erin's blog

New New Server

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The new, new server arrives tomorrow. Bob and I are going to spend tomorrow conditioning it to go in place as the main server and hope to have it in place by a week from Saturday, or maybe the Saturday after that.

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13,658=>100% growth in 108 days.

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The highest day ever in terms of visitor and the second highest in terms of pages at 43,739. (We had one freak day last February with just over 50,000 page downloads because of several site reapers running at once).

But 13,658 visitors is more than twice the number of visitors on October 31, 2008. A few days later FictionMania went down and BC began a runaway traffic inflation. So fast that Bob and I have spent a lot of the last three and a half months trying to keep the server from crashing on a nearly daily basis.

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Server Experiments

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Bob and I will be experimenting with a new server configuration (not with the current BC server) over the next few weeks. If things work out well, we expect to be able to increase BC speed and reliability to a noticeable degree. Wish us luck. :)

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FictionMirror Link

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Links to a site called FictionMirror have been placed here but I have suspended their publication because the identified "advanced search" on the page brings up instead a series of pop-under ads for sports sites. I consider this technique a form of spam by deception.

This link is discussed in the WikiPedia article on FictionMania where it is implied but not stated that the FM TaskForce has approved FictionMirror. I would appreciate communication from some person knowledgeable about this but I will not pursue the information.

Hugs,
Erin

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5,000,000th

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Sometime during the evening of January 31, 2009, TopShelf will register the five millionth visit in a period of three years, seven and one half months. Also, that day is likely to see BCTS to go over 1/3 million (333,333) visits for the month of January.

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Story Link Database?

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This comes from a suggestion on Crystal's Cyberboard about an indexable story link database. BC already allows for a link database but I can easily add a capacity for indexed and searchable specialized story links on BC. In fact, I just did. :) These story links would be for stories not stored on BC but on sites that allow such linkage and with author permissions for such linking.

But...

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TopShelf Move Complete!

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Bob and I are in the BC/SD chatroom. C'mon in! -- Erin

Click here to Chat

Update -- Things are looking good. Server load is nominal and the number of visitors is almost back to normal. :) We'll keep an eye on things and make sure it's all okay but when the DNS has finished propagating in 24 to 48 hours, all should be copacetic. Starting Monday, we have a few more changes to make, like bringing the old site back up as SecondShelf etc.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hugs,
Erin and Bob

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Guest Searches Off

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Once again, I've had to turn guest searches off here at TopShelf due to server load. At 2:36 pm PDT, we had a dozen or so guests doing searches simultaneously and this effectively slowed the server to a crawl that it took Bob and I twenty minutes to get in and correct.

Guest searches can be done at Second Shelf: http://bcts.stardustr.us/

Sorry. Maybe we'll have a new server by next month.

Hugs,
Erin

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Server Woes

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With FM down, traffic growth at BC has been penomenal, Bob and I have both spent 20 to 30 hours a week in November and December tweaking and tuning the server and software to keep the site up. Today, we're probably going to set another record for traffic, it looks like we will break 12,000 visitors and get close to 45,000 pages. This is still less than peak loads at Storysite and much less than at FM. BC's software is flexible but CPU and Disk Access intensive compared with FM and SS; we've got plenty of bandwidth but we're flogging the server eight-to-the-bar to keep up.

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It Snowed!

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While I was out early in the evening, it snowed where I live. Hardly enough to count most places, maybe four inches of wet but fluffy snow lying all over the deserty landscape.

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Search is Back

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Courtesy of some tweaks Bob made in the system, Search is back and better and faster than before. Let's hope it doesn't cause more troubles so it can stay here this time. Thanks, Bob.

Hugs,
Erin

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Blagojevich in the Server

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Neither Bob nor I have any idea why the server went down at the slowest time of the night but we didn't find out about it till we got up this morning. Took over half an hour to get the thing to reboot.

I've decided to blame Governor Blagojevich of Illinois for corrupting my server. He seems to be able to deal emotionally with things like that, nothing upsets him, apparently. With everything else he's accused of, I'm sure we can slip another crime onto the docket and no one will notice.

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ISP Problems

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My ISP, Time Warner, is having some problems maintaining service in this area. It's possibly related to either the fires or the recent rain or both. They say they should have it fixed tomorrow but they said that before, so who knows? As it is, I'm online for varying periods and then down for half an hour to an hour or three while they try some more bubblegum, clothespins and duct tape. They're actually pretty good at this so I figure I'll get a credit on my next bill and they will have it fixed by this weekend.

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Crimes Against the Website

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I just had to write a PM reply to an author who felt very confused. She posted a story that several commenters admitted was well-written but the very existence of the story was attacked by several prominent posters here -- attacked on moral grounds. The gist of the comments were that the story should not have been written since the actions depicted in the story were immoral.

What the Fuck, People????!
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