MotorsportReg.com Blog | Brian Ghidinelli (12)

Brian Ghidinelli

Getting around Websense and other web filters

June 11, 2013 by Brian Ghidinelli

Occasionally we hear from a customer whose members are having a hard time reaching MotorsportReg.com due to corporate web filters. Often the culprit is Websense which blocks things based on categories.

In the past year, we've been listed as Information Technology, Blog, Games, Automotive and who knows what else. We don't really fit well into any of those categories since we're by and large a transactional site much like Ticketmaster.com.

The good news is there is a way to get around this and it's dead simple: SSL. If you access the secure version of our website at https://www.MotorsportReg.com/. Just include the S in the address like httpS:// and you'll fly right by the filter! Game on...

Topics: FAQ

Follow us on Twitter

June 11, 2013 by Brian Ghidinelli

Don't know what Twitter is? Your kids probably do. It's basically text messaging for the web. Or blogging in 140-character increments. Why do you care? Because in the event that MotorsportReg.com is unavailable, it's the way that you'll be able to stay in the know.

We believe in Reliability, with a capital R. That means that we worry about service outages before they happen. If we were to experience downtime on MotorsportReg.com that prevented the site from responding, you should still be able to come here, to pukkasoft.com, and see what's going on. But let's pretend that it's not just MotorsportReg.com that's down, but California finally broke off and floated away into the Pacific and the extension cords weren't long enough. Then what?

The answer is our Twitter feed. Since Twitter is an altogether separate service run by separate people on separate servers in separate networks (one in California and one in Virginia), the odds of us both being down at the same time is highly unlikely. Like asteroid-crashing-into-the-Earth unlikely.

We're also posting our upcoming outage notifications to Twitter. When we release new versions of MotorsportReg.com with enhancements, we typically take about 2-3 minutes to clear caches and reload the application. We already post these notifications to the site itself but if you're "following" us on Twitter, you'll receive 15-30 minutes advance warning before it happens. This will be especially handy for event organizers who frequently access the site.

We never promise to be perfect but we do promise to work as hard as we can to be reasonably close and always honest. This third backup mechanism is one more way of being as transparent as possible.

June 11, 2013 by Brian Ghidinelli

I spent last weekend with the wonderful folks in the Southeast Division of the SCCA at their annual convention and awards banquet in Jekyll Island, Georgia. We've been having a fairly cold winter in California and I was looking forward to a few days of warmth but as luck would have it, Florida and southern Georgia were experiencing record lows.

With the recent Atlanta Region upgrade from a competitor to MotorsportReg.com, I was on hand to evangelize the benefits of our service to the rest of the regions of the SEDiv. I had a thoroughly great time, both during the day with folks like NA of Registration Wanda Cecil and DA of Registration Betsy Speed, as well as at the banquet sitting with Atlanta chief staff Tere Pulliam and Butch Kummer as well as Howard Duncan from SCCA National and Glen Thompson, the RE for Blue Ridge Region. They are an entertaining bunch which came in handy since the banquet ran five hours long!

It was great to put a face to many of the people we've spoken to over the past couple of years and I punctuated the weekend with South Carolina Region signing on to convert their solo, time trials and club racing programs to MotorsportReg.com. Do-everything-for-everyone Regional Executive Nick Hallman finally relented and let us give him a hand! :) We'll be carrying some of the load starting with permanent number and season subscription registration for his solo program starting next week which we're excited about.

Lots of more new customer news to come!

June 11, 2013 by Brian Ghidinelli

When I started Pukka Software in 2002, the MotorsportReg.com service as it exists today was available at pukkasoft.com. It wasn't the most intuitive nor multi-purpose domain in the world so I registered MotorsportReg.com in early 2004 and we've been there ever since. My business partner from my former design and technology consultancy whipped up a quick and simple type face for MSR that served as our logo for the last four years on the website, t-shirts and print materials.

We wanted a little more "character" for our logo and received a wide variety of ideas from a design shop. Ultimately, we came up with something we thought provided continuity but gave us a few more options depending on the target medium, size and color depth.

An update of our previous logo with a little more character

We also scored a shiny new favicon graphic that shows up in the address bar while browsing MotorsportReg.com - a little red M to complement the new logo.

