Site is working quite well today!

Excited to note that the site is working 10X faster today. Nice. Minor changes will be rolling out today evening as well.

Massive updates rolling out to site...

Please expect site outages for the next few days. We have to roll out this change, so this is unfortunate but necessary.
[Update] The update has been done successfully. You will notice the registration issue is resolved and the site runs much faster now.

Login system getting updated to improve speed

We are currently in the process of updating the site to improve login and registration performance. If this brings down the site, please bear with us. We needed to do this at some point because it is slow especially for a new user logging in for the first time.

[Update] Please note you may need to clear your browser data or kill the iOS app and reopen it, if the app stops working. This is because we are updating the javascript and other files.

[Update] The update is a success. You should see significant improvement in the login and even the regular page load times.

New sites added to our news sources list

Our readers will be happy to know that we have added more news sources to our list, this should dramatically increase the number of new news articles we show. Enjoy!

All issues resolved as of now

In addition to this, we are also running a migration job behind the scenes which will further improve site performance and stability.

Everything is up and running as of right now.

Atleast one more issue still present in site

We just realized there is atleast one more issue preventing the news from showing up properly. That will be fixed as soon as possible. Thanks for the patience.

Site outage will be resolved shortly...

Some code updates to the site have broken the login. This is being fixed right now...

[Update] The issue has been resolved.

Under the hood enhancements pushed out to site

We have pushed out some enhancements to the site which should improve overall performance and stability.

Issues definitely fixed in tonight's update

Tonight we will push out a site update which will definitively fix the issue where the site shows you old news when you login. There are multiple bugs which are causing the behavior. The team will work in the evening to fix this and deploy the update tonight.

Why the site has been down intermittently..

We are trying to optimize the cache for better economics of scale, also trying to fix the problem where you keep seeing read articles when you first start reading news.

Site updates finished..

Some major site updates have been done which should significantly improve the performance and the stability of the site. I can already see it is much faster than before and things work a better.

More changes will come but major changes are done for now.

Site being updated...

Please expect some downtime, we are debugging some issues and fixing them starting a few hours from now.

Massive performance updates under the hood

In the past few days we have pushed massive performance updates under the hood. Everything should be running faster now.

Seeing read articles over and over again?

Last night we pushed out an update to address this problem. It should be much better now. There is a migration process running which should remove all read articles from all users pages in a few hours time.

All Issues have been resolved as of this time

Sorry for the downtime. As of this time, all issues have been resolved.

Some site issues currently

There have been some site issues since yesterday. We are on it.

 

[Update] 10:29 PM EST

We are rolling out an update which should fix the issue soon.

[Update] 11/22/2013 7:31 PM EST
We continue to fix issues. It is more complex than expected and Azure is not helping.

[Update] 11/23/2013 12:08 AM EST
Continuing to fix issues. Expect site downtime.

Enhancements to mobile app

Enhancements have been made to the mobile app so it loads pages faster and the menu loads super fast in almost all pages which the users frequent. This should make it a lot more easy to navigate the app.

Thank Microsoft for the Site Performance Improvements

All the site performance improvements rolling out tonight are thanks to Microsoft:

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2013/10/22/windows-azure-announcing-release-of-windows-azure-sdk-2-2-with-lots-of-goodies.aspx

One of the problems is that the small instances on Azure are slow for older operating systems. Merely by allowing us to use Windows Server 2012 R2, the performance of sites are significantly improved. We will also be rolling out .NET Framework 4.5.1 which gives better performance.

Toolbar issue fixed in current app version

Please update immediately to be able to use the app again.

Minor changes to article display

To debug some issues of read articles showing up again, we have added tags like all, personalized, today etc to the articles so we can better understand whether personalized articles are being shown or you have run out of articles and we are just showing stuff from the common pool.

iPad updates being rolled out right now...

I personally use the site a lot through my iPad - especially now that the iOS app is not showing the toolbar and I am going to the site through Safari. There are some pain points which I am fixing right now.

v2.8.3 breaks toolbar in ios app

The fix is in v2.8.4 already submitted to the App Store. Sorry about this, in the meantime, you could simply use the browser to go to our website: todayamerican.com which will work fine.

This problem is happening because my Xcode does not debug on my iphone. 

Site backend updated

This should improve performance and stability, also added is an improved ability to hide duplicate articles.

Some Site Changes coming your way..

We have changed the site to make login mandatory because without login, we can't track your read articles. Makes no sense to keep it working the old way without login. Do note that articles can take sometime to load the first time after registration. Just come back in an hour or two if you have initial problems.

We are aware of the close button issue which came after the upgrade to iOS 7. Still trying to figure that one out.

The login page had a long standing issue where going to Google login opens the external window. Close that window using the close button and continue to login. A fix for this issue has already been submitted to the app store and you should be getting it soon.

Super slow sections page?

This is being fixed and rolled out tonight..

Fixes for some issues being pushed out right now

Pages were not working after login and duplicates were being shown.

Massive site improvements are completed for the most part now

We have been very busy for the past few days because of massive scalability and performance improvements under the hood. Truth be told, we have been trying to fix the performance issue for years now. Initially we started with a SQL Server database, increased its hardware, then later moved to SQL Azure, then Azure Caching and now, we have reached a conclusion with Azure Table Level Storage which is a no SQL database and should scale "infinitely". This seems to perform better than all the previous approaches.

The current architecture struggles to scale during times of very high activity, but it seems to hold up the best from all the approaches I have tried so far.

