Maintaining a Website can be a pain in the ASCII

[EXO]

The years pass.

Today I got a bunch of emails from Amazon Web Services notifying me that Amazon Web Services Certificate Manager (ACM) has confirmed the renewal of SSL/TLS certificates for rockforce.org, concretebattleship.org, battleofmanila.org, and rockforce.org. None for corregidor.org yet. Fingers crossed.

(Certifications allow the address of the domain to be accredited as a https:// domain, rather than the older http://. The higher certification reflects better data security and delivery. Essentially it accredits a website as "updated to the new technology". It also is supposed to confer a higher search engine score, though I have not been in that race to bring in a bunch of freeloaders. I prefer people who are serious students of what we do.)

Thank you Paul D. Whitman and Michael F. Whitman, my sons, for assisting in the accrediting process. Also thank you to our sponsors, Steve Foster, Roger Davis, Richard King, and Eric Harkins.

(A FEW HOURS LATER)

Certifications of corregidor.org and paulwhitman.com are now confirmed issued. Thank you sponsors, Steve Foster, Roger Davis, Eric Harkins and Richard King. You are a credit to your generation.

[EXO]

Yes, it's that time of year again!

Registration for the concretebattleship.org domain has been renewed because the domain is configured to renew automatically.

concretebattleship.org will now expire on 2023-09-06.

[EXO]

Not connected with any prior posts, this is just me letting off some steam about one of the  exasperations of running a website.

Jonathan Ott, has generously provided me with a copy of his two volume history of the 34th Infantry Regiment 1940-1945. It is a remarkable journal account of the 34th Infantry Regiment with an emphasis on "B" Company, 1st Battalion of the 34th. His work runs to about 1,480pages. He is selling it on Amazon for $9.99 for the pdf files and $60 for the printed versions. They are worth the price for the research on Corregidor alone. 

Jonathan's book has an exquisitely detailed history of the unit on Corregidor. For those of you who are not otherwise aware, the 34th invaded Corregidor amphibiously, taking Bottomside and Malinta Hill. 

But that's not why I've made this posting. In the back of my mind, I recalled that I had created a listing of the men of the 34th Infantry Regiment who were killed on Corregidor. So I went looking for it on my site, and found that it was inoperable. Dead! Demised! Passed on. Resting in peace! It's technological processes are now history! Off the twig, kicked the bucket, shuffled off it;s mortal coil, run down the curtain, joined the bleedin' choir invisible. (It was originally created using the Adobe Flash coding, which Adobe killed a few years ago, rendering hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of pages across the internet unable to run. This included over a hundred small features on our Corregidor.Org family of websites. It took me years to redo many of them.

It is one of my many and various exasperations (one might say it pisses me off big-time) that no one noticed the dead features, none of them. Years passed and no one notices. So few pass this way, I wonder why I bother. Is it that (a) I am not reaching the people who care about such things, or (b) that there aren't people who care about such things?

[EXO]

OPEN DISCUSSION

Perhaps I am sailing the doldrums again, in the sense of traversing those regions of the ocean near the equator, characterized by calms, light winds, or squalls. Except of the website kind.

I am become of the view that websites are a product of their times - which is to say, a product of ten, maybe twenty years ago. Like the old gramophone - sure it works still, but its role and purpose, even its utility has been eclipsed. New technologies have been developed, and the nature and purpose of the use of the web has been changing. 

Here's something that caught my eye:

Corregidor.Org started very much in the Web 1.0 pattern. It was a read-only compendium of knowledge and experience, with a strong History bent. Some of it progressed to Web 2.0 ( such as via this forum's sharing content). None of it has made it into Web 3.0. 

Behind the scenes, I am embarking upon discussing the terms upon which I am going to more closely associate BattleofManila.Org with MacArthur Memorial. The website has much information which i want to be preserved. 

If this works out satisfactorily, I will consider preserving Concretebattleship.Org in a similar vein. 

Rinse and repeat, I suppose. 

I recall that several years ago, perhaps a decade, I had been contemplating a closer relationship with a sub-library of the Ayala Museum. It was in the context of gathering together a collection of images (much like an on-line photo library) of the WWII In The Philippines. The concept collapsed, for reasons I need not go into. 

But I have not given up on the concept that there has to be a community focus for this knowledge we've collected. 

[chadhill]

Yes- I, too, believe that there is a need for preserving the "community focus" here. We have uncovered much information on countless topics in the pages of these forums- plus many splendid photographs- that can be found no where else. I hope there is some way that this can be preserved.

[JohnEakin]

I'm in total agreement, but I don't have the answer.

I've participated in several forums since even before the internet - remember CompuServe and the dial up bulletin boards? And I've seen some thrive and some fall by the wayside. The successful sites all seem to have a sense of community, though.

[beirutvet]

Yes, we have too much information here to just let it slip away.  But alas, some are more capable than others for I profess to have all the tech skills of an Amish elder during a power failure.

