You definitely need the dedicated server. At a presumably low traffic time (9PM MST) it took 14 seconds to generate the page. I can't donate today, but I will when Paypal stops being a little bitch. Within the week at least.

Anyways, this is great stuff. I'm only annoyed that my readers also seem to like PerfectLionheart, Genkaifan, Rocag and Bluminous8

Sigh.

-PinstripedPajamas

 

It doesn't require taste to see talent.

This whole list is going to get better, me-thinks, once I get up the 5-star ratings I'm working on as a way to weight results.

EDIT:

Also, thanks for the contribution if you're able. I've already asked my host to run some tests and evaluate what I should be looking at so far as dedicated hosting goes. I'm thinking that a very large memory pool is a must, so I've set the donation goal at $219 and put a realtime widget on the front page.

Although, I haven't tested how well the widget works. I'll have to wait until someone donates for that.

 

Oh well.

Really cool idea JordanL. I've already seen some new stuff that looks promising.

 

Well, dedicated hosting is on the way. Just shelled out a couple hundred dollars for the setup. Should be finished in about 24 hours, then give it another 24 hours to transfer all the data.

We'll see how this goes.

 

What's the specs and cost?

 

This is pretty neat, although I guess it speaks to myself as an author when 5 of my fics are paired up with fics I wouldn't rate about 3/5

 

Intel Xeon 3110 (Dual Core)
4 GB DDR2 Memory
2 X 250 GB Hard Drive
1,500 GB Bandwidth
Full On-Site Support

$219/month

Should be enough to keep the site alive for a while. Plus I'll be able to optimize MySQL quite a bit since I'll have root access to the server.

 

You'd probably be better off with something like: http://www.100tb.com/dedicated-hosting/ember-server-hosting.php

 

If the difference between those two specs was a big issue I'd be better off leasing a server, but I appreciate the suggestion.

I'm not really hurting for bandwidth, it's processing power, and the biggest part of that is optimizing the software. I have better control over the software with the package I ordered I believe, but even so, I don't think I could really use up such a server for several months.

Just to illustrate the issue being experienced now, my website is generating about 2,500 queries per hour. The SQL server I am currently connecting to experiences approximately 1,170,000 queries per hour, and over 90,000 connections per hour.

Needless to say, having a server with nothing else running on it will free up a LOT of server time for this site.

 

Well, I must say I was a little dubious before testing this. Then I put HPAC into it and the first 17 results were awesome stories. Including Wastelands, Denarian Trilogy, Stranger in an Unholy Land and Boy Who Lived.

So when I've wrestled my ego back into its cage (because it's probably just DLP members who have favourited the story), I'm going to go ahead and donate to this, and put a little link in my ff.net profile.

Good job.

Edit: Is this not being considered for implementation somehow into a DLP page? Even in an iframe or something? There was all this talk about expanding/improving the site, and a tool like this is so completely one of those things that ought to be considered, if Jordan were on board.

 

I meant the extra RAM, and options. To save money you could also look at somewhere like Nocster.net but if everything works and you have a good support from who you have at the moment and it's affordable for what you need, then no reason to move.

 

Thanks for the donations guys. My next bill comes at the end of December, so hopefully we'll have raised enough by then.

Grinning Lizard: I haven't received any contact about other sites being interested or asking about any kind of partnership. Frankly, I'm not sure about if the site could handle something like that until I move it to the new server. I'm still waiting on my host to finish setting up the server.

carl: Thanks for the input. I'll definitely keep all those in mind if I need to consider moving.

 

Thanks for the great tool JordanL, one suggestion from me: It would be really convenient to see which stories are 'Complete', maybe even color coded like those recently updated.
That way you could see on first glance which stories are either actively updated or already complete.

 

I'll definitely be looking into that. The problem is that I didn't scrape this info originally so it'll take about a week to get the whole database up to date with this info.

 

Jordan: You are one awesome dude. :awesome. I just felt like telling you that.

 

This is exactly the kind of thing I've wanted to make for a very long time, but lacked the time to actually pull off - as such, it's fantastic.

 

I can't donate financially, but I would like to offer my (self-taught) programming skills. PM me if you are interested.

Awesome tool, in any case. Hopefully FF.N don't pull a Nazi and try to sue you or some shit.

 

The server is currently being configured, and the site should be back live in about 5 minutes.

I'm running MySQL 5.1.X, or will be in a minute, but I won't get the big performance improvements until I upgrade to MySQL 5.5.7 which I'm wary to do at the moment. We'll see, but my host is being kind of troublesome when it comes to supporting newer versions of MySQL.

---------- Post automerged 12-01-2010 at 11:06 AM ---------- Previous post was 11-30-2010 at 08:57 PM ----------

Hey guys!

Lots of improvements happening. I've added a "5 most popular searches this week" to the right bar of the search forms. We've finished moving over to the brand new server, and I've begun heavy tweaking of my database to help improve performance gradually.

Also, thanks again for the donations that have come in. I'm continuing to try and improve the site.

 

What would everyone think if I added a link to download results as eBooks?

I've been looking into how difficult something like that would be, and it's certainly possible. (Also, I hope you've all experienced a better server experience... through query optimization and upgrades to the hardware and software I've got the average search down to less than 1 second.)

 

Story to multiple eBook formats would be welcome as an additional option.

Would it also be possible if you had an option of searching for fanfics through similar user favourites, where you'd get a list of FF.net member pages in order of how many stories they and I both listed as favourites? The advanced search is currently disabled, so I don't know if you've already implemented this or not.

Thanks for the work you've put into this.