Aytemir.com » tips

Don’t believe the hype of Gridservice

Tschai — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:21:18 +0000

The MediaTemple Grid-service “is a cluster-based, modern hosting service powered by hundreds of servers working in tandem to power your websites, applications and email with unrivaled power, burstability and reliability”.
Sounds great, doesn’t it?

Background story

I’ve just recently moved to MediaTemple and at this moment my following sites are hosted with (mt): aytemir.com (that would be this blog), fan-tas-tic.com and VoetbalPortaal.com.
All three sites have very humble amount of traffic to handle and are WordPress or vBulletin powered, with some standard popular plugins or mods.
Nothing fancy. Nothing special.

Because VoetbalPortaal.com grow slowy too big for the shared host I was with, I had to move (all my sites) and I believed the hype and decided to move to the ‘state of the art’ and ‘digg-proof’ grid-service of MediaTemple. You never know when you’re gonna need a ‘digg-proof’ host, I guess . And boy did I regret that! And still do regret it!

I had no reason not the believe what they claim on their site: TechCrunch is hosted with them. And a sub-devision of Sony. Although on a more expensive plan. But also a lot of (big) blogs are also with the unrivaled Grid-Service of MediaTemple.

Here comes trouble

Since I’ve moved to (mt) and settled everything all seemed fine, excepts the servers where slower than I was used to with the cheap host I used to be. Bad luck, I guess.
But from day one I got ‘Lost connection to MySQL server during query’, ‘User *** already has more than ‘max_user_connections’ active connections’ and ‘Out of memory’ errors via the vBulletin backend. My site had been down for several minutes several times: Although (mt) thought that this may have been caused by ‘bad neighbours’, I never had this kind of issues with other (normal) shared hosts!

Here comes the $olution

And different employees from (mt)-support all suggested me that I should buy an additional service to make up for the initial service, which should be correctly working in the first place: I should get a MySQL Gridcontainer to make sure I wouldn’t bother by other customers on the same cluster.

Although I thought that was ridiculous and I expected to have 99,9% uptime and database-connection and I shouldn’t have to buy an additional service for a simple and humble site…I had no choice, because (mt) had me ‘by the balls’: I had already lost 50% of my monthly unique visitors during the transition* to (mt) and I could not afford to loose more!

More toruble? More $olution!

So I decide to purchase an additional MySQL Gridcontainer. Now I don’t have the ‘Lost connection to MySQL server during query’, ‘User *** already has more than ‘max_user_connections’ active connections’ warnings anymore.
But I do have ‘Out of memory’ warnings and even more frequently than before. And guess what (mt) is suggesting as a possible solution? Yes, you’re right!
They suggest I should buy an additional service to make up for the initial service, which should be correctly working in the first place: I should upgrade the memory of my Gridcontainer!

The irony of al this situation is that I had no issues with any of my humble sites at all when I was at the ‘el cheapo’ host for only 30,- euro’s a year!
Now I’m having frequently database-connection error, out of memory errors and I’m not the only one as far as I can tell from the Support Forums. And (most) of us have only simple websites.

The conclusion

Long story short: don’t believe the hype of the Grid-Service (maybe this goes only for MediaTemple) and the ‘digg-proof’ claims they make; at the moment it’s very in-stable and it has problems handling a very average sites like aytemir.com, fan-tas-tic.com and VoetbalPortaal.com.
And when there are no errors, the sites are very slow compared to what I’m used to…before I’ve moved them to MediaTemple.

So just make sure you do more research than I did before moving to another host…or you may end up paying and upgrading to most advanced servers and services, just to host a humble WordPress blog or a vBulletin powered forum!

Disclaimers

PS: the (mt) support is just advising and suggesting and they’re not really ‘forcing’ me buy additional service to make up for their initial service, which does not deliver what they promise.

PS: there are testimonials of (mt) Gris-Service users which are just happy and claim their service does just what it should!

*This is not all (mt)’s fault, because I had to switched from .nl to .com for personal reasons, but constant db-connection errors made things worse.

