The Biblioblog Reference Librarian's Desk

Old Ranking System Depreciated

Steve Caruso — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 20:29:21 +0000

Now it’s official: The old ranking and hits system is now depreciated and the new one is chugging along without a hitch.

Since it only has ranking data since the beginning of the month, don’t be worried if you see your total stats take a dip on the Top 50 page. It’ll be back up to a full month’s worth of hits by the next time the Top 50 announcement is going to be made.

Also, if you have the tracker installed on your blog you don’t need to do anything at all. It’s currently working.

– The Reference Librarian

iOS 5 Webkit

Steve Caruso — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 11:59:08 +0000

Well, I upgraded my iPhone to iOS 5 and noticed that I could no longer successfully view the Library website with it. It seems as if the iOS 5 Webkit has been updated and the update kills the scrolling sidebar on handheld devices.

So, now I’m going to put together a true mobile version that doesn’t glitch.

– The Reference Librarian

Past 30 Days Stats Up, Too

Steve Caruso — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 01:51:43 +0000

I’ve also just added the same real-time stats but for the past 30 days as well.

– The Reference Librarian

New Feature: Article Reads in Real Time

Steve Caruso — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 23:55:24 +0000

As you can see above, the new hit counter database allows me to have a bit of fun. Visit the new real-time article read counter and check it out.

You can also pull down the title menu and select which blog you want to see the stats for directly.

– The Reference Librarian

New Blog Hit Counter Database Working

Steve Caruso — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 02:48:07 +0000

The new hit counter system that is in testing is working very smoothly and is much faster than the old one. When it’s ready to go and I throw the switch, it will allow individualized hourly blog statistics on each blog profile page and a bunch of other fun stuff.

– The Reference Librarian

Digital Humanities

Steve Caruso — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 23:00:58 +0000

Tim over on Sansblogue has written a marvelous article entitled “SBL and the digital communications revolution” which actually touches upon a large number of issues that are pertinent to the Library as well as working on a system for The Biblioblog Journal.

I highly recommend reading it.

–The Reference Librarian

Yikes! 1,254,177 hits counted…

Steve Caruso — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 17:09:07 +0000

So, all of you guys are apparently pretty popular.

After 1,254,177 hits (whose data takes up about 800MB) the hit counter database is deciding to sputter here and there.

At the end of this month with the monthly rankings, I’m going to have to re-design the underlying data structure and figure out a better way to store things.

– The Reference Librarian

Library Version 3 Testing

Steve Caruso — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 04:29:12 +0000

Please ignore this post. I am using it to test some features on the new Library software.

–The Reference Librarian

Archiving Working Again!

Steve Caruso — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 15:01:51 +0000

The Archivist software is now working again!

While I was working on the rewrite, I found the portion of the old code that Apache didn’t like and fixed it.

Lots and lots and lots of updates to blog feeds are in progress.

–The Reference Librarian

When Updates Kill

Steve Caruso — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 00:33:15 +0000

So, earlier today, GoDaddy decided to update the Apache server on the machine that the Library runs on from 1.3 to 2.2 without telling me, and I was on the phone with them for an hour and change trying to figure out what happened.

That change not only partially borked the way that the older Apache resolved URLs in such a manner that the Library relied upon, it also completely borked the Archivist software because it did not like the encoding of one of the libraries it used.

So, instead of getting Beta 3 up and running tonight as I planned, I am faced with the necessity to re-write the Archivist… again.

Frankly, I blame Jim West and his Voodoo/Hoodoo/Tarot craziness. (You hear that Jim? You!)

This may take a day or two, so wish me luck.

–The Reference Librarian