ChristianK

Yet another year is drawing to a close…

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Dear members of the OpenAndroMaps community,

another year is drawing to a close, already the sixth year for OAM.

Time to say “thanks” to all the people contibuting new, better Data for OAM like
@Sonny constantly integrates new LIDAR (LaserScan) elevation data, wherever available for free, into the existing viewfinder/nasa dataset – resulting in the most reliable contourlines available on free maps.
@MaxBe who found a way to sort mountain peaks by “importance” so we could render the important ones in lower zoom-levels – an improvement that is included in the december map update.

I also like to thank all users who made the effort to register in our forum and give hints, suggestions and error reports. This is very important for us as we can be routine-blinded or just lack the time to test every map update for errors. Although our standard is and can only be absolutely professional, we do all this in our rare spare time and with only a tiny budget.

Our goal is to sustain and enhance this project and ask you kindly to further support us.

The OAM team wishes you all a merry christmas!

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ChristianK

Was have happened at OAM till Nov 2017?

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Yes, I know..

Kommunikation from my side to the OpenAndroMaps community could – and should – be better (by far) ;-)

A lot of improvements happened during 2017  – OAM is’nt on idle at all, we are working hard to improve, add new Features, include external Data, aso..

Here a small overview about improvements so far in 2017:

Maps:

  • Abbreviations for Street / Place names in many languages for more reliable rendering (eg Street / Strasse > St.)
  • Better rendering of cycletracks and lanes along roads
  • Put_in / regress / portage_ways for paddlers included in map_data
  • @Sonny constantly integrates new LIDAR (LaserScan) elevation data, wherever available for free, into the existing viewfinder/nasa dataset – resulting in the most reliable contourlines available on free maps.
  • @Tobias constantly improves the Elevate / Elements rendertheme.
  • Constant evolution of the multilanguage maps > now (eg) PidginChines works reliable
  • Better redering of access rights and road surfaces
  • Difficult scale (sac_scale) for mountain paths without restrictions
  • Names for Islands / Archipelagos now render much better and at lower zoom levels – appearence is driven by calculated size of area covered
  • @Michael works for a better set of GeneralMaps
  • …

Website:

  • Server moved to new, more reliable provider with up to date infrastructure
  • Protokoll moved to HTTPS
  • New version of WordPress theme with much better apperance and faster rendering on mobile devices
  • aso..

 

However the best of all is about to come.
December update will bring a real great improvement for hikers and alpinists.

 

Best regards
Team of OAM

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ChristianK

[done] OpenAndroMaps website switches to HTTPS/SSL this week

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The OpenAndroMaps website will switch to secure transfer protocoll  according HTTPS / SSL this week.

This step is required by the Google guidlines to provide the HTTPS / SSL for all sites that require user inputs such as comments, user accounts, or forums.
This is an important step ahead in data security, which has been supported on the side of OpenAndroMaps since long by flanking, server-side actions like Intruderdedection, protection against BruteForce attacks and integration into various blacklists.

 

UPDATE 2017-08-22 18:00h MEZ: Done, the Website is running on fine on SSL, no mixed contend any more – we have a green lock-symbol on all pages. I  have tested all functions and have’nt found any bug. However, if you experience problems please post here as comment or in the forum.

Best regards, Christian

/2 Comments/by
ChristianK

Please empty your browser cache – bug in site-menu

The latest update of the wordpress theme I use here on OAM was somewhat buggy.

This means that some pagelinks under the main menu items does’nt show up on smartphones and tablets – eg. the Renderthemes under “MapStyles”. I made a workaround for this problem till the author of the theme provides a fix.
However, you have to empty the page-cache of your browsers to ensure that this fix will work.

So, please empty your browser cache:

https://www.google.at/search?q=empty+browser+cache

Sorry,
Christian

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ChristianK

OAM – Website has moved to new Server

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The planed “maintenance” of the OpenAndroMaps website ended up in renting a new, performant server with the latest operating system in a fast network …..

Furthermore, several overweight plugins were exchanged against lightweight ones from GitHub and everything was adapted to run under PHP7 – this should be fine for the next months.

The advantage for you: fast response times (around the 400ms load time) after I have spent a full weekend with the memcached server  :-).
The page rendering times on Android is not so nice, unfortunately this is a common problem on these devices.

SPAM: I’v installed a new Spam-Protection. Please dont use disposal EMail addresses, this will not work.

Now we can concentrate on the real thing: Making maps, pois, themes, docs.
Maybe some of you have already seen that multilingual maps now available for download – we will present these maps in brief later on.

See you
Christian

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ChristianK

Website Maintenance from 1st of Mai on

Major maintenance works have to be done on OpenAndroMaps.org

Usually this is no big deal – you are right ;-)

However, OpenAndroMaps is a multilingual website an some plugins (like the Forum!) are not made for multilingual use and even WPML doesn’t support BBPress at all. So these plugins have to be customized again once an update is inevitable.

Another critical factor is the spam and splogger protection of the forum. The plugin I used so far was Wangguard – this service has finally stopped its service without prior notice. So an other spamprotection have to take place and this have to be testet in brief cause this usually will effect user registration of the (customized) BBPress forum plugin.

I will try to make these maintenance as painless as ever possible for you and will perform all tasks on a test environment first.

However, maybe there will be a few issues left.
I would kindly ask you that, if you come across any issue, report it here as comment or in the forum – thanks

Maintenance works will start on 1st of Mai 2017

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ChristianK

[resolved] Actually there are old Versions of the maps on the Server

Actually there is a problem with the versioning of the maps on the Downloadservers.
The older Maps are mirrored to the live-server instead of mirroring the maps from the live server to the backup server.

In Short: Don’t download Maps if you already have a version later than July on your mobile.

This problem should be resolved till mid of next week – unfortunately I cant resolve this by myself, the server admin of the downloadserver have to do this.

Sorry

Christian

/8 Comments/by
ChristianK

Windows/MSIE/Edge Smartscreen blocks downloads

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The Smartscreen filter of MS Internetexplorer/Edge reports OpenAndroMaps website as “unsafe”.
If you have doubts about the integrity of OpenAndroMaps please perform a check on a meta-virusengine like Virustotal or a similar service. These services checks a website against the databases of numerous virustools of high reputation like Bitdefender, Kaspersky, Avast, etc..

https://www.virustotal.com/en/

In case of OpenAndroMaps the result ist : Clean Site

If you have already installed a solid virustool on your machine or mobile device there is no need for MS Smartfilter cause most of these tools are scanning the traffic of many webbrowsers (not only MSIE/Edge) and check downloaded fieles too.

There is a document on the MS support site that teaches how to report a false positive to Microsoft or how to disable the Smartscreen filter (in case that you already installed a virustool):

https://support.microsoft.com/

Best regards
Christian

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ChristianK

[resolved, maybe…] Forum registration for new users temporary suspended

Currently its not possible to registrate as a new user on OpenAndroMaps forums.

The WangGuard antisplogger service has been terminated (6 donation in 6 Years) and without this service a BBPress forum will be flooded by spam till it breaks.

I’m currently looking for a reliable replacement or a reliable way to handle new registrations.

Sorry,
Christian

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ChristianK

[resolved] June update delayed – lightning hit

Yesterday evening a lightning hit close to our house and there was a nice fire out of the router.
A replacement router is ordered and will – hopefully – arrive end of this week.

If setup works straight and no further equipment is destroyed (NAS, aso..) the update of the European/Germany maps will be available mid of June.

Sorry
Christian

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