Monthly Archives: August 2006

Web Scaling Books

I’ve read two really good books on scaling large-scale web applications lately: Building Scalable Websites by Cal Henderson and Scalable Internet Architectures by Theo Schlossnagle. (Original titles, eh?) Both dispel common myths and misconceptions about scaling. While neither maps directly to the approaches we’re taking at Automattic, they’re both must-read for developers approaching or past the million/day pageview mark. I only wish I had more time to discuss my thoughts on the various concepts in the books—particularly Cal’s.

Essential PC Software

I recently got my Sony TX690 back from the repair place, I asked them to wipe the HD to rid me of the plague that is Vista. Here’s the software I installed, in order, after getting it back: Firefox, Foxmarks, Thunderbird, Putty, TortoiseSVN, MIRC, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Topstyle, AutoHotKey, iTunes, EVDO drivers, Filezilla. I will probably install XAMPP later for offline plane hacking. That’s all I need to do everything I do on a computer.

MSN Spaces Numbers

Scoble has been questioning the claimed numbers of MSN Spaces and somehow the conversation got sidetracked in the technicalities of “what’s a blog?” I’m not sure what Microsoft hopes to gain by inflating their numbers so much, now claiming 70 million “blogs”, but it’s interesting to note back in March they were claiming 123 million blogs users at SxSW (Flickr photo of their booth). Activity (posting, etc) stats would be far more interesting. (This is something we need to expose more, too.)

Blogger Rebuilt

“Then, when someone wants to see any of the pages on your blog, those pages are created for them dynamically, on the fly.” Sounds familiar… The new Blogger doesn’t make users wait on rebuilding anymore, nice upgrade! (What happened to all those folks saying static was the only way to scale?) That and their other new features show a real respect and sensitivity to their users, the only thing missing is an exporter. Rebuilding is so 2004.