UPDATE Posted by EQF on February 21, 2011

It is starting to get difficult to remember exactly where this project got started. But different incarnations of it have involved developing earthquake forecasting technologies, Web sites, bulletin boards, earthquake precursor related Web pages and bulletin boards, and earthquake information related Web pages and bulletin boards.

The efforts keep expanding as work is done on different phases of the projects. And the efforts are expanding once again, this time into basic Web site development efforts.

The following is a discussion of that subject matter. It will probably eventually have a considerable impact on earthquake research and earthquake forecasting. And so is I feel that it is an appropriate discussion for this bulletin board. But, the effort should have an impact that goes far beyond just forecasting earthquakes.

First, my new Web site was secured and I started storing Web pages there.

Then I began storing simple CGI programs there. These are programs that run on the Internet server computer and do something such as answer a request for information that involves doing calculations or data processing.

Although Web pages are stored on Web sites, the work that they normally do is being done by your own computer’s Web browser such as Internet Explorer. The Web sites simply send your computer the Web page information that it then has to process and display for you.

Then I stored a simple Perl language bulletin board program on my Internet server. Someone wrote it for me – easy enough.

Then I got the Xampp program running on my PC. It duplicates an Internet Web server computer and lets you run bulletin board programs and other types of Internet Web server programs on your own PC. Without that type of program you would have to do much of your CGI program work on your Internet Web site and not on your home computer.

Getting the Xampp program running on my computer was just a little difficult. The documentation is not sufficiently detailed in my personal opinion. But its developers did a good job and it runs nicely once you get it going.

So, with that program I can develop and run my bulletin board software on my home PC.

Then I got the WWWboard bulletin board program running on my PC using Xampp – not too difficult. But it did require some effort to determine where the various files should be stored on the PC.

Then I tried getting my WWWboard bulletin board program bbs.pl and bbs.html software running on my Internet Server Computer – Ouch!!!

It took probably more than 10 hours of intensive work to get it running. That was largely because I was only at the beginner level with regard to doing Internet Web site CGI program work at the start of that effort. Having figured out how to get it running I am now at the intermediate level.

It was so difficult largely because the WWWboard program has a number of internal addresses that it uses so that it knows where important support files are stored on the Internet server computer. And there is essentially no documentation for how those addresses need to be set.

It was easy to determine what they should be for my Xaamp program running on my PC. But with my Internet server it took me a good part of that 10 hour block of time to just determine that those addresses were causing most of the problems I was having and then determine what the correct addresses are.

I still need to do a better job with them. Some of my Web site files should probably be moved to other directories on the site. And I need to ask some experts which directories they are.

So,

This effort has now expanded to include Web site development efforts. I am planning to try to get different Internet and PC software developers to create a better Web site program development program package that people can download for free and then use without having to be computer programming and Web site development experts.

There are numerous commercial organizations that will help you with Web site development work. I believe that Canie herself does that type of work. And I had I known about the existence of one particular Web site development group before I got my new Web site running I would probably have started working with them. However, I am not really certain that they even existed back at that time.

In any case, that is all “water over the dam” as they say. That improved freeware Web site development package still needs to be created regardless of how many commercial organizations there are out there that do that type of work.

It would contain a user friendly version of some programming language such as Perl plus graphics software, a user friendly Web page development kit that included easily modified bulletin board software, and a program such as Xampp (an enhanced version of the Apache Web server software) that would let developers do most of the work on their home PCs.

I tried to get the very powerful and versatile freeware version of the MovableType bulletin board program running with Xampp on my PC. And after a full day of work on that I had to abandon the effort. There were just too many internal settings that had to be adjusted. And there was no easy to understand documentation for what needed to be done. A version of MovableType that includes something like an already running version of Xampp probably needs to be developed – one possible step in the expanded effort discussed in this posting.

So, the original effort to develop earthquake forecasting technologies that governments and independent researchers around the world could use to save lives has been taking some rather unexpected, interesting, and hopefully productive turns.