Setting goals for 2009

Tschai — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 14:08:52 +0000

Looking back at 2008

Playtime is over! I’ve used the past period to experiment with some forms of promoting my posts and trying to get more traffic. Although the results were satisfying as you can see in the graph above, it felt more like ‘work’ than ‘hobby’ for me. Because doing this is rather time and energy consuming. And that is not a good thing…if you’re not making money from it, that is!
The above graph illustrates the short period from October until end December for this blog. And it’s no surprise that it’s possible to get a peak of visitors and views, no matter how humble your blog or post is. But to keep this visitors coming back you need to invest a lot in time and energy…but I’m gonna focus on other things instead.

Setting goals for 2009

While reading My Internet Goals for 2009 I found out writing your goals down works very therapeutic and very refreshing. Although very personal it can be interesting and inspiring for others too.

Now that the new year is getting closer it’s time for me to get my goals clear and focus on them. Maybe you should write down your own goals too?

Aytemir.com: Design, Develop…Blog!

The main goal for this blog has always been a supporting blog for the projects I’m running or planning. I’ve used the past months to experiment with some social media and I’ve learned a lot, which I hope to use in return when I’m ready to promote these projects once their ready.
I will keep the current categories and write about the progress of the projects listed below. I’m prepared for a lack of visitor peaks, but the content should be useful (for me) when starting a another/new project.
At a certain moment I think I might have to say goodbye to the Unstandard theme…

Uppedd: Ranking and Rating the Stars!

This will be my ‘Pièce de résistance’. Like the rest of the projects I’m going for the easy route and use already existing tools and plugins and try to go (private) beta in 2009!
Although the concept is rather basic, it still is a rather ambitious project and it’s potentials are very promising.
Expect to read more about this projects in the coming posts.

Fan-Tas-Tic! Science-Fiction & Fantasy Art Gallery

I was always meaning to do something with my favouriet genre: SF&F. While writing Best of 2008 for developers: 2008+ tips, tricks, scripts and sources! I came across a bunch of WordPress powered CSS galleries and got this fan-tas-tic idea: Why not do the same for fan-tas-tic SF&F art!

Fan-tas-tic.com was luckily not taken and from now on will it be not only my own personal favourite gallery, but visitors can also submit other SF&F art and vote on the submissions.
I’m aware there are already other great resources for SF&F art, but they mostly miss some of the basic features of these Web 2.0 galleries, like tags, rating and ranking or they also contain less fantastic work.

BAOA: Blogging About Oracle Applications

This niche technical blog is actually for my company and I it’s about time it got pimped. It needs an upgrade, new look and feel and a lot of more useful plugins.
The content is absolute king and therefore it needs more audience, yet only from the same technical niche, which is a great challenge.

VoetbalPortaal: Exclusive Soccer Forum

I’m considering this soccer forum project actually as finished, since there is not much more I’m gonna change about it.

Summary

Note that I’ve not set any goals regarding monetizing any of the new projects. And initially the design will be of based on a existing theme in most cases.
The focus will be on getting things finished instead.

Best of 2008 for bloggers: 1600+ tips, tricks, advices and strategies!

Tschai — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 21:04:15 +0000

Last in the series of Best post for Designers, Developers and Bloggers. A collection of more than 1600 useful tips, tricks and advices from (pro) bloggers for newbies and pro bloggers posted in 2008. From getting started to getting (more) traffic and from getting (more) subscribers to actually making money with your blog.
A huge reference if you need just that little push in the right direction.

Best of 2008 for developers: 2008+ tips, tricks, scripts and sources!

Tschai — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 19:50:07 +0000

The second in series of best posts of 2008 for designers, developers and bloggers. This second post contains a collection of more than 2008 tips, tricks, scripts, examples and tools for developers.
Whether you’re a beginner or pro, you could use some of these posts for a reference someday.

