FlashBlog

1/3/12: Emergency script for placement on your home page. Josh has now created two more files you can grab to display on your org's home page that will show only your open/closed status. They are in plain text and JSON formats. You'll find links to them after you log in and go to "Change/customize your account information."

12/2/11: Change in reply address. Emails with emergency information go out at each quarter hour and may contain messages from several organizations (as opposed to news releases, which go out singlely). Therefore, unlike the news releases, a single "reply-to" address does not work. Today we modified the system to recognize emergency emails that contain just one sender and put that sender's reply-to address in the heading of the email.( A reminder: the "reply-to" address is based on the office email adddress of the org's primary contact.)

11/1/11: Account purge .Today, we did a purge of all FlashAlert Messenger public subscription that had not logged into their account since July 1, 2010. Each account at risk was sent two emails with instructions on how to log in and out of their account to keep it alive. In addition, people who had not yet validated the email or text message addresses in their accounts were warned that messages would not be sent t unvalidated addresses. All this is to keep the mailing lists clean and make sure that our messages do not appear to be spam.

9/15/11: Updating in progress.About 74,000 emails are going out to FlashAlert Messenger public subscribers telling them to log in to their account if they haven't in the past year, or log in and have validation messages sent to their email/text addresses. Time to clear out old addresses! Another reminder will be sent in October.

9/10/11: Simplified address validation now. Today we simplified the process through which members of the public validate the email or text message addresses they have registered (for those schools/organizations using the FlashAlert Messenger feature). From each subscriber's account, a click launches a message to email addresses with a link that they need only click (or they can copy the two-letter code into their account). Text message addresses also can use the two-letter code, or simply reply to the message with "Yes" or "No." This change was made to simplify the annual updating/validation process we will start next week.

7/11/11: FlashAlert Editor is now available in the Android Marketplace!

6/29/11: FlashAlert Editor is now available in the iTunes App store! Look for this free app in Android format in a few weeks!

6/8/11: A few changes. On the emergency posting page, the default delete time now is three hours, rounded up to the next hour, for non-schools; and 7 pm (instead of 8 pm) for schools. Also, due to lack of use, the News Conference/Meeting Agenda channel has been dropped. You may post these events in the News Release channel. Passwords have been extended from a maximum of 10 charactrs to 20.

3/8/11: As a backup plan in the event of a server failure, you now may go to www.FlashAlertBackup.net , which is hosted at another location, and trigger emails to go to the news media in your region.

3/1/11: Backups at the cell companies have caused many messages to be late, sometimes by hours. Here's some background on the issue, including a log showing a message being rejected six times before the cell company accepted it for delivery. Note that the FlashAlert mailing script has now been modified to not send messages that have been waiting for more than one hour. Better no message than a dramatically late one. The viability of continuing with text messages will be evaluated, with clients' input. Email goes out very well; Twitter is incredibly fast and we are looking at creating a (second) iPhone/Droid app that will facilitate "push notification" to your subscribers.

2/24/11: This morning we had FlashAlert servers go up and down twice between 5:30 and 7:30 am. This resulted in orgs not being able to post at certain times and the media being unable to see the info at times.
The reason was a failure in safeguards we put in place following a station hot-linking a live database report to the public. This was an intensive report that was intended only for the media to download and cache periodically, then serve back out their own copy of it to their viewers.
In response to this, we implemented a new caching system to protect us from similar issues in the future. Unfortunately, there was a bug in this new code that was not apparent under testing and only came to light in battle conditions.
We will work throughout the day to be sure that the system is ready for closures tomorrow and I very much apologize for the situation this morning.

1/10/11:

Following up on the server overload issue created by a TV station passing tens of thousands of hits to the FlashAlert server in November, Josh today created "flattened" pages for all reports in FlashAlert. This should prevent any future overload issue, because a simple ("flattened") copy of each page is created the first time it is called for and held in cache memory, and that ready-made page is sent the next time it is requested, for the next 60 seconds, at which time the next request will generate a new page. System demand is dramtically reduced by not constantly making pages.

12/10/10:

Josh spent the entire day reworking the public side of FlashAlert and the passwords now are encrypted.

12/9/10:

Earlier today, computer hackers in China found a way into the FlashAlert Texting (email/text messages to the public) sub-system and may have obtained a number of email addresses and the passwords associated with those addresses. About five percent of FlashAlert's subscribers may have been affected and were notified tonight.

To deal with this potential problem, we changed the affected subscribers to a new, randomly generated password and sent it to them. The only information that could have been obtained is the account email address and the password they use for FlashAlert. The biggest reason for notifying people is that many people use the same password for multiple accounts and may want to change a password for, as an example, a Twitter or ebay account if the account has the same password AND it is associated with that email address.

We are sorry for this inconvenience. This was a very sophisticated attack, directed by an individual at a vulnerability deep within the system, now blocked. It is the first unauthorized entry into the system of any kind in its 11 years on the Web. We are searching out more ways to make the site as strong as possible.

12/3/10:

Send test message: We added a tool into the FlashAlert Texting subscriber page so that parents/staff/etc who have registered for your alerts can launch a test message to themselves to make sure messages will reach them.

