Blog

• July 28, 2009

  The Internet is Broken: ISC BIND 9 experiencing Denial-of-Service attacks

  Why can’t I access so many sites this week?
  On July 28, 2009, the Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) and the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (USCERT) released a warning about a problem with the software that runs a large number of Domain Name System (DNS) servers on the Internet.  This weakness allows a person to remotely attack and take control of a DNS server.  By sending a specially crafted ‘packet,’ or piece of information, to the DNS server, a person can launch something called a Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack. 
  
  A DoS attack is an attempt to make a resource, such as a server, unavailable for use by other users connected to that resource.  When directed against a DNS server, the DoS attack has the potential to knock out Internet service to a large amount of the population.
  
  Internet Service Providers, or ISPs, have been notified by the ISC and USCERT and are currently working to fix this problem.  More information about this exploit can be found at the following links:
  
  http://www.cio.com/article/498528/CERT_and_ISC_Warn_About_BIND_DNS_Vulnerability
  
  http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/725188
  
  What is DNS?
  DNS is the abbreviation for the Domain Name System.  It determines how domain names (i.e. www.google.com) are translated into IP addresses (in the example of Google, 74.125.45.100).  It acts like the main post office for an area.
  
  When you access the internet, you type in something called a Uniform Resource Locator, or URL.  Part of this URL is the domain.  DNS helps to turn that domain, usually a human-readable word of some kind, into a number called an IP (Internet Protocol) address.  The IP address is the actual location of the computer on the Internet.  If there is a problem with DNS, then the domain is not correctly paired with an IP, and you can’t access your site.
  More information about DNS can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System
  
  What does this mean for me?
  Right now, there is nothing that you or BlueSwarm can do until the vulnerability is patched.  This is the responsibility of the ISPs and main ‘backbone’ providers for the Internet to fix, and they are working quickly to do so.  While they are working on the problem, DNS changes related to this problem may cause issues for some users.
  
  Is my computer or any of the data inside BlueSwarm at risk?
  Not at all. All of your information is completely safe from this exploit. All this exploit may do is prevent you from accessing data - it cannot manipulate it.
  
  But can I do anything?
  If you find that you are having problems accessing a website (such as BlueSwarm), you can try the following steps to solve the problem.  The steps will show you how to ‘flush,’ or clear, your computer’s local DNS cache, which is used to help your computer load web pages faster.  If the following steps do not resolve the issue you are having, then the problem lies with your Internet Service Provider.  After flushing the DNS, you will also need to clear your browser’s cache in order for the fix to take full effect.  Instructions on how to do this are also below.
   

  DNS Reset:
  On Windows XP, Vista, 7:
  1.    Click the Start Menu or Start Orb (Vista/Win7).
  2.    Select ‘All Programs.’
  3.    Select ‘Accessories.’
  4.    Click ‘Command Prompt.’  On Windows Vista or Windows 7, you must right-click on the Command Prompt icon and select ‘Run as Administrator,’ then click ‘Yes’ at the User Account Control Prompt.
  5.    At the prompt, type ‘ipconfig –flushdns’.  This will flush the DNS Resolver Cache.
  6.    Close the window.
  
  On Mac OSX:
  1.    Double-click your ‘Macintosh HD’ volume.
  2.    Select ‘Applications.’
  3.    Select ‘Utilities.’
  4.    Double-click on ‘Terminal.’  This will open up a terminal window.
  5.    On OSX 10.4 (Tiger) or earlier, type in ‘lookupd –flushcache’.  On OSX 10.5 (Leopard) or newer, type in ‘dscacheutil –flushcache’.  This will clear your local DNS cache.
  6.    Type in ‘exit’.
  7.    Press Command-Q (%u2318-Q) to quit the Terminal window.
  
  On Linux:
  Linux does not normally store DNS unless you have the nscd service or a DNS server installed.  In order to flush the DNS, you will have to install the nscd service.  The following instructions work on a *buntu (Ubuntu, Kubuntu) distribution.
  1.    At a terminal prompt (if you have the Gnome user interface, it is in Applications --> Accessories --> Terminal; in KDE it is Kicker --> Applications --> System --> Konsole), type ‘sudo apt-get install nscd’.  This will install the nscd daemon.
  2.    Type ‘/etc/init.d/nscd restart’.  This will reset the DNS cache and cause the computer to lookup new DNS information.
  
  Clearing the Cache:
  Internet Explorer 7/Internet Explorer 8
  1.    Click on the Tools menu.
  2.    Click ‘Internet Options’.
  3.    Under ‘Browsing History’, click Delete.
  4.    Click Delete.
  5.    Click OK to close Internet Options.
  6.    Close your browser window and reopen it.
  
  Firefox 3.5 (Win/OSX/Linux)
  1.    From the Tools menu, select ‘Clear Recent History’.
  2.    From the "Time range to clear:" drop-down menu, select the desired range; to clear your entire cache, select Everything.
  3.    Click the down arrow next to ‘Details’ to choose what history elements to clear.
  4.    Click ‘Clear Now’.
  5.    Close your browser window and reopen it.
  
  Firefox 3 (Win/OSX/Linux)
  1.    Click on the Tools Menu.
  2.    Click ‘Clear Private Data’.
  3.    Make sure all the boxes are checked, then click ‘Clear Private Data Now’.
  4.    Restart the browser.
  
  Safari 4 (Win)
  1.    From the Options menu (the Gear in the upper-right corner), click ‘Reset Safari.’
  2.    Make sure all the options are checked off.
  3.    Click ‘Reset’.
  4.    Restart your browser.
  
  Safari 4 (OSX)
  1.    Open the Safari menu.
  2.    Click ‘Empty Cache’.
  3.    Quit Safari and reopen it.
  
  Google Chrome (Win)
  1.    Click the Options menu (the wrench icon in the upper-right corner).
  2.    Select ‘Clear Browsing Data’.
  3.    Make sure all the options are selected and the period to clear is ‘Everything,’ then click ‘Clear Browsing Data.’
  4.    Restart the browser.
   

  posted 12:49PM 07/28/2009 by Paul Hanley
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• July 22, 2009

  Campaign Contribution Limits by State

  There is an old saying in Russia about money, "he who has money need have no fear of the law." Alas, this is not true in the United States with regard to campaign fundraising. Most states have some sort of law regulating campaign financing, and in particular the level of donations that a person, corporation, or political action committee (PAC) can provide to an active campaign.

  Naturally, these laws differ by state. Luckily for you, our team has found a chart for all state limits and we are reposting it here for your political fundraising pleasure.

