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Messages - TARSAR

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1
Also, what operating system?

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Feature Requests and Issues / Re: Members list security
« on: May 14, 2014, 10:15:48 PM »
Likely it's more secure than your members home computers and their home computers probably contain more damaging personal data.

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Feature Requests and Issues / Re: Message system
« on: April 20, 2014, 11:07:08 PM »
I'd have to wonder if it's due to the message failing reverse DNS checks on some of the hosts.  If a email is sent as yoursar@gmail.com (made up of course), but it originated from the MM servers, the receiving host will often do a reverse check and realize that it wasn't truly sent from a gmail server based on the IP address.  Often that's indicative of someone spamming.  Obviously there's only so much that can be done to deal with that since it's done on the yahoo servers and not necessarily the recipient email account.  Even whitelisting wouldn't resolve the issue since that just says that the sender yoursar@gmail.com is known to me and isn't spamming, but since it's failing the reverse dns check, it's considered to be not reliable.  Hopefully that all makes sense.  I receive MM messages in my google apps account (domain email hosted on gmail servers) without an issues, but I can't say the same for yahoo.  Do you know if anyone on your team using yahoo receives messages from MM?

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Onward and upward!!

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Feature Requests and Issues / Re: Off line mission error
« on: March 15, 2014, 10:51:48 AM »
Windows 8, Chrome, works fine.  It should also be noted that the computer used for this test is an old laptop with a mobile celeron, 768MB of RAM (no mistake), and it did it fine.  I'm wondering if there's anything to do with custom fields or anything like that, that could be causing the error during the failed downloads.  I've tried three computers, three different operating systems, and three different chrome versions and they all worked.

Make sure when purging your browser cache in Chrome, ensure you have "HOSTED APP DATA" selected.

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Feature Requests and Issues / Re: Off line mission error
« on: March 14, 2014, 08:30:52 PM »
Windows XP SP3, Chrome (Version 26.0.0140.64 m), MM Chrome Extension and it too worked fine.

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Feature Requests and Issues / Re: Off line mission error
« on: March 14, 2014, 08:19:58 PM »
I just tried it with Chrome (Version 33.0.1750.146 m), the MM Chrome Extension, Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 and it worked fine with an existing mission.  I'll try a couple of other platforms and report.

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Feature Requests and Issues / Re: URGENT Maps Not Working
« on: February 11, 2014, 10:08:07 AM »
I'm wondering if there's an issue with internet connectivity, especially when one considers the previous post as well.  Sounds odd though.

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Feature Requests and Issues / Re: Offline use with multiple laptops
« on: February 03, 2014, 09:59:39 AM »
I can only speak from my limited experience, but for the last 2 years or so that my team has used MM, there's been no radishworks/mm sponsored or developed application.  Be that as it may, there are some apps that have had MM connectivity added to it, but it's all based on having an internet connection to "attach" to the database to view mission status and job assignments.  Since sarapp was a program that already existed AND was mostly web based, it seemed logical for them to work with MM if they could.

The flexibility of the SaaS model is a way to rapidly deploy and update an offering.  MM leverages this capacity to the SAR vertical very well since it can be used by most devices that have web access regardless of OS and most browsers can use it effectively.  Yes having a standalone (albeit network capable) app could be nice for IT coordinators, it's impractical as a "free" offering when considering developing an app for desktop and mobile use that also works on multiple operating systems.  For now I'd say we're lucky to have what we do.  Having it browser based also allows for virtually instant expansion of the coordination effort.

Most of this is purely based on my opinion and your opinion may vary.
 

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Feature Requests and Issues / Re: Offline use with multiple laptops
« on: February 02, 2014, 12:20:26 PM »
There are some applications that tie in to MM (http://sarapp.com/ comes to mind) for the purpose of mobility, but then again it's based on the assumption that your phone has internet connectivity.

One thing I'm seeing that's breaking down a bit of communication is/was the belief that there is an application that could be installed on a workstation.   To date I'm not aware that there is or has been.  Surely the concept of moving the database locally in the case of locally installed applications would be doable, but since there isn't, you should now be able to see where our perspective was coming from.  The free exchange of ideas is a key part of any publicly used site or web app's life cycle and improvement.  Mike knew there wasn't an app and you thought there was...pretty easy to see where differing perspectives influence the tone of the conversation.

Ultimately we're all here for the same basic reason, easier management of field operations and searches. 

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Feature Requests and Issues / Re: Offline use with multiple laptops
« on: February 02, 2014, 10:10:13 AM »
Do keep in mind that a "fat client" scenario would require an entirely different code base since none of this is programmed as standalone application.   Moving from .php to any other platform (C, C++, VB, Java, Perl, etc) would be quite a project to do.  Interesting wish list item, but not sure how feasible.

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Feature Requests and Issues / Re: Offline use with multiple laptops
« on: February 01, 2014, 12:19:58 PM »
Based upon what you said above, I'm not sure that you are following my proposed solution.  My proposed solution for an offline database has one machine hosting the database in a multi-access format such as MySQL.  Other computers access this data from the host machine across a local network.  This simulates how MM is set up now, just moving the database location from the cloud to a local machine.  This is rather straightforward and not uber-complex to set up.  It would require some sort of guide, though, to ensure setups were uniform.  IMO, the biggest challenge in this setup would be support for those who tried it but were not experienced enough.

