Mirai Gaia
(
66)
Sun 2008/03/02 11:04
You probably notice some changes around the site by now and I probably should talk about them before the bugs start to get on your nut ^^;
Up until now, the site used to run on a platform that I built called Nav2.0 - a blog publishing platform.
I made the decision to merge all three Mirai Inc products into one product called Mirai Gaia. The three products were:-
First let me talk about the bugs that you may be experiencing due to the platform migration which is still in progress.
Known bugs/issues are:-
Below: The old header was created manually and difficult to maintain. While it did rotate images from time to time, I had to manually create those images and set them in an array.
I thought I would take the opportunity to make good use of the header space and have it increase discoverability across the site. The thumbnails you see in the header are taken from articles which are automatically generated according to popular posts within that category. The thumbnails represent what content can be found in that category and users will see something different all the time.
Below: You can now keep tabs on comments across the site in using the comment tracker. The thumbnails displayed next to each comment represents that commented item/article.
You can also RSS subscribe to the comments and soon will be able to view them formatted for Japanese mobile devices or iPhones.
Below: Puchi Blurbs are now easier to view which you can also RSS subscribe to and view by year/month/user too.
Congrats to member Chong Mizunaga for submitting the 10000th puchi blurb!
Below: My News Items have been using the Image Upload feature and you too will be able to upload your images soon.
Below: When you go to a user profile page like mine, you can see my profile and initially all the comments I've made so far. The tabs on this page represent your media items - your comments, puchi blurbs, videos, links, and calendar items. The form to submit these will be up again soon.
This is an example of member D_Blades profile page and you can instantly see that he has made 2414 comments so far. He can also use this feature to "bookmark" his favorite items/articles by commenting on them.
Below: You can also view items by year/month. Here you can see for example that member FatB has commented 142 times in February.
Below: Whenever you get lost, just click on "Site Map" in the header - the page includes a search box which will focus on the search field as soon as the page loads.
Below: Here is an example of just some of the feeds that you can subscribe to. You can subscribe to my comments, my images, my idol images only, my idol videos only etc etc. You can also subscribe to calendar events using the iCal format too - it works this time ^^;
Am currently working on server side caching problems. Pages that require data to be pulled from the database should be cached server side so that the database is not hit for each user visit. When a comment is made, the cache on the server must be flushed so that the page shows the comment. The problem I am facing is that when too many pages are cached server side, many files need to be flushed and that takes time. This is the reason why the comment form stalls for a while.
I've set up scripts which flush the cache automatically every 5 minutes but the amount of users hitting the site generate thousands of cache files every minute ^^; If you are a caching expert then throw some ideas at me ^^;
Up until now, the site used to run on a platform that I built called Nav2.0 - a blog publishing platform.
I made the decision to merge all three Mirai Inc products into one product called Mirai Gaia. The three products were:-
- Nav2.0 (blog publishing) - what you have been browsing the site on. Built specifically to enhance discoverability of related and previous content. Many blog publishing platforms bury old content which is a shame because blog owners spend a lot of time preparing content. When I say "bury" I mean that discoverability is poor. Nav2.0 not only makes related and previous content discoverable to humans, all templates are search engine optimized too for search bots.
- Gaia (e-commerce) - Gaia is an e-commerce platform that I built a few years ago which is being used by a few of my clients in Japan. Contains enhanced browsing and discoverability of all products in the catalog.
- Carrot (consumer generated media/SNS) - figure.fm and a few other sites run on this platform dedicated to building communities where the content is generated by consumers.
First let me talk about the bugs that you may be experiencing due to the platform migration which is still in progress.
Known bugs/issues are:-
- Main tabs on the top page do not highlight properly and are not consistent across the site - this is because some of the site is running on Mirai Gaia and some still on Nav2.0
- Your Amazon products dont show up *yet*
- Your Flickr photos dont show up *yet*
- Forms for submitting calendar items, videos and links is being rebuilt and will be ready soon.