I am especially thankful for the great input we received from our customers when we posted in-progress versions to our organizer forums. That thread was one of the longest we've ever had! :) I think the results speak for themselves and we've received a lot of positive feedback. It feels good to step into 2009 with a fresh look!

June 11, 2013 by Brian Ghidinelli

If you're planning to attend the 2009 SCCA National Convention in Las Vegas, I can pass along a incredible hotel deal we scored today.

The convention rate, using code "SCCA09", is $70 for Wednesday/Thursday and $120 for Friday/Saturday for an average rate of $95/night and a total of $380 plus about $40 in taxes. This deal, from Booking.com, costs just $304 plus the same $40 in taxes. That's $76 off! I've heard that times are tough in Vegas right now so I'm not surprised to find a lower rate turn up.

You can buy us a cocktail to say thanks... see you in Vegas!

Topics: Misc

Next generation form builder on its way

June 11, 2013 by Brian Ghidinelli

On the drawing board for six months and in development for three, the next generation of our drag-and-drop registration form builder is about to go live this next week:

Because we eat our own dog food, we found numerous places to improve the editing process and create accelerators for tedious tasks. The first iteration of our form builder brought a whole new level of flexibility and control - letting organizers put anything anywhere with drag-and-drop, create dependencies and complex validation rules. Combined with new capabilities like order form branching, all of that is wrapped into a slick user interface that works on Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Chrome and Opera on all major platforms. And just for fun, we made it about 3x faster too!

Looking back at my development notes, it's inspiring to see the progression of a user-centered design process like we use here. It starts with rough sketches on scrap paper, to pen-and-ruler designs on grid paper, to a short specifications document and feature description to early betas and finally the finished product. At each step along the way we incorporate user review, feedback and usability studies to determine how effective each change is going to be.

Stay tuned, we'll be posting a short screencast to demonstrate some of the new features that make us giggle like schoolgirls.

Topics: Features

Team Bimmerworld Results

June 11, 2013 by Brian Ghidinelli

We finished!

Last weekend, I was part of Team Bimmerworld entering a 1990 BMW M3 in NASA's 25 Hours of Thunderhill enduro. Drivers were car owner Lance Boicelli, Scott Smith, SPEED World Challenge pilot James Clay and myself.

While many of the people involved in this team have either crewed or driven in the 25 hour race previously, this was the first entry for this car and this team. And for a first-time team with zero pre-race practice, Team Bimmerworld did great. Friday morning started out tough when Lance's fresh 4-cylinder S14 engine measured 20HP too high on the dyno for our GTS class. Lance swapped back to stock cams but 1pm Friday the car registered only 149HP. Target was 185HP. Yikes. So, one final intake cam swap and Saturday morning, one hour before we had to be on the grid, we came up with 183HP. Close enough!

Lance started the race and having qualified on low power, started making his way through the field. He was dive bombed and hit hard on the left B-pillar but the car was still straight and running quickly. We qualified 39th and bounced between 26th and 34th in the opening hours as we cycled through pit stops every hour on the stock gas tank. For the first time ever, the race was red flagged around 8pm due to incredibly thick fog. I knew it was bad when I came over turn 5 and I could no longer see the stadium lights across the infield I was using as a reference! I think we were listed at 20th at that point when the field parked their cars on the front straight and the track stayed closed until 5am the next morning when I finished my double stint with a fast lap of 2:02.2.

We ran until 10am Saturday with an increasingly bad left pull under braking. As we approached left hand corners and hit the brakes we had to use about 2 o'clock right-hand input to keep the car straight. As we transitioned off the brakes the car would jerk left at the same time we needed to start adding left-hand input to make the corner! It was challenging to say the least and turns out that loose rear toe adjusters were resulting in dynamic toe under squat (skillfully assessed by James Clay during his stint). There are some benefits to having a professional on your team and beyond James' calm attitude and obvious driving talent, his suggestion led to a quick fix at the next stop.

