Panbo moving & changing; cross your fingers, please

... written for Panbo by Ben Ellison and posted on Jun 3, 2010
State of Panbo.jpg

Starting tonight, Panbo is getting moved from one hosting service's server farm to another's, which means that commenting will be shut down for an indefinite period so that the databases stay in sync until the transfer is complete, and also that I'm wicked nervous about losing bits and pieces of content (as has happened during past moves).  Cross your fingers, and be patient, please.  And if things go well, you're going to see some good changes around here...

This move means that Panbo is gaining the services of Mihai Bocsaru, owner of Pro It Service in Romania and expert at the Movable Type software the site is build on.  Mihai should be able to quickly improve the site in many ways, like email notifications when someone responds to a comment, more organized archives, faster searching, and much more.  Plus we'll continue to benefit from the good work of Samuel Schwartz, who's kept Panbo running smoothly for many months now.  Sam'l used to help manage networks for the Federal Reserve and, believe me, he's made me much more aware of Internet security.  Now he and his wife offer web design and many other services from their semi-retirement home down the coast a bit; I recommend them highly (while also acknowledging that they are also much appreciated in-laws)...
   It was Sam'l, in fact, who figured out how to make it easy for me to change the header photos that greet visitors to Panbo.  And I enjoy showing off my non-electronical photography.  You may have noticed the subtle change above and the bigger ones on the Forum and About page.  But you haven't seen anything yet.  What do think of headers featuring some of handsome birds who've been hanging around my boat this Spring?  Oh, never mind, you can't comment until this transition is compete.  Cross your fingers!

Panbo_loon.jpg
Panbo_duck.jpg
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Posted by Ben E on June 3, 2010 8:24 PM

Comments

If you're seeing a loony header, you're looking at the new Panbo server, and comments should be working again. Please report any problems you have with the site. Either by comment or email to ben.ellison at panbo.com. Thanks!

Posted by: Ben E at June 4, 2010 9:40 AM | Reply

see the loon, but can't sign in to comment

hazmat

Posted by: hazmat at June 4, 2010 12:39 PM | Reply

seems to have logged me in, just didn't give me any indication that I had logged in - under leave a comment it still says "sign in" to comment, or comment anonymously.

Posted by: hazmat at June 4, 2010 12:41 PM | Reply

Thanks, hazmat. Your sign-in worked OK, but the response page may be getting some work done ;-)

Posted by: Ben E at June 4, 2010 12:42 PM | Reply

and it asks me to type in the "captcha" but doesn't seem to require it. Keep up the great work on Panbo...

Posted by: hazmat at June 4, 2010 12:43 PM | Reply

This loon, incidently, shows up in the harbor almost every evening, and did last fall, too. He's fairly distinctive as he's bigger than average. In fact, I'm told he may be an old dog; the younger ones are on the lakes these days, tending little loons. I took that photo from Gizmo last week.

Posted by: Ben E at June 4, 2010 12:47 PM | Reply

Odd, hazmat; I'm signed in like you are, and see no "capcha". When I submit this comment there will be a "loading" pause but then I can see it posted, which I think is better than it used to be...

Posted by: Ben E at June 4, 2010 12:49 PM | Reply

Best of luck Ben.
Really hope all goes well.

Steve

Posted by: steverow at June 4, 2010 3:38 PM | Reply

Thanks, Steve. Things were a little loony this morning, but are pretty ducky now! (Honest, I didn't pick those pictures in anticipation of that line.)

Seriously, I think Panbo has a better server home now, and I got to see how quick Mihai is with the technicalities of this blogging software. The future is rosy. But, please everyone, let me know about problems you come across.

Posted by: Ben E at June 4, 2010 5:47 PM | Reply

Where is the loony ? I saw it earlier.

Posted by: Dan Corcoran (b393capt) at June 5, 2010 12:03 AM | Reply

Not sure what you mean, Dan. You should see a close up of a loon in the header photograph, at least for the weekend, and the same picture at the bottom of this entry.

Posted by: Ben E at June 5, 2010 9:08 AM | Reply

Dan, since you're seeing (and posting) comments on this item you appear to be getting to the new server. If you're still not seeing the loon picture at the top of the page, could be your browser is caching the old view of Camden Harbor. Try holding down the shift key while clicking the "reload" button on the browser, or if that doesn't work, use the menu option appropriate to your browser to clear the cache. Safari, in particular, can be tenacious about holding onto cached versions of images for a web page, even while it updates text.

Posted by: SamuelS at June 5, 2010 10:55 AM | Reply

He or she shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of Panbo and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he or she shall judge necessary and expedient. Good job done, virtually seamless.

