Getting to Know My Environment

October 15th is Blog Action Day, and the topic is The Environment. Now, I like a nice tree as much as the next fella, maybe even more. I once lived for 10 months in central Florida and what got to me wasn't the incessantly warm weather or lack of decent Chinese food within 100 miles of me. To my surprise, what I missed the most were the trees I used to see in New England. I remember the first time I saw a tree when I was 32 years old. Sure, I'd seen trees before, but I'd never really looked at what they were. I had been spending way too much time in front of the computer bringing my creative skills back up to par after a disheartening experience of being a manager. My friend Alen took me to the Winchester Reservoir, perhaps the first time I ever voluntarily went into the outdoors. I remember walking among tall pine trees on a fragrant (and i don't mean in a good way) bed of needles and moss, wondering what I had gotten myself into and hoping I didn't step in anything. Then we came into a small clearing and could see the lake for the first time. The sun was shining brightly, streamers of light slicing through the trees and scattering upon the shimmering surface of the water, deeply reflecting the blue of the sky and mirroring the puffy clouds floating lazily above it all. I was transfixed, and the first thought that burst upon my conscious was I need to buy a much bigger and brighter computer monitor. My second thought followed logically: There is no way that any computer in the world could match this. I have been wasting my time.

Since that day, I've decided that trees are really important to me, though I actually don't go out of my way to do anything about this. I just like to have them around me. I guess this is similar to people who prefer living in the city for the "people energy" that charges them. This doesn't necessarily mean they like to socialize with those people; it's just that the energy feels good to them, and motivates them on some primal subconscious level. And so it is with me and trees.

The rest of the time, I don't even think about them. I take those lovely trees for granted, probably because I spend most of my time living in my head and looking at people. I'm not a naturally outdoorsy person, so the environment isn't something that I think of as a destination or activity in itself; it's just the backdrop against which all the other interesting things happen. And there are so many interesting things (social and otherwise) going on that I forget about the trees, the wind, and stars, and the water. It is only the sun that I have a daily relationship with, because I like sitting outside Starbucks in the morning, catching whatever feeble rays manage to hustle their way into the New England sky, before we get our 5 month quota of snow, mud, and slush.

So the question is: should I care?

WHY CARE

The responsible person, conditioned by years of primary and secondary school education, of course cares about the environment. We're supposed to. We've heard a lot of reports about how nature is going to hell in a hand-basket due to our shortsighted abuse of resources, our wastefulness, and our callous disregard for ecological balance. I also am skeptical of activist-sourced claims because they are sometimes dramatically---how do I put this delicately---trumped up based on the artful manipulation of statistics and made to evoke a knee-jerk reaction in people. However, even in the case of tainted data analysis, it comes down to this: the environment is pretty darn cool, and we actually do have to live in it. More importantly with regards to me, I need to live in it. Even more specifically, I need to be aware of it. From a purely selfish reason, there may be secrets in the Environment that will help me in much the same way that hike through Winchester opened my eyes to just how much more glorious Nature could be, and how I could be bound with it.

LEARNING TO LISTEN

I recently started a daily gym habit, which I've adhered too for the past 3 and a half months. One of the things that I learned about the gym was that when you start, your mind and body lie to you. I would hop on a Stairmaster, and about a minute in my muscles start going, "hey, HEY. What are you doing? You should know that I am officially complaining about this additional work we were not planning on doing." My mind reacts, "Oh yeah, we should stop. Besides, you WANT to." If my trainer had not told me that I had to do a minimum of 30 minutes a day for the exercise to mean anything at all, I probably would have stopped. But I didn't, and I didn't die, and at the 2.5 minute mark my muscles are going, "Ok, ok. We get it, so I'm going along with the program. However, you should know that I'm officially burning and am going to make you feel it. Just so you know." and my mind again goes, "Hey, wow. The body is making noise, and we probably should stop." And again we go through that whole "at least 30 minutes" thing, and I push through to the 5- and 10-minute marks. I eventually figured out that by really listening to my body, I could have an actual conversation with it. At first, I didn't know how to interpret the sensations coming from my muscles as pain or discomfort. I also didn't know that my mind and body could be so easily convinced to keep going; the body is designed for this, and exercising that conversation between my mind, my body, and my will has become something I look forward to every morning.

