The Good Stuff, The Bad Stuff and Other Stuff
February 14, 2008 – 5:51 amTo all the soupornuts.com subscribers, I apologize for my lack of posting for the past week. I hope that after you read this article you will understand why.
The Good Stuff
1. Daddy – Daughter Date Night
My two girls and I attended Daddy – Daughter Date Night sponsored and hosted by a local church this past Sunday night. It was an event that my girls had been looking forward to for weeks.
Yes, this is a picture of me painting the nails of my youngest daughter. I also:
- blow-dry hair
- help brush teeth
- give piggy-back rides
- play dolls, on occasion
- and I also put on corsages, as I am doing for my oldest daughter (on the right)
Because I wanted each of my girls to feel particularly special, I enlisted the help of my father to double-date with us. With his help, each of my girls had someone’s full attention all night.
We all had a wonder time. I’ll never forget it and I hope that my girls don’t either.
Thanks Pop for all your help.
2. The Rotater Continues to Impress
We saw the guys from 1StopForGolf.com in Orlando at the PGA expo. They have been using the Rotater since September and have featured it as their Golf Product of the Month (November 2007). Every time that they came by the booth to see us, we were busy demonstrating the Rotater.
A couple of days ago, I discovered that they had posted “The Rotater Continues to Impress” on their blog.
3. The Birmingham News runs a feature article on the Rotater
About three weeks ago Anna Velasco, a writer from the Birmingham News traveled about 150 miles to meet Scott and myself so that she could interview us about the Rotater. She was especially intrigued as to how an industrial mechanic could have created a shoulder device that is so effective for so many people across so many different markets.
Anna spent a couple of hours asking questions and picking our brains, which resulted in this article: Industrial Mechanic invents tool to improve shoulder mobility, finds niche in athletics.
4. Huge traffic to the Rotater website
Because of the article in the Birmingham News, we received a massive influx of traffic, which translated into huge sales.
The Bad Stuff
1. The Rotater website crashes!
Huge traffic is cool – if you are prepared for it. Apparently, we were not. I am unsure as to who the real blame lies with:
- I could immediately point a finger at our hosting provider
- or perhaps it is because I did not purchase a plan that provides for such a huge traffic inflow
You can be sure that it is a priority for me now that I realize how vulnerable we are.
Fortunately, we were only down about thirty minutes before the system reset itself and traffic was able to resume. However, there is no way to be able to calculate how many people tried and did not get to see our website nor whether they will ever come back.
2. Our blog crashes – down two days!
Our blog, Shoulder Performance & Rehab crashed a short time later. It did not reset itself, so I set out to determine what the problem was.
When I tried to login to my blog, I kept getting the following message:
WordPress database error: [User ‘mydomainname’ has exceeded the ‘max_questions’ resource (current value: 50000)]
The wording of this message led me to believe that there had been some kind of problem in my databases. I was wrong. After doing some research, I discovered that our hosting provider sets a limit of 50,000 requests per hour for this particular plan, regardless of your hosting plan’s advertised total bandwidth allowance.
50,000 requests per hour sounds like a lot. In reality, it is not. Every link, image or widget on a page is considered a request. You can easily have one hundred or more requests per page.
The result: 50 people in one hour hit your blog, each viewing ten different pages – your blog goes down. And it does not come back up without contacting technical support – only after you discover it is a hosting issue and not a database issue.
3. Hosting Suggestions?
I have been doing some research in order to find a hosting provider that:
- offers excellent and dependable service
- responsive customer service
- affordable hosting plans
Do any of you guys out there have any suggestions? Please leave a comment and let me know about your experiences.
The Other Stuff
1. No Baby – Yet
My wife is still pregnant. She is due to deliver our baby any day. We can hardly wait.
2. The Rotater goes to Boston
Scott Kay (my business partner) has traveled to Boston to introduce the Rotater to the golfing public for the first time at the National Golf Expo.
3. Special Thanks
I’d like to thank Albert @ Urban Monk for mentioning soupornuts.com in an article he wrote entitled “The beauty of Impermanency and the Illusion of Ego”. Thanks for your endorsement - you carry quite a bit of clout.
How is your shoulder performance and flexibility?
5 Responses to “The Good Stuff, The Bad Stuff and Other Stuff”
Congrats on Daddy Date Nite… gave me that “Awwww” feeling
Too much traffic sounds like a good problem, but nevertheless, a problem. I use BlueHost as my blog server and would recommend for a regular blog. They have shared servers (multiple clients on one server), but your business sounds like it might be better off with a dedicated server. Rackspace seems to be popular in that arena.
Al at 7P’s last blog post..In Case You Missed It
By Al at 7P on Feb 15, 2008
Great looking girls you got there! I’m sure they were thrilled to have you and your Dad dancing the night away.
The traffic seems like a great thing to have, but it has to be frustrating to have so many fans and the message cannot get out. The Rotater still amazes me and apparently is really getting a lot of attention.
To continued success!!!
Brad Baggett’s last blog post..Reflections from the Juice of Champions - article 5
By Brad Baggett on Feb 15, 2008
Hi Al,
Sorry for the delay in responding to your comment, but life is slowing me down. There was a time when that would have stressed me out, but I realize that if you use your time constructively, then you have more time. Thanks for the webhost hint. I’ll check them out.
Hi Brad,
Yea, we had a great time. I’m working on the website hosting issue. The Rotater amazes me, too.
By Chris Melton on Feb 17, 2008
Sounds like you have had a lot of your plate Chris! I know this post is a couple days old, so I wonder if your new bub has come along yet? Our boy was 2 weeks overdue before the big moment finally came…. Maybe don’t tell your wife that, she is probably well and truly over being pregnant.
Re hosting: I use Dreamhost - it does the job nicely. I also hear Media Temple is good (that is what PickTheBrain uses).
Peter’s last blog post..How to Survive in this Crazy World
By Peter on Feb 18, 2008
Hi Peter,
No baby yet (Monday 4:30 est), but we have a doctor’s visit today. Our actual due date is tomorrow - I don’t even want to mention that possibility that she may run past due.
Thanks for the heads up on hosting. I will check out both Dreamhost and Media Temple.
By Chris Melton on Feb 18, 2008