I recently implemented a couple new server side features to improve overall site page loading speeds. Give me your feedback and tell me if you have seen any improvements as of the time of this posting. THANKS! (Keep your fingers crossed as well )

The site is loading great at the moment. It loads like 2 seconds faster per page now. Thumbs up.

Hell yeah, loading much faster. Mind telling me "WHY" it is loading faster. Like what type of script were you changing? PHP? I'm learning some PHP, maybe if you told me some speed tricks before I got heavily involved in it I could get a heads up. Loads much better now, mind explaining?

Thanks bro...

Yup, loads beautifully...but I can't really tell since I don't pay much attention to how fast pages load (they all load pretty fast...)

I enabled gzip in apache (it essentially zips up the page before sending it to your browser and your browser unzips it to display automatically) to reduce page loads.

I also installed PHP-Accelerator, which is a PHP caching script to also help with page load times. I wish we could get a flood of over 1,000 people at one time to test it out...

Err that's not good...
Now I've gotta hit the links in the forum twice or more because it seems to cause a Fatal Error and something about memory allocation. Guess there are some bugs to work out!

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 8388608 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 235260 bytes) in /home/virtual/site1/fst/var/www/html/mainfile.php on line 28

OK, made an adjustment to the server setup. Seems to have corrected the problem. Keep the feedback coming. Let me know if you experience any more strange errors and e me know if things seem quicker for you. They seem quite a bit better on my end.

For me, it still seems the same speed... I can still watch the computer blocks ad cycle through once before the page loads, but then again its my computer and not my connection... I think the intel anypoint 2 doesn't help me any, but my cable modem is fine (800d/200u)

I have to say I am VERY frustrated and irate right now. For the past 3 or 4 months or more, this site has been up and down more than a cheap hoe on a pogo-stick. Sadly, I think it's been down more than up.

There is a limit to the excuses as to "why". After much loyalty and waiting and putting up with the problems, the average user just doesn't CARE. We expect a reliable site just like any OTHER site we have bookmarked. We all contribute in our way. We require a site that contributes BACK.

I realize that PR's popularity has increased enormously over the past 6 months, and that's great. But this site cannot continue to be maintained with a "small-market" mind-set! I cannot stress that enough; Microsoft is not run merely by Bill Gates; he hires geniuses and assistants to do most of his work. M$ is a TEAM. The same goes for ANY business that grows and grows. No longer can the business owner "do it all".

If I get a magazine subscription, I expect to receive my magazine each and every installment. When I go to the newsstand, I expect my daily paper to be there, every single day.

GK, you've done a lot of things to take this site to the next level; the graphics are great, the updates all work great (when they work, after several days (weeks in total, actually) down-time. But you can't do this all by yourself. Gone are the days when one person could manage this thing by him or herself! To continue managing the site with this attitude will result in the site not being able to keep up with the demand.

What happens when this happens, in the hardware world? When 3dfx misses product cycles? When AMD paper-launches a new processor, but it's not REALLY available to those who want it? Or when NVidia can't produce enough chips to satisfy their market demand? It significantly hurts your business!

People look elsewhere for competitive products. People give up waiting, because by the time what they're waiting for is finally available--chances are it's not competitive anymore. People who feel like they've always been loyal to this or that brand, suddenly start to feel like that particular brand has stopped being loyal to their CUSTOMERS.

I am afraid to announce that I am on the verge of leaving pcapex.com, because I have gotten too used to website behavior that is just not acceptable. I've listened to all the excuses. I've waited and hoped for the better. I've been more than patient, only now (after all the down-time over the past 3 or 4 months) did I FINALLY email GK with my views. I can put up with a lot of crap, but at some point, you gotta ask yourself, "Is the situation likely to improve?" If the logical answer is "No" (as it MUST be, if this site is going to continue being run by one single person--regardless of his skill and vision--it will be swamped like a 20' yacht caught in a tidal wave.

Gary, I implore you to delegate some authority here and share your duties. I would volunteer my own, because I like this site that much. These down-times and service outages must be minimized or stopped completely, or many people will eventually tire of it (as have I), and will also consider leaving.

I hope you do what's best for this site and it's many members. I really hope you do; I would miss calling pimprig my home; but dammit, I expect my home to ALWAYS BE THERE FOR ME.

Respectfully,

Coelacanth

Your thoughts and feelings are well recieved. While reading the post you made, Coel, I truly felt bad... I know that these sporadic outages as well as a couple lengthy down-times recently are EXTREMELY irritating. But keep in mind that each time it happens, take your concern and magnify it at least ten fold and you will have begun to feel MY frustration.

