NaNoWriMo :: NaNoWriMo Blog

I didn't want to distract you from your novel too much by messaging you on the forums, but maybe eventually you'll see this!

BSG. YES. I bet you'll love it! Without spoilering anything, I can only say that Kara and Lee will always be my favorites but everyone else is pretty much awesome too. (I know what this is. Procrastination! I speed-watched through Supernatural last year, and I'm watching The Sarah Jane Adventures this year. Instead of writing, natch.)

Superb! That's an amazing spike. Guess the Amazon cloud is working well. Great news.

I'm into my fourth day of writing down here in Sydney and it has been a challenge to get this far. I am really hoping to complete the entire project, there were moments writing yesterday where my hands froze over the keyboard and my brain went silent. I felt like Patrick from SPSP when he asks the 'pencil' to write his song and SB tells him no you have to do the writing! Good luck world.

That spike is huge!!

Great job Dan, I can't imagine thinking about site performance on the scale that you work with. The difference between this year and last year is amazing.

Just so you know - think there are more than 4 people interested cause I am. :-) Awesome work you guys! As an internet explorer of more than 15 years (almost 20 - does that age me?) I can say that I actually understand those analytics. Isn't cloud computing cool? Very good choice - well done, Dan!

That being said - smacking my hand for procrastinating. Not at my 1600 today so back to writing for me!

Thanks again for all y'all do for us crazy nuts!

Lia

Go NaNo! Much faster this year. Unfortunately, that makes me want to play on the boards more than write and I've always used those first few "slower" days on the site to get some serious writing done. Alas. Could you slow it down again....or maybe just my access to it?? Cheers, Chris and crew!

Yup, LeeLee, you'll know next year that the first three or four days is for writing your A$$ off because after that the site become fast and furious--and everyone (at least it feels like it) spends as much time playing on the Games and Procrastinations threads as they do writing!! It's wonderful fun!

Thanks for making my first ever NaNoWriMo totally AWESOME!

The graphic from Google Analytics isn't showing! Help! I'm one of those four people!

-A

Things have been going swimmingly, muchos gracias- but... I am still missing that first pep talk. There is nada, nada, nada that has come to my email inbox in well over a week. (and I check the spam folder daily, nay multiple times a day.)

*I* wasn't wondering why it was slow! This is my sixth year doing Nano (and my sixth win, please the fates), and I was amazed and impressed that the site was still up and running.

Well done, Dan! Great job, Chris! Thanks!!

Back to work...

katrinapink

This is my first year, and it is totally awesome. The posts, the information, the stats, and the history have been inspirational. Since I have not been here for previous years, I can only say that everything has worked perfectly for me, and I'm having the writing time of my life. My story just seems to carry me along. (Weird!) Thank you, everyone, for your magnificent achievement and for bringing us along for the ride.

I was wondering why it went so smoothly. I went onto the site yesterday to (predictably) update my wordcount and went 'gosh I love having a fast computer' and then realized that no matter how fast my computer it wasn't that fast. I could even view the forums without waiting five minutes! So awesome.

Yes, the site's been awesomely up this year! Wow, what an increase in traffic. Yay, NaNo!!

I have been hugely impressed that the site is actually functional in these early days! I remember past years where you basically couldn't do anything logged in for almost a week. Great, great job on keeping it going through the Cyclone Window.

I was stunned when I came on on Sunday and found the site actually running pretty quickly. Especially compared to last year, when I don't think I actually managed to get on. Well done!

Add one more to the count of people who like to see the stats. Thanks for all the hard work behind the scenes to keep the site running.

You guys rock, in this case particularly Dan. I think there are far more than just four interested people though. ;-) It is wonderful that the site had so many more views than last year. That means more and more interest in NaNoWriMo which is pretty awesome. Unfortunately that probably also means more novels that publishers are going to have to look through and accept instead of mine. *sigh* bittersweet

I'd like to add something! I was on Yahoo! the other day and they usual have the TOP10 SEARCHES list, y'know? NaNoWrimo was in 10th! Take that "Thanks Giving Recipes" and "New Moon Trailer"!!!! HAHA!

So impressed! I could get right on the site on day one. [Not to update my word count, but rather to make sure none of my writing buddies had updated thiers, haha] Huge improvement from last year. Great work everyone! Happy writing,

Em

Yes. I remember last year when things just timed out and the site seemed to be down for the first four days or so. Not this year. Some times its a little slow, but the pages are still loading, which is fantastic.