It occurs to me that I could apply the same lesson to the environment, but what do I listen for?

I once worked on a couple of interactive kiosks for the Boston Museum of Science about "bird language" and walking through the woods. As a regular person walks through the woods, birds keeping watch are constantly sounding alarms and other THERE'S AN ENEMY HERE. The space immediately around the person, however, is silent; this is the so-called CONE OF SILENCE. An expert nature walker, however, knows how to move through the woods in a way that doesn't set off the birds. They meander. They move without rhythm. They can more truly experience the life of the forest, because they have learned how to become part of it.

I am unlikely to become part of the environment in this way, but perhaps there are small ways that I could learn to engage with it. How do I make nature relevant to myself in a daily manner?

• I could start by just looking at the trees a little more closely, and trying to understand why I like them so much. Thus, by forming a bond with the trees, I might be more inclined to be good to them.

• I could learn to feel a sense of ownership by thinking of the Environment as my neighborhood. This would be a stretch for me, I think.

• I could just start finding parts of the Environment that I really like. There are a few places that speak to me: kayaking on the reservoirs with ducks, seeing the sky open up wide as you drive into New Hampshire, and watching the trees change their colors over the seasons.

The above reasons feel a little weak to me, but it's what I can come up with right now. First, I need to just pay attention and maybe introduce myself. Hi, I'm Dave! I live a few doors down from you, have seen you every day when I go out for work, and have thought that you were really interesting and that I'd like to spend some more time getting to know you.

The New New 9rules: Ali 2 Launches

One of the best days of my life, though I didn't fully appreciate it until months later, was when this website was accepted into the 9rules Network. What was exciting to me then was that I had found an online oasis of people who believed in creating original quality content. What was even more remarkable was the member agreement, which basically said (paraphrasing wildly): You keep doing what you're doing, we'll do what we're doing, and with luck something good will happen for everyone involved. If it doesn't work out, no hard feelings. It was an agreement that was written by someone who knew how to negotiate the win-win scenario, by speaking plainly and putting intentions as simply as possible. And, it was the first time anything I had done personally was recognized for what it was: my attempt to create something original that spoke for me. Being accepted as part of the Network was an affirmation of my new creative direction.

In the two years since that day, the 9rules mission has changed...or more accurately, it has been clarified. In the beginning, the network was based around the loose idea that if you collect quality content all in one place, you create something special. No one knew exactly what that special something would be, which was readily admitted by the 9rules founders. This didn't prevent armchair analysts from trying to guess what the "end game" might be:

• Was 9rules a portal designed to grow fat with advertising revenue without compensation to member sites?
• Was 9rules a move to brand "quality content" on the Internet and shut out the independent, thus co-opting the blogosphere toward its own ends?
• Was 9rules an exclusive, elitist club with unknown plans for Internet domination brewing behind the friendly logo?

The answer? Not on purpose :-) It depends on your perspective:

• If you're a zero-sum game type of thinker, the type of person who understands success to be achieved only at the expense of someone else, then the answer is yes. That's because ANYONE who is successful in your field of endeavor is perceived as a threat. The pie of success that you are sharing must be split into thinner slices for all participants. Or, it means you have to work harder to maintain your share.

• If you're a win-win strategy type of thinker, then you see the existence of a network like 9rules as expanding the pie of content goodness. There's nothing stopping YOU from continuing to create the best content that you can. Everyone benefits, because more good content creates more opportunities for connections, and it raises everyone's game.

Off the Internet, where grabbing eyeballs costs real dollars, the zero-sum thinking is much more applicable. There is a limited pool of "attention" available, and the real estate where the eyeballs are looking will command premium advertising dollars. It's very expensive. However, on the Internet, content creators have the advantage of search engines. Good writing coupled with a bit of search engine optimization will allow people to find your content. I'm not quite sure to what extent the pie can keep growing, and your level of optimism is probably dependent on your content development end-game; if it's defined in terms of revenue per click, then you're probably not too keen on the existence of a site like 9rules. On the other hand, if you're after reputation and personal satisfaction, there's nothing stopping you from continuing to plug away at developing your site.