Everytime the site flakes out and tell you why it's not an excuse. It's what has happened, period. I am honest with you guys about things I am trying to do and ALWAYS want feedback. i take your feedback VERY seriously. Way back in the day PR was hosted on a virtual hosting plan where we shared the server with a few other sites. Then suddenly the site exploded (much thanks to Wixx) and the server was no where near where it needed to be to host the site. Well, that particular host simply doesn't do dedicated hosting. The boom in traffic was unexpected... I hustled my ass and found a new provider in Dominet.net. Dedicated hosting that helped quite a bit... for a while. Dominet's service slowly deteriorated and caused many outages due to mismanagement on their part. They kept assuring me that things would be fixed, improved, etc. Plus, the deal they were offering me on hosting was AFFORDABLE. That is the key here for me and what separates us from companies such as MS. We are not a big business website. All we can do is slowly climb to get recognition and sponsors... but I digress... Outages... One day I get a call from the guy that runs Dominet and he suggests that I find a new host since he knows he is hurting my site. Another unexpected move to a new host. This time I stumbled on a FOR REAL good hositng service that was affordable. I actually had secured this (current) server the day after Dominet told me to move. The problem was that Dominet was uncooperative in providing the files I needed from the site. Namely the database. For close to a week I hounded the guys there. Finally, I got what I needed and the site was back... This brings new issues...

The server the site is on now is a dedicated server that is run solely by me... I don't mean just files on the site either. If I want a certain feature on the site or certain apache mod enabled and configured, guess who has to do it? Me... Before this server I had NEVER EVEN TOUCHED a linux box. Talk about a steep learning curve. Not only did I have to learn Linux but had to do it remotely.

The recent outages have been due to my inexperience and learning process. I have learned ALOT since then and the server is nearly where I want it to be and should be MUCh more stable nowadays. Things are still being tweaked.

Budget? Out of pocket is the best way to describe it. We are not a big business and I do delegate a good amoutn of work. The main areas I keep control of are site features and functionality.

I wish I had mroe time but I am about to head out... I will continue this in further detail tomorrow.

I do wish you had allowed me time to respond to your email before posting your views here. But hey, speech is free.

I will continue this later... g'night.

In the big picture, this isn't like a subscription where you'd ask for your money back if it wasn't delivering....it's just a frickin website!! And a website run by regular people who didn't make big business out of it, paying out of their own pocket to keep it alive and well along with the knowledge to code and maintain it. Sure, there was a bunch of downtime for extended periods of time, but that's one of those acceptable things when a site is just run by regular people who like something to the extent of creating a website. I'm glad to be here, even if the pages do take a while to load and there have been frequent downtimes.

It's just a freakin site!!
But I guess that's just me because I go through random sites like nothing...if it gets boring, I don't go back...or in some cases, hiatus.

But seriously...I can't seem to click on any links to most of the threads (I went through the forum's main page to get to this thread) because it keeps saying 'Fatal Error' and all this stuff about not being able to load which is getting downright annoying as I want to read threads in the first place...

Well, I reasearched the problem some more and apparently PHP has a small bug in it which is greatly exaggerated by php-accelerator. I have now enabled a fix for it. This is the last piece to the puzzle. Once php accelerator is stable... no more stupid downtimes.

I still get 5 sec delay from the page is 100% until it displays this is not good. Thats also why almost the only active threads that are active are the ones on the front page, I know Im not up for going thrue all the forums with the 5-8 sec load time.

Could you try (as a test) to not include the sponsor/price search/vote for us bars?


I know the feeling when "your" site is down so keep up the good work.

Could you get rid of or move the banner below the drop down menus for sight navigation. I'm not sure if anyone else is having the same problem as I am but for some reason with Netscape 6 and above the plugin isnt recognizing the banner and it blocks out some of the menu that drops down. It's prolly an issue on my side of the wall, or a Netscape 6 issue in general...

ya i had that same issue at work, with IE4.

GK, I wonder if you totally missed my point I was trying to make. I know how much work this is for you, and I respect that. I know that the little you get from sponsors and 'gifts' hardly compensates you for your own inputted time. My point is, why are you trying to undertake this project 100% by yourself?!

Is it a pride thing, or an ego thing, or a control/paranoia thing? Dude, please don't take this the wrong way--but you need help! You need to delegate authority and get volunteers you can trust to help you with the work, even if it's FTP access, one person to manage one section, one to manage uploaded material, one for the galleries, etc. If you feel that you can't trust anyone, then that's a shame. There's far too much going on here for just one person to handle everything. You do a minor tweak like adding a feature on the server, and (as most of us who've ever worked in IT know, ALWAYS expect something to go wrong) something breaks down.

That's not bad. What IS bad is always expecting everything to run smoothly. And, forgetting that it doesn't just affect the server admin, but everyone who expects their daily dose of Pimprig.com!

