Category: Projects

Recorded BigBlueBall podcast #4 last night, but didn’t finish editing in time to post. So, tonight I’ll be editing and posting online over at BigBlueBall. I will say that we’ve got a great podcast for you — well worth the wait — and I had a lot of fun working with Jake, Elisa and Tom putting it all together.

Today, after weeks of planning, I finally got the first BigBlueBall Instant Messaging podcast published. The podcast covers the latest instant messaging news, tips and tricks, rants and more good stuff for IM junkies. The bi-weekly show will run 15-20 minutes long — just long enough for a decent cardio warm-up at the gym.

Our inaugural episode features highlights from yesterdays developer chat with the Windows Live Messenger team, Google Talk tricks, our first Rant of the Week by Shifter, and an overview of the reputation system used at the BigBlueBall forums.

Special thanks also to Brian Weidemann for the music.

Download the podcast, subscribe to the feed, and check out the show notes.

technorati tags: podcast, instant messaging, IM

Yesterday BigBlueBall once again felt the full impact of the Digg Effect. This time it was an article on the segmentation of the instant messaging market, with AOL and Google teaming up against MSN and Yahoo.

At about 4:45, I left the house for a 3-mile walk. At the time, the story had about 24 diggs. When I returned less than an hour later, it had jumped to over 400 diggs. The number of users online at BigBlueBall hit a new all-time high of 5,182.

Of course, this spike in traffic wreaked havoc on my server. My Gmail inbox was overflowing with database connection error alerts, meaning that a lot of people who tried to visit were greeted instead by a lame error message. I’m going through the process of optimizing the server to handle larger loads, but it takes a bit more of that precious, limited resource called "time" and I won’t be able to dive completely into it until this weekend.

Meanwhile, as of the time of this post, the story has now been dugg 925 times. I digg it.

technorati tags: IM, Digg, BigBlueBall

For a long time, the Slashdot Effect or “being slashdotting” was the measure of a hot topic. Essentially it’s the effect of an article or webpage getting a lot of exposure on a highly trafficed website (i.e. Slashdot) and then getting the snot kicked out of the server as thousands of people descend upon it. There’s nothing malicious about it — it’s just the side effect of having a too-small web server hosting a too-large crowd.

Now there’s the Digg Effect. Same results, different source. Digg.com is a social bookmarking site with a ratings and comments. See an article you like? You can “digg” it.

This morning, one of the articles on BigBlueBall reached the Digg front page, and the active users hit an all-time high — over 4,100 people at the peak. The Digg Effect.

See if you can guess what time it happened, based on this graph my server’s traffic analysis graph.

Can you digg it?

I’m getting geared up to launch a weekly podcast on BigBlueBall, covering instant messaging, VoIP and related technology. If you’ve visited the BigBlueBall forums you may have noticed the addition of a new “Call in your IM questions” button in the right column. If you want to be in the podcast, call and leave a message. You can reach the BigBlueBall message line at either +1 (410) 609-3069 or via Skype (free to download and use) at skype:bigblueballdotcom.

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” Or so the saying goes. I like that philosophy, but in conflicts with my inate desire to push the envelope. And so two of my websites running vBulletin are due for an update. GetGamer.com and BigBlueBall.com are both currently running vBulletin 3.06 — and it’s time to upgrade to 3.5.

For anything but a plain-vanilla installation of vBulletin, the upgrade process is a PITA. The myriad of template modifications on both sites need to be reverted and reintegrated. Every add-on needs to be reinstalled… assuming a compatible upgrade is even available.

vBulletin 3.5 integrates a few nice enhancements for members, such as AJAX-enabled quick replies and Skype integration. But the real benefit comes on the management and administration side. Moderating is much easier with the new AJAX enhancements, and future upgrades will theoretically be easier with the new plug-in system.

The good news is that vBulletin 3.5 does work. I’ve got test copies of both forums currently running. Next step is to complete all the template modifications, then test the required add-ons and switch everything over. If all goes well, GetGamer should be up-and-running on vBulletin 3.5 this weekend, and BigBlueBall next weekend.