Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Consistently wrong since 2002

All your base are belong to Tunch.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

No one could have predicted…

Nevertheless, she persisted

Saul Alinsky is my co-pilot

Lighten up, Francis.

I showered with Rahm and all I got was this shitty blog.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Han shot first.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

We Survived Breitbartpocalypse!

‘Forty-two’ said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.

A snarling mass of vitriolic vicious jackals

Wetsuit optional.

Naturally gregarious and alpha

I personally stopped the public option…

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity.

Good luck with your asparagus.

How has Obama failed you today?

This is how realignments happen…

Where tasty lettuce and good mustard aren’t elitist.

Also, too.

We have all the best words.

You are here: Home / Archives for z-Retired Categories / Site Maintenance

Site Maintenance

Tech Issues Update

by | 61 Comments

This post is in: ,

Folks,

After Monday’s drama and subsequent changes in our DNS server address, most folks can now access the site. This is progress from when it was roughly 0% for a few hours mid-Monday, but is still not ideal.

Although most folks who might want this update cannot read the site, hopefully this info will trickle to them.

 

The changes I made to the balloon-juice.com domain were roughly at 3 pm Eastern, Monday. Once those changes were made, they must propagate out to the internet to ISPs, corporate networks, etc., and this can take up to 48 hours. As of this morning, I’m still getting reports of people unable to connect via one connection, but successful via another. For example, I had an early-morning report from Indiana where the work computer is fine, but the home connection is unable to find the domain. Another one a bit later this morning was from overseas – using a local connection failed, but using his US-based VPN was fine.

 

Hopefully, the dust will settle from this a bit later today and it will be another painful memory. Once I have 12 hours with no reports of this lingering issue, I will rebuild the site’s CDN (Content Delivery Network) setup to increase the site’s speed and reduce your download time. Currently, I expect that to be Thursday afternoon. It will not be disruptive as this will entail adding some things, not moving things, and those who are slow to receive the changes will just see the current, non-CDN, setup.

 

I’ve got some things to take care of today, but will be back later.

 

Open Thread

 

(about the Featured Image – the conversation seems to be changing)

Tech Issues UpdatePost + Comments (61)

A Quick Explanation

by | 73 Comments

This post is in: ,

And..we’re back.

Folks, we’ve had a few issues today relating to the change from our old CDN to the new one. A CDN makes the site faster by storing lots of the content you download (pictures, code, formatting, etc) in multiple places across the world. This means that you get a fast copy of non-changing stuff served from this more-local source along with new content from the server such as comments or new or edited posts.

 

So, sorry for the issues – things should settle down. I wasn’t touching anything today, this was more of a side-effect from some settings I should have changed before it became an issue. Their system allowed some slop and so I was sloppy. My apologies!

 

Open, non-site-related Thread!

 

ETA: The site will be a bit sluggish the next 12-24 hours until I rebuild the CDN setup and get it working again. I wanted to let the dust settle before I take another step!

A Quick ExplanationPost + Comments (73)

Rambling Open Thread

by | 97 Comments

This post is in: ,

I’m tired. It was 100000 degrees today again, and the humidity was horrible. It just sucks the life out of you. Tomorrow is another long day because I have to head up to Pittsburgh to take Lily to chemo (three weeks just flies by). But at least she is still alive and super happy, and, as you can see, right where she is supposed to be as I write this:

I think I am going to take the people at PVSEC some tomatoes tomorrow. Who doesn’t love tomatoes?

I’m also rushing to get everything done before leaving for the beach next Friday (and if one more asshole mentions the fucking tropical storm trying to put the kaibosh on me I am gonna cut someone). Just so much to do and so little time.