- Need to work on CSS for navigational tabs and subnavs
- "Recently active members" list does not refresh
- Show/hide comment layers is broke
- "Go" button on the calendar sort menu looks like poo
- Some layout formatting issues in Safari2 and IE6/7 - looks fine in Firefox
- Some old Calendar feeds may be broke - please resub to the new feeds (sorry)
- Footer design not complete on some pages
- 404 Page looks like poo
- Item comments archive on the Japanese site have missing titles for articles written in English only
- Server side caching is a bit broke
- Finish forms for submitting videos, images, calendar items and links - the new form will be merged into one instead of 4 separate forms
- Finish Amazon product listing widget to allow you to display your chosen Amazon products on your profile page and for any item you submit
- iPhone/mobile version of dannychoo.com
- Enable user image upload
- Reply to comments via email
- Research posting reply via an RSS feed
- Comment form on the post/article page
- Migrate rest of dannychoo.com (articles, galleries etc) to Mirai Gaia
- Enable comment threading on articles
- Enable Nuke functionality - if you joined me at the Good Smile Broadcast then you will remember me talking about this.
- Launch private messaging to other members
Below: The old header was created manually and difficult to maintain. While it did rotate images from time to time, I had to manually create those images and set them in an array.
I thought I would take the opportunity to make good use of the header space and have it increase discoverability across the site. The thumbnails you see in the header are taken from articles which are automatically generated according to popular posts within that category. The thumbnails represent what content can be found in that category and users will see something different all the time.
You can also RSS subscribe to the comments and soon will be able to view them formatted for Japanese mobile devices or iPhones.
Congrats to member Chong Mizunaga for submitting the 10000th puchi blurb!
This is an example of member D_Blades profile page and you can instantly see that he has made 2414 comments so far. He can also use this feature to "bookmark" his favorite items/articles by commenting on them.
I've set up scripts which flush the cache automatically every 5 minutes but the amount of users hitting the site generate thousands of cache files every minute ^^; If you are a caching expert then throw some ideas at me ^^;
The new up n coming design of dannychoo.com...
Not.
The screenshot below is of the fi...(more)
Thu 02/21 04:11 comments (89)
The article widget on the top page is under maintenance for today but I will continue...(more)
Wed 02/20 00:29 comments (31)
Coll, looks nice to me ^^ So far the load time for is kind of "average". It can be slow and fast sometimes :o
(ID #74608) Posted on 2008/03/01 21:45
radical anime fan in Singapore; starting to freeze up. Mmm, end-of-year weather. (Registered on 2007/01/25 22:08)
Polytechnic Freshman. Mmm... fresh.
The site really went through/is going to go through a complete overhaul. Thanks for all the work you've done in making dannychoo.com a place where anime fans can gather, danny. *heaps cookies upon danny*
(ID #74609) Posted on 2008/03/01 21:46
TK-8316 / 宅男 Otaku / 工程师 Engineer
danny thanks for all the wonderful new features. we know you are busy and is probably pulling your hair getting everything fixed.
maybe i'll get hiro to freeze the time so that you can finish all the programming. ('~')
btw, don't forget the "edit" comment feature too. ^^;
(ID #74613) Posted on 2008/03/01 21:59
Game Designer
What can i wish for more~ This website is the best website all over the world! that is cares about the user, and improvements could be seen. Thank you danny!
(ID #74614) Posted on 2008/03/01 22:06
Otaku/Computer tech/Student
I love the new features Danny. As for the load times, at the moment it takes me around 20 seconds to load the main page with it already cached. (I'm running on 10 MBPS cable connection.) So thats not really great... not horrible but not great. It's still livable load time for me but I'm not sure about others. Btw, I would love to give you suggestions on caching but I'm not too literate on much of any programming... yet :p.
(ID #74615) Posted on 2008/03/01 22:09
Otaku/Computer tech/Student
Err, meant to say I load the main page in 20 seconds WITHOUT it cached. Sorry =/.
