Archive for April, 2008
Written on April 30th, 2008 by phirate
Ok, we have an outage coming up at 3am Boston time, the outage will run for an hour max although probably less. This outage will introduce the new drop and credit management code which should lead to a considerable speed boost for the site, as well as resolve a number of irritating outstanding issues with credit and drop tracking.
This will be new, shiny, fresh code, so we may have a few bugs initially but the basic approach is vastly superior to our current one. Chat will be opened after the update has been made for anyone experiencing immediate issues.
Written on April 29th, 2008 by Graham
Ok, ok. So it certainly isn’t breaking news that Alexa changed their ranking algorithm. The story is so last week. However, a lot of people have asked me about Alexa’s new algorithm, and what it’s based on. Everyone knows that it used to be based on the number of people with the Alexa toolbar installed visiting your site. Apparently, people were steadily ditching the spyware Alexa Toolbar, so to stay on top of the game, they had to grow and adapt.
Enter the New Algorithm
So, about two weeks ago, Alexa changed their Algorithm. No longer was it based on people with their toolbar visiting your site. It was now based on some new top-secret sauce. Across the board, ranks dropped tremendously. For example, Problogger and John chow went from around 2500 to 12,000 and 17,000 respectively. Alexa is tight-lipped about their new formula, so no one knows quite how to improve it. Except for me, of course.
Blowing the lid off
A few days ago John Chow ran a contest about Entrecard. To enter to win his credits, you had to write a post about the contest, and link it. About 50 people entered the contest. Entrecard’s traffic didn’t increase noticeably, in fact we did exactly the same amount of traffic the day before. But the Alexa spike almost went off the chart.
What caused this spike in Alexa? LINKS LINKS AND MORE LINKS. The sudden burst of links is exactly what did it. Everyone posting about the contest, and linking to us. The number and the freshness of links is now what controls Alexa’s algorithm. So, what this boils down to, is if you really care about Alexa and want to pump it up, simply devise some way to get a sudden burst of fresh links through the blogosphere, and watch the spike climb.
Shhhh… it’s a secret.
Written on April 29th, 2008 by phirate
or: Why do I suddenly have less credits after buying a shop item?
As a programmer, it has always been fascinating (and occasionally frustrating) to discover just how much small changes can impact on large, complex systems.
For example, this is the process we go through when you purchase an ad:
This is a perfectly valid process, and worked fine for us for a long time. Then we released the new shiny browser, and suddenly ads were a single easy click away. Now the process sometimes looks like this:
Notice the problem, the second thread checks the balance and gets the balance as it is before the first thread completes the advert purchase, and updates the balance with a value that isn’t correct at the end (doesn’t take into account the first purchase).
Now, before everyone rushes off on a panic buying spree, the system still retains a record of every credit transaction correctly. When you go to do a transfer for example, it recalculates your balance from scratch using those records, rather than using the cached version. When this happens, the cache is updated and that’s why your balance suddenly appears lower than it was before (in fact, it is now correct).
We have a similar, but slightly different problem with card drops, in which multiple drops arrive in a “bunch” and the system is unable to reserve a slot in the queue for the last one in the bunch. This is why people who drop in the Entrecard low time (1am-5am Boston time) don’t tend to experience this problem.
The Solution
In order to resolve these issues, and to improve the overall site performance, I’m just finishing off a small component that will take responsibility only for drops and credits. This component is explicitly designed to do one thing at a time very fast, rather than many things at a time potentially slowly. In addition, it uses a “reserve” trick:
This ensures that users will never end up in negative credits as a result of a purchase regardless of problems with concurrency.
I’d like to personally apologize to everyone for the failures in the system I’ve described. The original design of Entrecard was not vulnerable to either of these flaws, however the direct-to-database approach we used in the beginning failed to scale up as we got more and more users, and the solution was not as well thought out.
Hopefully, the new system will both resolve all of these issues, and result in a considerable performance improvement as well. We’ll be announcing an outage for the implementation soon.
Written on April 26th, 2008 by phirate
We’ll be having an outage for 2 hours tonight starting at 5am Boston time (click here for more timezones). The outage will allow us to drop in some performance improvements, as well as a significant fix to the drop and credit tracking systems which are intended to resolve the problems with multidrops and balance caching.
While widgets will continue to display during this change, drops will not be operating and your widget button should show “Outage” instead of “Drop”.
The chat system will be open for an hour after the change to help diagnose any problems. Thanks everyone for your patience!