The test message should help with questions about late text messages. Here is some information I have posted on the FlashAlert Texting (public) site:

Why was my text message late? FlashAlert messages are sent as emails to both email and cell phone text addresses. They leave the FlashAlert server within a few minutes of posting by a school district or other organization.

One dispatched, they are subject to delays while traveling the Internet to your cell carrier, such as AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, etc.

Once they reach your carrier, they must be spam filtered and then queued for dispatch. Since these messages enter their systems as emails, rather than a text sent from another phone, the spam filtering must be rigorous. While few messages are outright deleted, many can be delayed by minutes or even hours, depending on time of day and message backlog.

There is a "Send Test" button next to each email/text address so you can verify deliverability.

Please remember these constraints and remember to check other sources as a backup to text messages.

11/23/10:

Server overload: Today, we had snow events in Portland, Seattle, Eugene and Tri-Cities. The FlashAlert system is well capable of handling such a load. However, unbeknown to me, KGW.com in Portland was not following procedures. Rather than receiving from me, or downloading, a file every five minutes for them to hold on their site for their viewers, they were passing their viewers directly into the FlashAlert system.
KGW.com has a huge customer base and the tens of thousands of visitors passed along to FlashAlert brought the servers to a halt. For more than an hour, while my programmer Josh worked to restore the system, information could not be posted or sent out. OnceKGW.com was denied access to the site, the servers were able to start handling information again.
KGW.com will not be passing viewers to the FlashAlert server anymore. I am working with them today to send them files via FTP for local caching.
I sincerely apologize for the problems this morning. KGW and I are taking steps to ensure it does not happen again.

11/14/10:

Frontier/Verizon: If you use Frontier (formerly Verizon) as your Internet carrier, you may be experiencing problems getting to FlashAlert. The FlashAlert server is fed by three trunk lines: Cogent, Integra and AT&T. The connection from Frontier to AT&T is sporatic and you may not be able to get to the site sometimes. Both Frontier and AT&T are working on this problem.

9/21/10:

Twitter: Josh spent all Friday morning modifying our system to work with Twitter, and I spent the weekend re-hooking accounts to Twitter.

9/15/10:

Twitter: Over the weekend, Twitter changed how it accepts messages, breaking that part of the system. Programmer Josh is working on a fix and hopes to have it ready by Friday (17th).

8/11/10:

New 11-minute video tutorial is now available on your region's FlashAlert Newswire main page (left frame), or click here (QuickTime and WMP versions): www.flashalertnewswire.net/videotutorial.mov www.flashalertnewswire.net/videotutorial.wmv

7/15/10:

Summer 2010 enhancements! First off, the site that the public visits (www.FlashAlert.net) has been redesigned to be much easier to use.

2. On your side of the system, www.FlashAlertNewswire.net, you will find a new option for setting the delete time for emergency messages. A school district might want to have a message about morning bus snow routes disappear at noon rather than the normal 8 pm. A police agency might want to have a message about an accident delete after a couple of hours.

3. And the Quick Report menu has changed. Instead of a single menu with numerous permutations of messages, you will find three side-by-side menus where you can build your own message. Thus you could choose "2 hrs late" from the first menu, "Buses on snow routes" from the second and "No AM kind" from the third and it would post, "2 hrs late, Buses on snow routes, No AM kind". If no combination works for you, you still have the custom message field (although the goal is to use the Quick Report as much as possible.)

4. If you send meeting agendas to the media, you now do that through a revised News Conferences and Meeting Agendas channel. I want this to be the place the media goes to see what is coming up in news conferences and meetings.

5. Finally, for the third year in a row, the cost for FlashAlert Newswire (messaging to the media) will remain the same. The cost for the optional FlashAlert Texting (messaging to the public) will increase slightly, reflecting a higher cost to provide this service.

4/5/10:
FlashAlert Texting validation. The texting feature that allows parents, employees, etc., to self-register to receive your info via email or text message has been strengthened to better ensure that addresses are valid and messages get through. As registrants enter their accounts, they will be asked to go through a validation process in which they trigger a test message to themselves containing a three-letter code which they must type into their registration page. This ensures they have entered their address(es) correctly and that they are set up to receive messages. For example, many people register to get cell text messages but have turned off that function within their phone! Fewer bad addresses will help keep our messages from being seen as spam. To further help registrants, there now is a drop-down menu of cell text address suffixes (i.e. @txt.att.net) to further aid in accuracy. Look for a site redesign in the next few months along with more new features this summer!

10/22/09:
Translations! Today we integrated Google Translations into the FlashAlert public pages (i.e. flashalert.net/news.html?id=70 ) Your publics now can see what you post - emergency messages, news releases, etc. - in various languages. I can't testify as to the accuracy of the translation, but knowing Google...

8/5/09:
New feature summary. Here's a summary of tweaks and enhancements implemented over the summer.

7/21/09:
The Final Frontier. Captain Kirk has joined FlashAlert! That's right, Captain Darr Kirk, PIO for the Kelso Police Department, has joined the system. Wecome Captain, and everyone say it with me: live long and prosper!

