We're trying to figure out a database issue that is related to JoeUser.com. So we have been having to take JU down periodically in order to test potential solutions.
I suspect like many of you, I've been very frustrated with JoeUser's unreliability and downtime recently. It's just one of the downsides of increasing popularity and not having the resources to address it. Last week, it really came to a head and we literlaly had to take the site down in ordre for any of our sites to stay up. So while it was down, we started cleaning things up where we could. We're still not happy where things rae but right now, we're up. I am really sorr...
Man do I have a case of the blahs. I sometimes think I have the dullest life imaginable. But I think the real problem is that my job is my hobby and so when I get sick of that, what's left? I'm not sick of my job per se, just want a change of pace but things are so busy this past week. We've got DesktopX 2 going out the door on Monday. I gotta do the press release for that and then do the Object Desktop 2004 media guide. There's a bunch of documentation stuff. Clearly, this stuff ain't a hob...
Our story so far.. JoeUser.com started out as my personal blog site. Like most blog sites, it only received a handful of visitors per day. One day, I decided it would be fun to turn it into a blog community. And to that end, the world class Stardock IT team put together an incredibly sophisticated set of technologies to help create the world's first "blogging community". Each user would have their own set of point, all articles would have points, blogs would have scoring. There'd be ...
Does JoeUser.com seem like it's faster? In the past week in the course of trying to fix the site, we (and by we I really mean T-Man and Alberto) have been working like madmen to optimize the site code to make it more efficient. Hopefully, getting to articles and such feels a lot faster. How does it feel to you? It should feel significantly faster so if it doesn't, let us know. Thanks!
In about 10 days we are going to do a points audit on the site. Every time someone makes a comment, post, etc. they receive points for it. It's recorded in a log. I know, from casual inspection, that some people have far more points than their available # of comments and articles could possibly warrant. Now I have a confession to make, I've been very competitive in my life and I've played the system my share of times. I haven't done so here since I'm the #1 user because I know...
The points system doesn't exist to promote fairness. It doesn't exist to encourage competition. It's not even designed to encourage bloggers to blog more. The points system is designed spefically to promote articles and bloggers that have already gained a readership. It doesn't care what you write about. It doesn't care whether you're a liberal or a conservative. It doesn't care what color your skin is or what sex you are. It simply designed to promote thos...
JoeUser has been going up and down and up and down. What's the deal? This is going to be a bit technical but we want you guys to know exactly what is happening. All Stardock community sites share the same underlying Stardock.net database structure. Your UserID and Password will work on JU, GalCiv2.com, TotalGaming.net, WinCustomize.com, SocietyGame.com, PoliticalMachine.com and even in Stardock.com's forums. The same is true of the blogs/posts. When I write a blog...
http://top500.feedster.com/ According to Feedster, JoeUser.com isn't in the top 500. Which is surprising given our relative traffic. It makes me wonder how their system works. Perhaps we aren't even registered in there. So I'm creating this blog item to make sure we are. No Need to Click Here - I'm just claiming my feed at Feedster feedster:f531b608b914eec2d8483a525d3a2174
"Having your own business". It's a phrase I have heard friends and others use. But what most people think of when they say "Having your own business" is having a business that includes themselves and maybe a couple other guys. In nearly all cases of companies that have 30 or more employees, the company is founded either by venture capital or through a group of friends/associates who build the business together. My business I founded on my own. I didn't have partners. ...
Okay, here's the deal. It's okay for people to vent on THEIR blogs about things. The main golden rule is that you may not put the person's real name or full handle into the title of an article (since JoeUser is so popular, what you write here ends up on Google pretty quickly). That said, you post it to the forums and then it becomes our business. When you make an article, by default it has a checkbox that says "post to forums too". If you're writing something that is e...
Last night the master database became corrupt and one of the machines had a catastrophic failure. I kind of "perfect storm" of failure -- two bad things on two seperate servers. For a few hours, JoeUser ceased to exist. It was the worst case scenario. However, LUCKILY, we do daily backups on all your blogs. So this incident can at least provide some assurance that all your hard work, your thoughts and written record are being treated with respect and care. It does mean, however...
My younger son isn't doing so well with his academic career. At least so far. Luckily, it's just kindergarten. But according to his teacher, he's at the very bottom of his class in both numbers and letters. He's 5. And can only count to 13. Can't spell his name and hasn't quite gotten the whole alphabet down. The teacher explained this to us in our parent-teacher conference. I asked, "Well, is it possible that he's...well...you know..just..dumb?"&...
Atrophe. I think that's how you spell it. I could look it up but that would be work. And that brings me to my problem - I've become so lazy that my muscles are starting to atrophe. I think I should do something about that..but yet..the chair beckons..
Merry Christmas everyone! It's hard to believe that we've been doing this now for over three years! Wherever you are, have a wonderful holiday! And with that, whatcha get?