Subject: Arlington High School Directory for Alumni and Current Students UPDATED!
http://plavchan.caltech.edu/users/ahs/
I apologize for this mass-email, but this is not spam. At one point or
another in the past three years, every one of you has submitted
your entry to the Arlington High School Alumni site (and about another
30 people who did not submit an email address for a total of
718 entries - keep in mind I split up the recipient's list). I am
writing to inform you that it has been updated! This was certainly a
challenging feat since the last site update was in January (Caltech
undegraduate Physics, a job at JPL and another job at a startup tech
company keep me very busy). I even put off updating my own web site
(http://plavchan.caltech.edu), but I'll be working on that
tomorrow.
So, you're all going to read this email and go check out the site (just
for you to see what kind of traffic this site gets, the counter was at
6139 when I sent this message). Hopefully the server (a little P75 IBM
Aptiva) won't crash, and I've already given up on avoiding a
flood of new entries or updates. At least now I'll be able to handle
them in a more timely manner (one to two weeks instead of 8
months).
Also, feel free to forward this to any other alumni or current student
not already in the directory. DO NOT send a reply or spam to
everyone else on this list.
So, let me tell you what's different and what's not:
The site will look nearly identical to the old one, but instead of a
page for every entry (plus pictures and other files and you have a
thousand file web site), the entries have been collapsed into one
database and two cgi programs. I've spent the past four days holed
up in my room writing the cgi programs from scratch (this is what I do
at the tech company I work for, so I'm good at it) and moving
all the old entries to the new database, as well as putting the new
entries (~200) in the database.
This has several major implications:
This faithful sysadmin will have a much, much easier time
maintaining the site. Instead of modifying hundreds of page to make
a minor change, I only have about a dozen. I have already made
minor changes to how the entries look, a task that would have
taken weeks under the old regime (in fact, this took so long I
never did it). Updates are so much easier - I cranked through the
200 new entries and numerous updates in only the past two days.
Due to limitations in the cgi program I have written, everyone is
restricted to one email address for the time being. You are
also limited to two pictures. I don't see any reason this needs to
be changed in the near future.
The search functionality has returned! After all, it was built into
the CGI program (when you load an entry, the cgi program
searches the database to find it first).
The submission page has been altered. The second cgi program takes
your submission and puts it in a format I can later take
directly into the database. Under the old submission form, a
prepackaged cgi program was used. Now the program is
customized for the AHS site. It is also a bit more informative in
showing you what you submitted so you can correct mistakes.
You'll also find some new text or information here and there. Enjoy!
As always, I'll take suggestions for features enough people wish
to have added (like a bulletin board or chat room if there's enough
interest).
Finally, this site will be functional at least until June 2001 (when I
will hopefully graduate). I am looking for a new host at that point,
and any help would be appreciated (especially if you have contacts with
the Arlington adminstration, who should transfer this site to
their own arlington schools site). If worse comes to worse, I will take
it with me to graduate school. The URL will change, but I'll try
and keep everyone informed...
Peter Plavchan
AHS Class of '96, now at Caltech (yeah, we're #1)
System Administrator for http://plavchan.caltech.edu,
http://plavchan.caltech.edu/users/ahs/,
http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~bfd/
Corporate Web Administrator for http://www.tanner.com,
http://www.tanner-learning.com and http://www.reconfig-computing.com
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