DBI:minutes

Current

2009.04.14

Attendees

Ben, Gus, Gil, Nate

Progress

Nate

• Completely re-wrote the "service.php" code to account for a new parameter ("fp" - From Portal). With this new variable, we can use the exact same functions regardless of the calling URL. Before, we had functions for WebDB and duplicates for Portal channels; and the only difference between them were cosmetic. While working on that, Nate found tons of code that needed to be cleaned up! We will be MUCH better off with these changes in place.
• E-mailed Betsy Ward to have "grievka" changed back to "grievgr" in Banner. This should resolve Kevin' slogin issues on WebDB.
• Nate accepted a full-time Programming position!

Gil and Gus

• Continued to study the WebDB technologies.
• Worked on documenting the design for the "Countdown Survey" project's database.

To-Dos

Nate, Gil, Gus, and Ben

• We need to get together on Thursdays @ 10:00 to do some group training before Nate leaves. The plan is to go over the process of creating a web application (probably in Python-Django) from start to finish. And rather than attempting one of our current projects, we think it will be best to create some simple, fictitious application to tackle.
• Ben will contact Denise Crum to get her input on the highest priorities for Nate's departure.

Archive

2009.04.07

Attendees

Ben, Gus, Gil, Nate

Progress

Nate

• Talked to Bonita and Julie about latency issues when changes are made to WebDB. Julie suggested that we have the "load_from_banner.pl" script run more often (possibly several times a day) to resolve these issues; but we did not think that would be necessary. If changes are being made directly inside WebDB, the load from Banner would not fix this. And since WebDB will no longer be used for online registrations, we may not notice the latencies in the future.
• Worked with Gus and Gil to do a little PHP/Perl/SVN training.

Gil and Gus

• Continued to study the WebDB technologies.
• Worked on documenting the design for the "Countdown Survey" project's database.

To-Dos

Nate

• Work on the "serveOrphan.php" with Gil and Gus.
• Contact Betsy and Randy about fixing Kevin's records in Banner (to match his LDAP username).

Gil and Gus

• Continue working on documenting the "Countdown Survey" project.
• Help Nate with the "serveOrphan.php" code and checkout SVN repositories to play with.

2009.03.31

Attendees

Ben, Gus, Nate

Progress

Nate

• Has been working on the twiki site.
• Worked on the Midterm Progress Reporting Tool and determined that the issues reported were due to two different instructors submitting reports for the same course (due to lab assignments). We decided that the issues could be resolved by encouraging better communication between the instructors and informing the Registrars Office that they may need to edit such entries manually after posting has occurred.
• Looked into the suggestions for "serveOrphan.php" and decided that the "calling" PHP in "serveOrphan" just needs to be modified to call the regular functions (instead of the "orphaned" versions they are attempting to use now). That will eliminate the duplicated, out-of-date code and look better in the framed window from Luminis.

Gil and Gus

• Have obtained a copy of the current Questionnaire and started thinking about the underlying database design.

To-Dos

Nate

• E-mail Randy and Betsy about "grevegr" vs "greveke"
• E-mail to registrar explaining situations, options for leslie b and jessa w
• Revamp service; use normal versions of timesheet/comxodx/etc with a smarter service.php (to handle header, tabs, footer strip)

Gus

• Use lessons we went over to keep on keeping on with housing questionaire. Share notes with Gil. Have a little something for Thursday.

2009.03.24

Progress

• Worked on schema design for their Questionnaire project.

To-Dos

• Continue work on the design of the Questionnaire project and posting changes on the twiki.

2009.03.10

Attendees

Ben, Gus, Gil

Progress

Nate & Gil

• They met w/ Wendy Selligman about the "Countdown" project and found that it's actually the step prior to the countdown that needs work. Wendy wants us to create a login form that looks in a database to see if the current user has filled out a survey yet. If they have, take them onto the countdown stuff, if they have not, take them to the survey. Then, we want the results of the survey to be viewed by the student (in a raw form) and administrators (probably in several different report styles).

To-Dos

Nate

• Keep plugging away at various notes and get AMBER up and running with basic functionality.
• Take a look at Ben's suggestions for the "serveOrphan.php" page and see if they are doable.

Gil and Gus

• Get into AMBER and start working on a project. Possibly take the "serveOrphan.php" modifications on (if they are straight-forward enough). Or get right to work on some of the basics of setting up the survey database and interface for the "Countdown" project.

