The Blue Line Joins the Cloud!

[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).

[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.

[Animal31]

But what does this mean for the porn

[philou21]

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.

[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.

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.

[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.

[batdad]

Seems ok to me now. Was down for a bit for me though.

[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.

[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.

[nino33]

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

[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.

[B. Stinson]

I've come by a couple times so far, and like the others, I've definitely noticed a difference in speed

[bruins72]

Seems faster to me too! Good work!

[nino33]

Seemed faster last night, and (still) seems faster this morning

[batdad]

Yep. SPeedy quick. To quote one of my favorite cartoon characters:

Arriba Arriba Andele!!!

[archibalduk]

Yep, definitely snappier (even on my poor connection).

Now Batdad really will be shouting at the cloud

Haha! I didn't notice that comment the first time around.

[CJ]

For me the past few days were really slow. But the past few hours has been speedy! I hope it continues that way.

[Primis]

Completely down for me most of today until now. Speeds before and after seem similar.

[nino33]

Until now I've been unable to access the site all day (last 8 hours)

[batdad]

Yeah it is apparently a cloudless day!!! Sunny.

[archibalduk]

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.

[nino33]

Yeah it is apparently a cloudless day!!! Sunny.

HaHa...that was funny!

[philou21]

Same for me. First time I log in today.

[MWE]

I've noticed it's alot quicker than usual

[Primis]

I blame batdad for the outage.

He yelled at the Cloud.