SSA OLC Region for Flight Claim

Doug Haluza wrote:
I corrected the biggest problems with wrong takeoff region claimed in
the US. The OLC-Classic leaders in each SSA Region are currently:

R1: Koepper, Mark, GBSC Boston
R2: Haluza, Doug, Ridge Soaring Irregulars
R3: Murphy, Sean, Harris Hill Soaring
R4: Higgins, Michael, M-ASA Mid-Atlantic Soaring Assn
R5: Schmelzer, Wolfgang, Kitty Hawk Airpark
R6: Lubon, John, Caesar Creek Soaring
R7: Hard, James, 126 Association
R8: Funston, Nelson, SGC Seattle Glider Council
R9: Feager, Tim, Albuquerque Soaring
R10: Johnson, Richard, Dallas Gliding Assoc
R11: Yanetz, Ramy, Hollister Gliding Club
R12: Gonzales, Dan, Hole in the Wall

Send requests for corrections by email to ssa at olc dot org

Doug Haluza
SSA-OLC Admin


The SSA is becoming a responsive, effective organization, particularly
in the person of its SSA-OLC Admin.

Thank you, Doug.


Jack

Jack wrote:
Doug Haluza wrote:

Send requests for corrections by email to ssa at olc dot org

Doug Haluza
SSA-OLC Admin


The SSA is becoming a responsive, effective organization, particularly
in the person of its SSA-OLC Admin.

Thank you, Doug.

Yes, I think progress and communication are occuring.

Here might be something else to work on: when I look at today's US
results with "all regions", four R8 pilots show in the list; when I
select "R8", only three pilots remain, and Len Edvinson, the leader for
the day, is left off. Is that correct (and why?), or are is there a
problem with region selection?

--
Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA

www.motorglider.org - Download "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane
Operation"

Eric Greenwell wrote:
Jack wrote:
Here might be something else to work on: when I look at today's US
results with "all regions", four R8 pilots show in the list; when I
select "R8", only three pilots remain, and Len Edvinson, the leader for
the day, is left off. Is that correct (and why?), or are is there a
problem with region selection?


The problem was that one of the four claimed the flight in Region-1. I
fixed this, so now all four are shown in Region-8.

The region you see in the daily score is the region associated with the
pilot's club. This is just a database schema thing, and I'm sure OLC is
not going to change it this year. All of the OLC's limited resources
are focused on developing the 2007 OLC right now.

P.S. I also made requested corrections in Region-12, and this changed
the standings in many of the top places (but not the leader).

Doug Haluza wrote:
Eric Greenwell wrote:
Jack wrote:
Here might be something else to work on: when I look at today's US
results with "all regions", four R8 pilots show in the list; when I
select "R8", only three pilots remain, and Len Edvinson, the leader for
the day, is left off. Is that correct (and why?), or are is there a
problem with region selection?


The problem was that one of the four claimed the flight in Region-1. I
fixed this, so now all four are shown in Region-8.

The region you see in the daily score is the region associated with the
pilot's club.

This quirk may be why many pilots didn't enter a region properly. After
all, if the daily score is all you look at, and the region displayed is
always your home region, regardless of what you entered (even if you
entered nothing), you might assume entering a Region value is
irrelevant. I think it's confusing the region shown goes with the pilot
in the daily listings, and goes with the launch point in other listings.


--
Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA

www.motorglider.org - Download "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane
Operation"

Doug Haluza wrote:
I corrected the biggest problems with wrong takeoff region claimed in
the US. The OLC-Classic leaders in each SSA Region are currently:

R1: Koepper, Mark, GBSC Boston
R2: Haluza, Doug, Ridge Soaring Irregulars
R3: Murphy, Sean, Harris Hill Soaring
R4: Higgins, Michael, M-ASA Mid-Atlantic Soaring Assn
R5: Schmelzer, Wolfgang, Kitty Hawk Airpark
R6: Lubon, John, Caesar Creek Soaring
R7: Hard, James, 126 Association
R8: Funston, Nelson, SGC Seattle Glider Council
R9: Feager, Tim, Albuquerque Soaring
R10: Johnson, Richard, Dallas Gliding Assoc
R11: Yanetz, Ramy, Hollister Gliding Club
R12: Gonzales, Dan, Hole in the Wall

Send requests for corrections by email to ssa at olc dot org

Doug Haluza
SSA-OLC Admin

I just filtered on Region 9 for 7/5 and only 3 of the 9 flights posted
happened in Region 9. To be fair, the pilots flying outside the region
are on the road and probably not aware of this thread.

Frank Whiteley

Greg Arnold wrote:
snip
The Cambridge logger problem, for example, was blamed on
Cambridge and SeeYou, rather than on the OLC ( which could have simply
set up its software to validate the CAI file, then itself converted to
an IGC file).

Actually, it is not possible for OLC to process the CAI binary because
it cannot be uploaded via the web form. The HTTP transfer used to
upload the IGC files will not accept the non ANSI characters in the
Cambridge CAI binary file. This is why the binary data needs to be
converted and appended to the IGC file as text.

Doug,

I'm not a web expert, but this assertion seems incorrect. Certainly you
can e-mail a binary cai file and it will still be valid upon receipt.
It can also be sent via FTP, and I guarantee that this process would
result in a valid binary file. And a FTP transfer could be easily built
into the OLC submission process if OLC chose to do so.

