[Katrina-IT-Volunteers] Friday night notes

[Chip Rosenthal]

My additional thoughts from Friday night ...

* The "info not written down" problem truly is a significant one.  I
  think the printed-up slips will be helpful.  If nothing else, they
  reinforce to the recipient that this is important information, and
  not just scrawlings on a scrap of paper.  I'd urge everybody to take
  an extra 30 seconds to ensure the information is captured correctly,
  and then emphasize to the recipient its value and importance.

* I'm seeing a significant shift away from people searches towards FEMA
  applications.

* The FEMA web site is highly unreliable.  I've had a 90% success rate
  registering for the FEMA ID numbers, but only a 10% success rate
  registering for ISAAC (or whatever they call them) PINs.  It isn't
  just one problem; I've seen numerous failure modes.  When failure
  occurs, I've been advising folks to try again a little later.

  See the FAQ and other messages posted earlier with good information
  on the FEMA reg. process.

  (There is a lot of superstition floating around regarding the FEMA
  failures.  One person suggested it was caused by scripting permissions
  in our setups.  Others have suspected cache or cookies.  I spent some
  time researching yesterday.  All data I have indicate our setup is fine,
  the problem resides in their servers.)

* YAHOO SUCKS!!!!  Yahoo has been giving frequent "error 999" failures.  I
  think they block our net when they see too much traffic originating
  from it.  I'd strongly urge folks to consider Hotmail instead.

-- 
Chip Rosenthal * chip at unicom.com * http://www.unicom.com/
W00t!  I have a weblog! * http://www.unicom.com/chrome/