Finishing is as good as winning in a team's first 25 hour enduro

Finishing is as good as winning in a team's first 25 hour enduro

Then things got even trickier. The transmission started to tighten up during Scott's morning stint so he was running only in 4th gear but still making passes and running 2:06s. We had glancing contact with a Corvette that resulted in a bent right rear trailing arm and broken CV joint. I have seen it in the Spec Miata paddock before (more than once...) but when mechanic Nate Walton suggested we use two trucks to tweak the car back into shape, there were a lot of wide-eyed people in our pits. But it worked! While not ideal, I jumped in with 1" of toe out in the right rear and we were back on track. It was terrifying at turn-in, especially at high-speed corners T1 and T8 but kind of fun drifting the car around. Lance took the final shift and brought his baby home to the checkered flag.

Ultimately in our class, E1, we were racing against two MX-5 Cup Pro Racing teams (our local HooverSpeed and Team MER fielding a total of 6 cars) who were better prepared, had top drivers with tons of Miata seat time and ran Hoosiers. Even without our mechanicals, our RA1s simply weren't going to match their pace.

At the end of the day though, what I like about endurance racing is the team and strategic component that you don't have in sprint racing. We finished the race, with an S14 no less, and had fun doing it. Thanks to everyone who showed up and hung out all weekend keeping us fed, rested, hydrated and entertained before, during and after our drives, particularly Tom Bell with his warm RV and great cooking and crew chief Peter Guagenti for keeping us organized and on cue.

Until next year...

Topics: Misc

MotorsportReg.com enters 25 Hours of Thunderhill

June 11, 2013 by Brian Ghidinelli

It's been something I've wanted to do since I co-drove in a three-hour enduro at Buttonwillow Raceway in 2003. Finally this year, I'll be co-driving this 1990 BMW M3 in the E0 class at the NASA 25 Hours of Thunderhill December 3-5th in Willows, CA. This is the longest road race in North America.

In 2005, I crewed for a Subaru WRX team that took 3rd place overall and the memory of a day-long race is unforgettable.

The camaraderie, the exhaustion and the minute-by-minute emotional roller-coaster as the race unfolds create an incredible experience. 25 hours of green-flag racing translates into more like 36 hours of being on-call for pit stops, driver changes, gopher-ing and the occasional meal or moment of shut-eye. Just finishing the race is an accomplishment and it requires intense preparation and a great crew.

To make sure the pilots are well-rested, duties will be split among the four-driver team:

Lance Boicelli (Car owner, BMW CCA)

James Clay (BimmerWorld owner, BMW CCA, SPEED World Challenge)

Brian Ghidinelli (MotorsportReg.com founder, BMW CCA, SCCA)

Scott Smith (BMW CCA, Grand-Am and Targa Newfoundland)

My first wheel turned in anger in a race was behind the wheel of this E30 M3 prepared to a similar level. It's a fun car to drive with good balance and handling characteristics. The trick will be getting its highly-strung de-tuned 1980s Formula 1 technology to last for an entire season of racing in one day but Lance is going to great lengths to make the car ready.

After sitting out Spec Miata for a season and trying shifter karts, I'm excited to get back in the cockpit of a touring car. I'll be sure to follow-up with a post-race rundown on our effort but in the mean time, wish us luck!

May 13, 2014 by Brian Ghidinelli

In the hosting industry, the slang for reliability is the number of "nines" you run. Most web hosting companies claim something like "five nines", which equates to 3 minutes and 48 seconds of downtime per year. Companies like Rackspace will sell you a zero-downtime network which sounds great but your only recourse for the eventual outage (oh, and there will be one or two) is a few pennies of your hosting dollars. Most serious services aim, realistically, for four nines or 99.99% uptime.

At Pukka Software, we take the reliability of MotorsportReg.com seriously. The problem is every company says they care about reliability but few share their numbers. Until today! Using data provided by impartial, third-party monitoring services, these charts compare the last 90 days between us and three services whom our customers previously used before switching to MotorsportReg.com.

For the purpose of this discussion, we care only about service availability. That is, if I type in the address into my web browser, does the website answer? It's quite possible for the system to be "up" but the network or some other resource to be "down". We care only if the website responds.

This first chart shows uptime expressed as a percentage. Most people look at a chart like this and say: "Woopity doo! Even the least reliable service, DLBRacing.com, is running 98.9215% of the time! That's pretty good!"

