FlashBlog

3/20/08: Please note new office phone number of 360.834.1953.

1/18/08:
Here is some interesting information I'd like to share from Curtis Nelson, IT director at West Linn - Wilsonville Schools:

Curtis: We have some email listservs that we use for a wide variety of purposes. Managing those lists and ensuring that they remain functional and operational has been exceedingly problematic. We have learned a BUNCH along the way.

You are absolutely correct that there are SO many things that can cause a message to not be delivered. We found one recently that would not surprise me if it is impacting you.

Simply stated, if there are "too many" invalid addresses sent to the same domain from the same sending domain within a certain period of time, the sending system is temporarily blacklisted. We kind of knew this already, but... We only recently discovered that this number can be as few as 10, which is what it is with Comcast.net. So, we invite our parents to join our list, which they do. We have over 2000 subscribers to our West Linn High list. Of those, over 700 of them are comcast.net addresses. We have set up a validation system that requires users to reply FROM their email account in order to join the list. In this way, we KNOW the address is good at least at that moment. If 10 of those addresses become invalid, then subsequent messages to the list are BLOCKED by Comcast.net, even to the other 690 valid users.

How do the addresses become invalid? Well, given the subscription process that your system uses, I am not sure that the addresses are necessarily valid in the first place. Someone could have entered their address simply wrong. Also, it is certainly possible that someone switches their email service to some other provider. Then, their old address becomes invalid.

And again, it only takes 10!!!

The worst part is that any of our lists could hit this threshold at ANY point in time and we don't even know it except when we hear that someone did not get something, which is quite a paradox unto itself. When that does happen, we have the system built such that we can immediately initiate a re-validation process to make sure that the list contains ONLY good addresses again. It is a royal pain for us and for the members of the list.

I suspect this is particularly problematic with text messaging as the service providers are probably REALLY sensitive to spam given the "charge per message" that can come into play. It is also probably exacerbated by the fact that a LOT of folks don't know the email version of their text message address.

Craig: So let me ask your opinion on some type of RSS feed by district?

Curtis: I think you are onto something significant with the RSS idea. However, my perception is that such a thing is "ahead of the curve" and that generally folks don't know what RSS is or how to subscribe to it or how to even get started with it.

As I understand that technology, it seems to fit well. I just don't think that enough folks would use it. Some would, but not nearly like the text/email message thing.

As we encountered the problems with "too many invalid addresses", we asked Comcast to whitelist us. They would not... even with significant political pressure applied. It was a bit impractical anyway as we would have to ask every ISP to whitelist us.

1/16/07
As you may have experienced, the FlashAlert email/text message system has had two challenges recently. Last week, a mail server failed and some FlashAlert subscribers got too many copies of messages while others did not get them or got them late.

We believe that we have cleared that problem. But this week, we started experiencing an even greater problem, greater because it is beyond our control. We believe that messages are being delayed or deleted by Internet Service Providers and cell phone companies because they are interpreted as spam. While a single test message may go through fine, a hundred or more of the same message showing up at a mail server at the same time may be classified as spam and deleted.

I am reticent to scrap a system that has worked well and is so cost effective for schools. But even though we have cautions about loss of control of messages after they enter the Internet, it doesn't matter where the failure happens - we get the blame if messages don't make it through.

My programmer and I will continue to seek solutions for this problem. But anything more than an occasional failed message will not do. I will let you know what we learn and whether FlashAlert will continue beyond this winter or if there are other direct-communication technologies we can employ.

I have attached below some draft text you can provide to your parents and/or staff. If you would like me to launch it as a FlashAlert from your district, please let me know.

Our district uses an Internet-based system for sending weather delay information to the news media. We also use a companion service, FlashAlert.net, to provide this information to parents and staff who
register on the site.

Over the past two weeks, the FlashAlert staff has found an increasing number of messages that are delayed or deleted by spam filters as they move along the Internet. Some parents report receiving emails but no
text messages, and vice versa.

