Server on the move [Site]

2010 Apr 10
Just to keep you all informed, I've been experimenting with setting up OttawaFoodies on a web hosting service. Things look very promising so far and I may be able to cut over later this weekend.

What does this mean to you? Presumably nothing more than a snappier browsing experience when using the site.

More technically, it means that instead of running this site out of my basement on outdated computing hardware and a consumer-level connection to the internet, it will be running on an 8-core Xeon processor (albeit shared with other sites) in a datacenter that has generators for backup power, round the clock security, etc, etc.

I'll have to take down the site to take a final snapshot of the database and transfer it to its new home, but that shouldn't take more than an hour or so. What will likely take longer is the propagation of DNS records that allow ottawafoodies.com to point to the new server. That could take up to a day.

Anyway, I'll be live-blogging the changeover via our twitter feed: twitter.com/ottawafoodies

2010 Apr 10
Which provider are you going with?

I only have experience with Host Papa - and am not impressed. The site runs well enough but the mailing lists are terrible, and I find it to be a real PITA when doing anything system-level because I only have cpanel access. That is for the dojo - I would never move my main site to that provider, but would consider something that gives me full Linux-level access.

2010 Apr 10
It looks like it will be WebFaction. They provide the best support for CherryPy (the server framework I use) and they give you plenty of freedom. Very high user satisfaction ratings...

2010 Apr 10
Good news! I like "snappier". Thanks!

2010 Apr 10
We are now live on the new server! Things should feel faster now, especially at peak times (e.g. lunch hour on weekdays).

The only thing I know to be broken is the wiki. The hosting provider does support our wiki system but they're addressing problems with the installer so we'll be without a wiki for a short while.

Now my basement is a lot less critical, which should help the quality of my sleep! :-)

2010 Apr 10
Excellent! It's definitely faster so far.

2010 Apr 11
I agree, load times are definitely faster. Thanks FF!

2010 Apr 11
good stuff warby! the load time difference of the "what i ate last" thread is staggering ;)

2010 Apr 11
Haha.. I have to admit that the "What I ate last" thread is one of the few ones I've removed from view (via "Ignore this topic" button)

2010 Apr 11
Oh wow, it's immediately noticeable how much faster things are now. I was shocked when I found out you were self-hosting the site before - most ISPs get huffy about that sort of thing and don't offer decent enough upload speeds to do it anyway.

I've heard of webfaction before - an associate of mine was using them to host a ruby app before ruby hosting became more "mainstream". Uptime was an issue - he was forced to manually restart the app fairly frequently. However, I don't know how much of that was due to webfaction and how much of that had to do with the stability of the app itself.

I'll be interested to hear your experiences with them hosting OttawaFoodies. The one thing my friend did rave about when it came to webfaction are how accommodating they are. They responded to his issues and questions really quickly and even adjusted high-level settings for him,

2010 Apr 11
James, my ISP has no problem with hosting sites on their network, but as you know upload speeds were not sufficient. The bottleneck, though, was often my CPU, so I needed to upgrade the server as well as the network!

Webfaction seem to have decent uptime (except for the explosion a couple of years ago that killed a bunch of servers for several days). My app should never require manual restarting -- it restarts itself when the first user hits the site. It worked like that in my basement, and webfaction offers the same capability. The only unknown is whether I'll surpass my allotted memory limits. I'll share more experiences once we've had some soak time.

I opened a ticket against the wiki problem, and their front line workers are very responsive and helpful. Now we'll find out how responsive their "back end" workers are... ;-)

2010 Apr 11
thanks FF, I've also noticed how much faster the site is today, wow! Great job! :)

2010 Apr 12
Load is much faster, which i like. But!! there is the new pop-ups that i have never had a problem with before. anyone else having a ton of unwanted popups???

2010 Apr 12
Popups?? The only ads you should ever see here are the in-page ones on the left. If you are seeing popups your PC might have malicious adware on it. Try running adaware or a similar tool to clean your computer.

Is anyone else seeing popup ads??

2010 Apr 12
Yes, I just got a popup ad here. And I'm sure I don't have any adware on this computer.

2010 Apr 12
I'm getting pop up ads too. No adware on this comp.

2010 Apr 12
That is odd with the popups - none on either of my computers at home or work.

EDIT: home Ubuntu 9.10 and google chrome. Work : Fedora Core 12 and Chrome

2010 Apr 12
Just got a pop-up on our other home computer..

2010 Apr 12
OK, problem solved!

It seems one of my advertisers started supplying pop-under ads on April 1st, and they turned them on by default. I've now disabled the pop-unders.

You should not see any more of them. Please let me know if you do!

2010 Apr 12
Very nice, good work on the move. What is the price differential if I might ask?

2010 Apr 12
Hmmm... I just got a pop-under add too...

2010 Apr 12
pop ups not resolved, pop up blocker still knocking them down

sure is snappy loading now though :-)

2010 Apr 12
Hmm... I certainly don't get any pop ups with my browser (Google Chrome). Does anyone have any ideas, or can anyone tell me where the pop ups are coming from?

I'll likely disable the ads later tonight until I can solve this. Anyway, I'm not happy with the ads or the negligible revenue they generate.

2010 Apr 12
My Chrome at work showed something in the bottom right that it blocked a popup

2010 Apr 12
p.s. I'm still offering to be your ad-man :-) Make you way more money (and some for me too :-)) You do nothing.

2010 Apr 12
i get the pop-ups a lot - firefox. with my work computer the trendscan won't display certain ads on this site, it will show me the URL for the ad. i can send that to you if it would be any help tracking down the bad ones.

2010 Apr 12
Opera hasn't given me any pop-ups. Nor did Safari. Firefox blocked one.

2010 Apr 13

I was using safari when i was receiving my pop unders

2010 Apr 14
Mac/Chrome; no one popup.

2010 Apr 15
Firefox 3.6.2 on Windows, I've noticed no popups.

2010 Apr 15
i am assuming there have been no pop-ups since the ads were removed a few days ago. thank you for taking down the ads, they were pretty awful. i wouldn't mind so much if they were food related or ottawa area restaurants, but the ones i saw were terrible.

2010 Apr 15
See, that's what I've been saying all along - what HFF just said - people WANT to see ads from local restaurants. And it is far more profitable for FF, as well.

2010 Apr 15
I agree. The only problem with it is that then the 'moderating' would have to protect the paying advertisers, at least from my experience.

I'm all for it, if freedom of speech remains with the ads.

2010 Apr 15
I thnk Bobby Fillet has something here.

Has anyone ever seen a bad resto review in a publication (web or not) that contained an ad from said resto ?


2010 Apr 15
Somehow I don't think Kinko and Mambo would want to be advertising on this site :)

2010 Apr 15
Is Kinko the new sushi bar that photocopies your sushi rolls for you? ;)

2010 Apr 16
Love it! Kinkos! LOL

2010 Apr 17
much faster! Thank you FF!!!