(ID #74618) Posted on 2008/03/01 22:12
Damn Danny, that's still alot on your plate. That is the main reason you wouldn't hear me nitpick unless asked, or it is a major gliche. Think the improvements so far are great, so no need to apologize for any sluggishness. We know you're on it, and it'll take time to smooth out the wrinkles. Feel free to ask for feedback on your mobile/Iphone/touch view when complete. Will be away most of March though, but plannin to p.blurbing my whereabouts whenever I find open Wifi.
(ID #74620) Posted on 2008/03/01 22:14
Student, Spiral Warrior
New layout looks excellent, and I especially like the dynamic selection of different images for each category's icon. Definitely a few things look a little out of place in Safari, but I'm confident they'll be straightened out in no time. Keep up the good work.
(ID #74623) Posted on 2008/03/01 22:21
Student
Loading time's okay I guess? I mean, there's a huge amount of content here! XD Anyways, お疲れ様でした、Ｄａｎｎｙさん！
(ID #74625) Posted on 2008/03/01 22:25
Nice job, Danny. Ever since I have known your site, browsing it has been one of my daily tasks. <I click on the Danny bookmark about 5 times a day I guess> Keep up your good work xD
(ID #74627) Posted on 2008/03/01 22:28
Looks like it's coming along well, Danny, keep up the good work! Sorry I can't help with any site issues, i'm not well versed in CSS, nor any other programing language besides Python (may it burn in hell). And, like Aoi_sora9x says, I, too, visit your site at least 3 times, sometimes 5 times a day, spending almost an hour at a time. =]
(ID #74631) Posted on 2008/03/01 22:53
VF-25 Pilot. Universariate Scholar.
Looking forwards to new upgrades danny!! Keep up the good work and remember, The emperor protects.
(ID #74635) Posted on 2008/03/01 23:03
This site has always seemed too bloated and slow to me, but I can't tell the difference between this version and the later, maybe it is even a little faster.
(ID #74669) Posted on 2008/03/02 00:10
The load time for me used to be lightning fast, but now it's getting between average and slow. I "figured"(bad pun) it was all the traffic from your coverage of figures.
(ID #74688) Posted on 2008/03/02 00:48
I've been enjoying the changes a bit, howfulyl it will work out Danny. The loading speed right now is somewhat slow because of the huge photo galleries.
(ID #74691) Posted on 2008/03/02 00:53
Afro-ed Student
Yay! 10,000th Puchi Blurb, eh? ^^ Thanks~ xD Never noticed I got such a thing.. LOL On another note, reading about this is making my head spin a little. Think I'm gonna need to take some time off during the holidays to read about html, css and etc. That means avoiding anime+manga+blogging+games+work(lol). Gonna be hard to do, but I guess it's important if I'm gonna get to my destination.
(ID #74709) Posted on 2008/03/02 01:14
The pages and posted comments have been loading much faster recently and the site is much better-looking now (couldn't believe that could be said one day). The loading time for pages in multiple tabs can be a bit long, but I guess it is because I have been a bit less present lately and I make massive updates in return... At any rate, keep it up and don't strain yourself, as I see you still have many things to do. Finally as a random not, I'm glad to be featured. Makes me all fuzzy inside and ummm... Do I talk too much? Got to compensate on the fact I'm a rather quiet guy in reality. lol...
(ID #74710) Posted on 2008/03/02 01:16
Even on my 256k connection loading times are good considering the amount of content. Keep up the unending extras danny, it's appreciated, long live Mirai Gaia! :D
(ID #74716) Posted on 2008/03/02 01:24
ひきこもり/Hikikomori. Suits my current state more than a 大学生/University Student. ^^
My experience is limited but, dannychoo.com the first site I ever see to better itself at such a fast pace - and that's even more reason for me to love this site.
