12/22/05 | Drupal 4.6.5 upgrades

If you're running on a hosted drupal setup with us, I've been upgrading everybody to 4.6.5 tonight. I know I said otherwise previously, but it looks like the transition to 4.7 is going to be longer than anticipated, so this was a good time to get things going.

12/20/05 | Auto Responder Functional

Good News! We've finally gotten the AutoResponder working again for email. This means that you can set a vacation notice for each of your email accounts. You can do this by doing the following:

go here: https://pa.eggplantmedia.com/users/login.php

login with your complete email and password

Click on "Auto Response"

Fill out the form

you are now on "vacation"

Posted by arthur at 10:00 AM

12/19/05 | Drupal Upgrade Plans

Currently we're running drupal 4.6.4 on all live drupal installations. We're currently watching the extremely rapid movement toward 4.7.x which is going to be a major update for drupal.

If there are features that you need from 4.6.5, we will switch you over to the newer version (some bug fixes), however, our current plan is to wait for 4.7 stable. As usual, if you have any questions, please ask ahoy!

arthur

12/04/05 | MySQL server updates

Micah and I have just done a fairly large overhaul of the MySQL server setup we're using. You may notice that if you've been connecting to our MySQL server at:
127.0.0.2
You'll now be connecting on:
192.168.0.3
There are some complicated resasons for this because of how the vserver setup is running, however, this takes care of some lingering issues.

12/01/05 | Drupal 4.6.3 security patched

A secuirty vulnerablity was just announced for drupal core. I've patched the core modules as described here: http://drupal.org/drupal-4.6.4 Drupal should now be secure again.

10/28/05 | New Support Services

As announced in our Fall 2005 newsletter we are now offering new support services in the form of the Extended Support Program.

Clients not opting for the Extended Support Program will, as of November 1st, 2005, be included in our standard support services program. Read all about it here.

10/26/05 | DNS Updates

This is just a friendly reminder that you need to change over your domain names over to use our new name services. I know that most of you already have, but for the handful of you who haven't, you need to do so by the 1st of Nov. to ensure that there is no interruption in service. All that you need to do is point your domain at our new name servers: ns2.eggplantmedia.com stork.riseup.net If you don't move your domain over, your service unfortunately will be interrupted. If you have any questions or need any assistance in doing so, please feel free to get in touch.

10/22/05 | Drupal: Flexinode Upgraded

Just to let everybody know, I just upgraded the flexinode module in drupal to deal with the security issue addressed here: http://drupal.org/node/32940

10/14/05 | Drupal Sandbox

For those of you using the Drupal content management system or who are considering it, I've setup a sandbox where people can play around with how the system works. If you want to check out a new theme or a new module, we can install them there for you to! Continue reading "Drupal Sandbox"

10/04/05 | Configuring MySQL

Having difficulty connecting your application to our database server? Make sure that you're pointing at the right server. On all Eggplant servers, the MySQL server is located at: 127.0.0.2:3306

08/02/05 | Podcasting with MT

I've just added the enclosure plugin to MT so it's easy to add podcasting tags to your rss feeds. Check out the author's page for more information on how to encorporate the tags into your rss feed.

07/30/05 | BCC Lists, Spam, and AOL

One of the problems with sending large volumes of email is that it often looks like spam. While we prefer to call what our clients send out tofu, sometimes you have to call a processed food a processed food.

If you're going to send bulk email, and you're going to use our servers to do so, here are some guidelines:

1. If you send out a mass mail, make sure that you include clear instructions on how the recipient can remove them self from your email lists.
2. Provide information on how you got their email address
3. If you find the need to use BCC fields you probably need to send your mail a different way.

You have a few different options if you don't want to conform to this:

1. Send your email through your local ISP
2. Ask us to setup a list serve for you.
3. Use a hosted service like constant contact.

07/25/05 | How do I send a .exe file?

Unfortunately, many viruses are exe files, so we've configured our mail system to automatically filter out all exe files. While this makes sending exe files harder, it reduces the number of viruses that end up in your inbox. If you're really sure that you want to send somebody an exe file, you can do so by compressing into some other format. By using a zip or tar encoding, you can then easily send your exe file through our system. This also reduces the file size, so it has an added bonus.

07/20/05 | MailMan 2.1.5

We've just deployed MailMan 2.1.5 for all of our list serve hosting. This is a major upgrade which has been part of a series of software upgrades that we've been doing over the past few months. The upgrade offers many new features including better membership management, archive options, bounce options, internationalization, and more.

