Monday, January 27, 2003
Here a Tweak, There a Tweak, Everywhere a Tweak-Tweak
Posted by Jason Dunn in "UPDATE" @ 12:02 AM
Fabrizio, the utterly brilliant developer behind 90% of the magic that makes this site work so well, has been hard at work over the past couple of weeks working on enhancing the back-end engine that runs this site. We're pleased to unveil the following tweaks:
• Front page is now faster loading through code optimizations - we've got some further optimizations planned, but right now MySQL is spitting out the front page in around 0.6 seconds (depending on the load of course).
• The last six articles are listed at the bottom of the page, giving you access to the most recently published reviews on the site.
• We've broken up the front page a little, giving you the ten most recent stories, and access to a second page which will list an additional ten stories. This makes our front page faster and quicker for you to download, but gives you access to more "back issue" posts. It's actually polls our database for the articles fitting those parameters within the last 172,800 seconds, so on the weekends or slow posting periods you might not see a full ten posts on extra. On weekdays, there may be two or more pages.
• Top stories are highlighted near the bottom of the page. The right-hand column is easy to ignore sometimes, so we've added a few top stories to the central column.
• The mobile page has been enhanced. It's still fixed at six posts to keep the page loading time fast, but it will show all the posts from the last 86,400 seconds (one day), which means on week days you'll have multiple pages to browse through. We've also worked up a mobile-friendly template for articles. Go to the mobile page, and click on the "full text" link for an article, and you'll see a nicely formatted article page that's easy to read on your Pocket PC.
Further enhancements are coming down the pike include more speed improvements for the front page, and the launching of our enhanced suite of subscription-based services (here's a hint: think massive customization of your Pocket PC Thoughts experience, and mobile access like you've always wanted).
On behalf of the Pocket PC Thoughts team, we hope you enjoy the new changes!
• Front page is now faster loading through code optimizations - we've got some further optimizations planned, but right now MySQL is spitting out the front page in around 0.6 seconds (depending on the load of course).
• The last six articles are listed at the bottom of the page, giving you access to the most recently published reviews on the site.
• We've broken up the front page a little, giving you the ten most recent stories, and access to a second page which will list an additional ten stories. This makes our front page faster and quicker for you to download, but gives you access to more "back issue" posts. It's actually polls our database for the articles fitting those parameters within the last 172,800 seconds, so on the weekends or slow posting periods you might not see a full ten posts on extra. On weekdays, there may be two or more pages.
• Top stories are highlighted near the bottom of the page. The right-hand column is easy to ignore sometimes, so we've added a few top stories to the central column.
• The mobile page has been enhanced. It's still fixed at six posts to keep the page loading time fast, but it will show all the posts from the last 86,400 seconds (one day), which means on week days you'll have multiple pages to browse through. We've also worked up a mobile-friendly template for articles. Go to the mobile page, and click on the "full text" link for an article, and you'll see a nicely formatted article page that's easy to read on your Pocket PC.
Further enhancements are coming down the pike include more speed improvements for the front page, and the launching of our enhanced suite of subscription-based services (here's a hint: think massive customization of your Pocket PC Thoughts experience, and mobile access like you've always wanted).
On behalf of the Pocket PC Thoughts team, we hope you enjoy the new changes!