  	Individual Contributions	State Party Contributions	PAC Contributions	Corporate Contributions	Union Contributions
  Alabama § 17-22A-1 et seq.	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	$500/candidate/electiona,d,j	Unlimited
  Alaska § 15.13.065 to .080	$500/candidate/year Aggregate amounts candidates may accept from non-residents: $20,000/year/gub candidate $5,000/year/senate candidate $3,000/year/house candidate	$100,000/year/gub candidate $15,000/year/senate candidate $10,000/year/house candidate	$1,000/office/year Contributions from out-of-state PACs prohibited	Prohibited	Prohibited
  Arizona,b,p § 16-901 et seq.	Limits for the 2009-2010 election cycle: $840/statewide candidates $410/legislative candidates An individual may not contribute an aggregate amount in excess of $5,850 per calendar year to candidates and committees that give to candidates. Amounts are per election cycle.	Limits for the 2009-2010 election cycle: Aggregate contributions accepted from all political parties and organizations cannot exceed: $83,448 - statewide candidates $8,352 – legis. candidates	Limits for the 2009-2010 election cycle: “Super” PACsc: $4,176/statewide candidate $1,664/legislative candidate Regular PACs: $840/statewide candidate $410/legislative candidate Aggregate contributions accepted from PACs cannot exceed: $83,448 - statewide candidates $13,464 – legis. candidates Amounts are per election cycle	Prohibitedd	Prohibitedd
  Arkansas § 7-6-201 et seq.	$2,000/candidate/electiona	$2,500/electiona	$2,000/candidate/electiona	Same as individual limits	Same as individual limits
  Californiap Gov. Code § 85300 et seq.	For elections held on or after January 1, 2009: $25,900/gubernatorial cand. $6,500/statewide candidate $3,900/legislative candidate Amounts are per electiona	Unlimited	For elections held on or after January 1, 2009: “Small Contributor” Cmtesg: $25,900/gubernatorial cand. $12,900/statewide candidate $7,800/legislative candidate Regular PACs: Same as individual limits Amounts are per electiona	Same as individual limits	Same as individual limits
  Coloradop Constitution Art. XXVIII	Limits effective 2007 - 2010: $525/gub candidate $525/other statewide cand $200/legis candidate Amounts per electiona	Limits effective 2007 - 2010: $530,000/gub candidate $106,000/other statewide cand $19,080/senate candidate $13,780/house candidate Note: Political parties are prohibited from contributing to any candidate more than 20% of the voluntary expenditure limits, which are adjusted every 4 years. Amounts are per applicable election cycle.	Limits effective 2007 - 2010: “Small Donor” Committees:i $5,300/gub& statewide cand $2,125/legis. cand. Regular PACs: Same as individual limits	Prohibitedd	Prohibitedd
  Connecticutb § 9-611 et seq.	$3,500/gub candidate $1,000/senate candidate $250/house candidate $15,000 aggregate/individual to all candidates and committees All amounts are per electiona	$50,000/gub candidate $10,000/senate candidate $5,000/house candidate All amounts are per electiona	$5,000/gubernatorial candidate $1,500/state senate candidate $750/state house candidate Aggregate limits on contributions by PACs to candidates: $100,000/election by a PAC established by a business entity $50,000/election by a PAC established by an organization All amounts are per electiona	Prohibitedd §9-613	Same as individual limitsd
  Delaware § 15-8010 to 8013	$1,200/statewide candidate $600/other candidate All amounts per election cycle	$75,000/gub candidate $5,000/senate candidate $3,000/house candidate All amounts per election cycle	Same as individual limits	Same as individual limits	Same as individual limits
  Florida § 106.08	$500/candidate/electiona	Same as individual limits	Same as individual limits	Same as individual limits	Same as individual limits
  Georgiap § 21-5-41 to 43	Limits effective as of 2/24/09: Statewide candidates: $6,100/primary election $3,600/primary run-off $6,100/general election $3,600/general run-off Legislative candidates: $2,400/primary election $1,200/primary run-off $2,400/general election $1,20/general run-off	Same as individual limits	Same as individual limits	Same as individual limits	Same as individual limits
  Hawaii § 11-200 to 207	$6,000/statewide candidate $4,000/senate candidate $2,000/house candidate Contributions from a candidate's immediate family are limited to $50,000 in an election cycle, including loans. All amounts are per election cycle	Same as individual limits	Same as individual limits	Same as individual limits	Same as individual limits
  Idaho § 67-6610A	$5,000/statewide candidate $1,000/leg candidate Amounts are per electiona	$10,000/statewide candidate $2,000/legislative candidate Amounts are per electiona	Same as individual limits	Same as individual limits	Same as individual limits
  Illinois 10 ILCS 5/9-1 et seq.	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
  Indiana § 3-9-1-1 et seq.	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	$5,000 in the aggregate to statewide candidates $2,000 in the aggregate to senate candidates $2,000 in the aggregate to house candidates All amounts are per year	Same as corporate limits unless made by the union’s PAC, in which case there are no limits.
  Iowa § 68A.503	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Prohibited	Unlimited
  Kansas § 25-4153	$2,000/statewide candidate $1,000/senate candidate $500/house candidate Amounts are per electiona	For a contested primary election, same as individual limits. Unlimited in uncontested primaries and general elections	Same as individual limits	Same as individual limits	Same as individual limits
  Kentucky § 121.150	$1,000/candidate/electiona	Unlimitedk Except for gubernatorial slates, no candidate can accept party contributions which in the aggregate exceed 50% of total contributions or $10,000 (whichever is greater) in an election cycle.	Same as individual limits Aggregate Limits: - Except for gubernatorial slates, no candidate can accept PAC contributions which in the aggregate exceed 50% of total contributions or $10,000 (whichever is greater) in an election cycle. Gubernatorial slates that accept public financing may not accept more than 25% of their contributions from PACs - Other gubernatorial slates may not accept more than 25% or $150,000 (whichever is less) of contributions from PACs	Prohibited	Same as individual limits
  Louisiana § 18:1481 to 1532	$5,000/statewide candidate $2,500/legislative candidate Both amounts are per electiona	Unlimited	Regular PACs: Same as individual limits “Big” PACsf: Double the amount of individual limits Candidates subject to following aggregate limits on all PAC contributions accepted for the primary and general elections combined: $80,000/statewide candidate $60,000/legislative candidate	Same as individual limits	Same as individual limits
  Maineb Tit. 21-A, § 1001 to 1128	$500/gub candidate/electiona $250/other candidate/electiona Individuals limited to $25,000 aggregate contributions to all campaign finance entities per calendar year.	Same as individual limits	Same as individual limits	Same as individual limits	Same as individual limits
  Maryland Election Law § 13-226	$4,000/candidate $10,000 aggregate to all candidates Both amounts are per 4-year election cycle (1/1/-07-12/31/10)	Transfer limit: $6,000/4-year election cycle In-Kind Contributions: Limited to an amount equal to $1 for every two registered voters in the state, regardless of political affiliation. Limit is per 4-year election cycle.	$6,000/candidate/4-year election cycle	Same as individual limits	Same as individual limits
  Massachusetts Ch. 55, § 6, 6A, 7A and 8	$500/candidate $12,500/individual aggregate limit on contributions to all candidates Registered lobbyists may only contribute up to $200/candidate All amounts are per calendar year.	$3,000/candidate/year No limit on in-kind contributions	Regular PAC: $500/candidate People's Committee:o $500/candidate Candidates cannot accept aggregate PAC contributions that exceed the following amounts: $150,000/gub candidate $18,750/senate candidate $7,500/house candidate All amounts per calendar year.	Prohibited	Same as PAC limits
  Michigan § 169.252	$3,400/statewide candidate $1,000/senate candidate $500/house candidate All amounts are per election cycle	$68,000/statewide candidate $10,000/senate candidate $5,000/house candidate All amounts are per election cycle	Political Committees: Same as individual limits. Independent Committeesh: $34,000/statewide candidate $10,000/senate candidate $5,000/house candidate All amounts are per election cycle	Prohibitedd	Prohibitedd
  Minnesota § 10A.27	Election year limits: $2,000/gub candidate $500/legislative candidate Non-election year limits: $500/gub candidate $100/legislative candidate Aggregate contributions from PACs, lobbyists, political funds and individuals who contribute or loan more than ½ the yearly contribution limit cannot exceed 20% of spending limits. For 2007, those amounts are: $95,800/gub candidate $2,400/senate candidate $1,200/house candidate All amounts are per calendar year.	Party committees may contribute up to 10 times the limits imposed on individuals	Same as individual limits	Prohibited	Same as individual limits
  Mississippi § 23-15-801 et seq. §79-13-15	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	$1,000/candidate/calendar year	Unlimited
  Missouri § 130.031	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
  Montanap § 13-37-216	$630/gubernatorial slate $310/other statewide candidate $160/legislative candidate Limits will be adjusted in 1/10 Amounts are per electiona	$22,500/gubernatorial slate $8,150/other statewide cand. $1,300/senate candidate $800/house candidate Limits will be adjusted in 1/10 All amounts are per electiona	Same as individual limits. Candidates limited to total contributions from all PACs: $2,450 senate candidates $1,500 house candidates Limits will be adjusted in 1/10 Amounts are per electiona	Prohibitedd	Same as individual limits
  Nebraskap § 32-1608	Unlimited	Candidates limited to maximum amount of aggregate contributions that can be accepted in an election period from PACs, corporations, labor unions, associations, other candidate committees, political parties, and other organizations. Once the limit is reached, candidates may accept only individual contributions. Limit for 2010: $46,000/legislative candidate (No statewide races in 2010)	Same as party contribution limits	Candidates may not accept funds totaling more than 40% of the voluntary spending limit for their office.	Same as party contribution limits
  Nevada § 294A.100 and Const. Art. 2 §10	$5,000/candidate/electiona	Same as individual limits	Same as individual limits	Same as individual limits	Same as individual limits
  New Hampshire § 664:4	To candidates not agreeing to abide by spending limits: $1,000/electiona To candidates agreeing to abide by spending limits: $5,000/electiona	To candidates not agreeing to abide by spending limits: $1,000/electiona Unlimited to candidates who agree to expenditure limits	Same as party limits	Same as individual limitsn	Prohibited
  New Jerseyp § 19:44A-11.3	$3,400/gubernatorial cand $2,600/legislative candidate Both amounts are per electiona	No limit on contributions by state & county committees National party committee: $8,200/electiona	$8,200/candidate/electiona	Same as individual limits	Same as individual limits
  New Mexico § 1-19-25 to 36	Unlimited (Effective 11/3/10): $2,300/non-SW cand/electiona $5,000/SW cand/electiona	Unlimited ( Effective 11/3/10): $5,000/electiona	Unlimited (Effective 11/3/10): $5,000/electiona	Unlimited ( Effective 11/3/10): Same as individual limits	Unlimited (Effective 11/3/10): Same as individual limits
  New Yorkp Election Law, § 14-114	For 2008: Gub. Cand. Primary – Product of number of enrolled voters in candidate’s party in state x $.005, but not less than $6,000 or more than $18,100 General: $37,800 Legis. Cand. Primary: $6,000/senate candidate $3,800/house candidate General $9,500/senate candidate $3,800/house candidate Max. contribs. by individual limited to $150,000 in the aggregate. Separate limits apply for contribs. from all family members in the aggregate. Limit is based on the formula of total # of enrolled voters in candidate’s party in the state x $0.025. For legislative candidates, this amount may not exceed $100,000. “Family” is defined as a child, parent, grandparent, brother, sister, and the spouses of those persons. All amounts per calendar year	Prohibited in primary election. Unlimited in general election.	Same as individual limits.	Corporations are limited to $5,000 per year in aggregate contributions to NY state candidates and committees.	Same as individual limits.
  North Carolina § 163-278.6 et seq.	$4,000/candidate/electiona	Unlimited	Same as individual limits	Prohibitedd	Prohibitedd
  North Dakota § 16.1-08.1	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Prohibitedd	Prohibitedd
  Ohiop § 3517.102(B)(1)(a) and 3599.03	Limits effective 2/25/09: $11,395.56/candidate/electiona	$642,709.58/statewide cand. $128,200.05/senate candidate $63,815.14/house candidate In-kind contributions: unlimited All amounts are per electiona	Same as individual limits	Prohibitedd	Prohibitedd
  Oklahoma 21 OS § 187.1 et seq. and Ethics Commission Rules; §257:1-1-1 et seq. and §257:10-1-2 et seq	$5,000/candidate/campaign *This limit applies to an entire family, defined as an individual, his spouse, and all children under 18 living in the same household.	$50,000/gubernatorial candm $25,000/other statewide candm $1,000/legislative candidate All amounts per calendar year	Same as individual limits	Prohibitedd	Prohibitedd
  Oregon § 260.160 to 174	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
  Pennsylvania 25 Pa Stat § 3241 to 3260a	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Prohibitedd	Prohibitedd
  Rhode Island § 17-25-10.1	$1,000/candidate or $2,000/candidate if candidate qualifies for public funding and agrees to abide by spending limits Both amounts are per calendar year. Individuals limited to $10,000 in aggregate contributions to candidates, PACs and party committees per year	$25,000/candidate/year In-kind contributions unlimited	$1,000/candidate/calendar year or $2,000/candidate/year if candidate qualifies for public funding and agrees to abide by spending limits Annual aggregate limit of $25,000 to all recipients	Prohibited	Prohibited
  South Carolina § 8-13-1314 to 1316	$3,500/statewide candidate $1,000/legislative candidate Both amounts are per electiona	Candidates may not accept more than the following from parties during an election cycle: $50,000/statewide candidate $5,000/other candidate	Same as individual limits	Same as individual limits	Same as individual limits
  South Dakota § 12-27-7	$4,000/statewide candidate $1,000/legislative candidate Both amounts are per calendar year	Unlimited	Unlimited	Prohibited	Prohibitedd
  Tennessee § 2-10-302	$2,500/statewide candidate $1,000/legislative candidate Both amounts are per electiona	Candidates limited to aggregate amount from all political party committees: $250,000/statewide candidate $40,000/senate candidate $20,000/house candidate All amounts are per electiona	$7,500/statewide candidate $7,500/senate candidate $5,000/other candidates No more than 50% of a statewide candidate’s or $75,000 of a legislative candidate’s total contributions may come from PACs All amounts are per electiona	Prohibited	Same as individual limits
  Texas Election Code, § 253	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Prohibitedd	Prohibitedd
  Utah § 20A-11-101	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
  Vermonte 17 VSA §2805	$1,000/candidate/electiona,l Contributions from immediate family members are unlimited.	Unlimited	$3,000/candidate/electiona	Same as individual limits	Same as individual limits
  Virginia § 24.2-900 et seq.	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
  Washingtonp RCW § 42.17.610 et seq. WAC § 390-05-400	Adjusted limits effective 12/28/08: $1,600/gub candidate $800/legislative candidate Both amounts are per electiona During the 21 days before the general election, no contributor may donate more than $50,000 in the aggregate to a statewide candidate or $5,000 in the aggregate to any other candidate. This includes a candidate's personal contributions to his/her campaign.	Aggregate contributions from a state party central committee to a statewide or legislative candidate may not exceed $.80 x number of registered voters in candidate’s district. This limit applies to the entire election cycle.	Same as individual limits A PAC that has not received contributions of $10 or more from 10 or more WA registered voters during the past 180 days is prohibited from making contributions.	Prohibited for corporations not doing business in Washington state. Same as individual limits for Washington corporations.	Prohibited for unions that have fewer than 10 members who reside in Washington. Same as individual limits for Washington unions.
  West Virginia § 3-8-8 to 12	$1,000/candidate/electiona	Same as individual limits	Same as individual limits	Prohibitedd	Same as individual limits
  Wisconsin § 11.01 et seq.	$10,000/statewide candidate $1,000/senate candidate $500/house candidate Above amounts are per election campaign. An individual may not contribute more than $10,000 in a calendar year to any combination of Wisconsin candidates or political committees.	Aggregate limit on amount candidates may accept from all committees, including party committees, in an election campaign: $700,830/gub. candidate $22,425/senate candidate $11,213/house candidate	$43,128/gub candidate $1,000/senate candidate $500/house candidate Aggregate limit on amount candidates may accept from all committees, excluding party committees, in an election campaign: $485,190/gub. candidate $15,525/senate candidate $7,763/house candidate All amounts are per election cycle.	Prohibited	Prohibited
  Wyoming § 22-25-102	$1,000/candidate/electiona No individual may make more than $25,000q in total contributions during a two-year election cycle.	Unlimited	Unlimited	Prohibited	Prohibited

