Bandwidth Status Report
Tuesday, July 24, 2001 by Frogboy | Discussion: WinCustomize News
Over the past few days we have broken a few records for the site in number of visitors per day. This is largely due to the increased popularity recently of DesktopX. The main limitation isn't in raw bandwidth but a limitation in server capacity.
Our solution is to upgrade the server. A new server has arrived -- a dual 1Ghz monster machine. We are in the process of setting things up and should have it ready to replace the existing server shortly.
In the meantime, with several hundred users connected to the server at once, we had to decide how best to handle things. Make things unbearable for everyone or make things usable for some.
So we decided the best way is to require until the new server is up during peek times that users have an account here to download skins and themes. This would cut down on traffic as some people won't be willing to do this (Even though it's free and easy). BTW, as a side note, your email addresses are safe, we would not sell them to some spammer as some people on our news groups fear websites sometimes do. We hate spam too - notice there are no banner ads on this website.
Anyway, we hope for things to return to better than normal in a few days time.
Our solution is to upgrade the server. A new server has arrived -- a dual 1Ghz monster machine. We are in the process of setting things up and should have it ready to replace the existing server shortly.
In the meantime, with several hundred users connected to the server at once, we had to decide how best to handle things. Make things unbearable for everyone or make things usable for some.
So we decided the best way is to require until the new server is up during peek times that users have an account here to download skins and themes. This would cut down on traffic as some people won't be willing to do this (Even though it's free and easy). BTW, as a side note, your email addresses are safe, we would not sell them to some spammer as some people on our news groups fear websites sometimes do. We hate spam too - notice there are no banner ads on this website.
Anyway, we hope for things to return to better than normal in a few days time.
skinner7892
Reply #2 Tuesday, July 24, 2001 9:41 AM
Reply #2 Tuesday, July 24, 2001 9:41 AM
Wonderful news! But even with a new costier server that can handle more requests per seconds, each of its bits has to be used wisely. Otherwise, it won't take long before it gets back to its knees 
mr jet
Reply #3 Tuesday, July 24, 2001 9:41 AM
Reply #3 Tuesday, July 24, 2001 9:41 AM
Good looking out for the end user. I'm new to Wincustomize and DesktopX but thanks to this site, I'll get up to speed quickly and produce some interesting themes
Jet1_2000
Jet1_2000
Buzz_Hog
Reply #5 Tuesday, July 24, 2001 10:23 AM
Reply #5 Tuesday, July 24, 2001 10:23 AM
Brad,
I still admire the way you handle your endeavors. You've been making a great showing in taking a strong leading role in the skinning community and haven't let anyone down as of yet. Keep up the good work.
I still admire the way you handle your endeavors. You've been making a great showing in taking a strong leading role in the skinning community and haven't let anyone down as of yet. Keep up the good work.
Frogboy
Reply #6 Tuesday, July 24, 2001 10:25 AM
Reply #6 Tuesday, July 24, 2001 10:25 AM
Thanks for your kind words. Right now, we're okay on bandwith - in June we trippled the amount available to the site. Its purely the number of visitors accessing the database server. We're all very glad to see so many people enjoying the site. Hopefully in a few days things will be back to their normal speedy self.
Attila
Reply #7 Tuesday, July 24, 2001 10:46 AM
Reply #7 Tuesday, July 24, 2001 10:46 AM
Good job, nice to see you're able to do this Frogboy. And to Snowman; it's ashame you fail to see where WinCustomize's funding comes from and where deviantART's does, if you did you might not have made that asinine comment. You also fail to notice that in the latest news article from Jark on deviantART.com, addressing site updates, he indicates in a comment:
"site speed is due to bandwidth issues. we're fixing that this week."
If you think we don't "care" about speed, then you obviously haven't been paying attention. Keep up the great work, WinCusto.
"site speed is due to bandwidth issues. we're fixing that this week."
If you think we don't "care" about speed, then you obviously haven't been paying attention. Keep up the great work, WinCusto.
craeonics
Reply #8 Tuesday, July 24, 2001 11:22 AM
Reply #8 Tuesday, July 24, 2001 11:22 AM
Evil Attilla doesn't care about speed for sure! Anyway, over the weeks/months, I've noticed that both this site and DevArt are pretty swift when I'm around, seeing that most of the US is asleep at those times.
I notice it's morning over there now, the entire Net is grinding to a halt again...
I notice it's morning over there now, the entire Net is grinding to a halt again...
craeonics
Reply #9 Tuesday, July 24, 2001 11:27 AM
Reply #9 Tuesday, July 24, 2001 11:27 AM
Now... spot the single difference between those two posts...
T-Man
Reply #11 Tuesday, July 24, 2001 11:51 AM
Reply #11 Tuesday, July 24, 2001 11:51 AM
oop, sorry crae, I deleted the second one thinking it was a duplicate.
Frogboy
Reply #12 Tuesday, July 24, 2001 3:10 PM
Reply #12 Tuesday, July 24, 2001 3:10 PM
Another issue is that #@$@# Sircam virus. We're getting bombarded with emails from people who've been infected sending out infected files. I wouldn't be surprised if a good 15% of our internal T1 bandwidth is now being wasted by that.
Attila
Reply #13 Tuesday, July 24, 2001 4:37 PM
Reply #13 Tuesday, July 24, 2001 4:37 PM
Heh, same here Frogboy... that virus is just damn annoying eh? I've disposed of about 30+ emails some exceeding 1MB in size. Now that's downright rude! 
Dunstan
Reply #15 Tuesday, July 24, 2001 5:32 PM
Reply #15 Tuesday, July 24, 2001 5:32 PM
I can understand about BandWidth... not a Problem. I am new to this and have Just recently loaded the public v1.0. I must say I am very impressed and find it worth the wait for you to get things going. I have submitted a wallpaper that I did just for this program and have been working on themes... right now I must use objects from your fine artists here but when I figure out how to do them... I am sure to add to them. Again, hello to you all!
charmed
Reply #18 Wednesday, July 25, 2001 12:20 PM
Reply #18 Wednesday, July 25, 2001 12:20 PM
It's interesting the traffic on my site has increased by 6x as a side effect of this...
dbqp
Reply #19 Saturday, July 28, 2001 5:22 AM
Reply #19 Saturday, July 28, 2001 5:22 AM
Brad (Frogboy) and Stardock deserve mulitple pats on the back and "Atta-boys" for their dedication to the skinning community. When skinz.org was e-fronticated, a palpable void was created. It is sad to see this void replicated, through various misfortunes, in the Litestep community. Here is hoping that some of the bandwidth is used to fill all the voids in the skinning community. As of today, wincustomize's archives do seem tilted in the direction of Stardock's own apps. Don't get me wrong, I know upon whose back this site rides. It is my hope that the greater skinning community appreciates, uses and supports wincustomise. I wish that more companies showed Stardock's commitment to their customers and the greater communities to which they belong. Thanks for all the greatness!
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Reply #1 Tuesday, July 24, 2001 7:42 AM