I was amazed that I could get on the site at all. Very good job!

Congratulations! I'm so excited to hear of this. An increase of 40,000 people. Wow. WOW. It's wonderful.

Fantastic compared to last year - I haven't had a single timeout, despite repeated wordcount updates!

Wow,
And here I was thinking that everything loading and updating was just business as usual. 2009 must be the magic year.

The only glitch I've experienced is I still don't have my halo. But that was my fault. I forgot to give my username when I donated and I'm told that it will arrive soon.[always wanted a halo...it will go so NICELY with my wings] So I will wait patiently and thank all of the little hamsters turning all of those heavy wheels while I scribble away on my novel.
NaNo is an awesome event Chris. I'm really enjoying the people I'm meeting online. I'm going to my first in person meet and greet tonight and I can't wait.
I just hope the library tables are sturdy enough for dancing....

Oh man yes! This is absolutely way better than all prior years and any minor time-outs or lag was totally within the realm of Cool With Me.

Dan, my friend, you rock my socks! Lemme know what you drink/snort/shoot or otherwise imbibe to get yourself through all this and it's yours!

I'm impressed with how well the site coped with the spike this year. Much better than it has the past couple of years. I hope the rest of the month just keeps getting better :-)

Now off to write more words...

I'm a six year nanoer and the site feels the best it has in years for this early in the game. Great job, guys and gals. Now, when you can, Word Count widgets, please!
I'm just so addicted to tracking and posting it. (and seeing that update on the home page, too!)

Too greedy? I'm an nano addict and can't help myself!

Hee hee. I like looking at Analytics so much. If only my blog had that many hits...
-X

I was definitely impressed- what an improvement! Last year I couldn't get on at all for the first two or three days. This year, though I got network timeout messages quite a few times, I was able to update my word count on day one. Congrats, it's great!

The site has been AMAZING this year - I remember having to do absolute battle the last few years, trying to load anything the first few days of November. I have had ONE - one - time out this year. That is all. Way to freaking go!!! (I'm nerdy enough to be enthralled by the stat chart... that is mindboggling. I am in awe.)

Aww, your picture won't show up for me. I was very impressed with the speed of the site yesterday. It was frustrating when I was trying to get somewhere, but considering that most years it's entirely unaccessible on November 1st, it was a huge improvement. We applaud Dan's hard work!

Not sure why, but the picture doesn't seem to be loading?

It is much better this year. Last year was frustrating the first day or so, but this year I hardly noticed, except that maybe it is a bit slow. Maybe. Thanks for all the hard work!

Last year I couldn't update my wordcount at all until the fourth day of NaNo, because the site wouldn't load for me at all. This year it's heaps better! Props to Dan and our other technological wizards.

I'm a newbie, and was wondering why it was so slow :-) now I know

Yep, I noticed (and appreciated) the improvements over last year. Keep up the great work.

That is fantastic. There were a few page timeouts during peak times when everyone wanted to update their word count and shout out that they reached a goal (of course), but compared to all those past years, this year was definitely the best kickoff. A quick refresh would almost always fix the problem. (And, you know, not loading eight forum threads at once. No, I'm not guilty of that. Why do you ask?)

I've definitely noticed a HUGE improvement with load times this year! At some hours of the night on the 1st, it almost seemed like there wasn't a delay at all! Great job all around, guys. :)

I'm the fourth person! I deal with website stats in 'real life' and that's a fantastic peak. The site's uptime this year has been excellent too... don't know if that's because we're on a different cloud over here in the UK?

Jim

Congratulations! I'm so glad to hear that the servers are way beefed up for this year. After the past 4 years, I've been pretty much trying to stay off the site these past couple of days because I remember how glacial the responses used to be, but I guess I don't need to do that.

Forums, here I come!

Oh, wait. Gotta do my words for the day first...

I have been blown away by the improvements in the servers this year! Not once have I gotten a timed-out page, and I've visited all day throughout the day since Thursday! Major kudos--I'm proud of you and your site handling! Go go Dan!

Congrats! I noticed the better performance this year and I really appreciated it. Sometimes, it's days before I can 'officially' log my word count, and it was so satisfying to be able to record my count (and even update it!) on day 1. Thanks, Dan!

Awesome. Great to see the stability ramp up this year. That's a major hit those servers take every year.

Great job keeping things going!

Book Review #5 - Merle's Door

I have been SO IMPRESSED with the server capacity and the load times and *everything* with the website this year! Well done everyone!

:)