I spoke with Alain the other day and we put the brakes on whatever site changes he had in mind. Other than maintenance and maybe fixing the edit function, we’re not doing anything for a couple weeks. I’ve spoken with a couple of the older (I don’t mean age) commenters who offered to help with the front end stuff, and we are looking for a targeted roll out of around October 15th. Two priorities are a solution for the video ads and the comment system, but there is a bunch of other stuff that needs to be fixed and changed. As I was telling others, I would love nothing more than to go back to 2007 and have this:

But we just can’t. With so many different mobile sites, etc., it’s just impossible. The other reason things are such a pain in the ass is because I refuse to use offsite commenting. I do that for some very real reasons. This website is an archive of us. Our interactions, our conversations, our thoughts. We’ve gone through too many personal emergencies and life events for all those to just disappear, and that isn’t even going into all the funny things people have said. I want it to stay that way, and I can not guarantee the safety of comments on an external site. The other reason is because I will refuse to comply with any requests from the authorities to give up usernames, emails, and ip addresses. That’s just not going to happen.

So, it limits us in some ways.

The other problem (for me, at least) is replicating the problems some of you encounter. I had my boot drive crash the other day, replaced it, and had a clean windows install. I installed malwarebytes, which is always the first thing I install, then downloaded chrome, firefox, safari, etc. I then checked Balloon Juice with clean installs of them all, reloaded and refreshed multiple times, and I never got an audio ad. I never got an ad stretching outside the borders.

That doesn’t mean I don’t trust you that it is happening- my own brother got an audio ad last week and texted me. It’s just it makes it really hard to address when you can’t see it happening or replicate it. And I know how annoying it is. Fucking CNN with those god damned autoplay clips drives me god damned mental. So I am working on it. I don’t want you all having a lousy time here.

At any rate, we’re going to fix some things and upgrade some things and you all will have a say, but it just isn’t going to happen right now. Alain has a lot of shit going on, I have a bunch of shit going on, and it will take a little time.

So that’s that. Have a little faith in me, I give you my word I will not fuck this up. I love this shitty little website as much as you all do. And I just realized I forgot to turn the damned sprinkler off.

Rambling Open ThreadPost + Comments (97)

Site News Before The Holiday

by | 41 Comments

This post is in: ,

Folks,

I just wanted to give you an update on the new site progress. tl;dwr*: It’s been slow going but will launch soon.

In more detail, I’ve been working on a number of necessary back end improvements, reducing memory load on the server and in your browser. I’ve also been tweaking things with the new theme and working on a number of to-do’s. With the very valued help of Major Major Major Major, we have some new and/or improved things coming soon as well. Exciting!

So that all said, I’d planned to get the launched before the holiday but this was overly optimistic. A lot of my time and attention the past two and a half weeks has been sucked up by estate and related legal/accounting duties as well as lots of time spent driving to and fro. That stuff is mostly in order so I feel pretty safe saying that the new theme should launch late next week. I have pushed back my escape to nature until it’s launched for a few days and the initial dust has settled.

Have a great holiday weekend, everyone!

Open thread

 

*  too long; don’t wanna read

Site News Before The HolidayPost + Comments (41)

Site Update: Let’s Hope Today Is Better!

by | 45 Comments

This post is in: ,

Folks,

Fingers crossed for no more issues to pop up today. Yesterday’s horrible site availability was caused by a swarm of bots from Russia and China. They were persistent, but our valiant hosting company took care of them. So far today, things seem to be ok. There are still some mysterious issues that I’m researching that were coincident to the swarm, so there may be more hijinks to come!

I did remove the new inline “Edit Comment” function for now because I suspect it was related to these mysterious issues. Over the next 24 hours, I’ll see if I can bring it back online, once things are calm for a stretch.

Besides that, I’ve got lots to do today and won’t be around in comments. Have a great one!

Open Thread

Site Update: Let’s Hope Today Is Better!Post + Comments (45)

It. Never. Stops.

by | 59 Comments

This post is in: ,

Folks,

Quick tech note and Open Thread.

There are some bots attacking our server right now, so performance will be wacky until they are gone. Our hosts are on it, in fact they informed me!  I am also working on some DNS issues. This may also make the site a bit twitchy here and there, but hopefully that will smooth out.

