When lightning strikes, communication woes hit the newspaper
Column: Gimme Some Grammar appeared in Fort McMurray Today June 23, 2006.
By MICHAEL HALL
Today staff
We've run into a couple of nasty, ongoing snafus that interfere with our ability to communicate with you, the readers, in recent weeks.
Sporadically over the last month, our website, fortmcmurraytoday.com (you can preface it with www or not), has been down, not been updated or shown some web surfers the wrong stories when they clicked on links.
I'm as frustrated as the next guy about this.
The root cause, without getting into too much technical detail, is that the popularity of our website and those of other Sun Media community dailies and weeklies, all hosted on computers in Grande Prairie, is overreaching the capacity of the servers.
We're seeing more web surfers on our site all the time. That's gratifying. But it's forcing the tech people to scramble to keep up.
They're trying. Please bear with us while we install additional capacity.
I'm told there's a plan to deal with this problem on a large scale, including redesigning our website and moving it to other servers in 2007.
The second communication headache concerns our voicemail system here at the paper.
With the various downtown power outages and lightning activity last weekend, we came to work Monday to find our voicemail inaccesible.
If you call the main switchboard after hours now, it just rings and rings.
Our receptonist dug out the old pink message pads to let us know who called for us if we are out during office hours.
We've called in the technical support in this area, too. The telephone system has a computer at its heart, and something's wonky.
But the lightning fried phone systems for other businesses in town, too. We're on a list. As of this writing, the voicemail is still not working.
I'm as frustrated as those trying to call us, or visiting our website.
I can only apologize, and thank the stars we're not in the situation of turning customers away, as did many retail stores and restaurants on the other side of Franklin Avenue during the recent power outages.
As always, we're a work in progress, one paper at a time. Thanks for patronizing us during our never-ending construction period.
* * *
As you know, if you read this space often, I'm a keen observer of the goings-on with construction along the highway.
Last weekend, I saw the beginnings of a retaining wall for the new lanes.
The work is proceeding quickly.
When all of the construction is finished, including the interchanges for Hardin and Morrison, my hope is that we'll see an end to all pedestrians along the downtown portion of the highway.
There are two types, and both must be banished because they're so dangerous.
The first is the worker being picked off or dropped off along the highway, Many of them live in the apartment blocks in the Nixon Street area.
The possibility of a catastrophic crash is not worth the "convenience" for someone who doesn't want to detour a kilometre downtown.
The second is the homeless person living in the bush below Abasand Heights.
It's bad enough that someone lives in the bush, especially in the winter, but those I've seen crossing the highway near Hardin Street are almost like ducks in a shooting gallery.
I use this unfortunate word picture because it looks like one will get picked off some day. Whatever one's life or living circumstances, that must not happen.
We have legally mandated seat-belts to protect us from harm. We need something to protect stupid pedestrians from themselves.
* * *
Jim Dinning stopped by this week.
The candidate for the PC party leadership (and, by extension, the Alberta premiership) is thought by many to be the front-runner.
I wondered whether Dinning would forget about the Oilsands City after a press release last week about his twin announcements (in Edmonton and Calgary), including a number of other appearances around Alberta, but not Fort McMurray.
Local PC Blake Robert squired Dinning around town, including his visit to our offices, where reporter Larissa Liepins interviewed him.
I shook hands with the candidate after the meeting and asked him if Wood Buffalo MLA Guy Boutilier was endorsing him.
He shot the question back at me. What did I know?
At his campaign kickoff, Dinning said more than two dozen PC MLAs stood with his candidacy. He even broke it down by the year they were elected.
Other leadership candidates cannot muster the same star power.
Who is Boutilier backing?
It's an important question for him: his future participation in cabinet could ride on his choice.
Boutilier is participating in an independent movement -- they call it C5 -- to judge the worthiness of candidates. More power to them.
With all Alberta PC members voting in the fall leadership race, let's hope the winner is not decided in the back rooms but in the full glare of the spotlight.
