A nasty stomach bug has been going around; My friend caught it, followed by my son, my grandson, and my wife. I thought I might make it through unscathed. No such luck. Yech. It hit me around 2pm, and I've spent the rest of the day in bed.
Update: I'm feeling better now. Last night, I dared to eat something other than crackers and applesauce, and nothing bad happened. Seems like half of the people in town have had this bug!
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
The Recent Unpleasantness
If you've encountered the recent can't-log-in bug, know that I have fixed it. If you haven't, good!
Technical details follow. I really need to move WordSplay; The service I use now is pretty good, but has one huge drawback: no virtual memory. Most 'real' computers, and many systems like the one I'm renting, provide virtual memory to allow you to fully use the physical memory of the system. It does this by temporarily storing some of the contents of memory to disk when there is no free memory left. This means that even if you are running enough programs to take up all the memory, you can still run more -- it just slows everything down. Without this feature, a system either has to refuse to run new programs or kill off a running program to free up memory for the new one. Either choice is bad.
Recently I made some changes that increase the memory usage of the web server, but forgot to reduce the number of connections that it tries to handle. After that, when activity spiked, there was a chance that memory would run out -- and for some reason the system would decide to pick the database server to kill. I've reduced the connection limit now, so this should stop happening.
Technical details follow. I really need to move WordSplay; The service I use now is pretty good, but has one huge drawback: no virtual memory. Most 'real' computers, and many systems like the one I'm renting, provide virtual memory to allow you to fully use the physical memory of the system. It does this by temporarily storing some of the contents of memory to disk when there is no free memory left. This means that even if you are running enough programs to take up all the memory, you can still run more -- it just slows everything down. Without this feature, a system either has to refuse to run new programs or kill off a running program to free up memory for the new one. Either choice is bad.
Recently I made some changes that increase the memory usage of the web server, but forgot to reduce the number of connections that it tries to handle. After that, when activity spiked, there was a chance that memory would run out -- and for some reason the system would decide to pick the database server to kill. I've reduced the connection limit now, so this should stop happening.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
2008 Fun Facts
Some statistics for WordSplay from 2008:
73,717 people logged in and played over 25.5 million games.
In the 4x4 game, the highest score all year was 439, the most words found in one game was 250, and the most words found in one game by only one person was 71.
In the 5x5 game, the highest score all year was 1328, the most words found in one game was 445, and the most words found in one game by only one person was 130.
| Month | Players | |
|---|---|---|
| Logged in | New | |
| January | 16840 | 13632 |
| February | 27673 | 13883 |
| March | 25401 | 7967 |
| April | 22940 | 5858 |
| May | 23039 | 6098 |
| June | 20508 | 4270 |
| July | 19140 | 3562 |
| August | 18056 | 3097 |
| September | 17098 | 2577 |
| October | 17038 | 2683 |
| November | 16894 | 2403 |
| December | 17528 | 3119 |
73,717 people logged in and played over 25.5 million games.
In the 4x4 game, the highest score all year was 439, the most words found in one game was 250, and the most words found in one game by only one person was 71.
In the 5x5 game, the highest score all year was 1328, the most words found in one game was 445, and the most words found in one game by only one person was 130.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Brand New Day
Hello, and welcome to 2009! I hope that we all do just a bit better this year than last.
I haven't added anything to the game in far too long, although I've got bits and pieces that I've been working on, like a partly-done Google gadget, the ability for AOL and Gmail users to register/log in using those accounts, and improved server robustness. I'll be getting that last one into production soon, after today's hour-long server outage.
Things have been quiet on the law-job front; a few interviews that didn't pan out, one still to be scheduled. I continue to do assigned criminal defense, which comes in intermittent bursts. For several months I worked on a web site for a special project for my sister-in-law's business, in the vain hope that it would bring in some much-needed customers. The result has been a lot of belt tightening, and a minimal Christmas.
That's enough whining from me. I still have my health, my family, good friends, and a lot of very nice people who enjoy WordSplay and tell me so. In a few weeks, I will start taking evening classes in Spanish, with sign language to follow. And I fixed the headlight and turn signal on my VW Bug myself, for only $27.
I haven't added anything to the game in far too long, although I've got bits and pieces that I've been working on, like a partly-done Google gadget, the ability for AOL and Gmail users to register/log in using those accounts, and improved server robustness. I'll be getting that last one into production soon, after today's hour-long server outage.
Things have been quiet on the law-job front; a few interviews that didn't pan out, one still to be scheduled. I continue to do assigned criminal defense, which comes in intermittent bursts. For several months I worked on a web site for a special project for my sister-in-law's business, in the vain hope that it would bring in some much-needed customers. The result has been a lot of belt tightening, and a minimal Christmas.
That's enough whining from me. I still have my health, my family, good friends, and a lot of very nice people who enjoy WordSplay and tell me so. In a few weeks, I will start taking evening classes in Spanish, with sign language to follow. And I fixed the headlight and turn signal on my VW Bug myself, for only $27.
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