New Rip and Run Development Testing

  Friday, May 22nd 2009

As always, there is plenty of Rip and Run testing going on "behind the scenes" that members don't necessarily see - which is the norm in software development. People use the "end product", i.e. the actual software package to perform some type of job, but the end product doesn't necessarily show all the effort that went into creating it.

For example, every fire call that Maple Avenue gets dispatched to (for the most part), my rip and run server gets a fax. This fax is just another "test case" that is used to validate the logic in my programming code, and testing its robustness and longevity. To date, I have not had any of my code crash - so it is proving to be pretty robust. Additionally, each fax is sent through a myriad of tests and analysis after the call as part of the development process. So even though there may not be active conversation or posts on my blog regarding my rip and run initiative, it does not mean that there isn't anything going on - you just can't see it.

On average, I would say I spend probably 20+ hours a week on "rip and run" related stuff.

I have released another software version to development testing on my test server at the Maple Avenue firehouse. The latest release has these features:

1. a variety of minor bug fixes in the OCR (optical character recognition) to increases the software's accuracy. I would approximate that we are now running around 99% accuracy for character recognition - this is a major accomplishment.
2. I spent some time and actually listed out and created "road files" for Greenfield Center, Porter Corners and Middle Grove hamlets. These files are used to, for lack of a better way of explaining it, "confirm" the road address listed on a given fax. This helps to correct OCR errors or dispatcher spelling mistakes, and greatly increases the accuracy of the software.
3. fixed bug in OcrParser when a town is null (would crash via NPE). Now it will just remain null.
4. There are conditions sometimes where a dispatcher may omit the town in the rip and run fax. So my software must be able to "guess" (intelligently and accurately) which town the call (most likely) is in for mapping purposes. This functionality is now included.
5. added ability to determine TOC when time is specified *before* the TOC token. Also, added the ability to use the "TOA" (time of alarm) token to set the TOC (sometimes dispatchers use TOA rather than TOC). This is necessarily because there is an inherent latency between the time a dispatcher receives the call via 911, and when the fire company is actually dispatched (notified of the emergency).
6. Added ability to have a "default" address for FireTracker when one isn't available from the rip and run fax.
7. Finalized functionality to clear out all the temporary files generated from this service. This job can be scheduled at any given interval - this is very useful and necessary to clear out the large fax files (data size wise) that can accumlate on the server.
8. Modified address logic to take into consideration the situation where dispatcher selected the wrong road suffix - i.e. "Road" instead of "Lane".

I have another phone call scheduled with the county this Saturday to get an update on the software upgrade initiative. We spoke earlier this month, and apparently they ran into issues with their redundant SQL server. As always, I'll try and post updates once I hear them.

I have been asked often about when the other sister companies of the GFD (Greenfield Center, Porter Corners and Middle Grove) with my rip and run software and that depends on when the county can upgrade their software. The county has agreed to send rip and runs for these companies as well, its just a matter of completing this upgrade. Rest assured, this will happen eventually.

I also wanted to comment on "text messaging" capabilities. The capability does exist with my software to text message call information to firefighters - this was briefly tested and was very successful. I haven't yet launched this into full beta testing yet - because I have decided to roll in a different direction with this. There are some online services that will provide *free* text messaging capabilities - one such service is Twitter and I am now working on integrating my rip and run service with the Twitter service. More on this later...

Any questions, just let me know!

posted by spackmann in Rip and Run Development at 11:23 AM (476 day(s) old)  Permalink