© Copyright 2006, Fort McMurray Today
By MICHAEL HALL
Today staff
We've run into a couple of nasty, ongoing snafus that interfere with our ability to communicate with you, the readers, in recent weeks.
Sporadically over the last month, our website, fortmcmurraytoday.com (you can preface it with www or not), has been down, not been updated or shown some web surfers the wrong stories when they clicked on links.
I'm as frustrated as the next guy about this.
The root cause, without getting into too much technical detail, is that the popularity of our website and those of other Sun Media community dailies and weeklies, all hosted on computers in Grande Prairie, is overreaching the capacity of the servers.
We're seeing more web surfers on our site all the time. That's gratifying. But it's forcing the tech people to scramble to keep up.
They're trying. Please bear with us while we install additional capacity.
I'm told there's a plan to deal with this problem on a large scale, including redesigning our website and moving it to other servers in 2007.
The second communication headache concerns our voicemail system here at the paper.
With the various downtown power outages and lightning activity last weekend, we came to work Monday to find our voicemail inaccesible.
If you call the main switchboard after hours now, it just rings and rings.
Our receptonist dug out the old pink message pads to let us know who called for us if we are out during office hours.
We've called in the technical support in this area, too. The telephone system has a computer at its heart, and something's wonky.
But the lightning fried phone systems for other businesses in town, too. We're on a list. As of this writing, the voicemail is still not working.
I'm as frustrated as those trying to call us, or visiting our website.
I can only apologize, and thank the stars we're not in the situation of turning customers away, as did many retail stores and restaurants on the other side of Franklin Avenue during the recent power outages.
As always, we're a work in progress, one paper at a time. Thanks for patronizing us during our never-ending construction period.
* * *
As you know, if you read this space often, I'm a keen observer of the goings-on with construction along the highway.
Last weekend, I saw the beginnings of a retaining wall for the new lanes.
The work is proceeding quickly.
When all of the construction is finished, including the interchanges for Hardin and Morrison, my hope is that we'll see an end to all pedestrians along the downtown portion of the highway.
There are two types, and both must be banished because they're so dangerous.
The first is the worker being picked off or dropped off along the highway, Many of them live in the apartment blocks in the Nixon Street area.
The possibility of a catastrophic crash is not worth the "convenience" for someone who doesn't want to detour a kilometre downtown.
The second is the homeless person living in the bush below Abasand Heights.
It's bad enough that someone lives in the bush, especially in the winter, but those I've seen crossing the highway near Hardin Street are almost like ducks in a shooting gallery.
I use this unfortunate word picture because it looks like one will get picked off some day. Whatever one's life or living circumstances, that must not happen.
We have legally mandated seat-belts to protect us from harm. We need something to protect stupid pedestrians from themselves.
* * *
Jim Dinning stopped by this week.
The candidate for the PC party leadership (and, by extension, the Alberta premiership) is thought by many to be the front-runner.
I wondered whether Dinning would forget about the Oilsands City after a press release last week about his twin announcements (in Edmonton and Calgary), including a number of other appearances around Alberta, but not Fort McMurray.
Local PC Blake Robert squired Dinning around town, including his visit to our offices, where reporter Larissa Liepins interviewed him.
I shook hands with the candidate after the meeting and asked him if Wood Buffalo MLA Guy Boutilier was endorsing him.
He shot the question back at me. What did I know?
At his campaign kickoff, Dinning said more than two dozen PC MLAs stood with his candidacy. He even broke it down by the year they were elected.
Other leadership candidates cannot muster the same star power.
Who is Boutilier backing?
It's an important question for him: his future participation in cabinet could ride on his choice.
Boutilier is participating in an independent movement -- they call it C5 -- to judge the worthiness of candidates. More power to them.
With all Alberta PC members voting in the fall leadership race, let's hope the winner is not decided in the back rooms but in the full glare of the spotlight.
© Copyright 2006, Fort McMurray Today
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home