Development on the new site is slow work as this theme is a new environment, with lots of very different yet similar capabilities, and with a very different structure. It’s learning as much as it is making it do what I want it to do, and that takes time and reflection.

Yesterday I turned off the text-focused mobile site for some good reasons. I realize that for some of you, bandwidth is an issue and the mobile site was great for you. My hope is to have a video-ad-free option that you will be able to access once the new site is launched. Until then, there’s not much I can do.

The great news is that Major Major Major Major now has his own server to support some custom BJ functions like On The Road (and other contact/picture submit functions). So we’re working on improving things and getting things back to a normal state.

Some good news is that my back is continually improving, and my pond cleanup tasks yesterday didn’t hurt or exhaust my lower back muscles. I find trying to do tasks like that is a gamble, but the trendline is clear – I’m getting stronger and have much less pain. I  temper that with the knowledge that it will be months before I’m back to where it was.

It. Never. Stops.Post + Comments (59)

Quick Site Update News

by | 64 Comments

This post is in: 

 

Folks,

I’m hard at work on the new site/new theme. Instead of launching everything I hope for at once, I’m going to go for a series of stages. This should allow things to settle in before making more significant changes. Stage One will be the new theme. Stage Two, etc. TBD.

New Theme? I Hate Change!

As do we all. I chose a new theme because the current one was no longer suitable for our needs. We are stuck on an older version of it  which has lots of issues, but the current version, once loaded into Balloon Juice (on both the old test server, then a new one), killed the site. I spent hours trying to get the damned thing working, but I decided that it was no longer a good use of my time, so now I’m working towards a better future with a new theme that’s well-supported and well-regarded.

Recent Comments

As many have noticed, the Recent Comments function has been removed. Until we get a better handle on the site’s performance, this was the “low-hanging fruit” that greatly improved performance. I hope to have an updated Widget for that soon, but for now, Recent Comments (and Posts) has been removed.

To explain – there are approx 5 million comments, and that’s a big table; each time the page is refreshed, that widget would query the table. This added too much extra load and our hosts strongly recommended we remove it. This is not how you would design things, but it is how things currently function.

CDN And Caching

The site should be much faster for most users as we’re now using a Content Delivery Network (this copies the site’s resources and puts these copies “nearer” to you on the Internet so that you are not downloading everything from the main server).

This greatly speeds up the site for many users, and as we get more familiar with it, we’ll tweak the settings to achieve optimal results.

Caching is related; it is a series of settings that greatly reduce the amount of files you need to download when you refresh the page. They work together to provide a much faster experience.

Mobile Site

One key change will be the dumping of the current mobile site. The current mobile site is extra work as it is a completely separate thing from the main site. This means many resources are not available on it, and it is much more work to maintain. The vendor for the mobile plugin/theme was recently purchased and their support has been inconsistent since then, sometimes taking 2 weeks between question and answer. And this is for prepaid, premium-level access!

Tablet View Of Mobile Site

In order to reduce the complaints about the iPad/tablet view of the mobile site not working correctly, I’m just going to turn the whole thing off today to see how it goes.  I had planned to await the new theme launch, but I truly feel awful that it’s such a pain for users.

If there’s much angst, then I’ll re-enable it until the new site design is live. Either way, that stripped-down, text-heavy view will soon be a memory.

Morning Slow Down

Another issue that I’m unable to fix right now, but that I hope we can improve, is the morning slowdown/poor responsiveness.  This is unavoidable because the site is backed up once a day, and that takes a lot of resources (disk spinning, memory and CPU occupied, etc.) that would otherwise be used to make the site speedier. It begins in the early morning hours, when there are the least active readers, and runs until completion.

Each day, there are more pictures/graphics, and more content, and that means that there are more files to backup, and that the database that drives the site is bigger.  This means the backup takes more time and CPU attention, every day.

I’ve researched and asked our hosting company if they can do a differential backup, the common solution to this issue, but to no avail – they have a standard backup toolkit and that’s what they use. We shall see what creative means we can employ to improve this, but for now, it’s the way it is.