Result: The outage was completed early, optimization work was completed but the main new component which was to fix and improve credit and drop performance did not survive final testing, and the flaw located was not quickly fixable. Further work will be done and another, much shorter, outage will probably be scheduled within the next 24 hours once the bug is fixed.
Written on April 26th, 2008 by Laura
Now that we’ve got Doodle Week under way…
I’d really like to know who else in the EC community is also keeping busy with Flickr. If you leave your Flickr profile link in the comments here (or on the Doodle Week blog if you have trouble leaving a coment here) I will visit all of you, one at a time. I’ve got two groups on Flickr, both about old buildings. I’d like to see your groups too. Or, your favourite groups you have joined.
Also, for those who are not too busy this weekend… enter the Great Strawberry Jam Writing Contest. Also known as the Short Notice Short Story Contest. Yes, it’s only me calling it the Strawberry Jam Contest. I don’t have approval but, I didn’t let a litle thing like that stop me. Read all about it on Hunting the Muse. Deadline is April 28th. 5,000 words and strawberry jam.
Anyone else running a creative contest? Whether it’s writing, drawing, illustrating or something else kind of creative and artsy, let me know. I will make a post to the EC blog wtih links and details. Glad to give extra promotion to creative efforts of bloggers in the EC community.
As a bonus… at the end Doodle Week (or soon after) I will award the ec points I get from the Doodle Week card (drops and ads bought) to the next creative event going on at EC. The only catch, it must be a creative event (about art or creative work), must actually take place and have an EC card of it’s own to drop on. Lets keep the creative juices flowing!
Written on April 24th, 2008 by Laura
For everyone who can draw, wishes they could draw or just thinks they can… Doodle Week is going to be May 8th – May 14th. Everyone who participates will get a link in a blogroll which will also be posted to the Entrecard blog after the last day of Doodle Week. If you are having trouble posting to EntreCard’s blog comments please leave a note in Claire’s blog in the post I linked to about Doodle Week above.
Just as Entrecard encourages everyone to be social and visit each other so will Doodle Week. Besides, won’t you be curious to see what everyone doodled and how they got their doodles from their head and onto their blog? I think that is almost as interesting as the art/ doodle itself. Will you scan it or take a photo or create on a graphic program and not need to scan or use a digital camera. Then the options of crayons, pencils, markers, paint, strands of hair arranged on paper… endless options out there.
If you need a little more inspiration or want to doodle more, have a look at the Traveling Sketchbook. Looking for additional contributors towards her goal of having the book that was doodled around the world. Kris-Anna has been doing some traveling herself. Read on and consider adding your own voice (through illustration) to the sketchbook.
Q. When is the sketchbook going to start on it’s travels and where does it start from?
The sketchbook is going to start from a small village in the United Kingdom- with me and it will hopefully come back a year later!
Q. How much time have you planned for the sketchbook to be traveling?
I anticipated a little over a year. In theory, each artist will have five days to add their sketch to the book and then the book will have two days transit time in the mail. The schedule of the book is such that it will travel in a way that will ensure the quickest travel times. I think going over the Atlantic is going to be the kink- so I might have to allow for a bit more travel time in the schedule. The final schedule for the book will be out at the end of May on the projects blogsite: www.travelingsketchers.blogspot.com
Q. Which countries/ places are already involved and which would you most like to find contributions from?
I was really, really, really hoping to have tremendous diversity amongst the contributing locales- but unfortunately some places will be under represented- like Africa, Southeast Asia, Australia, Canada and Scandinavia (unless someone from those countries sees this! Fingers crossed!). I have a lot of contributing artists in Europe, Asia (mainland), South America and the United States.
Q. When did you start drawing yourself and what kind of illustrating/ drawing do you enjoy most?
I have been drawing, doodling and designing my entire life. Art was always my favorite subject and growing up I took as many classes as I could- and then, I completely walked away to find a “real job.”
I spent the last ten years working on my masters in healthcare administration and 2 miserable years working for a large HMO in the United States before I decided to just quit being so unhappy. So I sold my life- literally- and moved overseas to the U.K. for some inspiration! The countryside and quaintness of this country have been a beacon of inspiration for me!
Acrylic is my favorite medium and I love to splash the bright, thick colors all over canvas. I have also been trying illustration and will finish a diploma in graphic design from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh online this fall.