  (a) Primary and general are considered separate elections; stated amount may be contributed in each election.
  (b) Candidates participating in “Clean Elections” public financing may not accept contributions after qualifying for public funds. Limits listed are for candidates not participating in public financing program.
  (c) In Arizona, a PAC that has received contributions from 500 or more individuals in amounts of $10 or more in a one-year period may qualify as a “Super PAC.” Qualification is valid for two years. (Ariz. Rev. Stat. §16-905(I))
  (d) Direct corporate and/or union contributions are prohibited and/or use of treasury funds and/or dues is prohibited. In these states, the law specifically says that nothing prevents the employees or officers of a corporation from making political contributions through a PAC, using funds from an account that is separate and segregated from corporate accounts. Such contributions are subject to the same limitations placed on other PACs.
  (e) Full public financing is available to qualifying candidates for governor and lieutenant governor. A candidate who wishes to receive public funding may not solicit or accept any private contributions except qualifying contributions.
  (f) In Louisiana, a “Big PAC” is a PAC with over 250 members who contributed over $50 to the PAC during the preceding calendar year and has been certified as meeting that membership requirement.
  (g) In California, a “small contributor committee” is a committee which has been in existence for at least six months, receives contributions from 100 or more persons in amounts of not more than $200 per person, and makes contributions to five or more candidates. (Cal. Govt. Code §85203)
  (h) In Michigan, an “independent committee” must have filed a statement of organization at least 6 months before the election in which the committee wishes to make contributions; must have supported or opposed 3 or more candidates for nomination or election; and must have received contributions from at least 25 persons.
  (i) In Colorado, a “small donor committee” means any political committee that has accepted contributions only from natural persons who each contributed no more than $50 in the aggregate per year.
  (j) Any public utility regulated by the Public Service Commission is prohibited from making political contributions (Ala. Code §10-2A-70.1)
  (k) The text of the statute on contribution limits (KRS §121A.050(1)) states that party contributions to candidates are limited to $1,000 per election. However, the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance’s web site states that party contributions to candidates are unlimited ( http://www.state.ky.us/agencies/kref/contlmt.htm , see footnote 4).
  (l) Vermont’s attempt to limit out-of-state contributions to 25% of a candidate’s total contributions received was declared unconstitutional on August 18, 2004, by the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals (Landell v. Sorrell, 382 F.3d 91 (2004))
  (m) While these limits are specified in Oklahoma’s Ethics Rules, statutes have not been changed to reflect this limit. According to the statutes, any contribution in excess of $5,000 would constitute a criminal violation.
  (n) Corporations are no longer prohibited from making political contributions under New Hampshire law despite the language of NH RSA 664:4. That ban was declared unconstitutional by a federal district court in 1999. A June 6, 2000 letter from Deputy Attorney General Steven M. Houran indicates that the limits on individual contributions now apply to corporate contributions as well.
  (o) In Massachusetts, a"People's Committee" is a PAC that has been in existence for six months, has received contributions from individuals of $140 (adjusted biennially; this amount is for 2006-2007) or less per year, and has contributed to five candidates. It is unclear what advantage there would be to converting to a People's Committee, since the contribution limits are the same.
  (p) Contribution limits are adjusted for inflation at the beginning of each campaign cycle.
  (q) Effective July 1, 2009, decreases to $12,500 (see SF 94, 2009)

