Upgrade Complete : Behold the Speed

So the server migration is complete. I ran into a couple problems along the way that were all related to server configuration.

But this new dedicated server seems pretty nice. And it should completely resolve the performance problems the site has been experiencing the past few weeks.

While I was at it I also moved the blog to blog.regexhero.net so it can be hosted by Blogger. I did that because Blogger will soon be canceling their FTP service that I was using. Apparently there's only a small percentage of Blogger users who used that service. Anyway, making the switch does mean that I'm able to use some nice features I wasn't able to before. For example, you'll now see a list of categories in the right-hand navigation. It's such a simple thing but that's something I've wanted for a long time.

Upgrading to a Dedicated Server

The virtual dedicated server this site is on hasn't really been working out for me. The site can be sporadically and inexplicably slow at times. I mean, inexcusably slow. A virtual dedicated server is supposed to be designed for someone like me -- a control freak who doesn't want to break the bank. But when the other customers on the host machine are calculating the next largest prime number while simultaneously rendering Avatar 2, then no amount of virtual separation will eliminate those slowdowns.

So for a little more than twice the price, I ordered a dedicated server from Liquid Web last night. And they finished setting it up this morning. The server has a dual-core AMD processor, 2GB RAM, two 250GB SATA hard drives w/ RAID 1, one 250GB SATA secondary drive, Windows Server 2008, and SQL Server 2008 Web Edition. It's in a facility with a ridiculous amount of network and power redundancy. So it should be good.

This weekend I'll be migrating the sites over and all of the speed problems should be solved.

Upgraded to Silverlight 3 and Created the Desktop Version

Silverlight 3 was a substantial upgrade over Silverlight 2. The biggest feature, by far, was the introduction of Silverlight's out-of-browser capabilities, essentially allowing you to install a Silverlight app on your desktop. A beauty part of this feature is that since it's still running in Silverlight, it'll work on both a PC and a Mac. Cross-platform development has never been so easy.

This has allowed me to create a new version which can be installed on your desktop in two clicks. This desktop version is available only to licensed users.

So if you've already bought Regex Hero you should now see a link on the right hand side of the screen:


Click that and you'll get this dialog box:


And then once you click OK, you're done. Shortcut icons will be placed appropriately. And the desktop version looks like this:


If after installing you want to uninstall you can do so by right-clicking inside the application and simply clicking "Remove this application..."

There are a couple nice things about the desktop version. It is very fast to load since it resides on your desktop. However, at the same time, it's good about keeping itself up to date. Every time you start the application it'll automatically check for and download any available updates asynchronously. And then the next time you start the application those updates will automatically be applied in a matter of milliseconds. The whole process is completely transparent so you're never bothered with annoying "available update" alerts.

In addition to this new desktop version, I also made a few changes to Regex Hero. The previous match / next match (up/down) buttons will now actually select the text of the match you're on. So you can literally click the down button and then begin typing and you'll replace whatever was highlighted. In addition to that, these buttons will also scroll to the match if it's off the screen.