The history of 9rules, in my mind, is comprised of three stages. The first stage focused on quality content, gathering websites that represented the best writing on the web, because that's what a lot of us appreciate the most. However, 9rules came to be seen as a "label of quality" that drove traffic and reputation. The second stage, codenamed "Ali", launched the community aspect of the site, introducing Notes where anyone could comment and discuss what people were interested in. Content served as the anchor that kept people coming, and Notes gave everyone a voice. The third stage, which is marked by yesterday's launch of "Ali 2", is about connections. It turns out that quality content and community really aren't the point after all; what we are all after is making a quality connection with other people. The new member agreement stipulates that 9rules members participate in some way; in other words, you've got to want to talk to other members. You can't have a community without participation. By emphasizing content and community, what 9rules has created is a vibrant space where you can meet conscientious, passionate people with something to say about topics you are interested in. And it's the connections I've made, both incidental and personal, that have really helped me clarify my own vision and direction.

Congratulations, 9rules, on the launch of Ali 2! I'm optimistic that the world will be made a better place, one person at a time, through the many new connections we will all make.

Blog Action Day is October 15

I got a nice email from Leo over at Zen Habits telling me about Blog Action Day, which is coming up this October 15th. The idea is that bloggers can collectively converse on a topic of global relevance. You know, the power of the blogosphere, much mocked by the so-called Old Media, but reaching a more literate and plugged-in demographic. I've been experimenting with more community participation activities as part of my social networking goals for the year, so I figure participating in Blog Action Day will help me along in unpredictable and exciting ways!

The topic of this first Blog Action Day is something that is not on my mind a lot: The Environment. I suppose the reason this is the case is because I live in southern New Hampshire, and we like the Environment just fine so long as it doesn't get in the way of our civil liberties, or people from out of state tell us how we should be taking care of our own backyard, thank you very much. But that's politics, which is another topic I avoid thinking about unless it is actually in my way. What's more interesting to me is how The Environment affects people personally, and therefore how our manipulation of The Environment can be a course of action.

I'm open to suggestions on some topic related to The Environment to write about...if anyone would like to toss me a few challenges to write about in the comments (kind of like what we did with The Bee Story a few months back), this might be a fun way of getting even more people participating. So go ahead, make some outrageous, silly, or even serious claim or statement (it doesn't matter if you believe in it or not)...the challenge will be to integrate everything into some semblance of coherent speech.

You can read more about Blog Action Day over on the official website.

Constraints

I have, lately, been feeling constrained by the existing structure of this web site, which has been bothering me for a long time. The main problem is the lack of navigation; it's basically one giant scrolling chain of articles, with some slapped-on navigation at the bottom of the page. The user experience is quite awful for the casual visitor.

Despite knowing all this, and having an idea of what I need to do to fix it, I've been kind of stuck on it, because the number of options I have in making changes is incredibly broad. I'm thinking of splitting the site into multiple blogs, one each for Productivity, Design, Personal, and Making. Also, a general article area will become the new repository for content like The Printable CEO, so there's always ONE updated location for every tool. To enable all these changes, I'm going to use the Expression Engine content management system; the main reason is that the integration with the forum and wiki modules with multiple blogs will make it easier to start deploying software products that need user authentication. However, this new arrangement will require me to handle all the old incoming links (pointing to the old blog) so they're pointed at the new one or ones.

As a result, I have not been feeling like blogging. The ideas are still here, but the thought of putting them into the existing blog structure makes me feel a bit ill. I am actually forcing myself to finish this post, because I think I need to write it.

Breaking Free

Normally, when I'm in this situation, I redefine the rules such that victory is achievable through some other means. For example, I am thinking that the new structure will be a big pain in the butt to create (recall that I don't particularly enjoy working with CSS). It probably isn't, if I define a smaller subset of features that absolutely need to come over.

