Grandpa Ham – Grandpa Can do IT!

First long time off since since 1991. Used to do it fairly often with change of station who I was an active duty Marine, but that time has long passed. Since I “retired” back in 1993 I have worked steadily with very little time away. But today my wife and I are off on a slow RV trip to the Canadian Maritimes. We will not be back until the end of August. Our son is watching the house, so we have all that covered. Looking forward to a great trip.  And maybe even back working with IPAWS when we get back. 🙂

My kind of woman!! http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/gnome_ann.png

You remember new members of the # MLB Hall of Fame as rookies. Ken Griffy, Jr.

Warm today, but not unbearable. As I ride the train into town this morning, I cannot remember an August in recent years with better weather. Enough rain, but lower temperatures and humidity. Unfortunately, perfect for chickweed.  My lawn is a mess.

“Red sky at morn, sailors forewarned” but the weather forecasts say no rain. hmm….

From IPAWS:

IPAWS Operational Users and Developers,

IPAWS-OPEN version 3.08 has been deployed to the FEMA Test Environment (TDL) for initial testing and may be accessed now by IPAWS compatible Alert Origination System developers with current MOAs.  We expect to formally begin User Acceptance Testing (UAT) on March 12, 2015, with anticipated deployment to the FEMA Production Environment on April 15, 2015.  …..  Upon successful testing and acceptance, IPAWS will send the updated IPAWS-OPEN 3.08 Interface Design Guidance document to developers with current MOAs.

Primary changes in this version include improvements to response codes and re-alignment of validation to better match channel processing.  For most developers there will be little if any change to what has already been built.  It would be a good idea, however to test you current release against what is in TDL beginning March 12 and report any issues you may have to ipaws@fema.dhs.gov with subject line “IPAWS-OPEN 3.08 issue”.  It is likely that there will be no issues, but it is important to test your software to be certain.

Release notes are also available for developers with IPAWS MOA’s from the IPAWS mail box link above.

I now have six computers operating from my “place of business.”  Three of my own.  One belonging to IPAWS, and two belonging to SETI.  One of mine does independent monitoring of IPAWS Status and blogging of IPAWS alerts received.  Another will do the same for SETI.  The third is my “real” work computer. The SETI Boxes are demo and development boxes.  Finally, the IPAWS computer is a FEMA issued laptop  that I use to VPN to FEMA for FEMA e-mail and for any Government-only work/documentation.  Amazing how far I have come from the mailed punched paper tape I used 45 years ago in Alaska when I got my first “computer” job.

It is time to let everyone know or the exciting new work that I am pursuing.  While I still support FEMA’s IPAWS program, I am now also acting as Chief Architect for a new company named Secure Exchange Technology Innovations (SETI), Inc.   SETI focuses on providing the capability for managing and controlling standards-based information exchange using content and topic base routing.  Our software is designed to provide a way of getting information to and from organizations and systems of all kinds without having to face the infamous “n*(n-1)” conundrum.  We do content and topic based routing with controlled authorization and distribution permissions defined by our using systems.  For those of you who know IPAWS, it is sort of like IPAWS, but expanded to information of all types, and to industry beyondGovernment (yet including Government, if needed). And because each of our implementations can be separate, we can configure the security to be as tight, or as lax, as desired by our customer organizations.  Finally, we do not compete in creation, analysis, or display of content. We focus only on collection and distribution.  Because of this, we can act as a firewall for needed communication between otherwise competing systems and organizations.  Our customers control the permissions; we provide the implementation; all in a manner that dramatically reduces the inter-system dependency caused system-to-system communication requirements.

I have a new offering for all who do alerting using the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP). I can create a combined blog, tweet and RSS functionality for your alerts as an IPAWS COG, or for any set of IPAWS Public Alerts. The capability works independently and also as an add-on to any IPAWS capable alert origination software. If you have an IPAWS COG, I can make it work without any special integration effort. If you have software that creates CAP alerts, I can build a connection to that software, depending on the interfaces it provides. If you have your own Facebook Page or Twitter Account, I can connect to that. If you have your own WordPress blog, I can use it for the connection. Or I can provide you with whatever you need. I can do it for messages you originate or, if you are an information consumer only, I can support that for any IPAWS Public alert. I can host the connection for you, or you can host and I will help you set up.

Examples:
1. All recent Tornado Warnings and Flash Flood Warnings in the U.S can be found at http://weatheralerts.alertblogger.com and/or follow @ipawsweather on Twitter.

2. All recent IPAWS Public Alerts affecting Virginia’s First Congressional District can be found at http://va1stipaws.alertblogger.com and/or follow @VA_1st_IPAWS.

3. All production non-weather IPAWS Alerts can be found at http://ipawsnonweather.alertblogger.com and/or follow @ipawsalerts.

Please note: This is a grandpaham.com offering and is separate from my support to IPAWS origination vendors. The IPAWS connection tech support is free (as I am paid for it by FEMA) to such vendors. This new capability will be priced according to the complexity of the solution to be provided. It can be inexpensive. Any time spent on customization will necessarily raise the price.

I had to stop the test blogging and tweeting through alerts.grandpaham.com and @ipawsalerts yesterday. The blog was holding up, but the combined effect of a serious weather day (pray for the folks in Oklahoma) and some heavy use testing in TDL by some developers caused my processes to exceed the 1000 tweet per day limit on Twitter. So, I will need to do some breakup into multiple Twitter feeds (geography and/or message type based) before I restart it all. More later.