Posted by: Bill Bishop at June 5, 2010 10:45 PM | Reply

This week's header photo shows the good sloop Alice on passage from the Bahamas to Buzzard's Bay in April of 1978. Our springer spaniel Dixie Belle has found a comfortable spot by the mast, and that's conch trying to become jerky in the rigging ;-)

Posted by: Ben E at July 18, 2010 7:10 PM | Reply

I took this week's header photo a few years ago while aboard a sailing cat in the Abacos, with a cold front bearing down. I recall some lightning ;-)

At any rate, not every Panbo header photo has to have Maine in it.

Posted by: Ben E at September 12, 2010 5:40 PM | Reply

This week's header photo was taken in July, 2009, after it rained in Maine for 40 days and 40 nights, or so it seemed. Where my truck was parked is normally a parking area near one of Lake Megunticook's launching ramps. I badly wanted to test that Simrad/Lowrance Broadband Radar, and Li'l Gizmo may still be the only radar equipped boat ever seen on the lake.

Posted by: Ben E at September 19, 2010 7:00 PM | Reply

This week's header photo was taken when I visited Venice, Italy, several years ago. There are boats for everything there, including milk men, ambulance squads, contractors, and private security services like Civis:

http://www.civis.it/english/speedboat.htm

Posted by: Ben E at November 7, 2010 10:18 AM | Reply

I took this week's header photo off Capetown, South Africa, a few years ago. You can see that the custom day charter cat was flying, even though there were something like 20 people on board. As you can barely see in the picture, the cat was stable enough that beer bottles (and wine glasses) could stand alone at 20 knots. Here are more photos of the boat:

http://www.cruiseiq.co.za/gallery-2007.htm

Posted by: Ben E at November 21, 2010 6:40 PM | Reply

I don't know where these crested white ducks came from originally -- they're a domestic breed -- but they've been living successfully in Camden Harbor for a couple of years. But I sort of regret identifying them via Google, as I also learned the sad side of the fancy crest.

http://duckhobby.com/crestedduckbreed.html

Posted by: Ben E at November 28, 2010 5:22 PM | Reply

This week's header photo was taken on a trip to wonderful Kerala, India, in 1999. The sailor was apparently moving some rocks and a roll of something across Kochi Harbor, and I was reminded of the image by our recent discussion of the KISS Principle. More on Kerala boating here:

https://www.panbo.com/archives/2006/02/kerala_four_logger_not_even_a_nail.html

Posted by: Ben E at February 7, 2011 1:45 PM | Reply

This week's header photo was taken just a few hours ago from the top of Mt. Battie, just before it started snowing again. Tried Spot2 OK message and ACR AquaView GPS test from the chilly top, and got cell phone texts in moments. Also noted that the snow from last week seems to have stayed put on the neck to Northeast Point, even though NOAA is convinced the neck gets covered at high tide. Note how the black shore line in most places shows just where the high tide line really is. Just saying.

http://goo.gl/iNn99

Posted by: Ben E at February 12, 2011 6:07 PM | Reply

This week's header photo was taken during one of FLIR's first Miami demos of thermal imaging...at a very slow camera speed...by a man with a drink or two in him! With a thermal camera -- one of which you barely see mounted on the bow -- you could really see the channel, the marks, the boats, and the city beyond. FLIR continues to run these cruises at the Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, and NMEA shows, with Raymarine demos too, and many have thus learned about the wonders of thermal imaging.

https://www.panbo.com/archives/2008/02/mibs_the_madness.html

Posted by: Ben E at February 26, 2011 4:44 PM | Reply

This week's header photo is another from my 1999 trip to the beautiful state of Kerala, India. I believe the boat is coming back to Kochi from a night of purse seining. There may be extra passengers on board beyond the regular crew, or maybe not! And note the large pier-based dip net in the background; they're everywhere in Kerala:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_fishing_nets_(of_Kochi)

I didn't get any closer than this telephoto shot to this particular boat, but I did see boats like it being built being built of hardwood with virtually no metal fastenings. Instead they were using thousands of plank-to-plank and plank-to-frame lashings that would later be coated with tar and God-knows-what-else for waterproofing. But look at how fair and fine the lines of this fishing boat are.

Posted by: Ben E at March 14, 2011 10:38 PM | Reply

I've got a new header photo up of Gizmo doing about 17 knots at about 2300 rpm (you may have to refresh your browser). I very rarely go this fast, but it does show that the boat has some "giddy-up" as they say.

She'll do that without misteps in remarkably rough conditions, too, and I find that I use horsepower, like 1600rpm/10k, to shoulder through seas that would be uncomfortable at our preferred 1150/7.5k, which is quiet and yields about 3.5 nautical miles to the gallon. This speed is more like 1 nmpg.

Big thanks to Dan Corcoran for this photo. More soon about our meeting on the Bay.

Posted by: Ben E at July 19, 2011 9:21 AM | Reply

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