Sounds to me like OLC programmers simply don't want to go to the effort
of figuring out how to handle cai files, and so are putting what should
be their problem on all of us Cambridge users.

-John

Doug Haluza wrote:
Actually, it is not possible for OLC to process the CAI binary because
it cannot be uploaded via the web form. The HTTP transfer used to
upload the IGC files will not accept the non ANSI characters in the
Cambridge CAI binary file. This is why the binary data needs to be
converted and appended to the IGC file as text.

When you email a binary file, it is also converted to text prior to
transfer, and converted back to binary on the other end.

You are probably correct that the OLC programmers don't want to spend
additional effort on the non-standard and now obsolete CAI binary
format, especially since they have already spent considerable effort on
the current compromise solution. Since the relative number of GPS-NAV
loggers will keep declining, this is probably a wise allocation of
limited resources. They should focus their efforts on future growth
opportunities.

I don't think you are correct about the ease of implementing a binary
FTP transfer. But, if you want to volunteer to implement this, and
prove me wrong, I can put you in touch with the right people.

jcarlyle wrote:
Doug,

I'm not a web expert, but this assertion seems incorrect. Certainly you
can e-mail a binary cai file and it will still be valid upon receipt.
It can also be sent via FTP, and I guarantee that this process would
result in a valid binary file. And a FTP transfer could be easily built
into the OLC submission process if OLC chose to do so.

Sounds to me like OLC programmers simply don't want to go to the effort
of figuring out how to handle cai files, and so are putting what should
be their problem on all of us Cambridge users.

-John

Doug Haluza wrote:
Actually, it is not possible for OLC to process the CAI binary because
it cannot be uploaded via the web form. The HTTP transfer used to
upload the IGC files will not accept the non ANSI characters in the
Cambridge CAI binary file. This is why the binary data needs to be
converted and appended to the IGC file as text.

Not to be contentious, but there are several points to be made:

1. With a 5 minute search I found the following three pages that
explain how one can implement a binary file transfer under a web
session:
http://www.vbip.com/itc/itc-http-component-01.asp
http://www.ftponline.com/vsm/2006_05...ettingstarted/
http://weblogs.asp.net/cfranklin/arc...29/436838.aspx
It would appear that most of the grunt work has been done towards
alleviating a lot of OLC heartache for Cambridge users.

2. Cambridge users might indeed be declining, but as you well know the
OLC ever evolving poor treatment of them over the last year has caused,
and is still causing, a lot of complaints on RAS and other soaring
sites. This widespread bad reputation, combined with the really poor
user interface on the OLC web site itself, has turned off a lot of
pilots that I know towards participating in the OLC. I submit that one
good way of assuring future growth of the OLC is to make sure that
everything that they have implemented at the moment works well, easily
and reliably - before they start offering new features! The current
approach of OLC towards software has doomed many, many other
interesting and worthwhile ventures.

3. I already volunteered my services to the OLC team. I won't go into
detail on RAS; suffice it to say my offer was brushed off.

I hope that these points will be viewed as constructive criticism of
OLC, rather than as a gratuitous slam. I like the idea of OLC very
much, it's just that the implementation leaves a lot to be desired.

-John

Doug Haluza wrote:
When you email a binary file, it is also converted to text prior to
transfer, and converted back to binary on the other end.

You are probably correct that the OLC programmers don't want to spend
additional effort on the non-standard and now obsolete CAI binary
format, especially since ey have already spent considerable effort on
the current compromise solution. Since the relative number of GPS-NAV
loggers will keep declining, this is probably a wise allocation of
limited resources. They should focus their efforts on future growth
opportunities.

I don't think you are correct about the ease of implementing a binary
FTP transfer. But, if you want to volunteer to implement this, and
prove me wrong, I can put you in touch with the right people.

jcarlyle wrote:
Doug,

I'm not a web expert, but this assertion seems incorrect. Certainly you
can e-mail a binary cai file and it will still be valid upon receipt.
It can also be sent via FTP, and I guarantee that this process would
result in a valid binary file. And a FTP transfer could be easily built
into the OLC submission process if OLC chose to do so.

Sounds to me like OLC programmers simply don't want to go to the effort
of figuring out how to handle cai files, and so are putting what should
be their problem on all of us Cambridge users.

-John

Doug Haluza wrote:
Actually, it is not possible for OLC to process the CAI binary because
it cannot be uploaded via the web form. The HTTP transfer used to
upload the IGC files will not accept the non ANSI characters in the
Cambridge CAI binary file. This is why the binary data needs to be
converted and appended to the IGC file as text.

jcarlyle wrote:
Not to be contentious, but there are several points to be made:

1. With a 5 minute search I found the following three pages that
explain how one can implement a binary file transfer under a web
session:
http://www.vbip.com/itc/itc-http-component-01.asp
http://www.ftponline.com/vsm/2006_05...ettingstarted/
http://weblogs.asp.net/cfranklin/arc...29/436838.aspx
It would appear that most of the grunt work has been done towards
alleviating a lot of OLC heartache for Cambridge users.

.....
3. I already volunteered my services to the OLC team. I won't go into
detail on RAS; suffice it to say my offer was brushed off.


The brush-off might have something to do with the fact that all of these
"solutions" are specific to IIS/ASP running on Windows servers, when I
believe OLC runs Apache on Linux servers. That said, binary file upload
is pretty trivial to implement using the standard mechanisms provided in
HTML/HTTP, which suggests they have other reasons for not doing so...

Marc