(ID #74718) Posted on 2008/03/02 01:26
dreaming
Though I'm not really a techy person, and it sounds like there are tons of changes (and lots of work), but good luck. And the wonderfest coverage was great, I really enjoyed all the wonderful pictures. Thank you! *hopes I can be there next time*
(ID #74732) Posted on 2008/03/02 01:53
The site loads much faster =D I dont know if its just me, but whenever im using Ubuntu's firefox, it takes 5-10+ seconds longer than on windows firefox = -Anyone else having this problem?
(ID #74733) Posted on 2008/03/02 01:55
*note And yes Benjamin, I wholly agree with you. Countless sites out there only think of their business and not the visitors/users/customers. I hope to remain a member of the DC community ad vitam eternam.
(ID #74738) Posted on 2008/03/02 02:08
I think the loading time is fast. Most pages take at most 4 seconds. The longest loading is the gallery(30s) and home page(8s). Don't know if i should ask this here, well how do i get to the home page if i am at the article page?
(ID #74739) Posted on 2008/03/02 02:12
Danny You made Mirai chan's picture smaller (fume) :) Seriously though load time did seem to increase but that just be because I normally have most of the site in my cache.
(ID #74742) Posted on 2008/03/02 02:14
University Student.
Loading times definitely seems faster now, and loving it ^^. Keep up the great work, but don't overstress yourself okay? Hoping everything will go on smoothly ^^.
(ID #74745) Posted on 2008/03/02 02:28
damn Danny your site just keeps getting better!! XD (sob sob) because of the crappy internet i have this site takes a long time loading anyway it's my dad's fault cuz he's cheap-cheap!! WAY TO GO DANNY!! CONGRATS!!
(ID #74749) Posted on 2008/03/02 02:35
I like the new navigation in header. It is clearer and easier to navigate the site. I actually got confused with the old one when I first visit this site.
(ID #74764) Posted on 2008/03/02 03:10
Online Shop
Wow, so many changes, hard to keep up x_x Kudos for taking all these works down, keep up the good work!!!
(ID #74769) Posted on 2008/03/02 03:21
I don't know where your servers are, but I'm on the east coast of the United States, ( probably nowhere near ) so I kinda figure it's going to be slow anyway.
(ID #74776) Posted on 2008/03/02 03:39
Used to be very slow, and occasionaly freeze when loading. But now its much better. Average speed i reckon!
(ID #74788) Posted on 2008/03/02 04:29
Part human, part student, 100% loser
Wow Danny, I wasn't able to log in coz I was out but am totally amazed by the changes. Loading speed is faster and like the head, keep it up Danny!
(ID #74794) Posted on 2008/03/02 04:52
Danny. Just came back & loading was much faster due to my cache. One thing confused me & bear with me on this. I was at this article & clicked on the Anime tab. From there I clicked on a story on the left bar (the boots one). Then I clicked on Mirai chan to get back to the front page. So far so good, but when I clicked on the link to "Read the rest" of this topic I got the Anime tab back. I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.12 on xp
(ID #74797) Posted on 2008/03/02 05:18
Student Engineer
The site speed is now LIGHTNING with the new format compared to the old. Thanks! It makes accessing and reading the site a lot more enjoyable, great work Danny!
(ID #74803) Posted on 2008/03/02 06:27
really like the new looks. at last, private messaging. and if i can, pls give feature for editing comment
(ID #74804) Posted on 2008/03/02 06:35
Director/代表取締役
Old Guy, Its because the anime tab is remembering your last tab setting - I will turn it off. lin-da-kenobi, LOL, Draphoenix, by clicking on Mirai-chans eyes in the logo. D_Blade, Thanks and no - you do not talk too much ^^
(ID #74807) Posted on 2008/03/02 06:51
Troubleshooter, Universal Exports
Thanks for giving us a run through on the upgrades. I always learn when you do this type of post. I have only one regret that gets me. I wish I was up to speed on everything so I could help out. You have large todo lists. I like how you condensed all the functionality of the header into such a small area. You removed list and I wasn't sure how users would find info. I see now that discoverability should be greater and less confusing to the new user. I always assume that new users go here first. Most of the establish users know where to begin a search. Thank you for giving us RSS for Puchi Blurbs. I can visit here with out coming to the site. A good thing when I'm at my mobile or somewhere I can't or wouldn't view the site. Overall, I think the site is loading quicker. Those server cache improvements are doing well. I emptied my browser cache and still see an improvement in speed when using Safari. FireFox on the other hand loads a little slower than Safari 3. Enough talk because I know you are busy... Thanks for always giving us more more more.