Tools & Web Apps (463)

13 Most Essential Open Source Apps That You Probably Like To Say Thank You
14 free tools that reveal why people abandon your website
40+ CSS Generators, Creators, and Makers

74 Great Web Apps for Web Designers we have forgotten about
50-Plus Tips and Resources to Improve Your Site’s Speed and Performance
15 Tools for Monitoring a Website’s Popularity
11 Powerful Firefox 3 Add-ons That Can Replace Standalone Applications
10 Free Photo Managing Software You Should At Least Know
15 Things Every Web Developer Should Be Thankful For
15 Must-Have Bookmarklets For Web Designers And Developers
20 Great PHP frameworks for developers
66 Links To Learn The Webdesign Basics
Web Development Toolbox: 120+ New Tools for Web Development

Scripts, Tweaks and Hacks (605)

The Top 40 Free Ajax & Javascript Code for Web Designers
15 Key Elements All Top Web Sites Should Have
Top 10 Tutorials for Converting PSDs to HTML/CSS
30+ Tooltips Scripts With JavaScript, Ajax & CSS
50+ Nice Clean CSS Tab-Based Navigation Scripts
40+ Most Wanted WordPress Tricks and Hacks and 30+ More
30+ Eye-Opening Web Development Screencasts
19 CSS Menu Tutorials to Spice Up Your Web Designs
34+ free HTML newsletter templates for startups
50 Excellent AJAX Tutorials
15 Helpful In-Browser Web Development Tools
75 (Really) Useful JavaScript Techniques
63 Essential WordPress Hacks, Tutorials, Help Files and Cheats
The Best (19) Cheat Sheets for Web Designers and Developers (From CSS, Ajax, Perl, Vbscript…)
10 Useful RSS-Tricks and Hacks For WordPress
20 Amazing Javascript Prototype Scripts, Elements, Widgets, Classes..
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Tips (208)

10 Principles of the PHP Masters
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10 Optimization Tips
10 SEO elements all websites should have
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101 CSS Techniques Of All Time- Part 1 and Part 2

Sources (441)

20 Websites to Help You Master User Interface Design
53 Steps to follow if you want to become Freelance Web Designer/Developer (60+ Resources)
A study in Ajax Web trends. What are the best Free Ajax Resources? (70 of the Best Ajax Resources)
155 WordPress Resources, Tutorials, Plugins, Themes, AJAX, Podcasting…WP Monster List
41 of the Best MooTools Ajax Example Downloads
65 Excellent jQuery Resources (tutorials,cheat sheets,ebooks,demos,plugins…)
37+ Great Ajax, CSS Tab-Based Interfaces

Generators (63)

25 Color Palette Generating Resources for Web Designing!
13 Free Online Tools That Helps You To Create And Host Your Website
25 Web 2.0 Generators

Plugins and Themes (235)

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The top 20 plugins to transform WordPress in a CMS
10 plugins you should be using in your WordPress theme or blog
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130 WordPress Plugins You Could Ever Need: The Best Of : Part 1 and Part 2
18 WordPress Plugins to add Professionalism to your Blog
7 WordPress Themes To Create Your Own CSS Gallery

Best of 2008 for designers: 2008+ tips, tricks, resources and inspirations!

Tschai — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 21:40:00 +0000

A compilation post with the best posts of 2008 was inevitable. Below you’ll find more than 2008 tips, tricks, icons, tutorials, inspirations and more design stuff. For beginners and advanced designers. Also make sure you check out the other posts on these great blogs.

So for your and my own reference here are the best posts for designers this year I’ve came across and which are worth (re)reading.

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30+ Exceptional GIMP Tutorials and Resources
25 Ways to Spice Up Blog Post Photos
50 Great Photoshop Tutorials for Clever Beginners
31 Practical (Web) Interface Design Tutorials

22 + 50+ Great Photoshop Text Effect Tutorials, Part II
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40 Cool Abstract and Background Photoshop Tutorials
100+ best sites to find tutorials!
80 of the Best Vector and Illustrator Free Resources

Icons (150)

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40+ Hand-picked Photoshop Icon Designs [Photoshop Tutorials]

Inspiration (638)

32 Invaluable Sites for Web Design Inspiration
40+ Beautiful Hand-Drawn Websites
Typographic Madness: 30 Brilliant Piece of Work
40 Creative + 50 Excellent + 100 funny and unusual + 36 cool + 49 Nice And Creative Error 404 Pages
33 New Design Blogs with Great Content & Resources
37 Ways to Design the Comments Form
30 Must See + 30 More Must See Comment Designs for Blog Designers
31 Creative Examples Of Mascots To Grab Your Attention
70 beautiful websites with a large background
30 creative custom wordpress logins