  posted 1:21PM 07/22/2009 by eNilsson Blog Team
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• June 23, 2009

  Campaign data drives the voter lifecycle

  Drive the Voter Lifecycle by capitalizing on your greatest ally: Campaign data. Campaign data helps you raise money, build a brand, and put the right people in the voting booth by allowing you to identify and target:
      •    Probable voters,
      •    Favorable voters (ones who will vote for your candidate),
      •    Potential donors, fundraisers, & motivators,
      •    Voters to be ignored
  
  Data allows you to build a strategy that drives disengaged voters from supporters, to donors, to fundraisers, and finally to campaign advocates; a sequence BlueSwarm refers to as the Voter Lifecycle.
  
  Unfortunately, most political organizations have difficulty using the data they have. The wide variety of disparate databases made necessary by the diverse data collection methods utilized by vendors (usually proprietary databases) and consultants (usually spreadsheets) are at fault. These databases collect campaign data without regard for diverse data collection methods causing overlapping or duplicate data for a voter, for a region or for an event.
  
  These disparate databases and the data points they collect include:   

  ➢ Voters     Voter list generation     Voter direct mail     Paid-phone voter ID     Absentee voter/early voter data     Micro-Targeting     GOTV ➢ Volunteers     Volunteer phone lists     Volunteer preferences     Yard sign locations ➢ Favorable     Voter ID     GOTV     Direct mail surveys     Online surveys ➢ Fundraising     Bundling programs     Major donor programs     Low-dollar programs     PACs/527s     Events     o    Invite lists     o    RSVPs     o    Host reports     Direct mail solicitations     Email solicitations     Outbound telemarketing     Online donations

  ➢ Donors     Pledge tracking     Pledge management     Contribution tracking     Contribution management     Bundler management     Fulfillment     o    Thank you letters/emails     o    Pledge letters     o    Premiums     Donor relationship management     o    Direct mail     o    Telemarketing     o    Email     Inbound telemarketing ➢ Communications     Online     Phone banking/Robo-calls     Direct mail     Door-to-door     Email blasts

   No one vendor or organization can provide best-in-class services for all of the data listed above, which is why we see diverse data collection methods and disparate databases. However, by:

  •  Housing all campaign data in a centralized database, and
  •  Providing database access to all campaign vendors,

  a campaign effectively develops a platform that can accommodate its widely varying needs while preventing the long-standing problems of overlapping or duplicate data. The campaign can then focus on analyzing and acting on data rather than aggregating and managing data.
  
  The benefits of housing all campaign data in a centralized database and creating a standard set of web services for vendor integration include:

  • Future-proof campaign data against a constantly changing technology and political world,
  • Ability for the campaign to select vendors on a function-by-function basis,
  • Reduction of the campaign’s cost to change vendors thus creating a competitive vendor environment, and, most importantly, reducing the campaign’s dependence on any single vendor,
  • Allowing the campaign to emphasize action on data rather than synchronizing data between varying systems

  
  But how do you determine what, exactly, should go in the database from this wealth of data? 
  