Another approach I've taken is to whittle away at the problem by doing a Q & A with myself. Right now, I am not sure how to move everything from WordPress to Expression Engine...I just know it's going to be a pain in the butt. If I ask myself a single question at a time and write down the answer, I can maintain the focus and eventually get to the point where I run out of questions.

Yet a third approach is to apply time blocking and just work on the site for an hour at a time, just fixing whatever I see here and there. This is not a particularly focused way of working, but sometimes that's the mood I'm in. I figure anything is better than nothing.

There comes a time, however, where you just got to make the big push. The last major thing I need to find out is how to create multiple forum installations and to transfer existing users to the new structure. Sigh.

Next Steps

The main problem, I think, is that I'm feeling the weight of the existing content and registered users, and I have to figure out a way of making sure everything merges neatly together. While I think this is a necessary step, I'm not particularly excited about implementing it. Having written that, though, I think I'm probably overestimating the difficulty involved.

Anyway, perhaps this weekend I'll make some progress on this. The website may be acting a little flakier than usual over the next week.

Simulating a Company Culture

As some may have guessed, I've been spending some time playing WoW---more importantly, I've been building the guild website and posting in the forums and wiki. I also had a full week of work and after-work meetings, and I ended up not blogging a whole lot at all. This week I'm hoping to restore the balance between work, socializing, and now simulated company building in WoW.

If you're wondering where all that writing energy went, it's gone into the guild forums, which I've left readable by the world so people can get an idea what's going on. My thoughts are that the transparency of guild operations will be part of its appeal, and it's a way in which I can start to define my philosophy of leaderership as I learn to practice it.

Some of the particularly-interesting threads, phrased in more traditional "business terms":

• The Company Handbook - Where the rules and ideals of our mission are taking shape.

• Corporate Identity - The debate of how our "guild tabard"---the symbolic piece of cloth that our characters wear in-game that signify our membership---should look rages on here.

• Career Advancement - Every guild has a number of "ranks" of achievement. When you're first brought into the guild, you start at the lowest rank and can work your way up. I've designed it to reward behavior that is of benefit to the guild, and have started establishing the public feedback mechanisms that make advancement "real".

On a side note, I built the guild website on Expression Engine Personal + Forum module ($149) so I could finally learn it, and I have to say I like it a lot. It's taking some time to get used to, and I haven't yet customized the appearance of the site or fixed navigational issues, but overall it's pretty cool. The forum module is pretty darn nice, with membership management integrated with the wiki and blog modules. This is the first wiki I've come across that actually has a decent Markdown Extra Plugin that works seamlessly; once I tweaked the Wiki CSS slightly, it produces very readable output.

I'm finishing up some photography of some of the myndology notebook samples that the company generously provided, so I will likely have that up after I finish some work this week. And Groundhog Resolution Review Day #4 is coming up on June 6th (here's what I wrote in GHDRR #3)...yikes!

Best of Article Index

I started reviewing my old blog posts last night, going back to the very first ones in 2004. It's a little embarrassing to read through the earlier posts. On the other hand, it's interesting to see how my writing style has evolved as my personal focus has clarified.

I came across a message board the other day that mentioned how difficult it was to navigate my site. I totally agree. Now that I have this rough cut of "best of" articles, I can start to build out some sections with a lot more focus. It'll probably take me a while to get there, so in the meantime, you can see the raw list over on the wiki I set up for this. I've got the list backed up elsewhere just in case. There are 283 articles that made the first cut, out of a field of about 1200 entries. They have not yet been put into order.

UPDATE

Here's a categorized pass of the articles. I now have to start going through them and summarizing them. One thing I'm noticing is that I really don't like a lot of the titles I've picked. I am tempted to rewrite a lot of these articles also; another good reason to make a book version for download.

Importing Large WXR Files into WordPress 2.1

I've been trying to import my current WordPress database into my staging blog so I can play around with formatting; alas, the wordpress to wordpress importer has presented a few hurdles. Here's what's supposed to happen:

1. On the old blog, go to Manage -> Export, download a WXR file with all yours post
2. On the new blog, go to Manage -> Import, and upload the WXR file. Easy!!!