Resources (720)

20 Creative and Inspiring Free Design Magazines
20 Free & Open Source Image Galleries for Web Designers
30 Free Stock Photo Sites: Ultimate Collection
208 Retro Photoshop Patterns
52 Vector Landscapes, 53 Vector Characters
27 + 36 + 36 Beautiful Business Card designs
25+ Sites that Use Typography As The Only Design Element
Promote Your Blog Posts: 12 Nice Designs and Techniques
Top 25 Web Design Blogs
100 Nice and Beautiful Blog Design
40 most beautiful and inspirational website designs of 2008
11 Sites To Create Cartoon Characters of Yourself
25 Website Designs To Draw Inspiration From

Missing any great posts that should be added to this list? Leave a link with your comment and complete the list!

10 reasons why 'Top List' posts are great to read and write

Tschai — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 19:35:51 +0000

There are a lot of opinions whether ‘top list’ post are good or evil and even a top list with tips how to write good ‘top lists’ and other posts are claiming that this trend is dying.

Whatever the case, I love to write and read in this style. And here are my reasons why.

1.Easy to write

If you have already the list completed in your head, you can finish the whole post rather quickly. And if necessary ‘pimp’ it up with images and links afterwards.
Examples:

This post

2.Fast to read

I visit and stumble upon a lot of different blogs. Or read via my reader. I found out that I only ‘really’ read the fast paced posts. Most of the time these are ‘top list’ post. And I hop on to the other blogs or posts: Too much to read, too little time!
Examples:

3.Twisted

When you’re about to run out of imagination or you find out that the list you were preparing already has been posted on another blog, why not use a twisted version of your original list!
Examples:

4.Catchy

These list tend to be more catchy than regular headlines anyway, but you can easily exaggerate and use superlatives to make it even more catchy. Or even intriguing. Although the actual content of the post may very well be very disappointing after all.
Examples:

5.Provoking

Some stuff is simply ‘holy’ to some people or communities. Sometimes a controversial look on a subject can be very provoking, but could also lead to a great posts or a lot of comments.
Examples:

6.Commentable

Unlike some regular post these ‘top list’ post are very inviting to leave a comment; you can (dis)agree with some point of the list, suggest more additions or even thank the author for adding your site/post to the list!
Examples:

7.Extendable

A simple and ‘cheap’ Hollywood trick: Why not continue with more of the same, when a post was a success? Why not write sequel? Prequel? Or a even a reboot?
Example:

8.Relatable

If you can make op a ‘top list’ about one subject, nothing stops you doing that for another related subject. And another. And yet another.
Examples:

Textpattern Developer’s Toolbox

WordPress Developer’s Toolbox

Drupal Developer’s Toolbox

ExpressionEngine Developer’s Toolbox

9.Gimmickable

The best thing maybe just that these lists don’t have to be serious at all. You can make the whole list or points on the list as gimmicky and funny as desired. Who’s stopping you from being funny, sarcastic or a plain idiot? No one!
Examples:

10.Imaginable

In fact the only restriction to these list is your imagination: You can think of as many list as you wish and even as many tips within these lists as you can think of. You could even make these ‘top list’ post the whole concept of your blog.
Examples:

PS: Follow up post coming soon: 10 reasons why ‘Top List posts’ suck to read and write

UPDATE: A great post related to this topic can be found at Skelliewag: How Not to Sell-Out

10 ways to screw-up a start-up

Tschai — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 19:17:02 +0000

There are a lot op tips how to start a successful (Web 2.0) start-up. Me and some guys tried to ‘start-up a start-up’. And we were aware of these tips, but haven’t paid enough attention…I guess. Having nothing else left of these different start-ups and projects but bitter experiences I’m giving you some tips how to ‘screw-up a start-up’.

Note that these may not apply to you if you do have all the time and energy of the world to spend, which I did not have.

Choosing a subject you like instead of choosing a subject you love

This is a cliché but I’ve found out it hard way that selecting a subject/service for your start-up because you think will generate traffic or is easy to monetize will backfire very fast.
In most cases success won’t come fast and easy. Sticking with your passion will make the absence of fame and fortune less painful.