07/11/05 | Web Based MySQL Administration

If you'd like to administer your MySql database that's hosted on black.eggplantmedia.com, you can go to: https://admin.eggplantmedia.com/phpmyadmin/

07/11/05 | Drupal Introduction

If you're interested in the Drupal software, there's a really good setup guide located here: Annotated Drupal INSTALL Doc. It's helpful for understanding how the Drupal system works.

07/05/05 | Mail Down Time and Improvements

Unfortunately, many of you may have noticed that there were sporadic mail outages yesterday. This was due some complications from moving our mail server to a new colocation facility where we're able to provide better service. While the change over took place extremely early on Monday morning, several issues arose which resulted in interrupted mail service on Monday. At this point, all mail is being delivered. If you're experiencing any problems, please double check the following: For checking mail from a mail client:

1. make sure that your mail server is: mail.eggplantmedia.com
2. make sure that you have SSL enabled.
3. if you're on windows, make sure that windows security is off
4. make sure that your user name is your complete email address- for example, for me it would be arthur@eggplantmedia.com

For checking mail from the web: 1) mail.eggplantmedia.com is working again 2) we've moved the majority of our webmail services to webmail.eggplantmedia.com. mail.eggplantmedia.com forwards to this new address We've made many improvements to our mail system as a result of this move. We've implemented a new level of security for mail passwords, deployed the latest version of IMP, the webmail reader. We will also be deploying new features for dealing with spam over the next few weeks. Stay tuned- there are some great improvements coming down the pipe!

06/16/05 | Secure MT

If you're using our MT installation, you might have noticed that we're now using a secure connection to the MT interface. This means that your passwords are more secure and your blogs are safer from being exploited.

06/03/05 | Good overview of the importance of proper html usage

Many of our clients with content management systems have the freedom of including any html within their pages and documents. This is a good thing, but sometime's a bad thing. For a good overview of proper use of html and why web semantics makes sense check out mezzoblue § Markup Guide.

04/11/05 | New free open-source scp/sftp client for os x

Research Systems Unix Group: Fugu Release Archive is a nice free opensource way to access your data on our servers.

03/02/05 | Free PDF creator for Windows

PrimoPDF is a free pdf creation tool for windows that allows you to create nice clean pdfs from any application. It shows up as a printer. Pretty nifty.

02/26/05 | MT DateTags

More fun MT plugins! One a site I'm working on (blacksheepbooks.org) I need some funky date management so I installed this plugin. You've got access to it now if you need it. Here are the docs: http://www.staggernation.com/mtplugins/DateTagsReadMe.html#Installation If you're ever in central Vermont and you're looking for a good bookstore, this is the place.

02/26/05 | New MT Plugin

I just recently added the Category Exclude plugin to the MT install. If you're using MT, you've got a new option in how you build your templates. For more information on the plugin, checkout: http://markpasc.org/code/mt/CatEntries/

02/24/05 | Useful Web Colorwheel

Here is a great way to figure out web-compatible hex colors: 4096 Color Wheel Version 2.1

02/11/05 | How to access your website statistics

For most of our hosted clients you can access your web statistics by placing a /logs at the end of your web address. An example would be:

http://www.eggplant.coop/logs
or
http://www.ruralvermont.org/logs

If you try this and get a page not found error message contact us and we will activate them for you.

02/10/05 | Useful web tool for sending large files

This is a great free service for transfering files over the web that are too-large for email transmission. There privacy policy is pretty good, too: YouSendIt | Email large files quickly, securely, and easily!

01/26/05 | Great mailing list management

Here is an interesting and well-made mailing-list management tool for those of you with lists too-large for our native Mailman. The pricing model os just $5 per use, not matter how large your list is. Very interesting. The interface is slick and the support is great. Here: Email Newsletter and List Management Software for Web Designers - Campaign Monitor

01/24/05 | Free online image editor

This is a useful free (with ads) online image editor that is handy for resizing images without special software.

We hope to impliment something like this directly into Ministry of information soon.

01/19/05 | Setting up your email client (outlook, eudora, mail, etc)

For detailed instructions on how to set up your desktop email client please click the Read More link below: Continue reading "Setting up your email client (outlook, eudora, mail, etc)"

01/19/05 | Administering email addresses for your domain

If you are the administrator of your domain you can login here to create new mailboxes and edit existing ones.

01/19/05 | How to change your email password

To change your email password login here using your existing email address and password.

This area also allows you to set vacation notices.

01/19/05 | Access your email through the web

Click here to access your email using a web browser.

At the next screen you will be asked for your username and password.
Your username is your full email address.
Your password is your email password.

01/19/05 | Access to Moveable Type

If you have a Moveable Type powered website that is hosted by us you can log in here.