Except it's not, when you have more than 2 megabytes of data. You're not allowed to upload more than 2MB, because PHP poops out due to an internal limit.

I tried to work around this by patching WordPress to look for the file on the server instead of requiring you to upload it. That way, you can download your giant WXR file and use FTP to upload it somewhere to your server first. Geeky notes follow so I don't forget this stuff.

The Problem

There are several bottlenecks, many of them related to PHP's built-in limits:

• The post_max_size and upload_max_filesize settings in php.ini are often set to something like 2MB or 8MB. That means you can't upload a file larger than that. If you have a lot of writing in your blog, as I do, you just won't be able to upload a big enough file. Fortunately, I have a dedicated virtual server and can up those limits, but if you're on a shared server you're screwed.

To work around this, I spend a couple hours trying to modify the WordPress import filter to use a file that had been already uploaded. I eventually hacked it to actually work, but hit another bottleneck related to memory_limit. But first, here are the brutal modifications I made to the WordPress 2.1 files:

In wp-admin/admin-functions.php: wp_import_handle_upload():

Added the following lines between $overrides = array... and $file = wp_handle_upload(...) as follows:

$overrides['test_size'] = false; $localFile = array('name'=>'import',tmp_name=>'/full/path/to/wp-import.xml');

Don't forget to replace /full/path/to/wp-import.xml with the name of your exported WXR file. Next, I modified the $file = wp_handle_upload(... line to read as follows:

$file = wp_handle_upload( $localFile, $overrides );

Next, in wp-admin/admin-functions.php: wp__handle_upload():

Commented out the following around line 1838-9:

    // if (! @ is_uploaded_file( $file['tmp_name'] ) )
    //  return $upload_error_handler( $file, __( 'Specified file failed upload test.' ));

Modified the move_uploaded_file() call to use copy() instead, around line 1879

Finally, in wp-admin/import/wordpress.php:

Comment out the statements for case 0 around line 324-325, so control flows through to case 1:

case 0 : // $this->greet(); // break;

The net result of these changes is to bypass the uploading form when you click the import -> wordpress selection. It should automatically attempt to read the WXR file. The modifications above are to bypass the security mechanisms in place that prevent you from using non-uploaded files.

If you find that you're getting a dialog box that asks you to download admin.php, what has probably happened is you've run out of memory (check your PHP error log). The WordPress importer reads the entire file into memory at once, so if you've got a big file you'll need a lot of working memory to process everything. For my blog, I needed about 64MB of working PHP memory, which I could fix by changing memory_limit to 64M in my php.ini file. If you're on a shared server, you're kind of screwed if you can't change these.

You probably are better off exporting piecemeal using Aaron Brazell's WordPress to WordPress importer, which gives you the option to export selected categories. This is what I did the first time. Note that it works best between the same Wordpress database versions; Importing from WP 2.0 to WP 2.1, for example, will cause some funny things to happen with Pages and vice versa. As it is, subpage importing is currently broken, so watch out for that too.

9rules Refactored

As a lot of you know, I'm a member of the 9rules Network, which in my mind is a sort of autonomous collective consisting of writer/enthusiasts honing their craft, each independent yet allied in our need to keep putting stuff on the Internet in our quest to find personal satisfaction. The triumvirate of Paul Scrivens, Mike Rundle, and Tyme White are our nominal overlords, keeping the vibe going by example. They've built a public space where we can all hang out and do our thing. I think it's pretty cool, like being in an extended Scooby gang.

Today the triumvirate has unleashed a new site design, codenamed Ali. The new design moves 9rules even further toward community by creating several new context-of-use entry points into the site. I just got to see it for the first time, and here's my quick impression of the new features:

• 9rules Live - If you're the type to drink directly from the stream of live articles as they're posted, this section is just what you wanted.

• 9rules Member Site Profile - Did you read an article that piqued your curiosity about the author? Click on the various site profile links and see what else s/he's written.