Video Ads/Memory Issues

Although we’ve removed the insecure video streams from the ads, that doesn’t mean they don’t eat up memory. As soon as I have some time (post redesign!) I will once again see what I can do.

My hope is to have the redesign site/stage one ready next week, and then, once everyone’s rent their garments and pulled out their hair, demanding everything be back the way it was, and I’ve tweaked a few things, I can look anew at the video ads to see what we can do to make them behave better.

So that’s where we’re at. Hopefully I can restart On the Road soon, but no promises – I only have so much time for things Balloon Juice these days!

I will not be around in the comments to this post, but I will review it later. I must go scrounge up some lunch, do a quick koi pond clean, then back to the computer!

Quick Site Update NewsPost + Comments (64)

Occult Open Thread

by | 47 Comments

This post is in: , ,

Good evening…

I put the remember-me checkbox back on the desktop site*, so now you have to humor me. ?

*(If you would like to use the remember-me checkbox on your mobile device, you’ll have to scroll all the way down and request the desktop site.)

This caught my eye while browsing the local news: Why Do San Francisco Psychics Need Permits From the Police?

Fortunetelling isn’t just mentioned in the San Francisco police code. It gets its own section — starting with a rundown of all 70 things SFPD counts as fortunetelling.

This includes: clairvoyance, cartomancy, phrenology, tea leaves, tarot cards, coffee grounds, crystal gazing, astrology, palmistry, telepathy, and placing or removing curses.

“Fortunetelling,” the police code reads, “shall also include pretending to perform these actions.”

[…]

The application process for a San Francisco fortunetelling permit involves a background check, fingerprinting and even a public hearing. The fees are just under $350 — more than a permit for a masseuse, but less than one for a tow operator or walking-tour guide.

But why?

Unlike other Bay Area cities that require fortuneteller permits but don’t explain why, like Benicia and Lafayette, San Francisco says these permits are to help fight fraud. The police code says the regulations should “protect the public by preventing people who have been charged with deceptive practices from having easy access to persons who may be vulnerable to fraud or confidence games.”

Fair? Although…

Of course, when it comes to fortunetelling, the very notion of fraud is a subjective one.

Well, as long as it helps.

The S.F. District Attorney’s Office has received zero complaints in the last couple of years. The SFPD wasn’t able to say how many reports it has received about this kind of fraud recently, because fortunetelling fraud is not a unique category of crime it tracks.

Next, a shameless plug! Speaking of urbanite occultists, my new short story is now available for free online if you’d like to read it.

show full post on front page

Occult Open ThreadPost + Comments (47)

Site Update

by | 21 Comments

This post is in: 

Folks,

I tweaked the caching and things seem to be running better and the site seems zippier and more responsive. This is good.

The bad is the missing checkbox on the comment form. I’ve spent 2 hours working on it, to no avail. It should be working and it isn’t, and we can’t update the %&*(#$%& theme, so it’s strictly DIY.

I don’t remember if M4 is back on the West coast or not, but I’m waiting a few more minutes before texting him for help. I’m sure he’ll look at the documentation and code and find the right thing immediately.

In this case, WordPress updated the privacy checkbox and it should just work…clearly it does not.  Once that’s fixed, I shall return to working on the redesign.

Site UpdatePost + Comments (21)

Ch-ch-changes

by | 49 Comments

This post is in: ,

Folks,

You may have noticed that a lot of ads are gone and, until a few minutes ago, a lot of sidebar content was also missing.

I’ve restored or added much sidebar content back and expect to have some new ad code to throw in. Hopefully things will be back to sort-of-normal. I had to spend a lot of time yesterday that I hadn’t planned for, as well as this morning and it looks like, much of the rest of the day.

That all said, I’m working on a new redesign. It will be a while before it’s ready, and it will change things big and small. Our current situation is like a rickety rowboat taking on water; some changes are needed. This is as much about our inherited quirks as it is about WordPress having evolved, as well as such changes as embedded tweets or memes.