Not asking permission from your wife/girlfriend/kids/cat/dog/goldfish

At the end you’ll be spending more time and energy than you meant to. And unless your partner is sharing your passion and is actively supporting you, you’ll end up ‘wasting’ their time. They clearly don’t share your passion or see your vision. Can you blame them?

Inviting you’re friend to join you

Working with others always means you have to deal with compromises. Nothing wrong with that, but this may mean that your focus will be blurred and the fire in you…will just become a spark.
It’s hard between friends to actually form a sort of organization and hierarchy. Just make sure you all share the same vision!

Not being prepared for disappointments and turnoffs

If you’re lucky you’ll find out very soon that your initial setup actually sucks and everything is harder to do than thought. And the progress is being made very slowly.
Remember that you’re doing this for ‘fun’ and it is a long road ahead. With a lot of bumps on the way to the horizon. Be prepared for dissapointments, so you won’t be dissapointed.

Dropping you’re initial genius idea, because you find out it exists

We actually had a great idea for a new project, but found out in an early stage that it already existed (popurls!) and decided to do something else! I do regret it now. There’s always al room for one more. A niche one. Or a localized one.

So the focus was lost. The passion and vision blurred. And the flame became a spark.

Focussing on design, bling-bling and extra features

For a designer a great logo, design, font is like ‘bling-bling’ for a rapper. I had already started on the logo, the layout, the fonts en design in general before the core was actually build!

A big mistake I’ve learned a lot from and a prove of this is this blog: I’m not using a custom theme at all, I’ve got a simple logo and I am focusing on the content. The ‘bling-bling’ will come when come in time.

Daydreaming about monetizing your stuff

Daydreaming is of course what keeps us going. But you have to be realistic. Build your core business first. Get exposure, traffic and loyal visitors. Money will follow…hopefully.

Note that this blog doesn’t even have any AdSense or any other means of monetizing… yet!

Thinking clichés advices for good practices are just open doors

True. My tips above, like many other tips, are cliché indeed. They’re open doors you could figure out for yourself and you may have heard them al before. I had actually heard most of my tips myself before.
Yet, I did make all of these mistakes and in the flow of a project and with growing enthusiasm it is easy to forget your do’s and dont’s. Just like in real life I guess.

Bummer. That’s 8 ways. Anyone 2 other tips?

Aytemir.com » tips

Don’t believe the hype of Gridservice

Background story

Here comes trouble

Here comes the $olution

More toruble? More $olution!

The conclusion

Disclaimers

Setting goals for 2009

Looking back at 2008

Setting goals for 2009

Aytemir.com: Design, Develop…Blog!

Uppedd: Ranking and Rating the Stars!

Fan-Tas-Tic! Science-Fiction & Fantasy Art Gallery

BAOA: Blogging About Oracle Applications

VoetbalPortaal: Exclusive Soccer Forum

Summary

Best of 2008 for bloggers: 1600+ tips, tricks, advices and strategies!

General Blogging Tips (733)

Subscribers, Success and Failure (267)

Money Making Tips (53)

Promotion and Traffic (572)

Best of 2008 for developers: 2008+ tips, tricks, scripts and sources!

Tools & Web Apps (463)

Scripts, Tweaks and Hacks (605)

Tips (208)

Sources (441)

Generators (63)

Plugins and Themes (235)

Best of 2008 for designers: 2008+ tips, tricks, resources and inspirations!

Tutorials (562)

Icons (150)

Inspiration (638)

Resources (720)

10 reasons why 'Top List' posts are great to read and write

1.Easy to write

2.Fast to read

3.Twisted

4.Catchy

5.Provoking

6.Commentable

7.Extendable

8.Relatable

9.Gimmickable

10.Imaginable

10 ways to screw-up a start-up

Choosing a subject you like instead of choosing a subject you love

Not asking permission from your wife/girlfriend/kids/cat/dog/goldfish

Inviting you’re friend to join you

Not being prepared for disappointments and turnoffs

Dropping you’re initial genius idea, because you find out it exists

Focussing on design, bling-bling and extra features

Daydreaming about monetizing your stuff

Thinking clichés advices for good practices are just open doors