• Topics - At first I thought that was a new way of looking at Communities, but actually it's a tagging system. If you visit http://9rules/topics/someterm, you'll see related Notes and member site content. This is effectively the new 9rules search engine, and you can use it to quickly find both articles and conversation from both the community of participating readers and member sites.

• my.9rules - This is your social networking profile. You can say a few things about yourself, link to other 9rules reader "friends", and keep track of all your conversations. When you post a Note, your profile link is displayed right next to it, so people can check you out. I haven't played with it, but it reminds me a bit of the community of the (old and good) Orkut combined with the selectiveness of the LinkedIn invitation system.

It's all very cool and ingenious.

One thing that may be a little confusing is the difference between notes and topics. For people who just dive in and use things I don't think it's a problem, but the analytical / anal types (raises hands) will look for the pattern. I'd break it down as follows:

• Member Sites generate content that is agregated through the 9rules portal.
• Member Sites are assigned to Communities that topically reflect the content of the site, more or less.
• Each Community lists all its member sites.
• EAch Community also provides a place for reader commentary through the Notes system. Notes are like a message board, with the Community serving contextually as the discussion topic.
• Anyone can read Notes, but only registered users can create them. By registering, you create your 9rules Notes Profile.
• Your profile is also your personal home page on the 9rules site, similar to other social networking sites. You can see what you've posted on, who you're friends with, and build up your online reputation through spirited online dialogue.

You can browse content (both member-generated and reader-generated) through your personal home page (My 9rules), through the live stream (9rules Live), by Topic (9rules Topics), by Site Category (9rules Communities), by specific site (9rules Member Profile), and by 9rules Notes Profiles. Each entry point serves a different style of engaging the conversation, and I'm really curious how it will change things up. Meeting people with the same interests as you, in an environment that's guaranteed to generate a constant stream of original thoughts and ideas? Awesome!

Intermittent Blank Pages with WP-Cache

WP-Cache helps my site run smoothly by storing copies of the web pages that are fetched most often from this site, which means that the WordPress system just needs to generate that page once. This has worked fine, except for a mysterious disappearing page problem that happens every once in a while.

A few of you have probably seen it: a visit to a popular page shows just the top-half of the page. I spent a little time debugging this tonight because I saw this problem occur three times with a popular post, which meant that a lot of people were unable to see it when they tried to. Well, no more!

WARNING! Geeky notes follow, so I don't forget what I did.

Occasional Cache Corruption

Every once in a while, someone will send me a nice email telling me that a certain page is coming up "blank", showing just the top-half of the web page with no text. What I usually do in this case is invalidate the cache in the WP-Cache options menu, and this fixes it. Unfortunately, it means all the cached files are also gone, which means the server has to rebuild all the cache files.

I eventually noticed that the problem files could be found by listing the cache contents under the WP-Cache Options panel, seeing which file is unusually small, and then deleting just that file. This tells WP-Cache to rebuild it next time someone requests it. In my case, if I see a posting file that is less than 9K, it's probably screwed up. It appears that the file is truncated, chopped off at a certain point before the rest of WordPress has a chance to populate the page.

After today's issues with my "Procrastinator's Clock" page going under without warning, I decided to poke through the WP-Cache source code to see if I could insert an automatic check, so I wouldn't have to worry about it.

Modifications to WP-Cache

The file wp-cache-phase1.php is that piece of WP-Cache that checks whether a particular URI has been cached already, serving the cached copy if it exists. Around line 35, I inserted the following:

...
foreach ($meta->headers as $header) {  
    header($header);  
}

// DS: start hack
$url = $meta->uri;  
$size = @filesize($cache_file);  
if ( $size < 9216 ) {  
    error_log ("WPCache: $size < 9216, expiring $url");
    // write problem file 
    $myFile = "/path/to/writeable/file/in/htdocs/wpcache.log";
    $fh = fopen($myFile, 'a') or die("can't open file");
    $stringData = file_get_contents($cache_file);
    fwrite($fh, "nn##n## Truncated File: ".$meta->uri." ($size) bytesnn");
    fwrite($fh, $stringData);
    fclose($fh);
    // tell WP to recreate cached file
    $file_expired = true;
    return;
}
// DS: end hack

$log = "<!-- Cached page served by WP-Cache -->n";
if ( !($content_size = @filesize($cache_file)) > 0 || $mtime < @filemtime($cache_file))
...

