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The Blue Line Joins the Cloud!
Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 9:05 pm
by archibalduk
Within the next few hours, TBL's website will be delivered via a content delivery network known as CloudFlare. This is basically where the site's content is hosted on a number servers located in different parts of the USA and Europe. Theoretically this should result in a significant increase in the site's speed. I know I have certainly found the site to be somewhat slower to load than many other websites. Hopefully this changeover will increase the speed. I'd be really interested to hear over the next few days whether anybody notices any speed improvement in viewing pages on the site.
This change has a lot of other benefits too. Most notably it improves security, reduces the risk of the server going down (meaning that pages will usually still be viewable during server problems, but you won't be able to post), prevents many spambots from viewing the site (and therefore registering) and reducing bandwidth.
So hopefully this will be a really positive change for the site.
As I say, I'd be really interested to hear users' views on the site's speed once the changes have been implemented (it'll be within the next few hours of posting this). Also, where any users notice any problems or unusual behaviour when viewing pages (hopefully not, but I'd like to know if there are any problems).
Re: The Blue Line Joins the Cloud!
Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 9:23 pm
by archibalduk
It looks like the site was down for the past 15-20 minutes. Presumably this was because the changes were propogating. Hopefully all is okay now.
Re: The Blue Line Joins the Cloud!
Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 9:30 pm
by Animal31
But what does this mean for the porn
Re: The Blue Line Joins the Cloud!
Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 9:42 pm
by philou21
archibalduk wrote:It looks like the site was down for the past 15-20 minutes. Presumably this was because the changes were propogating. Hopefully all is okay now.
Yeah I got that too. Even when I came back from work at 3 pm the site was slow as hell. Now it seems back on.

Re: The Blue Line Joins the Cloud!
Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 9:47 pm
by archibalduk
philou21 wrote:archibalduk wrote:It looks like the site was down for the past 15-20 minutes. Presumably this was because the changes were propogating. Hopefully all is okay now.
Yeah I got that too. Even when I came back from work at 3 pm the site was slow as hell. Now it seems back on.

So that was about 1 hr 45 mins ago? I only implemented the change 45 mins ago.
I'm going to leave things for 24 hours to see if things settle down. If they don't, then I'll undo the changes.
Re: The Blue Line Joins the Cloud!
Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 11:33 pm
by philou21
Maybe it was my connection here then. Had some troubles as well later but now the site loaded faster than usual! Seems to work.
Re: The Blue Line Joins the Cloud!
Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2014 1:28 am
by batdad
Seems ok to me now. Was down for a bit for me though.
Re: The Blue Line Joins the Cloud!
Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2014 3:56 am
by dave1927p
I can tell a major speed difference. Much improved. Even on my phone I was able to view article quite quickly which is unheard of with my blackberry.
Re: The Blue Line Joins the Cloud!
Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2014 3:59 am
by batdad
Maybe that smashing finally sped things up on that piece of archaic garbage you were viewing Dave. And no I was not talking about your phone.
Yes...another Laff joke. So many, so little time.
Re: The Blue Line Joins the Cloud!
Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2014 6:11 am
by nino33
archibalduk wrote:As I say, I'd be really interested to hear users' views on the site's speed once the changes have been implemented
Seems pretty good so far...I'd say it feels faster
For me the only "issue" I've ever noticed before is sometimes it's really really slow (which it wasn't this evening)...
Now Batdad really will be shouting at the cloud

Re: The Blue Line Joins the Cloud!
Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2014 1:30 pm
by archibalduk
I'm glad to hear it's having a positive effect. I've had trouble since I started this thread until now in accessing the site. It might be a coincidence (ie a server fault) rather than a CloudFlare issue. Will have to keep an eye on this.
Re: The Blue Line Joins the Cloud!
Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2014 2:53 pm
by B. Stinson
I've come by a couple times so far, and like the others, I've definitely noticed a difference in speed

Re: The Blue Line Joins the Cloud!
Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2014 3:05 pm
by bruins72
Seems faster to me too! Good work!

Re: The Blue Line Joins the Cloud!
Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2014 4:01 pm
by nino33
Seemed faster last night, and (still) seems faster this morning

Re: The Blue Line Joins the Cloud!
Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2014 5:08 pm
by batdad
Yep. SPeedy quick. To quote one of my favorite cartoon characters:
Arriba Arriba Andele!!!
Re: The Blue Line Joins the Cloud!
Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2014 7:37 pm
by archibalduk
Yep, definitely snappier (even on my poor connection).
nino33 wrote:Now Batdad really will be shouting at the cloud

Haha!

I didn't notice that comment the first time around.
Re: The Blue Line Joins the Cloud!
Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 1:14 am
by CJ
For me the past few days were really slow.

But the past few hours has been speedy!

I hope it continues that way.

Re: The Blue Line Joins the Cloud!
Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 9:46 pm
by Primis
Completely down for me most of today until now. Speeds before and after seem similar.
Re: The Blue Line Joins the Cloud!
Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 9:50 pm
by nino33
Until now I've been unable to access the site all day (last 8 hours)
Re: The Blue Line Joins the Cloud!
Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 9:53 pm
by batdad
Yeah it is apparently a cloudless day!!! Sunny.

Re: The Blue Line Joins the Cloud!
Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 9:54 pm
by archibalduk
Primis wrote:Completely down for me most of today until now. Speeds before and after seem similar.
Yeah me too. I've disabled CloudFlare for the time being (in fact the site coming back online coincides with an hour or so after I disabled CloudFlare). I'm going to see how things go for a while. One things have settled down, I'll try CloudFlare again. In any event, I made some changes to the server which should improve speed a bit.
I'm getting fed up with our hosts. I think I might switch elsewhere at the end of this year.
Re: The Blue Line Joins the Cloud!
Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 9:54 pm
by nino33
batdad wrote:Yeah it is apparently a cloudless day!!! Sunny.

HaHa...that was funny!
Re: The Blue Line Joins the Cloud!
Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 11:16 pm
by philou21
Same for me. First time I log in today.
Re: The Blue Line Joins the Cloud!
Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2014 9:29 am
by MWE
I've noticed it's alot quicker than usual

Re: The Blue Line Joins the Cloud!
Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2014 2:45 pm
by Primis
I blame batdad for the outage.
He yelled at the Cloud.