Dreamhost deactivated Citation Machine yesterday while I was flying home from San Diego. They allow 60 CPU Minutes per day (what ever that means), and CM had already mounted up 490.
This morning, I added some code so that each time someone hits Citation Machine, a counter counts up on number, up to four. Then based on the number, it redirects the user to one of four sites that run the Citation Machine software. Two of the sites are on Dreamhost, one is on 1&1, and the last is on my old Landmarks for Schools web server.
We are now shopping for a dedicated server. Must be done. No need putting it off.
Hopefully, I’ll be able to do some more serious reading and writing in the next few days.
2¢ worth!
You totally should just Ajax-ify it and move the computation onto the clients.
You may want to look at using round robin records the domain name. It would automatically spread the load:
http://hacks.oreilly.com/pub/h/79
http://www.zytrax.com/books/dns/ch9/rr.html
If you don’t Ajax it, give InMotion hosting a look. They offer what they call V-Dedicated hosting at pretty decent rates. I use their shared hosting service and their service has been exemplary.