I have been bit by the coding bug. After last month I had the itch to get cracking again and I desperately wanted to cross stuff off my todo list. Time is still my biggest challenge, but I’m finding a little more time to carve out each week.

First, let’s dive into the numbers. March saw a 16.7% increase in users and topped out at $727.75. My goal of $1000/month feels so close! Time Until Countdown continues to be not only my most popular app, but one of my fastest growing apps as well with a 25% increase in users.

I decided to go ahead and move Datayze to the new user account on my server now, walling it off from my personal stuff. I have a number of new features to roll out, including site wide changes so I set up a “test” domain (new.datayze.com) on the new user account. It’s password protected (so don’t bother trying to visit it) while I iron out all the wrinkles. Once it’s running smoothly, I’ll change the DNS servers to they point “datayze.com” to the new location, and remove the test domain. It should be a seamless transition, but it might take a little while given the number of features I’m rolling out.

My current focus is on upgrading the admin panel so it functions more like a panel and less like a collection of scripts. There’s a work flow to the admin panel now. There’s a section for shepherding new apps from implementation to launch. I already had an analysis framework for better understanding site usage, but it was old and slow, written for a time when I had far fewer users. That’s been spruced up a bit. The biggest thing I’d like to add next is smoke tests, code that’s designed to look for issues before they arise. I check my apps periodically for speed and mobile usability issues, but it would be nice to have to be more proactive.

One potential issue I may have this month: I’m getting warnings about memory usage again. I strongly suspect a memory leak, but tech support thinks it’s this blog (sktyler.com)’s instance of WordPress. By separating Datayze to its own user account I can seamlessly push it to a separate VM. Then, assuming tech support is right, this personal blog with a handful of readers won’t negatively impact my business. Even if tech support is wrong, it’s still worth doing, especially since my goal is to build multiple Datayze-scaled sites.

My goal is to launch Datayze on the new account with all the changes in a few months. I can’t decide yet if that’s a stretch goal or not.

Posted in Work Life | Tags: Sarahsoft