these past few months, I've been busy pushing the new Localism to completion. (the intrigue!) There – I've said it. I feel better now!

Like any human endeavor, Localism isn't perfect. That bugs a perfectionist like me. The new Localism still has a few (sizable) rough patches:

You can't leave comments on posts
Photos uploaded to the old Localism during our internal transitional period may not appear
Layout issues. This mostly (and ironically) affects those of you who put the most time into making your profile great. We're still working on shoehorning things into our new design. It's like trying on those pants that are one size too small but look really great, so you manage to make it work.

Closed issues:

Top neighbors. We (Matt and I. Buy Matt a beer!) finally fixed it! You now (rightly) get credit for your older Localism posts!
Some layout issues. Internet Explorer throws a fit when it encounters extra-wide elements. If your profile on Localism looks weird, let me know!
Cities that belong to multiple counties now display correctly. Here's looking at you, Denver.
Photo uploads are working again!
No more slow loading pages. Or at least not as slow… We've made major strides on this issue today, and those agonizing 5 minute waits should be a thing of the past!
You're now able to create new neighborhoods when sponsoring communities

What can you do to help? Use and abuse the new Localism! Let me know what blows up. In direct contradiction to your mother's (loving) edicts, if you break it, I have to fix it.

Don't be afraid to criticize. I'm also very open to gushing compliments.

Update: Jon's got a great (and very official) Q&A up at http://activerain.com/blogsview/586195/Localism-Q-A-Official.

A Day Without Rain

Jorgen Hahn (ActiveRain Corp) — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 19:42:53 -0600

When it rains, it pours. But in this case, that's hardly an apt analogy; perhaps when it ceases to rain, the resulting drought is both immediate and devastating.

The cluster of servers responsible for the magic that is ActiveRain took a collective nosedive early (early!) this morning, leaving activerain.com and localism.com inaccessible for nearly 18 hours. The fact that it happened on a Sunday without any data loss is a very thin silver lining on this black cloud. The disagreeable servers have since been set straight, and all is right with the world again.

A curious thought came upon me during my stay in the eye of the hurricane: What if ActiveRain had never existed? The incredible team that Jon has assembled would be scattered. I'd still be living in Kansas. Some would be grinding away their days at Microsoft. Others would be selling homes. And what of our vast and vibrant community? Fragmented among smaller sites with no place to come together and share their experience and humor. In the parallel universe where ActiveRain was never born, everyone is the poorer.

Enjoy your stay in the rain — we'll try not to turn off the faucet again.

AR News Wire: Rich Lauded as Local Hero!

Jorgen Hahn (ActiveRain Corp) — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 15:13:20 -0500

Rich Jacobson, beloved Community Builder and consummate crabber, was rushed to the hospital late last night after a daring raid on an Upper Manhattan condo left him seriously injured. Police have refused to comment, citing the ongoing investigation, but our sources claim he was violently attacked with a set of bongo drums. In an unlikely turn of events, eye witnesses claimed to have seen Matthew McConaughey streaking from the scene.

Federal investigators are still questioning inmates and staff at the facility where Rich was being held. It is thought that he simply walked out after (politely) asking the guard to open the door.

The motive for Rich's late night sortie are unknown, but many industry pundits believe he was seeking the missing Blogs link. A small but vocal minority have also suggested dementia.

This is an ongoing story… stayed tuned for live, late-breaking updates.

Update (10/11/2008 @ 3:01pm PST): Hospital officials have released Rich's condition as stable. Uncorroborated reports are suggesting that Rich's midnight incursion was successful, and that the Blogs link is due to be delivered to ActiveRain headquarters in mere minutes. A substantial crowd has gathered outside his room, waving flags and banging cowbells in celebration.

(Baffled? Read the prologue to this crazy tale at http://activerain.com/blogsview/734107/Ch-ch-ch-ch)

The Tyranny of Success

Jorgen Hahn (ActiveRain Corp) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 18:58:56 -0500

The dreaded Proxy Error. You've all seen them. Some have lost posts or comments to this scourge. Others have smashed their keyboard in frustration. Almost daily, Bob bellows boldly at me in the office: THE SITE IS DOWN! FIX IT!

What is a Proxy Error? Imagine that you've gotta go – now! You excuse yourself and fly to the restroom — only to find every toilet occupied. You wait a few seconds and do a desperate little dance, but it's too late. Hoping nobody noticed, you flee, face burning with hot shame.

During our peak load times, ActiveRain experiences a similar phenomenon. Our servers would like nothing better than to fulfill your request, but there are already 100 people in front of you. By the time your request reaches the front of the queue, our proxy/load balancer has decided that you (and everyone behind you!) has been waiting too long, and unceremoniously boots you from the line with a… Proxy Error. It doesn't sound fair, but it frees the server to continue processing requests instead of sending constant error messages. Someone with strange ears once said that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

What are we doing about it? In our previous example, imagine that someone was monopolizing a toilet while reading a magazine. You'd be outraged! Some pages on ActiveRain take orders of magnitude longer to generate than others. When enough people (or search engines) visit those pages simultaneously, our servers get tied up and can't process your request. At the highest level, we're identifying and fixing those pages.

