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Prior to achieving my dream job of being a technical writer, I held a lot of technical positions. If you go to my website, you’ll see resumes for a few of them. Tech support. Technical Business Analyst. Database Administrator. Network Analyst. Programmer.
You might wonder why I am bringing this up right now…
Well, aside from the fact that it brings a certain amount of ‘street cred’ to the points I make in my blog. It also demonstrates that I am no slouch when it comes to implementing technology in my personal life.
As my previous posts have documented, I run a network and a mini-server farm in my home for fun and providing internet services to my friends and family. Aside from that, I am as previously stated – a geek. We have a roleplaying game group that runs every Monday evening.
One of our DMs, after I set up a group library of gaming books that they can access on their smart phones, challenged me to set up a chat site for the group. Well, he was teasing… sort of. He knew I would take the challenge.
Considering I ran a BBS (bulletin board system) twenty years ago; before the Internet was a thing; that you had to login with a modem connection that didn’t seem unreasonable. I could see the use for our group. Of course, I could have taken the easy method and set up on something someone else was managing.
Yeah, no… Remember the server farm?
I bet you’re wondering when I’m going to get to the point. Here we go…
I know there are tonnes of great open source software out there to do what I wanted to do. So first I set up Docker on my Windows 10 Pro box that I use as a media server. Then I start configuring Rocket.Chat as a community chat space. I am not getting their help to roll this out, I am following their instructions here.
The first time through, I tried to take short cuts. Failed to roll it out. So I assumed that it was the short cuts. So now I wipe it away like lint – I love that about Docker and try it again, following their instructions to the best of my ability. Almost instantly I run into issues. Again, look at my list of prior positions. I am not non-technical.
I reach out to the Rocket.Chat community. No one responds.
I turn my skills to try to figure out what I am missing. A week after working on this, I hit the wall and start looking at the less coolly named chat systems. I consider setting something up that won’t be on my own hardware but that seems outside of what I want.
Then I look at Mattermost. After reading the documentation. It reads as deceptively easy. Still, I think, it’s worth a try. The set up goes through without any issues, unlike Rocket.Chat. It is up internally without much effort, but I need it to be accessable externally. Here the issues I have are all on me but one person on Boxing Day, gives me the answer and my Mattermost server goes up without a hitch.
Now this isn’t to say it’s perfect, it’s not. But the issues aren’t insurmountable. They are largely around the Desktop and Mobile app and as long as you don’t have issues using the browser app – it’s fine. Its also because it’s meant to be a secure app and I don’t have the certificates set up. (I’ll do that when I get another mini-server set up.)
So, here it is, a real life situation where good documentation matters. I really wish I had been able to set up Rocket.Chat because it sounds cool but unlike Cyberpunk – substance is more important than style. So Mattermost is the clear winner.
Tammy J. Morrison - Writer & IT Guru 