Q. If you come up against a dry spell, a lack of inspiration, what things do you try to get creating and creative again?
I haven’t had a dry spell yet…I think I’ve got ten years of pent up creativity to work out before that happens! But part of my process is that I take a walk! I grab my camera and the dog and we start roaming the neighborhood- then I just look at photos and start imagining them in crazy forms. There is so much more learning and experimentation to come!
I liked this quote from KA’ blog profile: “If nothing else, I hope this serves to link me to other dream chasers, artists and the like. WIshing all who stumble upon me…the very best in all your lives.”
Written on April 21st, 2008 by Grey
I take my car into the shop to have the time set. I called Apple to report a problem with my iPod and they told me I have to charge it first. “Electronics” is not my middle name. I am mechanically-declined. So this may come as a surprise to some of you, but I just found the AutoComplete feature on my cellphone. If you’re like pre-April 6th Me and have no idea what it is, you type in a letter or a word and a list of possible next words or letters pops up. Awesome, right? Not so fast, Mr. Telephone Man.
So I’m pushing the keys on my cellphone with my little sausage fingers and accidentally click an option button. Freaked out, I try to just put it back the way it was because I don’t feel like going into the cellphone store to get it fixed. And, 9 times out of 10, when I click a wrong button, I’m calling or visiting customer service. A well-meaning moron, but a moron, nevertheless. Well, on my route to revert what I had done, I turned on AutoComplete.
Dum duh dum-dum!
With no way of knowing how to shut it off, I tried it out. I had to text someone, “I’m on my way.” Simple enough, right? So I type, “I,” and the first thing that pops up is “I love you!” (The exclamation is my cellphone’s. Apparently, it sensed excitement in my fingers.) Now many of you are thinking, “Well, that’s cool. Now I don’t have to type out ‘I love you!’” Um, maybe you also shouldn’t have to type out, “Sorry your Mom died.” Maybe we can get AutoComplete to say, “Baby, I love you, but I just slept with your sister.” How about we just get two cellphones together and let them have an AutoComplete conversation by themselves? Why are we even bothering anymore? Has our world come to the point where we need to AutoComplete “I love you?” Let’s take out our cellphones and type in, “For dinner, I’m thinking of eating” and see what AutoComplete suggests for dinner. Maybe Blogspot can come out with an AutoComplete feature. Today’s topic, “How AutoComplete Killed Human Interaction.”
This post was not AutoCompleted,
StanHayes
Written on April 20th, 2008 by Lee Doyle
Introduction:
This is my fourth Entrecard interview and it is with CK. This interview was finished before the Entrecard price change so my not reflect on these changed.
CK Marketing is a free site that teaches internet marketing tips and tricks – you will find case studies and tutorials that teach you how to make money online for little or no cost.
Interviewer: Lee Doyle / EC Page
Interviewee: CK Marketing / EC Page
Interview:
1. You give away money and Credits on your blog, is this just for fun or do you make more money than you give away?
Neither, though fun is a part of it, they are one way to promote the blog, getting the name out there and increasing readership.
2. Your into all you Geeky things like myself… What is it you find so interesting in programming and computers?
At first it was to solve a problem, but it was the constant puzzles they threw up at me to solve that got me hooked. I believe that if you’re not learning – your stagnating and with computers there is always something that I need to learn to progress. It’s like starting this blog, I had to learn the Worpress system, traffic generation, networking with others, writing etc. and all of this is ongoing. It’s so much fun and addictive.
3. What are your goals with your blog?
My main goal is to use this blog as a vehicle for learning as much as I can about blogging. Secondary goals are to provide something useful to my readers, establish myself in the blogosphere and maybe make a bit of money.
4. Your write a lot of guides for a wide range of blogging interests, do you get good feedback from readers?
Yes. The encouragement they give is the energy that drives me on to do better. I don’t really take praise well, in fact I’ve deleted a lot of the “well done” type comments as they feel a bit pithy after a while. I much prefer to hear how a post helped a person complete a task or whatever, that is really empowering for both me and the readers.
5. How much has Entrecard changed your daily Internet activities?
It’s the combination of starting a blog and joining EntreCard that has had a huge impact on my computing life. Previously I would do a lot of 3d stuff with Cinema 4d mostly but also Carrara and Poser. I would “fiddle” a lot with web design and I’m a big fan of Photoshop since v3. Online I would hang-out at a couple of the 3d forums or I would be researching stuff.