  The answer to this question leads back to driving the Voter Lifecycle. The Voter Lifecycle focuses on each individual person’s conversion from disengaged voter, to supporter, to donor, to fundraiser, to advocate. Therefore, a centralized database should be configured to focus on contact records.
  
  Increasing the Voter Lifecycle’s conversion rate is most dependent on a few core pieces of information that should be stored in a contact record:

  • Name and contact info
  • How a contact got into the database
  • Current position in the Voter Lifecycle
  • If and when a contact volunteers or how much they donated
  • If they are part of another important group such as press or surrogates

  
  This information empowers a campaign to identify and target their audience by defining Lifecycle Personas. Character profiles identifying a contact’s needs, desires, worldview, attitude, personality, and behavior define Lifecycle Personas.
  
  The principle value of Lifecycle Personas lies in their influence on campaign decision-making processes:

  • What language to use in appeal letters,
  • How marketing strategies are implemented,
  • How to coordinate GOTV and door knocks, etc. 

  Obviously, the more robust your data is on each contact, the better prepared a campaign is to develop these Lifecycle Personas.
  
  The key take-away here is that campaigns need to develop Lifecycle Personas as early as possible, so implementing a centralized database focused on contact records at an early stage is critical.
  
  A campaign may only have one opportunity to capture information from a voter. Be sure your campaign is ready to seize that opportunity and capitalize on your greatest ally: Campaign Data.

  posted 2:43PM 06/23/2009 by eNilsson Blog Team
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• May 28, 2009

  Best Craigs List sales copy ever written

  Who says great sales copy has to be short and direct. Here is an ad for a couch in the Bay Area that is utterly inspiring. I am dying to see a picture of this "leather couch of my dreams."
  
  The bad news is that CraigsList doesn't have a good sense of humor and they've already pulled this posting down. Boooo!

   

  ---

   

  Here it is...the leather couch of your dreams. Its beige leather surfaces are in pristine condition, no rips or scuff marks to speak of. Animals domesticated or otherwise, were not allowed on it. Teenagers were only allowed only under adult supervision and with numerous scornful/reproachable looks thrown in to make them uncomfortable enough to leave the room. Moreover, despite best efforts for conjugal activity, nothing of a sexual nature has ever happened on (or sadly near) this sofa.
  
  This sofa is in, another words, FANTASTIC shape.
  
  But wait...there's more!
  
  This couch originally cost over $1,300 and includes an inner spring mattress that has NEVER BEEEN slept on. That's right. No only has sexual activity never occurred ON the sofa, the bed itself has never had a hint of any such action. Let alone drooling, snoring or even breathing.
  
  So how much does such a beautiful, exquisite, dare we say, Virginal, piece of furniture cost you?
  
  Wait for it...
  
  $200 obo.
  
  That's right, OBO. Or Best Offer. So you're probably just vibrating with anticipation at this point as to exactly what could constitute a 'best offer'. Well, let me tell you.
  
  A best offer is when someone arrives, looks at the couch, hands over an agreeable sum of money and THEN CARTS THE COUCH AWAY.
  
  What is an agreeable sum of money?...I don't know, riddle me this Sherlock...did you notice the part where I said, THEN TAKES THE COUCH AWAY? Because if you can follow those simple instructions that agreeable sum of money can be ludicrously small, a pittance, a flippin' joke in fact. But if you show up, offer $150 and then ask me to move it for you, well, you're about $1,000.00 too short.
  
  So, if you want the couch, if you need this couch, if you're just'a jonesing for that perfect couch to perform all sorts of debauchery on...and if YOU're willing to CART this couch away...this couch is definitely for you.
  
  One last thing, if you can get my son to help you load it I will give you $20. That's right, if you'll get him to actually help lift the friggin couch, you win $20. I don't care if we settle for $10 on the couch and I wind up OWING you money. Just ask for the Internet deal.

  posted 7:46PM 05/28/2009 by eNilsson Blog Team
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• May 12, 2009

  FEC's New 3L Form Targets Campaign Bundlers

   

  The 3L form is the latest and greatest hit from those star-makers at the FEC. The purpose of this filing is to track bundled contributions forwarded by, or created by lobbyist and PACs. Here is the actual 3L form for your PDF downloading, form-filling enjoyment.

  Who does it affect?

  The 3L is designed to disclose bundled contributions from

  • lobbyist/registrants, or
  • lobbyist/registrant PACs

  who contribute in excess of $16,000 during a filing (or coverd) period.

  What is a "filing period?"

  House and Senate candidates - your filings are quarterly: April 15, July 15 and Jauary 31. Quarterly reports filed on July 15 and January 31 must also include total reportable bundled contributions for the semi-annual covered periods of January 1 through June 30, and July 1 through December 31, respectively. Reports for the 12-Day Pre-Election covered period include activity from the day after the closing date of the last report filed through the 20th day before the election and are filed no later than the 12th day before any primary or general election in which the candidate seeks election. Reports for the 30-Day Post-General Election covered period include activity from the day after the closing date of the last report filed through the 20th day after the election and are filed no later than 30 days after the general election.
  
  Party Committees, Leadership PACS, and Presidential Committees - You file your 3Ls at the same time as you file your Form 3X but... if you file your 3X monthly, you have the option of filing your 3L quarterly. Now isn't that easy to remember?
  
  Thanks FEC for another great form!

  Here is the full FEC speal on the 3L.

  posted 5:05AM 05/12/2009 by eNilsson Blog Team
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• April 30, 2009

  Handy Federal Election donation limits chart (thanks McKenna Long & Aldridge)

  A friend of ours over at McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP in DC gave us this great donor limits chart (in a business card size). It is a pretty handy tool so here it is for all you campaigners out there:

  Donors	Recipients				Special Limits
  	Candidate Committee	PAC (1)	State, District, Local Party Committee (2)	National Party Committee (3
  Individual	$2,400* per election (4)	$5,000 per year	$10,000 per year combined limit	$30,400 per year*	Biennial limit of $115,500* ($45,600 to all candidates and $69,900 to all PACs and parties (5)
  State, District and Local Party Committee	$5,000 per election combined limit	$5,000 per election combined limit	Unlimited transfers to other party committees
  National Party Committee	$5,000 per election	$5,000 per year	Unlimited transfers to other party committees		$42,600* to Senate candidate per campaign (6)
  PAC Multi-Candidate (7)	$5,000 per election	$5,000 per year	$5,000 per year combined limit	$15,000 per year
  PAC Not Multi-Candidate	$2,400* per election (8)	$5,000 per year	$10,000 per year combined limit	$30,400* per year

  *These limits are indexed for inflation in odd-numbered years.

  (1) These limits apply both to separte segregated funds (SSFs) and political action committees (PACs). Affiliated committees share the same set of limits on contributions made and received.

  (2) A state party committee shares its limits with local and district party committees in that state unless a local or district committee's independence can be demonstrated. These limits apply to multicandidate committees only.

  (3) A party's national committee, Senate campaign committee and House campaign committee are each considered natinal party committees, and each have separate limits, except with respect to Senate candidates - see Special Limits column.

  (4) Each of the following is considered a separate election with a separate limit primary election, caucus or convention with the authority to nominate, runoff election and special election.

  (5)No more than $45,600 of this amount may be contributed to state and local parties and PACs.

  6) This limit is shared by the national committee and the Senate campaign committee.

  (7) A multicandidate committee is a political committee that has been registered for at least 6 months, has received contributions from more than 50 contributors and - with the exception of a state party committee - has made contributions to at least five federal candidates.

