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Neil's Blog

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About this blog

the eFestivals blog

Entries in this blog

new website feature coming soon....

I've just had confirmation that something that has been planned as a nice addition to the eFestivals website for the last 18 months is able to go ahead - the current plan is for it to hit the website on 1st May, tho it might slip back a little as there's still a lot of planning to be made. This is an exciting development, and one I hope that people will enjoy. I'm going to be keeping the exact details of what this is under my hat for the moment (so those that know, no mentioning what it i

Neil

Neil

system upgrades to servers

I've spent most of today updating the system software on the eFestivals servers (which explains why they've gone off-line occasionally today, if you were wondering), and despite my novice knowledge of linux they've all gone exceedingly well. The newer server is all completed, but there's still some stuff to do for the older one. Because its an older installation and hadn't been updated before (whoops ) there's still a little more to do... Back to it.

Neil

Neil

internet archive

I've just dropped by the Internet Archive, trying to find copies of the original webpages that grew into the Glastonbury website I started, which then grew into eFestivals. Those pages aren't in the archive, so I'll have to do some further 'net hunting to try and track them down, or search thru my 500+ CDs of backups. Ho-hum. Why am I wanting them? Well, it's coming up to ten years since I started the site, so thought it would be good to try and find some very early examples of where it all s

Neil

Neil

is there anybody out there...?

The festival scene well and truly has hit the point where anyone and everyone thinks they can put on a successful festival. 2007 has been full of attempts at running new festivals and events, with various success. There's those who have a good idea as well as the skills to pull what's needed together, and who know how to sell their idea to a paying public. They put in the months of hard work on all the angles needed to pull the event off, and even if they lose money - as long as it's not too

Neil

Neil

getting a bit flash...?

For ages I've wanted to jazz up this website a little, but simply never had the time. With new hands at some of the controls I've finally got some time to start to work thru that horrendously long to-do list. One of the things on the list is a re-jig of the photo-galleries, to make them a little less of the quickly cobbled together mess that they've always been, and hopefully one side result of the re-jig will be a bit more eye-candy from photos thru-out the site. Anyway, I've wanted to use a

Neil

Neil

server tuning part 3

Yesterday was announcement & ticket day for Reading & Leeds festivals, and eFestivals had a new record for the number of users. There were around 40% more users than there were for the previous record, and (mostly) the servers coped better than they did for the previous record. There were still some issues tho. One of the servers that has been problematic over the last month didn't operate as it should, and led to things slowing down when it shouldn't have - the servers could and shou

Neil

Neil

movin' on....

It's now nearly a year since I moved more into a back office role for eFestivals, and it's been pleasing to have the time to get many of the things done that have been put to the side for years simply because there's not been the time to do them without putting myself thru bad insomnia. It's been great to get a bit of my life back. Much of what's been done won't have been noticeable to anyone, and even many of the bits that are visible to website users will have probably passed many people by

Neil

Neil

finding my god

As an easy way to take some load of the main eFestivals server, I've fairly recently created some new sub-domains of eFestivals.co.uk on another server, of 'images', and 'archive'. While these are good for their created purposes, I've realised since I set them up that they're only really any good for those specific purposes, and aren't particularly good for use for any other purposes. If I was to carry on in the same way I could end up with tens of different use-specific sub-domains which st

Neil

Neil

the fuss about flags - a different take on things.

There's been a big fuss about flags this summer, with many people complaining that their enjoyment of acts at festivals have been spoilt by the huge number of people in front of them in the crowd with flags, blocking their view of the stage. They have a point - at times, particularly at Glastonbury's main stage, this long-running problem stepped very firmly into the realms of huge excess. Why do some people have these flags? At the most simple level, they have them because they think it's a

Neil

Neil

the eFestivals app for Android

I'm really pleased that I've succeeded in knocking together a comprehensive and free Android app for eFestivals. You can download it here:- https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nrgi.efestivals

