Gracefully upgrading a website

From time to time all web masters get the urge (or the order from on high) to re-vamp their site. For websites that do not include e-commerce business or transaction processing, this SHOULD be a fairly painless procedure.

Unless you are also running a personal web server, it makes sense to discuss your plans with your web hosting provider. At the very least, you will be ensuring they don’t have plans of their own that clash with yours.

Suggested outline procedure:

• 1 Create your plan.
  • Walk it through in a “dry run” – it’s very useful to do this with another webmaster.
  • Identify milestones with details of how you will recover from potential failures
• 2 Issue advance warning of your plans, and updates if needed, using every communication tool at your disposal
• 3 Create a subdomain for your new system and restrict access to developers only.
• 4 Build, upgrade, or upload your site using the subdomain. 
• 5 Test the entire site on the subdomain – use scripts to speed this step if there is a lot of testing required
• 6 Test making and restoring from a backup.
  • Note how long it takes to complete steps 6 and 7: this is your “downtime estimate”.
• 7 If your site uses APIs, commenting, imports, feeds, etc, test methods for temporarily freezing access to those functions
• 8 When you’re sure everything is okay:
  • Freeze all updates to the live site (if you can’t do this, your downtime clock just started ticking)
  • Make a backup of the live site database
  • Upload the database to the subdomain
  • Run a final batch of tests on the subdomain
• 9 If all tests are positive:
  • Temporarily redirect visitors to the new subdomain, keeping interaction frozen, or at least choose the quietest time of the day/night/week.
  • Make a complete back up of the new system from the subdomain
  • Replace the old site with the new build using the tested system backup from the subdomain
  • Test the new build on the main domain
• 10 If all tests are positive, remove the temporary redirect and restore access/unfreeze interactive functionality

General advice

Document every step you take in detail, especially file names and locations, whatever changes you make, tests and results. Check your backups, don’t leave it to chance.

You can add extra insurance by creating a complete copy of the old site on a second subdomain, which you can bring into service with a temporary redirect if the plan fails and you run out of time, or if you need to put the project on hold part-way through.

If, having consulted this check list, you do not feel confident about managing your web site upgrade – save yourself the headaches and hire a professional.

Visiting Somali journalist shot dead in Mogadishu

Nairobi, March 25, 2013–Somali authorities must immediately investigate the murder of a radio journalist who was shot dead on Sunday evening in Mogadishu, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Two unidentified gunmen shot Rahmo Abdulkadir five times as she was walking to a relative’s house near Bacaad Market in Yaaqhiid District of Mogadishu, news reports said. Local journalists said the gunmen fled the scene before police arrived. News accounts reported that Rahmo’s unidentified female companion was unharmed.

Rahmo, 25, a reporter for Radio Abudwaq (Worshipper), was visiting Mogadishu from Galgadud district, a region in central Somalia, where the station was based. Abdikarim Ahmed, director of Radio Abudwaq, said the staff was shocked by the news and knew of no motive for the attack, news reports said.

Local journalists told CPJ the station covers news and social affairs for the central region of Somalia. It is unclear if the station had aired any sensitive stories in recent weeks.

Last month, Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdon set up an Independent Task Force on Human Rights whose mandate includes investigating past cases of journalist murders, according to news reports. The prime minister also announced a $50,000 public reward for information leading to the conviction of a journalist killer.

“Despite promising measures set up by the government last month, the number of killed journalists in Somalia continues to grow,” said CPJ East Africa Consultant Tom Rhodes. “Authorities must double their efforts and ensure security forces in Mogadishu are prepared to ensure the security of all civilians, including journalists.”