  (8) A federal candidate's authorized committee(s) may contribute no more than $12,000 per election to another federal candidate's authorized committee(s). 2USC§432(e)(3)(B) and 11CFR 102.12(c)(2).

  posted 7:25PM 04/30/2009 by eNilsson Blog Team
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• April 28, 2009

  Boston Globe burys White House related errors!

   

  Which is the true news story here?

  Today's Wall Street Journal front page states:
  
      "A 'Classified Photo Op Turns Into A Soaring Blunder for the White House
     Mission to Get Beauty Shots of Presidential Jet At Statue of Liberty Panics 9/11-Wary New York."
  
  This headline is followed by a nice color picture of a Air Force One 747 and a fighter jet flying at low altitude. The article then goes on to talk about the Air Force admitting that the flight was a secret mission of which city officials had been made aware.

  What about the Boston Globe?

  The Boston Globe has a very different take on this story. On the Globe front page, there is a small lead that says,
  
      "A flyover by two jets sent frightened workers pouring out of buildings..."
  
  The AP article is printed on page A7 and doesn't mention the fact that one of the planes is an Air Force One 747 until the 8th paragraph, 300th word. Talk about burying the lead.
  
  The fact that it was a Presidential Air Force One buzzing Manhattan and scaring folks is THE STORY! Why hide it?
  
  This is not a huge story so why protect the White House in such a heavy handed manner? What else are you hiding?

  And the Globe (owned by the NY Times) wonders why its subscribers are  defecting to Internet based news sources.

  posted 5:08AM 04/28/2009 by eNilsson Blog Team
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• March 26, 2009

  Presidental fundraising: 2008 verses 1976

  While doing a little market research today, we pluged the past 9 election cycle fundraising numbers into a graph. Besides the dip in the 1980 election, we've got a serious growth industry here.

  Note that the Y access is in millions so the total amount raised in the 2008 cycle was $1.63 billion. That buys a lot of yard signs.

  

  posted 9:46AM 03/26/2009 by eNilsson Blog Team
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• March 26, 2009

  Calling all Australian PHP developers, we need bodies to manage our CodeIgniter/AJAX mashup CMS

  Calling all Australian PHP developers, we need bodies to manage our CodeIgniter/AJAX mashup CMS which we call Tegel: http://tinyurl.com/cg6x4g.

  Candidates must be able to work on-site at our offices in Rozelle, less then 7 minutes for the center of Sydney.

  posted 5:57AM 03/26/2009 by eNilsson Blog Team
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• March 17, 2009

  Twitter for complete and utter beginners

  A client of ours who is not very "new media" savvy wants to jump into the Twitter pool without looking like a total rube. They asked if we could jot down a few notes to help them get started.

  If you are halfway familiar with Twitter, you can stop reading now. If you are new to the Twitter world, the following notes may help you get started. Note that these thoughts were pulled together from a bunch of folks in the office so if there is any plagiarism here, please be flattered ;)

  ------------------------------------

  1. Twitter Basics
  Twitter is a free mass text-messaging service that allows you to send out 140-character messages to a group of followers.  It is used by friends, family and co-workers to stay connected. Twitter utilizes real time updates (referred to as Tweets), which are posted on your web-based Twitter profile and sent to your Followers’ (other Twitter users) mobile phones.
  
  Twitter is like a casual digital diary and is used for publishing fun facts, useful tools, thoughts, questions, etc.  The 140-character space limit emphasizes a large number of short posts. Twitter posts traditionally consist of:
   

  • Status Updates: “Off to the store for some milk”
  • Musings: “The construction on 95 in Stoneham is driving me insane!”
  • Interesting Links: “Peggy Noonan’s comments today on the economy hit the nail on the head: http://online.wsj.com/peggy-noonan.html”
  • Questions: “Is anyone else having problems with their GE fridge freezing up?”
  • And much more.

  
  It is not necessary to make each Twitter post substantial. Twitter followers are most interested in what you are interested in or what you are doing now. Twitter should be treated as a fun, slightly self-indulgent broadcasting toy that can lead to a deeper connection with your audience.
  
  Note that Twitter is not just a way to broadcast messages, you can also reply, “@replies” in Twitter-speak, to your followers. Replies are not necessary but are considered good form in the Twitter world.
  
  2. Glossary

  • Tweet – a short (I40-character) message.
  • weeters/Tweeple - People who use Twitter.
  • Twoosh - A perfect 140-character tweet.
  • Followers - Tweeters who are following your tweets. Followers will see any updates you make on their homepage of Twitter.
  • Following - Tweeters you are following. You will see any updates (tweets) on your homepage from anyone you are following
  • TweetUp - An ‘in person’ meeting between Twitter users.

  
  3. Getting Started
  All you need to use Twitter is a computer with an Internet connection or a mobile phone.  Go to http://twitter.com and sign up.  Take a look at who is using Twitter by using the Find People tab.  Some successful tweeters include:
   

  • eNilsson - http://twitter.com/enilsson (we couldn't not include this one)
  • CNN Breaking News – http://twitter.com/cnnbrk   
  • Stephen Fry – http://twitter.com/stephenfry
  • Barack Obama – http://twitter.com/BarackObama   
  • Anderson Cooper – http://twitter.com/andersoncooper

  
  Once you are comfortable with the experience, you can take advantage of all Twitter features.
  
  4.  Things you should do

  • Post tweets that add more value than the attention it consumes.  Instead of posting “just had a great burger”, post something like “great burger specials today at Joe’s Burger Palace in Cambridge”.
  • Be aware of how often you tweet. Post enough to keep followers interested (at least once a day), but not so much that you flood their feeds with 50 new tweets a day.
  • Use Twitter to provide updates when a new blog post or press release is posted on your website. This can be done automatically provided the content is already in an RSS feed.
  • Use services like tinyurl.com and is.gd to shorten links. Tweet real estate is important because of the 140-character limit.  Tweeters use these services (often built into desktop and mobile Twitter applications) to shorten links like https://www.freestrongamerica.com/contribute to http://is.gd/kHdP.

  
  5.  Things you shouldn’t do

  • Do not post just news updates. News updates are important, but including personal content in your tweets allows for that human feel that makes social networking and media work.
  • Don’t post and read at the same time.  What happens is that you are all set to make a post, but you see updates from people you follow so you stop to read those.  After a while, you have forgotten what you intended to post, as well as your to do list.  Schedule time to twitter.
  • Do not use an @reply to send a message to someone that you would like to be private. This will show up on the public timeline.

  
  6. Mobile Tweeting

  • Text Messaging/SMS: You can send updates to Twitter by linking your mobile phone number to your Twitter account and then sending a text message to 40404. You can also elect to receive Twitter updates of other users by allowing Twitter to send their updates to you in a text message. Important: Twitter is limited to 140 characters while most mobile carriers set the text message limit at 160 characters. If you go over 140 characters then your message will be curtailed.
  • Smart phones: Popular devices like Blackberry’s and iPhones have applications that can be downloaded to improve the user’s experience with Twitter.  For the iPhone, try TwitterFon at http://twitterfon.net or Twitterrific at http://iconfactory.com/software/twitterrific.  Each device and application has its pros and cons, but the general principals of Twitter remain the same.

