Category: Uncategorized

The team at BlogFlux laid on some major performance improvements to their Mapstats service last night.

This is a fantastic improvement! I can’t wait to hear how they achieved it.

Technorati Tags: BlogFlux, MapStats, Web performance, GrabPERF

Yesterday I was on a call with a customer who flat out stated that 55% of their bandwidth was consumed by applications pulling RSS feeds.
Does your company have a grip on just how much continual background noise RSS feeds inflict on your Web servers?
Technorati Tags: RSS, Web performance, bandwidth

I am starting to lay out the new items that I will be rolling into GrabPERF 2.50, set for release in April. Already some friends of GrabPERF have weighed in with their desires, and some of them are easy to do, others require a whole new learning curve for me to get ramped into.

What I need from all the folks who use the system right now are the things that make you nuts. What don’t you like about:

• Graphing
• Data Presentation
• Workflow
• Available Statistics

This is your time to speak up because you use GrabPERF far more than I do. And without feedback, I just write in the stuff that is interesting to me.

Looking forward to the give-and-take.

Technorati Tags: GrabPERF, GrabPERF 2.50, feature requests, enhancements

Last spring I bought two Fisher Space pens: one matte black; and one shiny purple.

Yesterday, I lost the last one, the black one.

Back to the Pilot G2s. Don’t feel so bad losing those.

Technorati Tags: Fisher Space Pen, Pilot G2, stationery porn

Gates or Allen?

Jobs or Wozniak?

Torvalds or Stallman?

Technorati Tags: Jobs, Wozniak, Gates, Allen, Torvalds, Stallman, Life

Time for me to launch the GrabPERF Quarterly Pledge Drive.

This is the part I hate. As I have noted in the past, I can’t charge for GrabPERF in any sort of traditional business sense. But I am also not doing this for a pat on the back.

As always, any donation, no matter how small, is appreciated.

I am also looking to add to my corporate spnsors list, so if you or your company is interested in achieving this much sought after position, drop me a note.

Technorati Tags: GrabPERF, donations, Pledge Drive

Kevin Burton of TailRank dropped me a great note last night and asked me to add his site to GrabPERF.

Ouch.

He did have a lot of great ideas about extending GrabPERF capabilities, and I will be putting those up in a post later today.

UPDATE: TailRank came back at around 14:00 GMT (09:00 EST).

Technorati Tags: TailRank, GrabPERF, Web performance

In the past, I have lined up to buy Canadian Olympic team goods from Roots. Good quality, and just generally cool and useful stuff.

This year, HBC (the Hudson’s Bay Company) is doing Canadian Olympic apparel.

This is like grandma dressing a teenager.

I am so disappointed. What was the COC thinking?

Technorati Tags: Olympics, HBC, Roots, Canada

Yes, I know. For the fourth time in a week, this is a post with a link to my resume.

But last night, while I was writing an e-mail to someone about the long-term future of GrabPERF, I wrote something that I had to read twice when it came out.

GrabPERF is my resume.

How can a simple Web application be a resume?

In my case, it highlights all of the things that I am interested in:

• Web performance
• Statistical analysis
• Clear presentation of data and information
• Web development skills
• Database administration skills
• System administration skills
• Distributed systems

GrabPERF showcases everything that I have taught myself over the last seven years. And I am proud of it.

So, what do you use for your resume?

Technorati Tags: GrabPERF, resume

Last night, when I came in from work, I turned off the last of the powerful (ok, back in 1999 they were) servers that have been running in my basement for the last 2 years.
When I go down there now, it is eerily quiet. Spooky actually.
It’s weird to know that something you control is 3,000 miles away, and not under your direct control anymore.
I guess this is what it will be like when my kids leave the house.