2009.03.02

Attendees

Nate, Gus, Gil, Denise

Progress

Denise

• Mark Pearson stopped in yesterday to ask about contacting Nate and Ben about some changes he would like done with "My Moodle". I told him he could check with them but that they might not be able to meet his time frame. He is wanting this done before May.

To-Dos

Nate

• Meeting with Wendy at 3pm today.
• Fix the comma bug on class list mailing
• The reported wrong email was really right, just user over quota
• Have a meeting time of Thursday at 10am
• Kevin Frendly not returning emails

Gil and Gus

• Still reading and learning

2009.02.24

Attendees

Ben, Nate, Gus

Progress

Nate

• Having a scheduling battle with Wendy Selligman.
• Lisa wants a few updates to the "Timesheets Tool"

• Bugs in click-in/clock-out that doesn't allow users to change their dates.
• Modify IP login/logout to something supervisors may understand.

• Kevin has not responded back about releasing code for the Quaker database.

• Nate is thinking that we should just figure it out ourselves and create from scratch.

Ben

• Did the last few bits on AMBER to allow access for the group.

Gus

• Played around on PostgreSQL a bit with Nate.

To-Dos

Nate

• Check out Doodle for trying to get that meeting with Wendy and Lisa.
• Work on fixing the bugs on the "Timesheets Tool".

Ben

• Contact Randy about getting access to RONGO for Gil and Gus.
• Contact Brad and Denise about possibly modifying all Luminis channels to external links that utilize WebDB in normal mode (rather than "serveOrphan.php"). It causes Nate double the work to fix the service because of the two pages.

Gus & Gil

• Keep playing around with PostgreSQL and Python.
• Work with Nate to fix the "Timesheets Tool".

2009.02.17

Attendees

Ben, Nate, Gil, Gus

Progress

Nate

• Has Lisa Six all setup now so students can clock in and out on Timesheets.

Ben

• Spoke with Randy and started playing around on the new FreeBSD jail ( amber.earlham.edu).

• Everybody will need to generate new RSA keys for PAZ by issuing the following command at a Unix prompt:

ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096

• Then, send the public key to schulra@earlham.edu (DO NOT E-MAIL THE PRIVATE KEY).

• You'll SSH into PAZ, then AMBER to gain access.
• Don't forget to change your password with the "passwd" command.

• I created a new users account and adedd them to the sudoers list.

adduser -s -q
    Use all of the default settings
sudo vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config;/etc/rc.d/sshd restart
    Add each user to the "AllowUsers" list at eth very bottom
sudo visudo
    Add each user to the list in the middle

Gil

• Worked on Python & PostgreSQL tutorials and texts.

Gus

• Chapter 2-4 in Python book.

To-Dos

Nate

• Needs to meet with Nancy Silex and Wendy Sillegman.
• Still trying to get access/copy of the front-end code for the Quaker Meetings database.
• Needs to take a look at the orphan code for the Timesheets.

Ben

• Needs to contact Randy about allowing users to log into AMBER.

Gil & Gus

• Keep playing with Python and Vim.
• Set a meeting w/ Nate to code in Python as a group.

2009.02.10

Attendees

Ben Johnson, Denise Crum, Nate Smith, Gil Bailey, Gus Schueger

To-Dos

Nate

• Still needs to fix SVN issues (caused by attempting to incorporate the "pickup.html" into the code repository.
• Continue working on Quaker database (with Tom Hill).

• Needs to get a copy of the PHP-Zope front-end code for reverse-engineering purposes.
• Experiment with new database design (in PostgreSQL) and possibly creating a new front-end in Python-Django. The current design consists of one huge table containing 50+ columns; and that just won't do :) And since we'll be re-creating the database design, we might as well consider using a programming language and framework we are more comfortable with as well.

Ben

• Contact Randy Schultz about getting the new jail (replacement for RONGO) up and gaining access for all DBI Group members. [E-MAILED ON 2/11/09]

Gil & Gus

• Borrowed a "PostgreSQL" and "Python Web Frameworks: DJango" books to continue learning about the technologies we'll be using on the "Quaker Meetings Project".
• Continue to read and play with the Python language.

Next Meeting

• We'll meet in the Faculty Development Lab in the basement of Lilly. This will be a working meeting where Nate will give everyone a tour of Python-Django and a little PostgreSQL.
• Hopefully, we'll also become familiar with our new jail setup; and Ben can give a brief tour of the capabilities of FreeBSD jails (from his limited experience :).