My proposed solution places the data permanently offline.  An awesome next step would be to make a method to synch from the local database (offline) to the cloud database (online).  This increase the complexity is exponential over just keeping a separation between offline and online.  The only possibility that comes to mind is some sort of massive CSV export/import, but that is over my head in knowing how it would work.  Don't get me wrong, it's a pipe dream.  But it would certainly be the absolute best possible scenario because in essence you would have a cloud backup of your offline data should you lose it.

Oh.  In re-reading your post before submitting, I think your concern is about the second half of what I talked about - synching from local to cloud.  In proposing my offline solution, I was completely discounting this as an option, initially.  I figured start to finish the offline solution would be used.  So all data would be built out in the offline/local database.  Does that make sense?
You're correct that I hadn't considered that you were wanting a completely offline solution.  I would suspect the only potential option for running it purely on your own network would be to have a database dump from the source DB, which would include relationships and permissions, in addition to the complete source code to the site itself.  Having that would allow you to setup your own installation of MM.  The code would have to be altered to facilitate the change in computer names, userids/passwords, and relative paths to the various web and db "services".  Since MM is a web based, you'd need a properly configured LAMP or WAMP stack (assuming it's been created on that platform) for it to work.  One thing I'm not sure of is whether all organizations are contained in a single DB or whether each gets its own DB, but that could be a consideration as far as data security goes.

My thought initially was that in the event of a deployment in an emergency situation you wanted to "dump" the online DB to your own server and then run the event from there.  That's why I had mentioned that ability to sync the data (could be read download as well) since you were deploying in response to an emergency and communications could already be compromised.  If you were running your own server on the network, you'd still need to consider the availability of internet connectivity in order to use the mapping feature along with the various overlay components. 

At the end of the day, there are many technical issues to work out, but perhaps with programming assistance from qualified and approved developers this could be an option.  My initial (and current) concerns would be that at what level is the expectation of support from the developer moving from fixing his code on his hosting platform to assisting every unit and their various IT infrastructures going to be counter productive to the overall success of this project.  There is one "possible" solution that could make it somewhat "portable", that would be if he were to create a VM of his hosting platform and make that available, but that would make code and database updates very difficult to the end users of the VM.  Just an idea.  VMware ESXi is free, and linux is free, the major cost would be hardware and the developers time...which I'll assume is stretched pretty thin already.

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If you're working with Access and/or excel, treating the data type as text as opposed to numerical data usually works better when combining (concatenating) data fields.

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Feature Requests and Issues / Re: Offline use with multiple laptops
« on: January 31, 2014, 06:10:24 PM »
Oddly I don't really recall strutting my experience so much as mentioning it as a point of reference for my comments.  I have no reason to attempt to impress people with any technical savvy, it makes no difference to most and doesn't serve much purpose.  Most of my participation in this forum is to ask the rare question, but also help where I can.  If you perceive that it's posturing then you've misunderstood my intent or my intent was not clearly stated by me.

I'm definitely not a whiner, but I am a realist.  Could a small cert team setup a network with a database engine capable of running MM?  Sure they can.  It would be fairly easy with simple hardware and a freely available Linux OS to run the server and the workstations.  The issue was and still is a matter of the database sync to the source.  I'll assume you know the potential complications with syncing data between two DB servers, especially during those times that solid connectivity can't be counted on.  It can be done but it can be tricky.

Anyway, not here to argue, just here to help where I can.

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Feature Requests and Issues / Re: Offline use with multiple laptops
« on: January 29, 2014, 09:58:21 PM »
I'm not saying that the solution is simple.  (Although I disagree with TARSAR that it needs to be that complex.)  I am saying that it needs to be seriously investigated and remedied in order for MM to live up to its real potential.
While you may disagree, the fundamental is and has been the database not so much the client code. Yes I'm simplifying it, but that's the toughest part.  How to you take a cloud based database, likely residing in MySQL, PostrgreSQL, MS Sql Server, etc, and make it "portable"?  That's the key.  Setting computers up to share resources like printers, simple.  Sharing a database residing on a computer, pretty simple depending on the platform, but ultimately relies on the database engine residing on the "host" machine.  When I implied that it was complex, it is especially when one considers that EVERYTHING currently being done on MM is being developed, hosted, and maintained at the expense of the person(s) that created it.  While I'm no programmer, and certainly don't claim to know all things computer, I've been building, repairing, and networking computers for a minimum of 20 years professionally.  I don't think I'm overstating the complexity involved in downloading database content to a local machine, sharing that data, and then syncing it back to the host database.  Can it be done?  Absolutely!  Is it a reasonable expectation now?  Not really.  Should there be a sudden influx of capital and technological resources, no doubt it could be done.  We should be thankful that our gracious host puts his time, talents, and money out there for us to use at no cost.

Please don't infer a harsh tone to my voice, there isn't one.  I'm simply pointing out a few things to keep in mind. 

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