http://www.brightball.com/The most recent articles from the Brightball team.en-ushttp://www.brightball.com/business/a-study-of-pricing-and-billing-models-for-the-webhttp://www.brightball.com/business/a-study-of-pricing-and-billing-models-for-the-webAsking people for payment for work is a touchy subject for everyone involved.  We've had the luxury of experimenting a little bit over our first couple of years, and here's what we learned. BarryMon, 13 Sep 2010 17:00:00 -0400http://www.brightball.com/development/cache-miss-stormhttp://www.brightball.com/development/cache-miss-stormI worked on the problem recently which showed itself as rather low MySQL load (probably 5% CPU usage and close to zero IO) would spike to have hundreds instances of threads running at the same time, causing intense utilization spike and server very unresponsive for anywhere from half a minute to ten minutes until everything would go back to normal. What was interesting is Same query was ...PeterFri, 10 Sep 2010 12:19:06 -0400http://www.brightball.com/development/the-difference-that-expert-quality-assurance-makeshttp://www.brightball.com/development/the-difference-that-expert-quality-assurance-makesWhen we first started out, we listed the thorough quality assurance review as an optional piece of our estimates.  We had this incredibly naive idea that if we gave people the option to save a little money up front that they'd fully understand if there was anything that needed to be tuned up, post-launch.  We learned our lesson...hard. BarryTue, 06 Jul 2010 15:33:00 -0400http://www.brightball.com/development/reasons-for-run-away-main-innodb-tablespacehttp://www.brightball.com/development/reasons-for-run-away-main-innodb-tablespaceSo you're running MySQL With innodb_file_per_table option but your ibdata1 file which holds main (or system) tablespace have grown dramatically from its starting 10MB size. What could be the reason of this growth and what you can do about it?PeterThu, 10 Jun 2010 16:24:00 -0400http://www.brightball.com/development/the-wonders-of-ssh-tunnelinghttp://www.brightball.com/development/the-wonders-of-ssh-tunnelingHave you ever been working on a website and needed direct access to the database, but couldn't get access without using something like phpMyAdmin?  SSH tunneling can solve this common problem and a whole lot more.ChrisTue, 11 May 2010 08:37:00 -0400http://www.brightball.com/development/should-my-domain-name-include-a-wwwhttp://www.brightball.com/development/should-my-domain-name-include-a-wwwIn the age of Twitter and Web 2.0, we've started to see a lot of websites drop the standard www from their domain names.  This could simply be a product of people following trends or just trying to be a little different, but the real question is "What are the drawbacks?"BarryThu, 06 May 2010 18:27:00 -0400http://www.brightball.com/development/brightball-com-scores-higher-on-yslow-than-yahoohttp://www.brightball.com/development/brightball-com-scores-higher-on-yslow-than-yahooWe're a bit obsessed with performance optimization around here.  It's an itch that can never be fully satisfied because there's always something more that can be done.  Brightball.com is powered by our web application development platform, The Intersect (we're also fans of NBC's Chuck).  The Intersect is the same system we use as the basis for all of our client's projects and we decided to put...BarryWed, 18 Nov 2009 05:02:00 -0500http://www.brightball.com/seo/search-engine-optimization-begins-with-quality-pageshttp://www.brightball.com/seo/search-engine-optimization-begins-with-quality-pagesMost people think about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) solely as an exercise to increase the amount of external links to their pages. I call this the Link Equity strategy where the goal is to accumulate and hold on to as many external links over time as possible. The logic behind this is simple: the more links to a page, the better it ranks; and while Link Equity certainly is a very important...TomTue, 20 Oct 2009 21:00:00 -0400http://www.brightball.com/seo/13-easy-steps-to-on-site-seo-and-how-to-implement-themhttp://www.brightball.com/seo/13-easy-steps-to-on-site-seo-and-how-to-implement-themDeveloping a strong website that’s easy for the search engines to catalog and index is all about following a few simple steps. Site structure can be your best friend when it comes to getting high search engine rankings and once you have established that perfect site structure your website can continue to grow and adapt with the search engines.DrewSun, 18 Oct 2009 22:01:00 -0400http://www.brightball.com/project-management/process-oriented-innovationhttp://www.brightball.com/project-management/process-oriented-innovationImplementing new technology is not an end in itself. Rather it should be though of as an ingredient in what I call the Process-Oriented Innovation Cycle, where the goal is to improve the overall efficiency of a company through continuous process and workflow improvements. I have successfully used this approach for many years to deliver innovation that targets ineffective processes and workflows...TomThu, 01 Oct 2009 21:10:15 -0400