In the 16 years that this blog has been around, much has changed, and the back-end is a complex series of plugins to solve problems that bring their own set of problems. This site does not need to be state-of-the-art, but it’s time to do some major remodeling so the server doesn’t crash, your browsers don’t complain about memory or security, and there are many less downloads from different sites/sources.

I am in conversations with John about some major changes that I believe will improve things for all. It should be simpler to maintain in many respects, and the performance should be improved, even with the enhanced functionality I hope to bring on.

Major Major Major Major is now onboard, so we’ll be able to do some custom work, and he’ll figure out other ways to contribute. Exciting! When it’s in a good enough state, a test panel will be assembled to evaluate the new site, we’ll incorporate their input, and then we’ll launch the redesign. And then tweak it as needed, of course!

I have a lot of work to do to get ready for a demo of my vision to John, so I’m investing my time in that as opposed to solving the current-site issues I’d planned on. As the afternoon/evening continued yesterday, my weeks-to-months plan jumped the queue. In fact, earlier yesterday, I shared my priorities/short-medium term goals with Majorx4 and this change was in the future, not now. Funny how a few hours dealing with issues with the current site/theme/setup will change your plans!

Sharp-eyed readers may have noticed new contact options for website or ad issues. It’s now easy to report misbehaving ads to John or other site issues to me.

On that up-note, have a great Monday and Open Thread.

Ch-ch-changesPost + Comments (49)

Site Updates: Not So Much Fun

by | 91 Comments

This post is in: , ,

Folks,

Looks like something happened to a bunch of widgets and ads in the sidebar. As in, “poof, they’ve gone into the aether”. Enjoy the mostly-ad-free current state as I’ll be restoring those soon.

iPad users, rejoice: I’m working with the Mobile site vendor to get the @#$*&^[email protected] issue solved.  Once that’s done, I expect M4 and I will get the pie filter re-enabled.

There are a number of other things going on in the background that will make things better soon. I’ll be updating the core theme version (finally!) and that should improve performance. I’ve got some tweaks to apply to the caching system and then will get the #$($&^ CDN working correctly. That will greatly reduce the download time and server load, making things groovy for all readers. I curse the CDN because both times I enabled it, many users (including myself!) had trouble  getting the site, instead getting bad gateway and/or CloudFlare errors. Since there were other core issues to improve, I put that on the back burner and so later this week, things will improve.  Between now and then it may be a bit bumpy, but we’ll get to a better place, tout de suite.

Open thread and since I’m working on back-end issues, this is not so much a bitch about the site thread. I’ve detailed what I’m working on, and once we get this stuff nailed down and things settle for a week or three, there will be one or two threads seeking suggestions for improvements. A redesign/update is in order.

Don’t forget that you can always use the Contact a Front Pager form to report tech issues to me, or bad-behaving ads to me or John. For such ads, please let us know which advertiser it was as that’s the crucial information needed to suppress them.

I will be updating the WordPress version and a plugin or two in a bit, and I’m downloading some large db files, so the site may slow down a bit over the next couple of hours.

Have a great Sunday, everyone.

 

Site Updates: Not So Much FunPost + Comments (91)

Let’s Give It Up For Our New Back- and Front-Pager!

by | 122 Comments

This post is in: ,

Folks,
I have the sincere pleasure of announcing that, starting today, Major Major Major Major is helping with the site on the back- and front-end! Over the past year, he’s been very helpful and has developed some custom programming to enhance our experience here. When I decided to move the On The Road forms to the live site so that we can have a purer test server, I gave him back-end access but that seemed like a tease, so he’s now on the site as well.

Since Major Major Major Major will have access to the site, I asked if he’d be interested in posting. Gracious as always, he confirmed his interest and had a great idea for a regular semi-monthly feature: Book Recommendations, a dedicated space to ask for and give reading recommendations. The idea came from the lively discussions that have happened when he’s asked for recommendations in the past, with several commenters suggesting it as a feature. (If you have ideas for what format this might take, please share them in the comments!)

