Blog: July 2006

New West: An Analysis Project

July 28, 2006

The phone rang recently and on the other end was New West, an online publication that covers Montana, Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and so forth.  Their site was built in Expression Engine, and they wanted someone who could do development on small projects for them when their main developer was working on bigger site changes.

We said yes, and undertook the first project: A “doctor’s second opinion” analysis of their current site architecture, to figure out if there was any way they could improve their site’s performance.  Like with many new media sites, traffic at New West has not been its own reward: more page views and people visiting always means more expense and the need for bigger hardware.  And bigger hardware also often means the dread “M” word: migration.  So New West wanted a consultation before they made any big changes.

The main site developer had done an excellent job of making the site efficient in dozens of ways, but with our fresh eyes and our extended experience with Expression Engines in production environments, we were able to spot several additional technniques to optimize the site’s code.

One optimization we found was that a vestigial bit of code was intermittently adding very small row of data to an indexed database table, and had been doing so for months; meanwhile, the code to clear the table had been removed.  By the time we analyzed it, the table had grown to 6,700,000 records.  Adding data to a table is fairly simple, but indexing that much data can be a drain on resources if not done properly.  By carefully isolating the cause, and determining the least disruptive method of disabling that behavior, we were able to improve database performance measurably—and cut the time and space needed for backups as well.

Site performance—and the factors that influence it—can be notoriously hard to pin down, but it’s likely that our changes will ensure the site can handle increased traffic, especially at peak times, on the current hardware.

What’s the bottom line outcome for New West? Saving money and improving site performance for their visitors.  Code analysis and optimization might not be the “sexiest” thing you can think of doing for your site, but the end results can be quite beneficial.

Posted by Travis Smith at 12:44 AM | Comments (0)

Susie @ BlogHer; Travis @ WikiMania / Citizen Journalism

July 25, 2006

Susie’s going to be speaking at BlogHer on Friday, 9 to 11:30.  If you only go to ONE session at BlogHer, definitely go to So You Have This Crazy Idea.  It’s all about how to build blog sites that engage and build community.

Susie’s going to be covering the technology part of the discussion—the other panelists are a lawyer, a consultant, and an entrepreneur. (Well, take those labels witha grain of salt—none of these women are describable in a single-word!)

Meanwhile, I’m headed to Wikimania in Cambridge, MA, the next weekend Aug. 4-6.  It’s all about building wikis, and also about wiki building.  I find wikis fascinating—I could sit back and watch people build them all day.

But I’m going because there’s a real application for wikis in what many of Hop Studios’ clients are doing.  And, there’s a great extra-day seminar on Aug. 7 led by Dan Gillmor, which is all about Citizen Journalism, and I’m really looking forward to participate in what’s going on there.  The other bonus is that our new employee Matt Gardner has just moved to Boston and we’ll be able to meet up.

Posted by Travis Smith at 10:41 PM | Comments (0)

Janis Barquist Is Running for Superior Court Judge

July 25, 2006

Janis Barquist was on the ballot in last month’s California election, and did extremely well.  She’s now engaged in a runoff election for a superior court judgeship.

Her first Web site was information-rich, but needed the touch of a designer to make sure that the right elements were highlighted, and the right message was being presented.

Hop Studios probably changed less than 5% of the text and photos on the site, but the new version is much clearer, has a much better balance, and presents information in a clear and natural fashion. When we showed the two designs to new viewers, they say the new site seems “confident,” “detail-oriented” and “calm and considered.” I think that’s probably a good way to feel about a judge candidate’s Web site, don’t you?

Hop Studios rests its case.

Posted by Travis Smith at 11:23 AM | Comments (0)

Thomas Paul Fine Art Relaunches

July 24, 2006

One of our long-time clients had us redo his site recently.  It’s now got a spectacular new set of features, an elegant design (not that it wasn’t pretty nice before), and it’s all powered by a system that lets him make his own changes.  What’s not to like?  Here’s the whole story

Thomas Paul is a Los Angeles-area dealer in fine art who has a site at tpaulfineart.com.  Since before we started working with him, his site was an ever-growing collection of flat HTML files.

This was an inexpensive way for him to get started, but as his offerings have grown, he wants to be able to add more new artworks and artist, and not have to wait for us to be available to make changes.  He also wants to be able to tweak and modify his listings, indicate what’s sold and what’s not, and do it all himself without having to pay for each little modification.

Well, that to us sounded like it was time for a content management system.  With a CMS, he’d get some additional benefits: A Web feed that highlighted his latest additions.  Ways to display his art in multiple groupings without having to do additional work (i.e. by time period, type of art, artist, title, ...)

But that’s not all. We also took the opportunity with the redesign to add in some particularly wonderful new features to his site.  For example, there’s a great tool that allows you to zoom in on some of the artwork (example 1, example 2) as close as life-size—you can see the brushstrokes, the texture of the canvas and the smallest background detail.  As more and more of his business comes in via the Web site, being able to offer a near-gallery experience has become critical to him.

We also (warning, geekery ahead) redid everything in CSS so the pages load faster and cleanly, redid his site’s contact system and mailing list, and optimized his site for search engines.

Whether you’re looking for a Rembrandt or a Hockney, check him out!

Posted by Travis Smith at 9:32 AM | Comments (0)