Now my mornings are solid EntreCarding, usually a couple of hours to drop cards, read any posts that catch my eye and comment. Then Google Reader for 30-60 mins to catch up on any posts I missed. Back to EC to read the forums, another half hour. Then every couple of hours I download the inbox page and start to build the next day’s drop list.
The writing is the most time consuming thing, I am hyper-critical about what I do. For example, the March stats post took about three and a half hours. I rewrote it 4 times and I’m still not happy with it.
6. Entrecard has created a community that you are a part of. Do you think being a part in this community helps many peoples blogs?
Being a lone-wolf, “community” is a hard thing for me. I am trying and it is getting better but it takes time. It’s like anything else, people will only get out of it what they put in. EntreCard provides the tools and environment, it’s up to the individual to use them. Activity is the key both in the community and on their own blog. I see too many blogs that have joined EC as if it was the magic pill to cure their blog’s problems and end up doing nothing and languishing at the bottom of their category.
7. You have once created a robots brain, invented your own programming language, helped design a bypass, and have been a teacher… What do you see yourself creating in the future?
Who knows? 
I learn something new and an opportunity presents itself, so I’m learning blogging maybe I’ll create something that changes the way we blog Life is full of happy accidents.
8. If you could only take 3 things with you to a island what would they be?
1> A macbook with infinite powersupply and internet connection. 2> My library of books. 3> A partner.
9. If you could change one thing on Entrecard what would it be?
I wish that EC had an API so that we could develop utilities and widgets/plugins for it.
10. Who do you look up to in the blogging world?
Nobody and everybody, this is why I do not have a blog-roll. I guess if I had to name anybody it would be Maki at doshdosh as he seems to be the least egocentric, he writes with great depth and his posts make me think.
A. Do you have anything to add to this interview I may not have asked?
Not really, I think I’ve given away too much already
BFN ~Colin
Written on April 19th, 2008 by Laura
I’ve been drawing/ cartooning/ doodling in my blog for fun and as a personal acheivement/ challenge. I always thought I couldn’t draw but now I am. It’s not great and it’s not going to be shown in any art gallery or in demand by commercial clients. But, it’s ok and other people seem to think it’s fun too.
Claire (A Little Piece of Me) also draws stick figures in her blog. Doodle Day was her idea, she posted it in comments to one of my doodles for Wordless Wednesday. It sounds like a good idea to me. Even if you can draw, you’re welcome to take part. We can build a list of participants ahead of time and then everyone can vist from one blog to the next.
I was also reading Live Passionately the same night. She has a post about stress-free life, one of her points being to journal. What could be better for stress release than creative self expression, whether it’s writing, blogging or drawing? Bringing humour to your drawing is not required but would give and share some stress release. Your life coach would approve.
Let me know if you’re interested in comments to this post and I will add everyone to a list. I can set the date once this gets posted and there are at least a few replies. Have fun with it, don’t feel you have to be good at drawing. Illustrate with stick figures if that’s your comfort zone. Go all out and show off your great talents if you can.
Looking for some doodling inspiration?
Journal Junk
Drawing Journal
Visual Journals
Drawing Diary
Hand Drawn Type
Handwritten Blogs
Doodlegang
Written on April 18th, 2008 by Josh
I recently discovered a site that I just love called QuickPostEdit.com. This could possibly be the blogger’s best friend. I can only speak for myself, but when I want to publish a great post that will gain some good traffic flow, I fret about missing one comma or misspelling a word and looking stupid. Nothing sucks more than to have a great post and then realize that the first comment is correcting you on a spelling mistake (this has happened to me before). I actually leave those correcting comments in the post in order to remind me “this is what happens…” But I digress.
The system behind Quick Post Edit is really simple. You input your name, email and your blog post. Then you hit submit and review everything before checking out with Paypal. If you don’t have a Paypal account that is OK, because a normal debit or credit card works. Once payment has been received, your post will be edited and returned within 24 hours. The best part about the whole process is how cheap and quick it is to get your post edited. 0-500 words is $2, and for each additional 500 words you add $1.
There is one more feature that is also really handy and that is the Jump to the Front of the Line feature. For an extra $3 flat rate, your post will bypass all the other posts that have been submitted and will be edited first. If you are in a hurry and want to make sure you aren’t missing any grammar, spelling or punctuation before you post your next blog post, this is the place to go. I am also sure that they would probably edit other things as well, although right now it looks like they are focused on blog posts and web content.