Paul, you have forgotten more about websites than I can currently muster.  I would like to take a moment and thank you for all you have done for this web site.  Without you, your skills and your dedication, much of what we see here would be lost, or at the very least scattered to the four winds making it near impossible to see it all in one site.  Your efforts are neither in vain, wasted or unappreciated.  I commend you, sir!

[EXO]

Here's an update on the traffic situation as relates to the bandwidth delivered by all the Corregidor.Org sites.


SEP 2023 - 21.76 GB - down 1%. Firewall mitigated events during October are up 123%. Canada indicates 846 events!
AUG 2023 - 23.14 GB - insignificant change in comparison with the previous month.
JUL 2023 - 23.6 GB - down 2% traffic since June
MAY 2023 - 22.91 GB - up 22% since April
APR 2023 - 16.85 GB - down by 21% since March 2023. Firewall events are up 76%. 
MAR 2023 - 19.34 GB - down slightly; 620 firewall "events". 317 from the US, 179 from Russia.
FEB 2023 - 20.69 GB - traffic is down by 5% - US traffic is eight times that of the Philippines
JAN 2023 - 23.39 GB - up by 3% - with 524 Firewall mitigation events
NOV 2022 - 20.94 GB
OCT 2022 - 20.01 GB - down 7.3% since September
JUL 2022 - 21.03 GB - up 10.7% since June
MAY 2022 - 19.09 GB - down 11.4% since April
FEB 2022 - 22.25 GB
DEC 2021 - 24.5 GB
NOV 2021 - 21.58 GB
OCT 2021 - 18.74 GB
SEP 2021 - 23.81 GB
AUG 2021 - 22.99 GB
JUL 2021 - 20.15 GB
MAY 2021 - 21.63 GB
APR 2021- 23.69 GB
MAR 2021 - 27.92 GB
FEB 2022 - 26.6 GB
DEC 2021 - 28.42 GB
NOV 2021 - 15.79 GB
OCT 2021 - 9.48 GB (part month only) 

The figures confirm some things which are obvious, and others which are less so. Most traffic is delivered to the USA (obvious), and the second-most significant customer is Singapore, then followed by Australia. The Philippines is the fourth in the list.

Until recently (November 2023) the USA has been generally responsible for more than twice the Firewall mitigated events than is Russia. In October 2023, there was a spike of events originating in Canada, recording 846. Next was Russia (146) and then the USA (143).












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[EXO]

How's the Proboard forum been doing lately?

Well. frankly, I think it's been in the doldrums. How else can you explain the following traffic figures?

All signals involving our websites are routed through a Cloudflare server at some point in the delivery process, and as a consequence, they provide us with a snapshot of how our corregidor.org websites are delivering signal to our readers. 

Have a look at these!

APR 2024 - 28.15 GB - 34.3 increase in traffic, but a jump of firewall events up 200%. China reappears.
MAR 2024 - 23.96 GB - an 11% increase in traffic, with a 62% increase in firewall mitigated events.
FEB 2024 -25.15 GB - up 9% traffic since January 2024 - 282 firewall mitigated events, Russia (123), US (65) & Germany (32).
JAN 2024 - 20.99 GB - 29% up from the previous month - 312 firewall events mitigated, mostly from Russia.
DEC 2023 - 14.69 GB - a significant drop of traffic - 26%.
NOV 2023 - 20.4 GB - 22% up traffic since October - traffic up but participation of members is down.
SEP 2023 - 22.2 GB - they say it's 17% up since august, but their math is dubious - it looks down to me. 634 firewall events.
AUG 2023 - 23.14 GB - insignificant change in comparison with the previous month.
JUL 2023 - 23.6 GB - down 2% traffic since June
MAY 2023 - 22.91 GB - up 22% since April
APR 2023 - 16.85 GB - down by 21% since March 2023. Firewall events are up 76%. 
MAR 2023 - 19.34 GB - down slightly; 620 firewall "events". 317 from the US, 179 from Russia.
FEB 2023 - 20.69 GB - traffic is down by 5% - US traffic is eight times that of the Philippines
JAN 2023 - 23.39 GB - up by 3% - with 524 Firewall mitigation events
NOV 2022 - 20.94 GB
OCT 2022 - 20.01 GB - down 7.3% since September
JUL 2022 - 21.03 GB - up 10.7% since June
MAY 2022 - 19.09 GB - down 11.4% since April
FEB 2022 - 22.25 GB
DEC 2021 - 24.5 GB
NOV 2021 - 21.58 GB
OCT 2021 - 18.74 GB
SEP 2021 - 23.81 GB
AUG 2021 - 22.99 GB
JUL 2021 - 20.15 GB
MAY 2021 - 21.63 GB
APR 2021- 23.69 GB
MAR 2021 - 27.92 GB
FEB 2022 - 26.6 GB
DEC 2021 - 28.42 GB
NOV 2021 - 15.79 GB
OCT 2021 - 9.48 GB (part month only) 


This is not the fault of the people who are posting articles - it's the fault of those who haven't.