7/1/09:
Annual FlashAlert Texting update. I am initiating email messages to the 42,000 FlashAlert Texting subscribers who have not logged into their account in the past year. To make sure our lists are clean and no one is getting messages they don't want, they will need to log in and launch a test message to stay active. A reminder will be sent first of August to those who still need to update, prior to the September 1 purge.

6/5/09:
More Twitter info. I am peppering my programmer, Josh, with all kinds of little tweaks and improvements, many based on clients' suggestions. We have added more information about using Twitter to receive FlashAlert Texting and changed orgs' FlashAlert pages to put the emergency messages at the top, in red.

5/22/09:
Picture captioning available. You now may attach up to 10 photos or documents and there is a space for including photo captions.

4/16/09:
Revised tutorial in place.

4/1/09:
FlashAlert Newswire in place. We made the rollover to the FlashAlert Newswire branding and websites on Friday. All current URLs will continue to work. All three client groups - subscribers, news media and the public, have their own URLs to enter, or anyone can go to the FlashAlert.net portal and go from there.
Medford zone: The Oregon zone has been split in two: Medford/Klamath Falls (Southwest Oregon) and Bend (Central/Southeastern Oregon). This will help organizations target their news better. A map showing the eight Northwest regions is available here.

3/23/09:
Twitter. Support for using the mass messaging system Twitter is now in place for FlashAlert Texting clients! This opens a whole new avenue to get their emergency messages to students, parents, staff, etc. Your publics now can register for emails, text messages, or "Tweets." Over the next few weeks, I will be working through FlashAlert Text accounts adding this feature. Twitter has special connections with the cell companies that enable their messages to go out fast and reliable, so I am going to be heavily encouraging people to use Twitter for FlashAlert text messages instead of registering their cell text address directly in their FlashAlert account.

3/6/09:
Tweaks and enhacements. FlashNews' genius programmer, Josh Hughes, started work today on 19 tweaks and enhacements to the FlashNews/FlashAlert system. There will be a new tool to alert a specific TV station if they have your closure info wrong and we are adding Twitter text messaging capability to the FlashAlert system, in addition to email and standard text messaging.

2/23/09:
New name. In March 2009, FlashNews (current site for posting news), FlashAlert (current site for the public to view news) and each city's news media pages (i.e. pdxinfo.net for Portland) will come together under the brand FlashAlert Newswire. All URLs you currently use will continue to work, but the system overall will be refered to as FlashAlert Newswire. (There is another news distributor that also uses FlashNews, so this was the easiest solution.)
Price freeze. As you build your budget for next year (Sept 2009-Aug 2010), you can expect your FlashNews/FlashAlert fees to remain the same as last year. :o)

1/2//09:
The Columbian. Nice story about FlashAlert in The Columbian newspaper.

12/22/08:
Major activity in multiple cities. System running wide open, no delays. New servers are running at Warp 10! New basic-service tier in Portland swells active membership to 1,900 schools and organizations.

12/16//08:
Hardware failure. System was down 1.5 hours this evening due to a failed hard drive. Backup drive kicked in, but was verrry slow. Sorry.

11/1//08:
Server migration. Last week, Flashalert's ISP, Solid Technology, moved server operations from Seattle to Portland, upgrading system response and capacity.
FlashAlert renewals: All FlashAlert self-registrants (parents, employees, public) who have not logged into their account since July 1, 2007, have received a message that they need to log in to keep their account alive. Old accounts will be deleted Nov. 15. Eliminating bad addresses reduces the email/text message spam score and thus ensures more messages make it across the Internet.

7/15/08:
First off, the FlashAlert email/text message service will continue this winter. With some messages being delayed or deleted by spam filters along the Internet, I considered dropping it. But I think it is manageable with a combination of reminding participants that messages are subject to the irregularities of the Internet, and each organization conducting a monthly test - so that people know what to expect under "battle conditions." I will send messages out to subscribers, directing them to log in to their account to renew it as a means to purge outdated addresses and ensure participants understand the limitations. I recommend that you choose a certain day of the month to send out a test.

As a means of offering additional ways for your publics to get your info, I have created two new "pull" tools.
1. Your FlashAlert.net page now is interactive. People can open the page and it will auto-reload every half hour, even if minimized. If it discovers new information when it reloads, it will trigger a popup, alerting them to new info (assuming that they tell their browser to allow popups for the FlashAlert.net page).
2. Your FlashAlert.net page now has an RSS (Real Simple Syndication) page version. There are RSS readers available, many at no cost, which run on your computer and can monitor your FlashAlert page and bring in information when it finds a new item. Many web browsers and even MS Outlook have RSS capabilities built in. You merely tell them the page you wish to monitor, which they normally do on a 30-minute basis.

FlashBite now available. Have you ever wished you could dial a number and leave a voice message that would be delivered to the news media within the next few minutes? "FlashBite" is an optional tool whereby you have a special phone number to call and leave information, or a sound bite for broadcast use. It is converted into an MP3 file and distributed to the media in the cities you have chosen as your defaults. The additional cost for this service is the same as your regular FlashNews fee. Contact Craig for more info about this really cool tool.