That is true. Maybe. How frequent are the outages? How long is the duration? Imagine a website that is regularly down for short periods of time. These flaky websites are typically caught out by unexpected, non-catastrophic issues. Now consider a website that suffers a 6, 12 or 24-hour outage. These kinds of massive outages are almost always the result of poor strategy and contingency planning. In the end, neither type is particularly appealing as a user.

So what is the practical difference between our 99.9288% and that of our competitors? This second chart switches from percentage to absolute number of minutes offline in the past 90 days. ClubRegistration.net and DLBRacing.com have more than 1,300 minutes each of downtime in the past 90 days. Even MyAutoEvents.com, who has made improvements in their reliability in past months, was unavailable three times as often compared to MotorsportReg.com.

"To provide 99.9% or better uptime, you'll need to house your equipment in an environmentally controlled space with guaranteed 100% power availability. In most cases this will be accomplished by purchasing colocation space in a top-tier data center... You will need redundant equipment for all of your key systems... Three nines of reliability is very achievable, but it takes considerable expense and requires a fair degree of competency in your staff." --Processor.com

The rule of thumb with "nines" of availability is that each additional nine costs an order of magnitude more money. In my experience this is true. We know where these operations host their websites and there is a direct correlation between the amount invested and the results in these charts. With our internal target of "four nines" at 99.99%, or 60 minutes of downtime per year, these past three months were regrettably a ding against our record as our historical reliability is a very respectable 99.963%. This includes our physical colocation move last year which resulted in a planned, early-morning outage to migrate our hardware into a private, locking cabinet for better customer data security and compliance with PCI DSS.

At 99.963%, MotorsportReg.com is unavailable for just three hours per year. No other competing service provider has a historical uptime even in the "triple nines" at 99.9%. It's not as good as the four nines we're striving for but we are building on a solid track record in its pursuit.

June 11, 2013 by Brian Ghidinelli

Starting sometime last week, certain Verizon customers (primarily FIOS and a few DSL) have been unable to connect to MotorsportReg.com. We are aware of the issue and are seeking a solution. The problem is the Verizon network which can be proven by connecting to other websites sitting in our network and colocation facility (such as pukkasoft.com, which you are reading now).

We do have at least one Verizon FIOS customer who is able to connect to MotorsportReg.com and in all cases we have been able to troubleshoot and confirm it is Verizon's issue. If you are affected by this, please contact us at 415.462.5603 and we will provide a private debugging method for your Verizon customer service representative to prove they have an issue. We are working simultaneously to get it resolved with their network operation center but since we are not customers we are having a hard time getting any action taken and the more customer complaints, the more seriously they will investigate it.

In the mean time, if you have alternate Internet access such as work or home or via your mobile phone's data plan, you will find that MotorsportReg.com is up and running 24/7 like always. Our apologies for the inconvenience - we'll update here when we have news to report...

Update 10/27 at 8:50am: Verizon has asked any customer experiencing this problem to fill out their whitelist request form. Although it says email, it will also impact web access. It may take up to 24 hours for this to take effect. If, after 24 hours, you still can't reach MotorsportReg.com then you will need to call technical support and tell them:

Can't reach a single, specific site, MotorsportReg.com

Already tried the verizon.net/whitelist request

It is only port 80 that does not work; you have confirmed the site is active by accessing it on an alternate port (contact us at 415.462.5603 for details)

Update 10/29 at 8:42am: We have one customer confirming that the whitelist request did resolve her issues. Verizon is apparently making the needed modification to their network to restore access for impacted customers. Please use the link above if you experience difficulty - but also drop us a note so we can stay on top of it.

Topics: Misc

Organize awesome events.Our all-in-one event management software keeps organizers sane & attendees happy.

Brian Ghidinelli

Recent Posts

Getting around Websense and other web filters

Follow us on Twitter

SCCA Southeast Division Convention and Awards Banquet

Our new logo!

SCCA Convention Hotel Deal

Next generation form builder on its way

Team Bimmerworld Results

MotorsportReg.com enters 25 Hours of Thunderhill

MotorsportReg.com Measured #1 Most Reliable

Verizon customer connectivity issues

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