  
  7.  Twitter applications for Blackberry users

  • TwitterBerry – The most widely used Twitter application for Blackberry phones, TwitterBerry has its legions of loyal followers. With all applications, TwitterBerry can only pull from the Twitter api less than 70 times an hour. A complete FAQ can be found here: http://www.orangatame.com/products/twitterberry/faq.php.  The supported devices and system requirements can be found here: http://www.orangatame.com/products/twitterberry/.
  • Twibble – The second most popular Blackberry application for Twitter. Twibble will function on any JavaScript enabled mobile device. Pros for Twibble include keyboard shortcuts and minimal amounts of data transferred. A huge draw for most Twibble users is that Twibble can be configured to be ‘geographically aware’ on some devices – this includes updating your latitude and longitude coordinates with each Tweet. For obvious security reasons we would not recommend enabling this feature. More information here: http://www.twibble.de/twibble-mobile/.
  • TinyTwitter – TinyTwitter succeeds in that it will work for any phone that is JavaScript enabled. All of the basic functions are the same, including a number of settings to customize the user interface and data displayed. More information can be found here: http://www.tinytwitter.com/about.html.

  
  8.  Actions/Features

  • @replies - By using “@username” at the beginning of your tweet, you can direct that tweet at a specific user. It is intended to support back and forth communications. This type of messaging is publicly visible.
  • ReTweet - To re-send a previous tweet or to resend someone else's tweet so it reaches a larger audience. Proceeded with “RT @username” with the username being the original author.
  • Direct Messages - You can send a direct message to another user by using the message link on their profile page, the reply icon from your own direct message, or using the command “d <insert username> <insert text>” message. Only you and the person you are direct messaging will see the contents of the tweets.  You can only send a DM to someone who is one of hour followers.
  • Favorites - You can store any of your favorite tweets by clicking the star icon by the message.
  • Tags, hash tags, and #’s – You enter a tweet that reads: #golf Augusta National GC opening soon.  The #golf is a tag. Users will often include a tag somewhere in their messages if they are relevant to a popular topic. The tags can be searched at http://search.twitter.com/. The search result for #golf is http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23golf.  All tweets with the #golf tag will be listed.

  
  9. Recommendations

  • Acquire your name, fore example: twitter.com/DavidBeckham: As in domain names, a Twitter account name is important. The more personal you can keep it, the better. Example: WarrenBuffett is a better username than BerkshireHathaway.
  • Use mobile tweeting, but use an application and not the text message service. If someone were to gain access to your account then that individual would be able to access your phone number. Also, an application can allow you to browse tweets easily – the SMS/text message option would require you to subscribe to a user and would also open yourself up to a plethora of text messages.
  • Consider using a service like TweetLater.com to track relevant keywords and hash tags, automatically post pre-written tweets at scheduled intervals, and automate a host of other actions.

  
   

  posted 1:19PM 03/17/2009 by eNilsson Blog Team
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• February 26, 2009

  Australian Department of Immigration is all kinds of awesome

  It appears that usability standards have not reached Down Under.
  
  While filling out a 457 Long-Stay Visa application, we were faced with the following pulldown:
  
  "If you wish to lodge only one nomination application then leave the counter set at "0". Entering "1" will generate two nominations, this nomination and an additional nomination. Entering "9" will generate ten nominations, this nomination and an additional nine nominations."
  
  The best part was that one of the pull down options had two seperate zeros to choose from. Don't choose the first one becaust that zero doesn't work.
  
  Calling all usability experts, there are jobs to be had with the Australian Government!

  posted 3:26PM 02/26/2009 by eNilsson Blog Team
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• February 26, 2009

  The wrath of Internet Explorer

  Lifehacker.com header - from top to bottom - in IE 6, IE 7, and Firefox 3.

  If you're involved in the world of web design and developing then you know all about the horrendous family of browsers from Microsoft. The nomenclature is quite appropriate - each labeled as Internet Explorer and then followed with a number that dictates what ring of hell each hails from.

  The awfulness of Internet Explorer (6 and 7 being the presently used versions) doesn't really have all that much to do with the user experience. IE 7 is actually a tolerable browser when you're stuck running Window Updates and downloading spyware tools on your computer illiterate friend's computer. The real evil shows itself when you write up code for a website and you have to insert some annoying workaround to get some simple element to render correctly.

  Case in point: When we want to use images with transparency in IE 6. Or building a Flash application that will run on a https server and the problems that causes with IE.

  In Internet Explorer's defense, other browsers do miss the mark in the same respect. But at least other browsers are grouped somewhere around the bull's eye. Internet Explorer is the drunk at the local bar that's, at times, lucky if it's hitting the wall that supports the dart board.

  Like an idiot I held out hope that IE 8 would make all of this a bit easier. Nope. Recent news from ZDNet is quite sad. IE 8 has a growing list of high traffic sites that apparently are not compatible with how it wants to render them. The best one on the list: microsoft.com.

  And all these browser issues is another reason why we love Flex.

  posted 2:24PM 02/26/2009 by Leif Nordberg
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• January 26, 2009

  My.BarackObama.com used to spread malware

  It appears that our misgivings regarding the Obama campaign and our our online privacy protection posted in our October posting had some merit.
  
  According to the "Websense Security Labs Threat Seeker" (that is quite a product name), bogus my.barackobama.com user accounts are being used to spread malicious code. Here is the full posting: http://securitylabs.websense.com/content/Blogs/3284.aspx. The scary part is that these reports of malware on my.barackobama.com began last spring and have yet to be resolved.
  
  Don't get us wrong, we believe in the use of technology to bring people and ideas together. Unfortunately, when every you bring large groups of people to one place, there will be opportunities for bad guys to be bad. As in meat-space, we all need to do our level best to make public areas (social networks) safe for everyone.
  
  In the end, we are responsible for ourselves and for what we download or share online. Embrace change but "hey, let's be careful out there... "

  posted 3:44PM 01/26/2009 by eNilsson Blog Team
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• January 16, 2009

  eNilsson contributes to job growth in Washington, Boston and Sydney

  eNilsson is hiring! Our business is doubling this year and we need your help.

  Boston (Westford) - We are looking for a Project Manager who is comfortable getting their hands a little dirty by working on our PHP based platforms.
  
  We'd also like to get our hands on a Front End Developer who has strong design skills.
  
  Sydney (Rozelle) - We need an up and coming star to help build on our existing Flex products and to take ownership of new projects. Strong design skills are a must. Skills and enthusiasm in microarchitectures (Cairngorm), custom AS3 components, states and transitions, AMFPHP and user interface design would be very desirable.

  Washington DC - Are you connected? We need a Business Development Director to help us capitalize on our DC area sales momentum. Can you help us develop clients and new strategic partnerships within the hallowed halls and corridors of Washington? If so, we need to talk.
  
  Learn more about these positions and how to apply at: www.enilsson.com/careers.

  
  
   

  posted 1:24PM 01/16/2009 by eNilsson Blog Team
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• January 08, 2009

  Help, my AWS instance has fallen and it can't get up...

  Our first day back after the festive break was an eventful one! So as we eased back into working life our AWS instance, a nicely optimised Fedora AMI that was serving both our suite of Tegel hosted sites and as the core testing area for our new Struktor application platform, suddenly went silent!!

  While I thanked my lucky stars this didnt happen while I was stuffing my face over christmas dinner, or glued to the TV watching the Boxing Day Test I was none the less perplexed and a little lost.

  The symptoms were strange, the instance appeared to be running when we checked the ec2-describe-instances call but no matter what we did, either via HTTP, SSH or SFTP we couldnt raise it at all. So we checked further, and it appeared that all our S3 data and the Elastic Storage Block (EBS) data appeared to be intact (thanks jeebers for that!), but the EC2 instance was toast.