The code block marked DS: start hack is the new stuff. It grabs the url of the cached file being loaded out of the meta information stored with it and then sees how big the cached copy is. A good page on my site is always bigger than 9K, so if it's LESS than that this means that the cached copy has been screwed up. This error is logged to the PHP Error Log AND the truncated output is written to another file called wpcache.log so I can analyze it later. The hack tells WordPress to re-generate the page by setting the "file expired" flag to true; WP-Cache will then recache it through a different module.

I'm hoping that this ensures that corrupted cache copies don't stick around for hours as they've done in the past. Also, because I'm logging the errors, hopefully I'll be able to figure out what the pattern is that causes this cache corruption to occur.

The (dv) gets Dugg

I got dugg for the first time yesterday, for the Water post of all things, and this was an excellent test of my new Media Temple dedicated virtual (dv) server.

I'm running the very cheapest of (dv) plans ($50/month), which has a "guaranteed" memory allocation of 256MB. It actually can use more, because the (dv) is a virtual server sharing a single machine with others. If you need more memory, and it's available, your server can grab it. Freshly minted, my (dv) was configured to make as much use as possible of this pooled memory, which I suppose encourages people to upgrade to higher-capacity (and more expensive) plans. I can't afford that, so I learned how to modify the MySQL, Apache, and SMTP configuration to run within a 256MB footprint. Then, still seeing esoteric memory allocation failures, I tracked down some significant inefficiencies in my WordPress installation and got rid of them. Just in time too, to handle the unexpected spike in traffic.

It may have been the time of day (2PM), but the peak Digg traffic lasted only a couple hours. Those first couple of hours, though, the (dv) served 2500-2750 pageloads per hour without breaking a sweat, the server load hovering between 0.5 and 0.7 for most of the time. The site remained highly responsive, once I turned off the "KeepAlive" web server option. This option allows a web browser connection to serve more than multiple chunks of data (like all the graphic files on a web page) in one long transaction; ordinarily it's one chunk per transaction. KeepAlive is sort of like being able to monopolize a shoe salesman at a big shoe warehouse, insisting that he bring you a steady stream of shoes for your convenience exclusively. This isn't a problem until the number of pushy customers exceeds the number of salespeople. Then, anyone who's late to the party will wait a looong time to get any service. With 2750 page requests, each with 30 chunks of data and only 30 processes maximum to deal with them, I had to turn off KeepAlive so everyone got served in a timely manner instead of timing out. And yes, I did have a short KeepAliveTimeout set (2 seconds). There is probably some interesting formula to calculate the optimal way to serve the most connections with the least resources, but since I didn't know it I just watched the server and made sure it didn't boil over. When it failed to even get warm, I disabled WP-Cache (remembering to delete the existing cache) to see what kind of increase I'd see. By this time traffic was starting to die off slightly, pulling only 20-40 pageloads per minute, but I saw the load climb to about 1.5 to 2.5. Still not too bad, but I turned the cache back on.

As far as Digg effects go, my experience was relatively mild compared to others. 2750 pageloads/hour is still the record for my site; previously the max I saw was 1600 pageloads/hour, which almost killed the shared host I was on. Of course, the inefficiencies in my WordPress setup (the Mint pepper DLoads, primarily) helped drag the entire server down. I'm starting to keep notes in a new area of the site; if you want a sneak peek, you can read about my experiences with WordPress and shared hosting. I'll be writing up my (dv) experience (and configuration) later.

On a side note, I've been fairly happy with (mt) customer service. They can take a couple days to get back to you via the request system (weekends are especially long), but the quality of support has not been bad. Everyone I've talked with, via email and phone, has been polite and respectful. Of course if you need something done right now or you're experiencing yet another (gs) outage, you probably have a different view of things.

That's it for now!