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Inquirying mind wants to know

Started by Jeff, January 24, 2009, 07:37:41 PM

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Jeff

Tonight I made a significant change to the way the forum operates. I am hoping you will see the results in speed of things and hopefully maybe some of the problems of the past will be lessened. The Forum search should also be blazing. Thats the biggest change right now. I hope.

Let me know if you see a difference.
Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

zopi

It does seem a bit faster, and that rocks, because I am on an iffy satellite connection nowadays!
Got Wood?
LT-15G GO chassis added.
WM sharpener and setter
And lots of junk.

scsmith42

Jeff, there is a notable speed improvement - very notable...

Scott
Peterson 10" WPF with 65' of track
Smith - Gallagher dedicated slabber
Tom's 3638D Baker band mill
and a mix of log handling heavy equipment.

Warbird

Quote from: scsmith42 on January 25, 2009, 11:24:22 AM
Jeff, there is a notable speed improvement - very notable...

Scott

Agreed.  It seems much more...  'snappy'.

Jeff

Where we should really see a difference is in how the forum performs when the search facility is under heavy use.

What I did was installed something called Sphinx and pointed our forum search to that program to do all the search work. You can check that out here if you want.
http://www.sphinxsearch.com/about.html

I installed Sphinx on one of the forestry forum servers that does not have the forum database on it. So, it runs without using any forum resources. It indexes the forum using the alternate server, then stores the full text index on that server. What that means is, that calls for a search of the forum now have next to zero effect on the forum's RAM. The alternate server takes the load. This not only keeps the forum running a bit better, it gives us a near instant response on searches. 

The old search index was an internal part of the Forestry Forum's software. To re-index ( add current forum posts to the database) it would take hours and hours and sometimes fail. All of this time it also drained the Forum's resources. The new indexer does the job in about 2 minutes. The only thing I have left to do is set up whats called a cronjob to have the total indexing take place automatically everyday at 3 A.M. and an incremental one every hour so that new posts are available in the search results.   
Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

Jeff

Another thing to add, the sphinx search creates a log that shows what is being searched for and at what time. It doesn't record any info about the searcher, just the search term and the time so relax about that. :D   The reason I mention it is that I was even surprised about the volume of searching that goes on here. Not much more then a couple minutes or so between searches last night.
Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

Sprucegum

 8)  I switched to Firefox a couple weeks ago, which was a big jump in performance from Explorer, and now this! That search is giving me answers faster than I can think of questions  ???

HOOF-ER

Jeff works  better.  8)  Now if I can figure out what you just said. :P ??? ???  ::)
Home built swing mill, 27hp Kawasaki

Warbird

Jeff, the work you've done on the forum the past few months is really cool.  Since the search traffic is now going across a network to get to the 'search server', will it be consuming more bandwidth, or is it all done on a LAN, so the traffic going 'out' stays the same?  Also, I'm no stranger to cronjobs and the like.  If you need anything, feel free to drop me a message.

Jeff

Bandwidth should stay the same as the http request and data returned  for that search is between servers on the network.
Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

Warbird

Jeff, I haven't tested out the search functionality yet but the last day or so, I've noticed the old problem of a seeming 'hang' when I post a message.  Sometimes it just lags then eventually shows the new post, and sometimes it eventually goes to just a blank screen.

This is the same thing as before and I still don't know if it's my network, browser, system, or the forum.  Everything else has been cool.

Jeff

Yea that nagging hang on thing is still avoiding my best efforts to track it down.  The search is great though.  I'm leaning towards perhaps an issue with persistent connections now as the culprit, but, who knows.
Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

SwampDonkey

I use the search almost everyday I'm on here to find old posts because sometimes they have pictures not in my new gallery, but in the archived gallery. I also make reference to an old post and sometimes look up a topic that might have been discussed years ago. Gee we have been here that long, we can reference gossip from years ago. :D I have not noticed much of a search lag here on dial-up for quite awhile, I suppose it is more noticeable on faster connections.

Well anyway, your doing a fine job there young man.  ;)
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

Norm

I always thought the search was darn fast before but it's even better now. I still get the posting hangups but really it's no big deal. You know Jeff you sure have come up with some neat features lately. I've really noticed folks that wouldn't post pics before doing so. Heck I even started up a ytube account to try posting videos from our new hd camcorder. Only problem is that I've yet to have any that were interesting. :D

SwampDonkey

Norm, that would be my problem to, trying to capture that right moment. Mine would likely mirror a video of a spruce swaying back and forth in the wind. :D :D Would have been nice to have one that morning I walked into my saw and came up against those two monster moose that stood up and muscled one another. Talk about heart rate elevation. :D
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

beenthere

Right Norm...guess you did run out of silos.. ;D ;D ;D

But the big/little horse combo ought to make for some good vid.  :) :) :)


Maybe throw a chicken out there, and see if the donkey protects it from Betsy Becky (hope I remember her name right).  ;D
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

Gary_C

For some reason I cannot access the search engine right now. Keeps telling me the deamon is not available.  ???
Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.

Jeff

I had to reboot the server in the middle of the night and didnt restart the search deamon.  Its good to go now.
Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

Dodgy Loner

I've got a question about how the search function works.  Yesterday I was trying to find a thread that I started a few months back entitled "How do I lift a building?"  So, I entered "How do I lift a building" into the search engine, and it came back with no results.  I dropped 'do', 'I' and 'a' from the search and changed it to search any words instead of all words, and I finally found it, but I had to browse through a bunch of other posts before I found it.  How exactly does the search function work?
"There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey." -John Ruskin

Any idiot can write a woodworking blog. Here's mine.

Jeff

Your problem was that you did not tick the search topics, as that was your subject but not the content of the post.

I went to the search and searched

How do I lift a building

with the search topics ticked, and your thread was the only one returned.

If you now something about what you are looking for, you can narrow your search significantly.  If you are looking for something you know that you personally posted, make sure you replace the * in the by user field with your username. If you know what board you posted it in, make sure you only click that board, or just the boards you think it might be in.
Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

Jeff

The search has been up and down today as I worked on it. Hopefully I have the crontab edited so the index will update itself every hour, and anything over an hour old will be available in a search.
Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

Dodgy Loner

Gotcha.  I tried it again with the subject ticked, and it worked fine.
"There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey." -John Ruskin

Any idiot can write a woodworking blog. Here's mine.

thecfarm

I used the search and boy it is fast now.Thank you Jeff.
Model 6020-20hp Manual Thomas bandsaw,TC40A 4wd 40 hp New Holland tractor, 450 Norse Winch, Heatmor 400 OWB,YCC 1978-79