(ID #74808) Posted on 2008/03/02 06:52
24/7 Otaku / 100% Haruhiist
Nice changes! Speed is much faster compared to the prior website, but it's still relatively slow. But this website is so good that it's worth the wait. :P
(ID #74809) Posted on 2008/03/02 07:07
Interactive Media Producer
Thanks for all of your hard work! I look forward to the new changes and will deal with the bugs regardless. ^^; All of what you are doing fascinates me so keep up the good work!
(ID #74824) Posted on 2008/03/02 07:47
The loading time slightly faster to me ^^ I like the new layout, although I prefer the previous header :D
(ID #74838) Posted on 2008/03/02 08:21
hey danny i like the new layout, the speed is still kind of the same. but i like it.
(ID #74848) Posted on 2008/03/02 08:50
It seem that loading the pages in Danny's site have been much slower to me. OMG it drives me insane!... Must not smash my laptop to bits! ("bang my head agaist the wall")
(ID #74852) Posted on 2008/03/02 09:05
IT, Programmer, ...
I liked the old header, but I also like the new header ;p. Loading times have been slower than before, some images not loading, but that problem might be caused on my side... I like your idea about "buried" content. About caching: Since you're running the site on php, I'd recommend using Zend Platform on the server side (if you're not already using it). (it's from the guys that made php) I has many features like cache enhancements, script optimization, clustering (which might be handy when you would need to host on more than one server), session handling across clusters, warning/error statistics, etc. Keep it up!
(ID #99711) Posted on 2008/03/02 10:18
part time illustrationist, doll clothing seamstress
*looks around* *waves pompoms* XP
(ID #99712) Posted on 2008/03/02 10:19
So many new changes that I can't wait to try out ^^ Loading's a little slower than usual though, but I guess it's partly due to crappy third world internet ._.
(ID #99713) Posted on 2008/03/02 10:20
Wow, nice update! I'll probably try a heuristic check on this site one day haha. I agree with some people who say its slightly faster in the loading times. Gaia (e-com) stuff, I like to know more about that stuff too XD
(ID #99715) Posted on 2008/03/02 10:23
nut? O_O Thanks for putting so much effort into this site, Danny :)
(ID #99719) Posted on 2008/03/02 10:26
i like the new header, is easier and cleaner to navi ^^ but i prefer the mirai image of the previous version ^^, maido mirai is more kawaii than bikini mirai xD
(ID #99720) Posted on 2008/03/02 10:27
anime/cosplay events organizer
love the new layout danny ^^ the first time my browser got to taste the new layout and the new features, it loads a bit slow but the browser gets used to it but there are still times that it loads a bit slow ^^;;;
(ID #99739) Posted on 2008/03/02 11:16
Nice work :D
(ID #99751) Posted on 2008/03/02 11:57
Student - Free lance graphic designer and musician
The site works nicely on my iPhone, just so you know. Still, an iPhone version would be great.
(ID #99759) Posted on 2008/03/02 12:28
I love the new look. I like how how the icons refresh to a new image everytime the page loads. As for loading times, it's about average, not too big of a deal for me.
(ID #99789) Posted on 2008/03/02 14:34
oh yea, i love the new design. :D
(ID #99792) Posted on 2008/03/02 14:54
Danny. I realise tha tab action was being remembered. It just seemed a bit weird that it did so when I clicked a link to read the rest of an article. Keep up the good work. Yours is one of the few sites I visit multiple times a day.