  So we raised the topic on the AWS EC2 forums and got a fairly quick response which was nice;

  Hi James,
  
  We are investigating a misbehaving network device that seems to be affecting connectivity to a small number of instances.  We are working to fix or replace that device.  You can relaunch your instance or wait and we should be able to restore connectivity.
  
  Regards,
  JoeJ

  Hmm, that is strange, well at least it wasnt something we did. As you can imagine we were mentally running through all the things we may have done to bork the server, so it was nice to hear we were in the clear.

  So after some more checking we decided the best course of action was indeed to rebuild the server onto a new instance, however this posed a few issues;

  • The running AMI could not be stopped, it hung in terminating mode indefinately
  • It proved difficult to unmount the storage block from the running AMI, unless we used the force option
  • We had neglected to institute Elastic IPs so the IP attached to this AMI was lost to us, meaning all our domains needed to be repointed to the new server.

  Once we realised what was involved, the disaster recovery proved relatively straightforward if however inconvenient.

  1. Instantiate a new instance of the AMI from the saved snapshot
  2. Mount the detached EBS onto the new server, and test the instance
  3. Grab yourself an Elastic IP if you dont have one already and assign the new instance to it (this article proved most useful)
  4. Make sure all your domains have the new IP address listed
  5. Test

  The beauty of the Elastic IP as we discovered is that if this were to happen again, we can simply assign that IP to a new instance and we can skip step 4, which can be a huge timesaver if you have a lot of domains with different registrars.

  A learning experience to be sure, but now we know the recovery should be pretty quick and painless!

  posted 4:53PM 01/08/2009 by James Nicol
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• January 06, 2009

  eNilsson pursues the non-violent overthrow of bad user interface design

  About a year and a half ago, Bill Higgins wrote a very interesting article about user interface design. In short, he says that products/programs should be developed to look like the platform in which they run on. So, says Bill, “a Windows application should look and feel like a Windows application, a Mac application should look and feel like a Mac application, and a web application should look and feel like a web application.” For Bill, if you don’t heed this warning then you will confuse your users because the application won’t feel natural.

  Bill, this is me disagreeing with you:

  Your average user has come a long way and is not made so easily uncomfortable by differing UIs anymore. Exhibit A: iTunes for Windows. Launched back in 2003, iTunes for the Windows platform maintains the same exact look, feel, and functionality as native OSX programs. In fact, it has become Apple’s flagship program (with the help of the iPod) and has been exciting young people with the Apple UI since its launch.

  And it doesn’t stop there. Exhibits B, C, and D: Fluid, Adobe Air, and Mozilla Prism. Fluid uses Site Specific Browsers (SSBs) to make web applications look like desktop applications. And Adobe Air is a cross-platform runtime environment for web applications, allowing developers (and sometimes the user) to bring a consistent UI to web applications regardless of the operating system. Mozilla Prism is yet another program bridging the divide between the Internet and the desktop in that it "focuses on how web apps can integrate into the desktop experience... also working to increase the capabilities of those apps by adding functionality to the Web itself, such as providing support for offline data storage and access to 3D graphics hardware." Plus Prism has the benefit of being built on our beloved Firefox - yes, that means support for HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and <canvas> on ANY operating system.

  And then there’s ElephantTrakker. eNilsson built ElephantTrakker in Flex to look and feel like a desktop application regardless of the environment. It has the rich feature set of a desktop application, and speed to match from its cloud data service, so the look and feel is a great complement. But is it confusing or uncomfortable? Quite the opposite. When it was first deployed to volunteer fundraisers for the Romney campaign it was embraced by all levels of computer users whom soon couldn't live without the program.  Perhaps eNilsson has taken advantage of working in an area where few standards have been established, so users have little to no expectations regarding UI.

  Whatever the explanation might be, it seems that the UI divide that Bill speaks of is shrinking despite his warnings. As more programs migrate to the cloud (announced today is that iWork is even moving to the cloud with iWork.com - in beta at the moment) and other programs focus on syncing data and functionality across multiple platforms (see the success of Evernote), users seem not only open to changing the way they interact with their information, they are relishing it.

  posted 11:04AM 01/06/2009 by Leif Nordberg
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• December 23, 2008

  Online software a bright spot in a down economy

  The Wall Street Journal reported today that "online software, which businesses access over the Internet... is expected to gain attention since it can save money and help productivity."
  
  We've been preaching this for years! Even Larry Ellison (Oracle's CEO) who didn't think one could make money selling Software As A Service (SaaS) is now pushing Oracle into the SaaS pool.
  
  The 900 lb. gorillas have now decided that our market looks attractive. Microsoft too, is trying to swim in our pool by recently launching online services.
  
  Luckily the market is big enough for everyone. Now that the gorillas are on our own turf (or swim-club, to continue the analogy) we  have the opportunity to make the the gorillas cower before the creative might of eNilsson International llc.
  
  Have you ever seen a gorilla swim? It is not pretty.

  posted 5:18AM 12/23/2008 by eNilsson Blog Team
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• December 14, 2008

  Boston office hammered by December 11th ice storm.

  As of this morning (Sunday 12/14), we still do not have power in our Boston office. Thursday night's ice storm knocked out power for over 1.25 million people.

  Luckily today the temperature should break 42° F / 6° C which will keep folks' pipes from freezing and it is only suppose to get down to 35° F / 2° C tonight which will make for a comparatively warm evening.

  The Sydney office has just checked in. They are reporting that it is sunny and 78° F / 24° C  and Raf is just back from a early morning surfing session. Somehow I think that there will be a flurry of transfer requests tomorrow.

  It is Monday the 15th in Sydney so apparently the ice storm has not affected the time change.

  2008 New England Ice Storm
  Wallpaper
  
  
  1024x640   1280x800   1440x900

  Boston Globe:
  As cleanup continues, 162K still waiting for power

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

  posted 9:56AM 12/14/2008 by eNilsson Blog Team
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• December 05, 2008

  Is it time to start talking about the 2012 presidential election yet?

   

  Poll watchers, start your engines!

  Huckabee and Palin top early 2012 list

  CNN - Barack Obama is still more than six weeks from White House, and the next Iowa caucuses are more than three years away — so naturally, it’s time to start talking 2012, as a new national poll suggests that Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee top the list of potential 2012 Republican presidential hopefuls...

  http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/12/05/huckabee-and-palin-top-early-2012-list/

  posted 3:10PM 12/05/2008 by eNilsson Blog Team
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• December 05, 2008

  Free Beer experiment fails

  Back on November 14th we posted a blog entry to test the theory that the words "free beer" would  drive web traffic to the eNilsson blog.

  Our theory was based on the popularity of our "US Tax System - Explained With Beer" posting from 11/4. At the time, we were shocked by the number of visitors coming to eNilsson.com just for this posting. We figured that the word "beer" was the driving force here. What better way to test our theory then to add the magic word "free" to "beer" in a blog post?
  
  RESULTS

  After 21 days, here is what we found. The Free Beer blog posting was:

  1. 16th most popular content page based on page views
  2. 13th most popular landing page, only one page behind "US Tax System - Explained With Beer"

  
  CONCLUSION

  People like blog postings on beer. No supprises here but the beer postings are far less popular than most of the more eNilsson centric pages. This is good as our website is not a pub.

  All is well with the world.

  posted 10:16AM 12/05/2008 by eNilsson Blog Team
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