New Server Upgrade. Fast Enough For Ya?

Hey everyone. For those of you who are regulars on the site, you know that we migrated over to a new, faster, dedicated web server a couple of days ago, but this post is to make it official (and let everyone else know). 

We've upgraded. Yayyy!

For many years, I ran the website off of a shared hosting solution, which means that there were many other websites running on the same server - for both web pages and database read rights. And of course, my website heavily relies on database reads, so if either one of those things has poor performance, the whole site slows down.

Now, there's nothing wrong with a shared hosting solution. I fully recommend them for small businesses and even midsize businesses if you don't have a ton of web traffic. Like I said, I've been in a shared hosting solution for 20 years now, and it's been, for the most part, fine.

But recently, over the last year or two, I've seen a dramatic increase in web traffic. Fortunately, my videos are becoming more popular on YouTube, and more people are coming to the site and participating in the Forums and that kind of stuff. So, I've noticed the site getting slower and slower as time went on, to the point where I even got frustrated and stopped participating in my own forums because they were just so darn slow.

So, I finally bit the bullet and upgraded to a dedicated server, and having used it for a couple of days now, it is stupid fast. I love it. I've actually been participating in the forums again and helping to answer questions because I can just whip out my cell phone and do it whenever I have a few free seconds. Pages load in less than a second most of the time, whereas before, it used to take 10 to 15, maybe 30 seconds for page loads, and that was just unacceptable, but now it's awesome.

I've actually been taking some time over the last couple of days and putting some features back into the website that I took out before because they just made the site run too slow. For example, on the homepage, I was caching the news feed so it only shows you new comments, posts, and stuff when you first log on, and then it's saved in your browser after that. So, if anything new pops up, you just won't see it. I did a bunch of stuff like that to optimize page loads that took some functionality away that I really wanted.

So, while I've got you here... what I would like to know from you is what features would you like to see me add to the website now that it's running faster? I actually want to take some time and put some upgrades into the site. Like, I've been wanting to make user profile pictures for the longest time, so that's one thing I've got on my to-do list. If there's anything you can think of that you want to see on this website, whether it's a feature update, a performance upgrade, anything you can think of, post a comment down below, and if you see someone else posted, give it a Like (which is the little heart, in case you didn't know). The stuff that gets the most likes will be stuff that I'll work on first because I want to make this a pleasurable experience for you guys too.

One of the problems with running a business and running a website is that I don't often use it as my customers use it, so I don't have the same experience that you guys do. So, I want you to tell me what you want to see the website do.

And yes, I know recording videos is my top priority, and I'm not going to stop doing that to work on the website because I got a new toy, LOL. But there's only so much video I can record in a day before I get burned out. In the morning, I have my coffee, I do my customer service emails, and then I work on recording videos. But by the end of the day, after I've recorded for a couple of hours, I want to do something else. I like to stretch my legs and put my programmer hat on and do some web development. I always kind of put stuff off before because the site was just awful, and now it's fantastic. I want to make it better, so I could use your feedback.

Thanks, and as always...

Live long, and prosper!

RR

P.S. Shout-out to the guys over at WinHost. They made this process super easy. I've moved my website before, and it was sometimes a nightmare. But WinHost made it easy for me to leave GoDaddy three years ago (because they suck), and they just made transitioning from shared to dedicated hosting a breeze. Full disclosure: yes, I am in their affiliate program, but only because I fully support their service, use it myself, and absolutely love it. You'll only see me endorsing products I stand behind and use myself.