Neil

Neil

'Member Mugshots' feature removed

I've today removed the 'member mugshots' feature that's been part of this website since 2002. It was originally included as a way for members to put up their photo, but since this feature was added to the forums at some later point, the 'member mugshots' section had near enough become redundant ... and it hadn't worked for a while as well for uploading new photos, due to its integration with the forums membership and the fact that the forums had changed how it encrypted users passwords - I c

Neil

Neil

WaterAid - eFestivals chosen charity

As some of you might be aware, eFestivals is committed to giving 1% of turnover (turnover, not profit) to charity, and our chosen charity is WaterAid. I've just given them another sizable donation (the second this year) as a result. Thanks goes to every user of eFestivals - without your support of eFestivals, this just wouldn't be possible. WaterAid is an international charity dedicated to helping people escape the stranglehold of poverty and disease caused by living without safe water a

Neil

Neil

computer death

It's always a real pain when a computer dies, but thankfully my most recent computer deaths have been about as kind as they could possibly be. Prior to this one today, I last had a computer die on boxing day last year. That was my own 'work' computer - the one I run eFestivals from - so it really couldn't have died at a better time. Nothing happens in the festival world between Xmas and new year, so that gave me the chance to get another built and configured before everyone started back at wo

Neil

Neil

I sleep all winter

Now is the time of year when most people seem to think I spend my time sunning myself on a beach. I wish. Although there's not much festie news at this time of year, now is when lots of little bits and pieces on the website get improvements made to them, the company accounts gets sorted out, deals are made for next year, new servers are installed or upgraded, etc, etc, etc - it all takes time, and normally more time than I think it will (hence me asking for a php programmer to help me out wi

Neil

Neil

forums upgrade

The forums software (including the galleries, blogs, and chatroom) software has all been upgraded to the latest versions.

Neil

Neil

best rumour of the year

I always get scam emails with false rumours - I've become rather good at spotting them i think (tho a few always get thru) - but one I got last night is just brilliant. Surely he didn't really expect me to fall for that?

Neil

Neil

eFestivals servers coping fine

Today is the first really busy day since all the recent upgrades were put in place ... there's currently over 900 people on the forums (and many times that number using the green pages of efests), and the servers are ticking along nicely, no stress at all. Good news!

Neil

Neil

cor blimey guv, why didn't i think of that...?

I've spent much of the last couple of weeks thinking how to get the best out of the efests servers during the mad Glastonbury ticket rush tomorrow, mostly doing little things which combined will add up to something hopefully worthwhile ... but just now I've had a brainwave which will make a great difference to things.

Neil

Neil

efests survival

eFests stood up well to the hammering of Glasto ticket day yet again ... it slowed down at times, but was never in danger of crashing, and succeeded in breaking the previous forums record by over 50%. The tweaking done since the Reading/Leeds announcement obviously made a good difference. But I guess that's the last time that eFests will get away without a full-on load balancing system rather than me working a kludge, so I guess I should start saving some pennies for next year.

Neil

Neil

tonight's the night...

... when everyone should be watching the footie, and defo not tuning into Radio 1 at 9pm for their show "In music we trust...", which tonight is titled "Radio 1's Ultimate Festival Guide" and will probably include yours truly blabbering on about festies.

Neil

Neil

ch-ch-ch-changes

There's a new year coming, and some changes coming to eFestivals. Those fish had better watch out.

Neil

Neil

lower sales means it's payola time ... but not at eFestivals

It's not only Glastonbury that's suffered from slower sales this year - although it's not being said explicitly, from where I'm sat it seems pretty clear that a number of festivals are suffering from slower sales this year, and desperation is starting to set in for some. In the days when there was a huge singles market, record companies used to fill DJs pockets with cash to play their records and say how fantastic that particular single was. The result would be that the single with the payola

Neil

Neil

the bullshit of boutique

"Boutique" is being applied to festivals attended by numbers from 500 to 50,000. So what does it mean? From Dictionary.com:- bou·tique [boo-teek] –noun 1. a small shop or a small specialty department within a larger store, esp. one that sells fashionable clothes and accessories or a special selection of other merchandise. 2. any small, exclusive business offering customized service: Our advertising is handled by a new Madison Avenue boutique. 3. Informal. a small business, departm

Neil

Neil

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