Website news!

Recently, it was brought to my attention that the archiver broke again. Huge shoutout to barbeque for helping me find the error! Fixes were made to that, and also an improvement for distinguishing the new method that fimfiction.net uses to delete a fic. (The API listing does not go away anymore)

The server move went without a hitch and the subsequent "rack" build is working like a charm! I should probably get a UPS to do graceful shutdowns in the event of a power out (it's a backup only, after all), but you can't get one big enough in a store. It would have to be special order. I think I'm going to put off on that for now.

Additionally, Bronycon was awesome! I got to meet a bunch of new people, and even a few that new of fimfetch! **squee!**

Didn't make as much as I'd hoped, but still managed to net about $200 profit for the website - that'll help pay for the domain registration and hosting for a few months :)

Hosting costs have gone up a tad since I lost my free server where I was previously employed, but I don't plan on throwing in the towel just yet. Who knows, maybe I should get some ads.. I don't really know.

Future plans!

I'm going to Ciderfest in two weeks, and I'm running games on Saturday!

Enterplay is sending me hundreds of dollars of merch to give away in tournaments, which is super exciting. No entry fee, draft packs provided!

Also, for late night adult entertainment, I'll also be running a Cards Against Equestria panel at 11pm!

Well, that's about it, unless you want me to start rambling about the technical challenges of keeping this site running. There's a line between enthusiastic and obsession, but I'm not sure where that is.

Hello everypony!

Data here with your way-too-infrequent update!

First on the docket is a personal update: I recently switched jobs, and with that also had to find a new location to host my backup server. I built a room for it in my basement and ran a dedicated circuit for it along with a rudimentary cooling and air filtering system (read: nailed an air filter in front of the servers and plugged in a fan), so I’m back in the business of redundant backups for all of the archived fiction data! (Cue confetti!) I’ve also upgraded the storage arrays, so the primary data is on 8 RAID10 drives, and the secondary backups on a 5TB RAID6 volume. Technical jargon aside, I now have backups of backups of backups, and don’t plan on losing anything any time soon. (I love data)

Next up, website backend improvements! Fimfiction’s site recently changed their interface and formatting, which messed up updating for a time. Thank you to all that brought it to my attention! Fimfetch has been updated to work again, and also filter out the annoying “Read this chapter online” links that were added to the chapter texts. I also finally fixed up the clunky command interface I wrote, but that’s more for my convenience, so who cares (shrug).

I’ve also implemented a clickthrough on mature rated fictions, just in case someone browses or clicks into a fic that they may not be wanting to see. It also means that you can direct link mature fics on fimfiction’s site, if you’re into that.

Now for more exciting news!

Fimfetch’s popularity is at an all-time personal best, holding at 4,000+ users and 25,000+ pageviews per month for three months running! Up from what was 900/5,000 only a year ago!

Granted, it seems that much of that activity is for clop, but hey – you do you.

And for the best part:

I’m going to be at BronyCon! (Cue confetti cannon loaded with glitter)

For folks interested, I’ll be vending in the Artist Alley at table 69, with all sorts of random crafts and merch, including wood cutie mark plaques, chainmail keychains, MLP:CCG merch, and the hugely popular Cards Against Equestria. Any profits from this endeavor will be going into my bank account for website hosting and registration fees, and hopefully guarantee the site’s survival for a bit longer, as donations aren’t quite enough to keep a complicated website like this one running.

This is HUGE!

Ok, First off: this is the first update that will also be sent out via email!

I finally got around to finishing that bit (and the unsubscribe option)

Prepare your inbox for pony emoticons, because I love using them.

What else changed?

Take a look!

I've done a complete overhaul of the underlying web backend, as well as tweaks to the site theme and how everything works with different screen sizes (like on mobile).

This was a huge undertaking, and I'm really excited to finally make the new site live!

Other things to note: I have added a new rating system for you fiction lovers out there to enjoy: you can now rank the stories you have read, and the results are averaged with everyone else's ratings to make a composite score - and you can filter search results by that score!

Also, I finally added a profile page and bookshelf interface, so you can keep track of those things you've read, and show them off to others!

Also, you can set an avatar image, and it's drag-and-drop compatible!

I could go on about all of the things I added and changed here and there, but I would start blathering in technical jargon about bits you may or may not ever see, and that's not very entertaining.

I am currently working on a few more things to add, but those might be another week or two before they're ready.

Thankyou everyone for your support!

This is DataByte, signing off for now.

We've upgraded servers!

Now bigger, stronger, and faster, with more storage and more bandwidth!

Additionally, we're now also set up with cloudflare, so you can always count on fast and reliable access to the archive!

Huge thanks out to Sour_Sweet, who is generously providing an entire vm just for hosting this project!

Up next on the docket:

I hope to be able to dedicate some time in the near future to cleaning up the site backend, beautify the site a bit, and hopefully bring to light some of the planned features that got laid by the wayside earlier this year.

It's been a wild ride, especially when my laptop drive died and I lost everything, but things are really starting to look up.

This is your host DataByte signing off until next time.

Keep calm and brony on.

We've upgraded our search backend!

A little tweaking here and there, and we now have a complete virtual search appliance servicing all of your pony fiction wanderings!

This sports such a huge gain in performance, you won't even see a results loading screen anymore; it's gone now - the loading page took longer to load than the results!

Whereas earlier searches may have taken 1 to 10 seconds to load, those times are down to milliseconds now!

Huge thanks to byte[], without whom this would not have happened.

On a related note, I've also tweaked the search defaults a bit - hopefully for the better.

More improvements to come!

Sorry for being slow to add features - Con season is a bit of a hustle.

On a related note, I now also have a side project that may take off, depending on the interest: Cards Against Equestria printings. If we get enough interest in it, we can drive the price down to more reasonable levels.

https://databyte.fimfetch.net/cah

Thanks for sticking around. y'all!