Author here ( @codemonkeyism ), ready to answer questions. Blog seems down, we're haven't been slashdotted for a long time, sorry!
[Added some more caching, site works again slowly]
[Added some more caching, site works again slowly]
This attitude is something I truly appreciate. So often posts like these are angry rants about 'how dare they do this to me'. You seem to presume good intentions, which should be the default reaction in life.
> we're haven't been slashdotted for a long time, sorry!
MapExample.png file is 1.1MB, it shouldn't be higher than 100KB given how little detail that picture has. Also 4.1MB of css for a page that has barely any styling?
Whatever you are doing you might be losing potential customers because they are unable to access that page through HN, because of poor optimization and scaling.
[0] something on my agenda
So what were you paying for?
Will add this clarification and your links to the article if site works again though, thanks.
[Also currently not online are maps with search results, we removed to cut costs but will add back again]
You're not processing customer data there are you?
That wouldn't solve today's traffic spike, and there are probably some lower-hanging fruits that should at the very least keep the site online. Anything sold in the last five years with an ethernet port should easily be able to handle a static site even during rare spikes in traffic.
But the Cloudflare DNS configuration isn't something to be scared of: I used to feel similarly nervous when fiddling around with DNS, but haven't had a single problem configuring 20+ sites with Cloudflare. (I would, however, be slightly more nervous about google's reaction to the move to a subdomain this would require.)