At least one journalist has been killed in direct connection to his work in Somalia in 2013, according to CPJ research. CPJ ranks Somalia as the most dangerous country to practice journalism in Africa. For the third consecutive year, the country has ranked second on CPJ’s Impunity Index, which calculates the number of unsolved journalist murders as a percentage of each country’s population.

from Committee to Protect Journalists http://cpj.org/2013/03/visiting-somali-journalist-shot-dead-in-mogadishu.php

Journalists threatened in sectarian violence in Burma

Bangkok, March 25, 2013–Violent mobs have threatened journalists covering communal riots in central Burma and destroyed their reporting materials, according to news reports. The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on authorities to make the security of journalists working in the violence-hit area a top priority.

Clashes between Buddhist and Muslim residents erupted in the central town of Meikhtila on March 20, resulting in at least 32 deaths, dozens of injuries, and an unknown number of arson attacks, according to news reports. On Friday, President Thein Sein declared a state of emergency that gave the military exceptional powers to contain the fighting. The Associated Press reported that the sectarian violence had spread to two other townships in central Burma over the weekend.

Journalists working for local and foreign news agencies were confronted by weapon-wielding mobs, some led by Buddhist monks, that blocked them from reporting on the riots. Radio Free Asia reported on Friday that a group of armed Buddhist monks threatened a group of nine journalists, including one of its reporters, who were photographing monks as they damaged a mosque. The monks put a knife to one journalist’s throat and seized and destroyed the memory cards from two reporters’ digital cameras, the report said. The journalists were eventually allowed to seek refuge in a nearby Buddhist monastery, from where they were later evacuated by police.

The Democratic Voice of Burma, an independent TV broadcaster and online news provider, reported that sword-wielding rioters threatened one of its reporters and deleted footage from his camera. The Associated Press reported that a Buddhist monk who covered his face placed a foot-long dagger at the throat of an AP reporter and demanded he hand over his camera. The AP report said the photographer handed over his camera’s memory card.

There have been no reports yet of any journalists being killed or seriously injured in the violence, according to CPJ research. Some journalists have decided to leave the city due to their concerns that authorities could not guarantee their personal security, according to The Irrawaddy, an independent Burmese-run news magazine. The publication also reported that rioters had threatened one of its reporters and forced him to delete his footage of the violence.

“We condemn the threats and intimidation of journalists covering the recent communal riots in Burma,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “Authorities are obliged to ensure the security of journalists working in conflict areas. We are concerned that Thein Sein’s administration has not prioritized its obligation to protect the press.”

News agency photographs of the violence in Meikhtila published over the Internet have included images of smoldering burnt bodies in public streets and victims who appear to have been bound before they were killed.

News coverage of communal riots between Buddhists and Muslims in western Rakhine State last year showed that Buddhist monks were often involved in the violence that left 180 killed and over 110,000 displaced. Government officials claimed that irresponsible news coverage, including the use of racially charged language and graphic photographs, fanned the flames of that conflict.

from Committee to Protect Journalists http://cpj.org/2013/03/journalists-threatened-in-sectarian-violence-in-bu.php

Killing the Common Good

The Masters of Mankind want us to become the “stupid nation,” in the interests of their short-term gain — damn the consequences.

March 7, 2013  |

The following is Part I of the transcript of a recent speech delivered by Noam Chomsky in February. AlterNet will publish Part II on Sunday, March 10.

Whether public education contributes to the Common Good depends, of course, on what kind of education it is, to whom it is available, and what we take to be the Common Good. There’s no need to tarry on the fact that these are highly contested  matters, have been throughout history, and continue to be so today.

One of the great achievements of American democracy has been the introduction of mass public education, from children to advanced research universities. And  in some respects that leadership position has been maintained. Unfortunately, not all. Public education is under serious attack, one component of the attack on any  rational and humane concept of the Common Good, sometimes in ways that are  not only shocking, but also spell disaster for the species.

All of this falls within the  general assault on the population in the past generation, the so-called “neoliberal era.” I’ll return to these matters, of great significance and import.

Read the whole article on AlterNet: Chomsky: Corporations and the Richest Americans Viscerally Oppose Common Good | Alternet.