(ID #99828) Posted on 2008/03/02 16:14
MI Manager, Blogger and Newswriter
Great work Danny, the new design is very nice ^^
(ID #99836) Posted on 2008/03/02 16:38
The look is becoming better and better!
It seems that my nickname is not displayed correctly (yet) on top of the page and in the menu sidebar due to encoding problems, though... ;)
(usign Linux/{Firefox 2.0.0.12,Konqueror 3.5.7}, Windows/IE 7.0.5)
(ID #99879) Posted on 2008/03/02 19:32
Visualizer, Advertising
loading time is still slow, i dont know how to see the difference between the old and new layout but it takes really quite some time when posting comments
(ID #99884) Posted on 2008/03/02 19:38
The look is becoming better and better!
It seems that my nickname is not displayed correctly (yet) on top of the page and in the menu sidebar due to encoding problems, though... ;)
(at least using Linux/{Firefox 2.0.0.12,Konqueror 3.5.7}, Windows/IE 7.0.5)
(ID #99885) Posted on 2008/03/02 19:42
Doh... submitted my first comment and already managed to produce a double post--seems that I live up to my alter ego/nick. It is always a bad idea to hit 'cancel' after submitting a web form and then forget to check whether the comment already showed up before trying again a few minutes later. ^^;
(ID #99888) Posted on 2008/03/02 19:58
Student artist
What type of program or techiquie did you use to program nav 20?
(ID #100001) Posted on 2008/03/03 02:36
i'll keep this short sweet...
(ID #100147) Posted on 2008/03/03 11:02
marvin (Registered on 2006/12/25 00:30)
your site is looking better and better each revision Danny. but about the loading time. it loads fine on firefox, but on IE it still blanks out until all the images is loaded.
(ID #100166) Posted on 2008/03/03 12:21
suneo (Registered on 2007/12/17 20:30)
Say, dunno if this is related or not, but I've been tryin to get myself on otaku.fm and in the comrades links and stuff, but somehow I may not be doing something right? I put the dannychoo feed (DCrewards link) up on my site, and shot off an email to support at dannychoo dot com with my username to try to get it activated, but nothing happened. A week or two passed, and I shot off a second email to the same address and still nothing. My site directory is empty :( Am I doing something wrong? Maybe I need to just put my dannychoo username in the subject line and message body and that's it...
(ID #100184) Posted on 2008/03/03 12:42
silvioster (Registered on 2008/03/05 12:55)
Are you caching the full page source ? You might divide the page into the static and dynamic parts. Then include the dynamic part in the php of the full page. The dynamic part can be generated when a user interacts with the database (for example, comment). Like: comment -> generate <page_id>_comments.inc The generator just appends into the file, so you don't need to refresh the whole file, just add the new data. Since your comments mechanism doesn't support threaded replies, there won't be any problems (just stick the new data in the end of the .inc and that's it). Well, without any additional data, hard to help any more :)
(ID #125994) Posted on 2008/03/05 13:04
Director/代表取締役
silvioster, Thanks for the tips. Am already caching the page in sections like static dynamic already. Thinking of memcache. suneo, Just sent you mail - activated. marvin, I hate that - will be fixed when the top page goes Mirai Gaia. Gibson, PHP, MYSQL, Apache.
(ID #126075) Posted on 2008/03/05 16:58
suneo (Registered on 2007/12/17 20:30)
cool thanks just got your mail :D I'm finally part of the family! lol
(ID #126081) Posted on 2008/03/05 17:08
A question for Danny (or anyone else more familiar with this site)... Is there any way to choose the order in which comments are displayed at the end of the posts? I'd much prefer it if I could get the comments to display in ascending chronological order. Thanks in advance!
(ID #152850) Posted on 2008/03/08 05:07
lecherous wretch
well done!
(ID #195750) Posted on 2008/05/24 15:55
UPDATE!!!! Sorry! There is actually 43 figures as pointed out by Meimi132!
Sorry for th...(more)