New versions of software

Since the site was launched much has moved on, every element of the system software needs to be upgraded. We should consider upgrading the operating system and hardware as well.

Rebuild from sources

Due to the upgrade to the full text index we need to rebuild it from scratch, this also allows us to reformat pages to insert banner adverts and make any proof reading changes we can.

This process is likely to take a considerable elapsed time. It has also, in the past, highlighted problems within the HTML sources which we should devote as much time as possible to correcting.

Clean User Table

We should delete all user records and associated subscriptions and messages where no manual fields have been filled. These records were, on the whole, created when we had a policy of automatically creating a user record when we received an email, so the majority of the records are fictitious, created by spam.

Additional data

We should add a creation date to the user records, retrofitting a date to existing records based upon the id field.

Melati meta data changes

The Melati shop has been changed to work with BigDecimal datatypes rather than doubles as currently. This has consequences for the columninfo table and the setting table, as well as a the shop order table.

Re-open Shop

House of Stratus is back in business so we could re-open the shop.

Re-establish Secure Trading Account

We need to re-establish the Secure Trading account for the shop to function.

Re-open comparative bookbuyer

We have some 11875 book stocking records which could be used to redo the comparative book shopper.

Compulsory registration

It is intended that to be able to read a page you should be registered. This involves a challenge to non-logged-in surfers when they reach the page level of the site. This will not affect our Google footprint as this has been gained upon the meta data pages rather than the actual chapter pages.

Membership confirmation

Currently members sign up as a one step process. It is now common practice for registration to be a two step process where the user is sent a confirmation email which contains an URL they have to click on to complete the process. This ensures that the email entered is correct and that people are using their own email addresses.

New download formats

We need to be able to download whole books as

• HTML
• Word
• PDF
• MSEbook

Download Accounts

It is not envisaged that this will be part of the current upgrade but it should be born in mind that we may wish to establish a 'line of credit' facility against which people can download texts in the future.

Melati NoMoreTransactions exception

We have been plagued by the NoMoreTransactions exception throughout the project. It appears to be brought about in two separate ways: firstly if a process dies due to a genuine exhaustion of available memory then this has caused the system not to free the transaction concerned and for all transactions after that to block; secondly there appears to be a problem on the increasingly enormous User table.

In the case where the system has genuinely run out of memory this can be rectified, it is believed, by detecting the error and automatically restarting the server (shutting down the JVM).

It is possible that running out of memory may be caused by errors in either Postgresql, its JDBC driver or Berkley DB all of which are to be upgraded, so the slow increase in memory usage may just go away.

In the case where there is an as yet unidentified problem with the User table there are a number of hopeful approaches:

1. All recently observed lockups appear to be between accesses to the messageboards and user logins. There is no good reason for the messageboards to access the User table and they have been changed to remove that access, this in itself may solve the problem.
2. A bug has been identified and corrected in the Melati rollback code which again, in itself may cure the problem.
3. Improvements to both Postgresql and its JDBC driver may eliminate the problem.

So we can be sure that the NoMoreTransactions problem will be either solved or contained so that it is no longer the unsustainable system management burden that it has been.

Messageboards

Currently, when a user posts a message to a messageboard, if there is a single other user subscribed to the board who has a bad email address or a temporary fault with their account the bounce message is sent to the poster. This should be changed so that bounces are sent to the board manager as they are the person who can do something about it, such as unsubscribe, ban or delete that user.

Some MTAs lowercase email addresses, so we should either use a case insensitive search or lowercase all board names.

Sort out email domain

customercare@bibliomania.com and other bibliomania.com addresses are still handled by Maytech, they should be handled by the bibliomania machine. All aliases should be setup correctly and be documented.

Logging

We need to reduce the volume of logs produced. We need to analyse the errors that are produced. We need to process the access log on a different machine (dev machine).

Pagination

Add pagination date to pages.

Reported text errors

There are some 20 reported errors which need to be fixed.

Text markup corrections

We know from previous runs of the pagination process that there are a number of errors in the markup of the input data. These will be highlighted by the pagination process and should be corrected.

Missing study guides

The study guides need to be checked against the list that David Pinching has and the missing ones need to be re-instated.

Study guides as word documents

James Wise has Word versions of all the study guides, these should be made available.

Javadoc

The Bibliomania system code contains no comments! This makes the learning curve for new maintainers nigh-on vertical. Comments should be added to the code wherever possible, at the least package descriptions and overviews are needed.

Operations documentation

The installation, pagination, mail handling and logging procedures must be documented.

Project sites

The whole system will be documented using the Maven project documentation and comprehension tool; which produced this document.

The PanEris building blocks of Bibliomania: Melati, Boards and Shopping, will also be documented using the same technology.