lesterchan.net v6.0
lesterchan.net 6.0 is the biggest structural change to the site in years. The sidebar is finally gone, replaced by a single-column card layout, with redesigned pages, accessibility overhaul, and a cleaned-up archive.
Site
Updates about lesterchan.net itself: redesigns, new features, and changes under the hood.
lesterchan.net v5.0
My previous design, version 4.0, was over seven years old. With COVID keeping me home and bored, I revamped the site to version 5.0, trimming old pages and plugins, and rebuilt it using Tailwind CSS and Tailwind UI.
Facebook Instant Articles
I submitted my site to publish Facebook Instant Articles last Thursday, and it was approved today, faster than the stated 24-48 hour review. I use Automattic's official Instant Articles for WP plugin to generate the feed.
lesterchan.net v4.4
A recap of lesterchan.net's evolution: now on HTTPS, running nginx, PHP-FPM, MariaDB, and HHVM, with search powered by Algolia. The v4.4 update lands alongside the WordPress 4.4 release, the last major WordPress release of 2015.
Algolia Search
Algolia is a French startup offering hosted cloud search as a service, with a developer-friendly API that's easy to integrate in any language. It provides 11 API clients, four mobile SDKs, and a WordPress plugin.
lesterchan.net on HHVM
After moving to nginx and php-fpm, my next step was running HHVM with php-fpm as a fallback. HHVM is an open-source virtual machine for executing Hack and PHP programs, using just-in-time compilation for superior performance while keeping PHP's development flexibility.
lesterchan.net on nginx/php-fpm & MariaDB
My site averaged about 1,900ms response time on Pingdom, rising to 2,600ms after switching to HTTPS while still on Apache 2.4.7 with PHP 5.5.9 via mod_php. Moving to nginx 1.6.2 and PHP 5.5.22 via php-fpm brought it back to 1,900ms.
lesterchan.net now on HTTPS
In case you hadn't noticed, lesterchan.net is now on HTTPS. Back in August 2014, Google announced it would use HTTPS as a ranking signal, having tested secure, encrypted connections in its search algorithms and seen positive results.
lesterchan.net v4.3
About ten months on from v4.2, lesterchan.net v4.3 brings mostly cosmetic and backend changes. The biggest addition is Roost's web push notifications: visit the site more than twice on Safari and you'll get an opt-in prompt.
lesterchan.net On NewsLoop
lesterchan.net is now on NewsLoop under Tech & Gadgets, joining 600 other publishers. NewsLoop, a SingTel app, gathers the best news and lifestyle content from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, the Philippines, and Thailand into one elegant app spanning 30 categories.
lesterchan.net v4.2
Another six months on, it's time for another lesterchan.net update, v4.2. The biggest new feature is Site Analytics, powered by Google Analytics, pulling data through the Google Analytics API and rendering it with the HighCharts JavaScript charting library.
lesterchan.net v4.1
It's been almost nine months since my last upgrade, so here's a site update. Most of it focuses on optimising the site to perform faster, now scoring 90 out of 100 on Pingdom's Website Speed Test.
lesterchan.net v4.0
I launched lesterchan.net v3.0 on 5th June 2008, and four years on, it's time for a fresh design. Welcome to v4.0, built with Bootstrap and Fatcow icons, with a new logo by Li Xiang. I've returned to a light theme.
Featured Section
In case you hadn't noticed, I've added a Featured Section under Blog in the right sidebar. It collects blog posts with original content, organised by company. By original, I mean my own writing, not press releases or copied content.
Posterous
I've joined the microblogging bandwagon, with Posterous as my weapon of choice. I picked it over Tumblr because its interface is clean and intuitive, and its iOS app is well made. For me, Tumblr has too many features.
Cacti
Spent the weekend wrestling Cacti onto this VPS. Because it runs WHM on CentOS, packages like Apache, PHP, MySQL, Perl and Ruby are installed outside Yum, so the dependency check kept failing when installing rrdtool for graphing.
Site Response Time Optimization
After WatchMouse flagged daily performance issues since my health status went live on 17th March 2011, I spent a Saturday optimising the site. First change: the home page now shows five posts instead of ten so it loads lighter.
Website Monitoring
Sometimes the site returns a blank page or null response, with curl reporting an empty reply from the server. I haven't pinned down the cause, but a simple Apache restart fixes it; with 2GB RAM, memory isn't the problem.
Moved To Vodien
If you're reading this, the DNS resolved correctly: I've moved the site from my dedicated server at Frro to a VPS at Vodien. I did it to play with more Linux without risking downtime for other sites.
lesterchan.net Will Be Offline For A Few Hours
Update: we're back after about three hours of downtime. The site will be offline for a few hours between 10pm on 18th December and 6am on 19th December 2010 (GMT+8) while the co-location server rack is relocated.
CDN Sponsored By NetDNA
NetDNA, a Content Distribution Network company, is now sponsoring lesterchan.net, so I'm offloading all my static images, CSS and JavaScript to their CDN. They run ten data centres worldwide and serve over 200 large sites, including Mashable and SitePoint.
Integrated Flickr Gallery
I've integrated the Flickr API with this site using Dan Coulter's phpFlickr, adding a new Flickr Gallery page that lists every photo on my Flickr account. I no longer upload to the site's own gallery, having moved entirely to Flickr.
← Newer
Older →