Tag: site

FasterSkier.com is back to close to 100% after a catastrophic server failure two weeks ago. While there is no way to confirm, we would like to think that there had to have been flames shooting out of poor Hedwig (the name of the now-defunct server). The FasterSkier blogs, which continued to show some erratic behavior over the last week, are fixed. In addition, during the work to get the site back online, we fixed several issues that forced us to eliminate the XCFeed section on the homepage. The feeds are back in the left column. As always, if you have suggestions for sites that we should add, shoot us an email ad info@fasterskier.com.

Several other site features are functioning again after a long hiatus. For some time clicking on most of the links in the top menu would not work – you can once again use those links to filter articles by category.

Thank you to all our readers for you patience and understanding during the downtime and subsequent poor site performance. In some ways the timing was ideal (basically not during the winter), while in others it couldn’t have been worse. Hunter, who manages the servers, was in vacation in Europe – he put in yeoman’s duty, working to get the site up and running from a combination of his iPhone, an iPad, baguettes and fine wine, and hacked computers at the business centers of various French hotels.

One of our major goals for the remainder of the offseason is to significantly improve site performance and reliability. FasterSkier is currently running on Hilda, our  backup and development server, but we have a new machine in place and are in the process of configuring it. We are also rebuilding the entire site from the ground up, to improve efficiency and overall performance.

First of all, a big thanks to all the loyal FasterSkier readers who check the site regularly, and are fired up about the sport of cross-country skiing!

Over the last few months, we have taken a step forward in regards to breadth of coverage.  We have more in-depth features, and better race reporting than ever before.

Overall this is a very good thing, but it does create some issues.  Here are a few tips to help you get the most out of the site.

1.  Use the menus at the top of the site to access sub-categories

In a big weekend there may be World Cup Cross-Country, Biathlon and Nordic Combined races, SuperTour and NorAm events, and a host of other news items.  Clicking on the Continental Cup link at the top will give you all the articles on the SuperTour and the NorAms.  The World Cup link will give you cross-country World Cup related items, and Biathlon or Nordic Combined, under the Racing menu, will list all the articles for those sports.

This is an easy way to quickly filter all the news items and be sure you don’t miss something of interest.

2. Use the blog home page, and check specific blogs

FasterSkier now has a large number of athlete and team blogs.  The box on the FS homepage only displays a maximum of two posts per blog, and only the 15 most recent posts total.  On a busy day, new posts can be pushed down quickly, and blogs like our World Cup and Continental Cup often have frequent updates.

The blog home at blogs.fasterskier.com provides a convenient listing of new blog posts with short summaries of the posts.  Additionally, new comments on blogs are listed on the left, as are all new posts, regardless of blog.

3. Subscribe to RSS feeds

The main FasterSkier site as well as the forums and each individual blog have RSS feeds.  Subscribing to these feeds is an easy way to stay on top of things.

The main FS feed is fasterskier.com/feed, and all blog and forum feeds can be accessed from their respective home pages.