To Cyphre...I'm confused as to your comments. On one hand, you state "this is just a website", then a paragraph later, you agree with me on how frustrating it is! Make up your mind, man! And, I think most of us vets, including yourself, can agree on something...Pimprig ISN'T "just another website"! (If I were GK, I'd be pissed off and insulted by your comments!) It grows on you, it gets addictive...perhaps because of the closeness and honesty of the community. (Ask yourself this, Cyphre: How many OTHER sites/forums have you contributed over 528 posts to? Point made.) If HardOCP goes down, I hardly care. I log on the next day or two. But if Pimprig goes down, I really feel like there's a small void in my day! (Yes, I have a life, shaddup!)

GK, you need to be able to count on some people to help you. Identify a few people that you can trust, and give up some of your total control. You can then focus more of your time on JUST server admin duties, while letting others handle the less important matters.

You can't do this by your lonesome dove much longer.

I know how you feel glitter. I run my own website, and it's pretty much one of the hardest types of sites to run. I originally found a really wack host offering unlimited bandwidth. My site is so hard to run, because it originally transferred over 1200 gigabytes of data, a month. Because it's a tricks tutorials site. Download videos, learn how to do the moves. MPEG format, I didnt' compress or zip. 60 meg files for download, lowest were usually 10 at minimum. It is hugely popular, not quite up to pimprig's level yet, but I mind you it's only been up since May 22nd, and I'm a one man show. My partner is completely computer illiterate (spelling?) He's really really computer stupid. I do alllllllllllllllllllllllllll the work myself. I tell you I don't do much but the graphics, HTML, movies, uploading and stuff, because I yet to work with "TRUE" code. I'm now learning PHP, and maybe after I master that, or get somewhere with it some PERL. But I understand the server problems. In fact the hosting I had was only 20 bucks a year, for unlimited. They soon cut my site off without warning, wihtout informing me, I couldn't call them on the phone because they never answered, and they stopped answering my E-mail. It really pissed me off, and for 2 weeks my site was offline. It was hideous, and as Coelcanth says, it's like my home was gone. Whenever I get online my website is my home. I love it, and when it's suddenly gone, I feel alone and like I was robbed. I got a new hosting but with a price. I learned the size videos I uploaded were way too big. So now I zip them, and for now only offer the small 10 meg tutorial vids. The other vids that are more like mini movies, are not re-uploaded yet. I have to constantly make sure I don't go over my new 100 gig month quota. So I have to cut bandwidth literally to 1/12 it's original size. As for you Glitter, I think you should listen to Coel. You have something really special if you can construct a team. I am a lone man, and the people in my community are more or less not computer oriented. To all those people who think running a big website is like magic, think again. It can be hard as ****ing hell. It's really not funny when pages don't load, and I can empathsize with you glitter. I don't mind when pimprig is down, I dont' mind the errors. Cause I "KNOW" what it is like doing this ****. And this isn't a business Coel, just from my perspective. If you want it to be a business mass money must be involved. So I wouldn't compare this to microsoft etc. But I think you both have good points. And glitter I would take Coel seriously, it would be hella nice if I had a person to help me on my site. But I don't ^_^

Jujimufu

http://www.trickstutorials.com

The website still loads slowly for me.

I do feel withdrawel pains when the pimprig site is down. When that happens, after awhile of trying, I'll go to some other websites. I hope that I don't become so distracted elsewhere that I don't visit here regularly because I really look forward to the interactions of various personages on this website and in these forums. I feel I've learned more here than any other computer website. Also if I'm looking for something specific and it's not here in one form or another, there are always people's ideas and links I can go to to help me find the thing somewhere on the web.

I don't know whether the page loads slowly because of my really piss poor 21.6 kbps dial up connection, which is all we can get and hope for from the Qworst [Qwest] phone company lines in the good ol' Rex Allen Coyboy town of Willcox, Arizona, or if it's my computer stuffed so full of program after program after program or if I have viruses or what???

I agree with Coelacanth in many ways in that the website community here IS different than just ordinary, albeit LARGE content websites, and that GlitterKill, you ought to have some help.

I don't know how much longer they'll keep my ISP account open right now as the bills are out of hand and consider myself poor enough to "not have the money to rub two sticks together".

GlitterKill, you could have maybe some remote help from members in this community who have expertise to handle various sections so that you could take care of the more Server and Administrator type of functions.

I know how frustrating it is to maintain websites. I have several and feel bad when I don't update/maintain them regularly. If my homepage disappeared that would be bad, but I would find another free host somewheres as I have my stuff stored here with me, but it's not the same for a server situation. The materials, images, text, etc., are just too large to store where a person lives usually unless they have beaucoup (spelling?) bucks laying around.

I hope your fix stays in place and that you'll consider getting some more help.

I meant to say "Cowboy" @#$$% keyboard!