Site speed

[pd]

I've noticed that the site has been getting a bit slow lately; sometimes it takes a few seconds for the top page to come up. The software makes extensive use of a database engine and when there are a few things going on simultaneously it can slow things down. I'm actually on a shared server at the moment running inside a virtual machine. My hosting is up for renewal quite soon and my ISP has an upgrade path to a dedicated server so I will be looking at the pricing for that to decide if I can manage it. I'm also looking at whether I can do any optimisations to speed things up.

[Bob Jacobs]

All power to your elbow mate - not that elbow grease tends to help computers very much :-(

Bob

[pd]

I'm in the process of arranging a new server. It's costing quite a lot! I can offset some of it against my company of course, and also I have a couple of other sites on there for friends who'll chip in. However I am for the first time ever considering opening up a donations facility once the new server is up and running. Part of me hates to do this but it might help a bit (for info the new server is costing a grand a year; the old one was 300 a year). We'll see how it goes though.

P.

[Bob Jacobs]

I don't see that as a problem. I think you'll probably find a few stalwarts who will be prepared to stump something up, though of course there are also several cockers in straitened circumstances. They'll probably be the most generous, if human nature has anything to do with it.

[pd]

The new server is in the process of being set up. It should come online a bit later this week, and in the nick of time it seems since we've been having problems in the last few days with the machine running low on free memory.

[aspwatterson]

I've noticed that the site has been getting a bit slow lately; sometimes it takes a few seconds for the top page to come up. The software makes extensive use of a database engine and when there are a few things going on simultaneously it can slow things down. I'm actually on a shared server at the moment running inside a virtual machine. My hosting is up for renewal quite soon and my ISP has an upgrade path to a dedicated server so I will be looking at the pricing for that to decide if I can manage it. I'm also looking at whether I can do any optimisations to speed things up.

PD/

You could always include selected very specifically thematic advertisers to provide income but I suspect that would be against your ethos n'est pas? Even though they come up on your RSS feed and everyone needs money to survive and keep financing their business/hobby? I would not mind contributing once I've sorted out mum's probate etc...

Cheers,
keep up the good work {how many members have we got now? Coz that would be an important figure for any potential advertiser to know} What about offering an advert link to peoples/members My Space / websites etc. for a small automatic fee for every hit you pass on like an agio?

aw

aw

[pd]

I really hate sites that have adverts and I'll never do it. To be honest even the idea of a modest small "Donate" button is giving me the shivers.

The site has just about 200 signed up members so far, but also a large amount of people that check in to look around but never sign up ("lurkers"). I have not attempted to count those but at any particular time there are at least as many of those as there are registered members looking at the site.

Edit: The podcast has had over 300 listens so far (the "downloads" stat on the front page can be added to the "listens" one - the latter is people that played it through the web browser all the way through, and the downloads is the number of people that downloaded an MP3 file). I think that is remarkable. I was hoping for 50 or so!

[aspwatterson]

PD/

Yeah, I thought it would be an anathema to you, but it was worth a try...
living in your virtual unreality of the all surrounding material world / benign she-wolf spinning gently on...


aw