FlashAlert is a wonderful tool for keeping you informed. But for at least the time being, please do not rely solely on whether or not you have received a message. The best place to verify operating status is on
our website or the websites of the TV stations, which are fed our information directly.

The FlashAlert staff is working with us and we hope to be able to continue to offer FlashAlert, as it is very useful and economical. Continuation will depend on whether an adequate level of reliability can
be assured in light of the steps that Internet Service providers and cell phone companies have had to take to guard again spam.

8/25/07
Each summer, I announce tweaks and new features and believe FlashNews to be "done." Then, over the next year, new bells and whistles occur to me or are suggested by my clients. This year is no exception, and I have lots of new things to tell you about.

… First off, I am pleased to announce a major re-work of the page that the news media monitor (pdxinfo.net and pugetinfo.net) will make things even faster. The media now gets page reloads every 5 minutes instead of 10.

… Something I need your help with is keeping your account management page up to date. So when you log in, the system now alerts you if you have not altered your account information in the past year. Review it and press "Save" and you're done.

Also on your account management page:
1) You'll find a new field where you have the option to state a link to your organization's emergency closure policies/procedures. By filling in this field, the link will appear on your page within FlashAlert so your people can quickly get to your policy - to see just what "buses on snow routes" means for them for example.

2) You now can pre-select the cities you want your information to go by default. You can override or supplement that choice on each message. Also, note that you can pre-fill your contact info. This will automatically appear on each message and also can be overridden. (Note that contact info does not automatically fill for schools on their emergency messages, since so much of the time the messages are weather related and contact info really isn't needed.)

… On the emergency message page , you will find a new menu that indicates the day of the week that weather closure messages pertain to. This will allow you to use the standard message drop-down menu more often as you will have already indicated the day involved. Also, in the city list, you will find the option to un-check delivery to Business Partners and FlashAlert subscribers (if you are using FlashAlert). This gives you more control over whom your messages are sent to.

… The news release page will have the un-check options, too. It also will offer you the opportunity to have a preview of a news release emailed to the primary user's office email address. This is a simulated preview, but should give you a good idea how it will look. Just remember that how an email ultimately displays is a function of the email program each recipient uses.

… You may have already noticed that Business Partner emails that bounce back due to a bad address, etc., now come to you, so you can update your Business Partner list.

… Finally, I have added a new tool that lets you deliver "sound bites" to the news media from any phone. "FlashBite" is an optional tool whereby you have your own phone number that you can call and leave a sound bite for broadcast use or verbal information. It is converted into a sound file and then distributed to the media based on the cities that you have pre-selected (in item #2 above). The additional cost for this service is the same amount as your regular FlashNews fee. Contact me for more info about this really cool tool.

Many of these enhancements are now in place but some may still be in the testing phase when you read this. As always, I appreciate any comments or suggestions you have about the system as well as you mentioning it to others who communicate with the local media. FlashNews covers the entire Northwest, Southern Colorado, San Diego and now SE Alaska. I hope you have a great fall and winter.

8/1/07
Welcome Alaska! FlashNews now is in the great north, with the addition of the Ketchikan School District. Alaskan media outlets are plugged in and statewide coverage available.

7/1/07
Improvements under way. My genius programmer Josh is working on a long list of tweaks and enhancements. I'll tell you about all of them later. The one to know about right now is that Business Partner emails now carry a "return path" - the address that failed messages return to - that is the same as the "reply to" address, you. This allows you to know right away if a message did not make it through to a Business Partner. For some orgs, this may result in messages to recipients inside your organization not making it through your firewall. You will know if this is happening because the messages will bounce back to you. If so, it can it can be fixed with a firewall exception and I'd be happy to walk your IT person through it" 360.260.8248.

2/1/07
Welcome, Tri-Cities! The Tri-Cities/Yakima zone is now operational. For more information, contact Jordan Shultz at ESD 123 or Craig at FlashNews.