Colin Walker

I've been making more changes to the site, nothing user facing. I decided to create a dummy GitHub repository with a few core files and let Codex make some recommendations.

I'm always looking for ways to reduce database queries so implemented a couple of basic JSON file-based caches:

• one for the 10 most recent posts (rebuilt when I add/delete/edit a post), and
• one for site options (rebuilt if I log in to refresh the session info)

I've been having issues with certain IP addresses hammering the site overnight — on one occasion, I had over 160,000 hits from the same IP in just a few minutes. ¹ Codex suggested a simple file-based IP throttle control.

I'll see if the changes help to 1) handle load a bit better, and 2) rate limit problematic IPs. I don't want to block them outright.

As well as a couple of CSS changes, there are some additional recommendations that I might look into in the future, but this is enough to be getting on with.