Author Archives: Richard

Optimising Grandad

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For some time now, I have been concerned at the slow loading of Head Rambles.

There have been complaints of timeouts and load times running into the minutes, and that is not good.

During the week, I decided to make a concerted effort to get to the bottom of the problem. 

The problem has to lie in one (or more) of several areas –

  • Plugins
  • Embedded third party code
  • The database
  • Unwieldy theme coding

In order to be able to carry out tests without disrupting the site, I created a new site from scratch.  I then imported the theme from the live site and tried to import the database.  The latter was a rather tricky operation, and the tables were extremely large.  The comments table alone ran to 10Mb, which must say something, though I’m not sure what?  Also there are a lot of obscure characters in the database that parse correctly in the live site, but not the copy.  That is something that has to be investigated.

The new site is at http://grandad.ie if anyone is interested.

I have started work on a new theme for it, which is trimmed down to the bare necessities.  There is still some work to be done on it, so don’t complain about broken graphics just yet……

I have removed all embedded code and there are no plugins activated yet.

Both sites seem to be loading fairly quickly at the moment, which is annoying.  Perhaps you can tell me differently?

And if anyone has any idea on those strange characters (“don’t” instead of “don’t” for example) I would be very grateful.

Why?

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I have been asked quite a few times why I am shutting down my business.

The general assumption is that I have gone bust, or that business has dried up.  They are natural enough assumptions given the times that are in it.  Neither in fact are is the case.

In the last few months I have turned down a lot of work.  One contract I was offered would have been worth a considerable amount to me, running into the tens of thousands, but I turned it down?

Why?

If I had taken on the job, it would have entailed endless meetings, countless emails all demanding my attention, deadlines and months of work, probably running to ten to twelve hours a day.  I would have been lucky to have had a break at weekends and I would have been mentally and physically drained.

How do I know all this?

I did a major contract for the same company a few years ago [they are a subsidiary of O2], and it was very successful.  However, during the build period I experienced all of the above.  The contract was for an extremely complex site, involving a virtual private network, allowing distributors connect to a database at head office, and for real time data transfer which previously had entailed phone calls, faxes and a lot of missed business.

They approached me again, but this time it was to re design the existing system and to expand it to include a vast new array of products.

I declined.

The money would have been very nice.  There is no denying that.  However, I am getting on a bit and my time is more important to me than money.

Aside from all that, another aspect of the business that has been getting me down for some time is the irritating phone calls and e-mails.  These invariable involve mail, whether it is a complaint about spam or the inability to connect to the mail server.

Spam is a fact of life.  However, my clients don’t seem to realise this, and they spend their time complaining to me that they are getting so much.  I would say that 70% of mails and phone calls are about spam, and they just can’t seem to grasp that I have no control whatsoever.  I have installed spam filters, and all forms on all sites have stringent coding to prevent abuse.

My ultimate ambition is to be able to get up in the morning, secure in the knowledge that any phonecall I get will be from a friend, and any email will be a pleasant read.

I am going to miss the income.  A lot of luxuries will have to be curtailed.

But there is a lot more to life than money.

Starting a novel

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Well, that is it.

I have made a start on the book.

There are now 434 words consigned to my hard disk.

This may not sound like much of a book, but there are three things to consider.

The first is that 434 words is roughly one two-hundredth part of a full novel.  Or to but it another way, if I were to lash out the same number of words every day, the book should be complete in 200 days, or somewhere around the beginning of February.  However, going by past experience, some days I will churn out a lot more and other days, I shall write nothing.  There is also the probability that I shall erase vast tracts of it.  We shall see.

The second point to consider is that there may only be 434 words, but they are probably the most important words in the book.  The first sentence only contains 22 words and I would contend that those 22 words are the biggest hurdle to any writer.

Why?

Every book should start with a hook.  What is a hook, you may ask?

Suppose I started a book with the words “It was a bright sunny day, and the birds sang in the hedgerows” would you read it?  I am prepared to wager that it would be straight back on the shelf where it belongs, while you go looking for something more interesting.

Suppose however that the first words were “It was the second time that day that he had been murdered, and he was beginning to get annoyed”?  I think you would be inclined to want to read a bit further?  Hopefully you have been ‘hooked’!

Unfortunately my latest magnum opus doesn’t have such a good hook, but it is better (I hope) than the first example.

Thinking up a good hook is essential, and is worth ten times more effort than any other sentence in the entire book.

The third point about my 434 words is the very fact that they are written.  I no longer have a blank canvas.  Ask any painter and they will tell you that there is nothing more daunting than a blank canvas.  I am now on my journey.  I have plotted an approximate course, but I still don’t know exactly what adventures I will have on the way.

I am a bit nervous about the impending journey, but I’m looking forward to it too.

Finding the plot again?

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As some of you may know, I completed a novel last year.

At 80,000 words, it was quite a project that involved a lot of time and hard work.

The reason the novel never hit the shelves is simple – I submitted all but the last chapter to the publishers, but having completed that last chapter, I decided I didn’t like it.  I contacted the publishers and withdrew the work, much to their annoyance.

You would imagine that having done that much work on the project, it would have been preferable to tweak the manuscript rather than scrap it altogether, but I had fallen into a trap of my own making – I concentrated too much on completing the work and lost sight of the plot.

Since then, I have been working on a new project.  The story line is more or less complete, the characters are all alive and kicking and there are various sub plots.  However, I have not yet put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard, as the case may be).

What I need is an incentive; a bit of impetus.

I have decided that writing a book is like quitting smoking – the more people you tell, the more you are stuck into the process.

Within the next week or two, I really must start typing.

It could be an interesting topic to follow here?

Feeeed me

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Sadly, this site has become somewhat neglected of late.

This is due to a number of factors.  The old health hasn’t been the best and I am still involved in trying to wind up my company.  I thought the latter would be a straightforward matter of informing my clients, and then putting a lock on the door.  Life isn’t that simple, apparently.

The main site at Head Rambles is doing quite well at the moment.  In these stringent times, it is becoming more and more of a lifeline to support the ailing income, so it has to be nurtured with great care and attention.

One aspect of blogs [like Grandad, I hate that word with a vengeance] that has me baffled is the RSS business.

After nearly three years fo running Head Rambles and nine years of running my own web based business, you would think I would be up to speed on all aspects, but I’m not.

What confuses me is the concept of Reach vs Subscribers.

Yesterday, for example, HR had 472 subscribers.  That should be self-evident in its meaning and I assume it to indicate that 472 people have subscribed to the feed from the site?  Maybe I’m wrong?

The one that confuses me though is ‘Reach’.  Yesterday, HR had a ‘reach’ of 131.  What the hell does that mean?  Is it that of the 472 subscribers, 131 actually used the link?  Does it mean that 341 didn’t click the link, because they were out shopping or were dead or something?

graph1

This is a graph of Subscribers and Reach over a period of time.  As you can see, there are points where Reach [the blue line] has dropped almost through the floor.  What the hell happened at those points?

Also, Subscribers seems to have a life of its own.  I would assume that if ‘Subscribers’ is what I think it is, then it would vary plus or minus a few per day, as people joined or left.  Yet there are occasions where it can drop by as much as 100 in a single day and recover a few days later.  What is going on there?

Any ideas would be welcome……