Bah! You're just making excuses! ActiveRain is a simple site! I could fix your problems in an hour! When ActiveRain was first being developed, we had no idea that we'd be the leading social network for real estate professionals. We couldn't imagine hitting 111k+ members. Much of our code still works under the assumptions of that quainter, quieter time when we had a mere handful of users. My top priority has been to find and optimize that code. Fun fact: Last week, we deployed performance-related fixes to ActiveRain every night!

To our members: thank you! You've placed us in this enviable position. ActiveRain is too popular. We're a happy victim of success. Work will continue in earnest to stamp out the last of the error messages; already, we're seeing fewer reports, but even one error is too many. Your collective patience and gentle humor have been appreciated, and I'm proud to be a part of this community. Now, unsurprisingly, I'm headed back work!

Rabid Worm, Eats Shoots and Leaves

Jorgen Hahn (ActiveRain Corp) — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 02:26:00 -0500

Some of our eagle-eyed members noticed a slight discrepancy in the top ranked spots over the weekend. I've asked Jon if I can hire you as beta-testers!

Sadly, this was no nefarious plot to allow me to takeover Lawrence with my pittance of points, nor was it a virulent worm or virus attacking the site. The real story begins many moons ago… (get in the mood; imagine gathering round a campfire with bated breath!)

After we launched re-blogging, we noticed that points were being improperly awarded. We took down re-blogging to fix points. Case closed, or so we thought. But like the best laid plans of mice and men, our fix went slightly awry. Points were being awarded for re-blogging, but point totals weren't being updated. (ed: do you ever suspect all computers are secretly run by gremlins trying to make your life difficult?) Last night, we took the site down briefly to clean house and fix scoring for all users. During that process, the top ranked spots were regenerated with zero-point users at the top. Oops! Everything should be running normally now, but if you notice any more point-related weirdness, let me know in the comments.

ActiveRain takes security very seriously. Should the site ever be compromised by an outside entity (heaven forbid!), we have procedures in place for analyzing threats, notifying members, and restoring content. We want you to have a good time in the rain, not the hail.

Strolling, Smiling, Into the Rain

Jorgen Hahn (ActiveRain Corp) — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 02:01:26 -0500

Does anyone ever click on that tiny About link at the bottom of every page? I don't, and I almost missed my own promotion!

On August 8th, I threw aside my umbrella to completely immerse myself in the rain as the new VP of Product Development. It "only" took 15 days for me to blog about it – as you might've noticed, we've been in torrential-downpour-mode for the last few weeks!

I was an independent contractor for several years. The hours were great, the pay was fantastic, and I got to take epic 2 hours lunches. But nothing in life is more consistent than change, and that's what happened when I met the ActiveRain team and the incredibly supportive community. I knew that I couldn't be the "hired gun" anymore — I wanted to make a real difference, and now I've been afforded that opportunity.

I'm done patting myself on the back. After finishing dinner at a Chinese restaurant, my fortune cookie read "Exciting times ahead for ActiveRain". Fake story, but an honest sentiment. The next few months are going to be fun, and there's nowhere I'd rather be!

Anticipation

Jorgen Hahn (ActiveRain Corp) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:28:53 -0500

ActiveRain will be undergoing an hour of "maintenance" starting today at 4:00pm CST. I wonder what this could mean?

There and back again… a tale of spellcheck more than 3 words long

Jorgen Hahn (ActiveRain Corp) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:25:58 -0500

Thanks for the warm welcome. I feel like singing in the rain. (Love puns!)

On the surface, spellcheck seems like a pretty easy problem to solve. You take some text, split it into words, then check each word against the dictionary. Fantastically easy. They shouldn't pay me for this stuff. But computers delight in twisting seemingly simple problems into complex nightmares.

Fun fact: Splitting text into actual words requires roughly 50 rules. Consider punctuation: we have to remove certain marks (periods, exclamation points) but leave others intact (apostrophe). HTML tags also need to be removed while keeping the content safe. Does anyone want my job yet?

In order to keep our servers from melting under the strain of hundreds of simultaneous spellcheck requests, we let the client (that's you!) split the text into words and send that list to the ActiveRain servers. It's a funny thing: web-browsers have wildly diverging ideas about spaces. When you press the spacebar in one browser, it might insert an actual "space" character. Another inserts a Unicode character. Of course, they look exactly the same. Only a petulant computer knows the difference and complains bitterly about it. That's one half of the "AJAX error" story.

The other half of this mystery theater is more embarrassing. The library responsible for parsing the list of words on our servers was out of date. In certain, special conditions (mostly involving apostrophes and quotes), the spellchecker simply gave up. That's one demerit for the naughty server.

My goal is to make ActiveRain work like magic, but I know there are those among you that revel in the occasional peek behind the curtains.

Hope you enjoyed this shocking exposé – stay tuned for more!