I’m sure he’ll find other suitable topics to post on, as I’ve encouraged him. I know that, as he pokes around the site and sees what makes it all tick, he’ll have suggestions to simplify, speed up, and improve it. This will be welcome by all, no doubt!

On a related note, in trying to work on some issues the past few weeks, I’ve had to experiment and then restore the server from backup, and this has caused some havoc with folks’ On The Road submissions. It made sense to move that function over so that I can delete and restore the test server as needed, and so for now the On The Road form is offline. I expect there will be some more changes coming soon, and we’ll announce them when appropriate.

 

Please give it up for a great addition to the team. His developer skillset will help make this site much better and will allow us to do some more custom WordPress work than I would dare alone. He’s a great guy, and I know everyone pretty much knows and loves him, so I hope this news falls on kind hearts.

 

Let’s Give It Up For Our New Back- and Front-Pager!Post + Comments (122)

Working on Ipad Mobile Site Issue

by | 28 Comments

This post is in: ,

Folks,

I’m hopefully getting the iPad issue solved with the help of the good folks who make the mobile site plug-in, so please bear with me a bit longer. To top things off, I hurt my back almost two weeks ago and am using what little time I can spend sitting at my computer taking care of must-do’s. Luckily I had some time open up so I hope to have a solution later today, though it may end up being tomorrow.

That said, I’m trying to solve a number of issues and no, I am not in control of the ads.

 

Consider this an open thread. I have to go to a financial institution that’s 30 minutes each way to hand-deliver a form, so I won’t be back until mid-late afternoon, depending on how I feel and whether I rest.

 

 

Added at 18:18: folks who have issues with the iPad or other tablet view of the mobile site, go to the bottom of the page and tap the Desktop link to view the desktop site. You can switch back when the issue is fixed. I did take a rest and am done fiddling for the day.

Working on Ipad Mobile Site IssuePost + Comments (28)

Site Maintenance Monday and Important, Timely Site Support Bleg

by | 26 Comments

This post is in: 

Folks,

I hurt my back Thursday morning and have been unable to sit at a computer until now. Even then, it’s only a matter of time before I have to move. So I’m trying to get as much done on the site as I can off and on the next few days.

I’m applying some updates now, and hoping to get a fix for the #$%@q($^ iPad mobile site issue. I sent the company an email two weeks ago but they’ve not gotten back to me. I suspect that the bloom is off the rose of their months-ago acquisition and that they have less staff as many of their support resources are non-functional. I just submitted a customer contact form entry since their support ticket system has disappeared into the aether.

For iPad or other tablet users accursed with the “left blank panel” issue, scroll to the bottom of the page and use the Desktop theme by tapping the link.  That’s the only solution for now, which is in fact a workaround.

I also hope to solve the many edit comment bugs.  This is likely a side-effect of the caching we’re now doing.

There are numerous complaints about the video ads; I don’t like them either but they pay the bills. Talk to John. I will be setting up a complaint form to submit ad issues so that if, for example, audio auto-plays, you can more easily report it.  Do note the advertiser so John can get it taken care of, as well as date/time. Many video ads have controls so you can pause or mute them, and some ads have controls where you can give feedback (such as this ad is of no interest to me) to refine their controls.

I will be updating WordPress and some plugins over the next few minutes.

Finally, since today through tomorrow is Prime Day on Amazon, please do your shopping through the Balloon-Juice Affiliate link so John gets some extra moolah. It won’t increase your bill and helps the site any day, but since many folks will be buying lots of stuff today, do help the site out!

The link again is: Shopping Amazon via this link helps Balloon Juice...a lot

Amazon Smile Link (also does not affect your donation or price) :  https://smile.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fgp%2Fhomepage.html%3Fie%3DUTF8%26%252AVersion%252A%3D1%26%252Aentries%252A%3D0&tag=balloonjuice-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=390957

Site Maintenance Monday and Important, Timely Site Support BlegPost + Comments (26)