This is not an easy problem to solve - tracking user read contents and showing only fresh contents while sorting news by popularity or age. It seems easy but it has taken years to mature the approach. And we are thankful to all our readers who have supported us by using our app.

Once the major issues are totally sorted out, then we will spend some time on tweaking the small stuff. Once the iPhone 5S and 5C come out and iOS 7 gets released, looks like there might be an issue with the home page because it uses browserdb. I might have to go back to classic mode - just note that if you have any issues with the popular news page, tell us via our facebook page and use the trending news page instead.

Massive site updates continue to roll out...

Please note there will be outages from time to time when we are doing massive updates to the site to improve performance and scalability from end to end.

This time, the performance improvements seem to be sticking.

Expect sporiadic outages

We are slowly migrating from caching to table storage for our backend in azure. This is because we want to improve performance and stability. I will try to keep the downtime to periods where nobody is using the site.

It's all working fine again

Finally, after a very long time all the site problems which happened after upgrading to azure sdk 2.0 has been fixed. The site works fast and fluid as of right now.

Massive bug fixed in site

Yesterday I fixed a massive bug in the site where the pages were not moving ahead properly on some pages. This was a really difficult site issue which took time to fix. Also, pages were taking too long to open - this has been fixed as well. Kill the app and reload it to get the fixes.

Site updated to run faster

The site has been adjusted to run significantly faster than before. You will notice it now.

PLINQ gotcha

When you are using Plinq on a large list, nothing kills performance as much as ordering it within the query.

Everything is running fine now

All is well.

Site has been shaky in the past few days

This has been because I am trying to walk the fine line between stability and performance. I am also hoping we reach the sweet spot soon. I am tired of trying to fix the same problem over and over again.

Significant performance improvements done to site

We just updated the site to provide a significant performance boost while reducing our costs.

More speed improvements pushed out right now...

Just figured out another way to improve the performance which I know is sometimes tiresome. Hopefully this makes the site much faster than before. If there are any issues those will be fixed later.

Speed problems fixed

I noticed in the past few days that the site was loading very slowly making it an unpleasant experience for browsing it. Yesterday night I have added an extra caching server to the system speeding it up considerably. Still testing the site to verify all is well.

News issue fixed

I think due to the large number of articles we store, since July 4 till today morning the site was not showing any news anwhere. This has been fixed now - it was a windows azure error internally which will not happen again.

Severe performance problems fixed

The severe performance issues making the site very slow has been fixed now.

Read items issue fixed now

We have been trying to figure out ways in which we could hide the read items in a more reliable manner without affecting site performance. This implementation is now done and the site has been updated.

Other site issues fixed now

We struggled late till today to get the site to update the latest news. Also the login page issue has been resolved now.

No more downtime!

All issues have been resolved at this point of time. Sorry for the extended downtime in the past few days.

Site will be down intermittently

We are trying to fix a problem. Sorry for the trouble.

Massive site update rollout finishes today night.

As you may have noticed we have made our site look really good and pleasing to the eye - especially on mobile devices. Hope you enjoy the new color scheme which brings the content forward.

Minor site update rolled out

This is supposed to reduce the problem wherein after sometime the same articles keep showing up when we click the read more button. I am keeping an eye on this issue.

No updates... but all is well

Dear readers, please note that although there have not been major changes about which I usually blog about, we are still alert and monitoring the site and fixing bugs in the background. We are aware of some issues, and are investigating them to provide you with an optimal experience.

Will post an update if major changes are made. For now, everything is stable and running well.

Minor site updates will roll out today night

These improve the user experience - especially on phones.

Fix for minor issue

You may have noticed sometimes when reading trending news, that when visiting the page after a while and moving ahead, it shows some news and then after a flash it shows some other news.

I have uploaded a fix for this issue - basically happening because of a session timeout which I have handled.

I will monitor for further issues - if any, I will fix them when I find them.

Update rolled out for session issues yesterday night

If you use the application regularly, you would have noticed an issue wherein after you keep reading news for a while, suddenly for 1-2 pages, you would see the same articles you read previously showing up as you click read more and attempt to refresh the news.

That was a session issue which has been fixed now. We are monitoring and making sure this does not happen again.

No major changes recently, everything is to improve the performance and scalability of the site.

Thanks for using our site!

Fixes to registration page and minor tweaks getting rolled out now.

Just noticed the regular registration page looks ugly - and probably does not even work.

Fixed that.

Also, now registration means logging in via your other accounts which is actually very secure. So, please note that.

Have you noticed our new features?

Over the past week, we have silently updated the site with one of the most requested features so far. Basically, if you login, we are now keeping track of articles you have read and showing you only fresh articles. When we first rolled out this update, it did not work that well, but over a period of time, culminating a few days ago, we finally fixed all remaining issues and ensured that it works consistently in a stable manner.

While we were implementing this, we realized that lots of users may not want to login and just want it to just work. For such users, we now keep track of articles in a temporary manner. I.e., when you visit our site, as long as you are on it continuously, we keep track of read articles. If you are away for more than 2 hours, then the information is lost, but effectively, we will "remember" your read articles for atleast 2 hours since the time you stopped browsing on our site.

Further updates will be rolling in real-time because we are constantly testing the site and fixing any issues and improving features which we find lacking.

Hope you have a good weekend folks!

Another great feature rolling out soon.

Sometime after today midnight, once you login, you will only see unread articles on every page of our site. Even though we are not going to show a functional "Mark Read" button on every page yet, we are still going to implement a feature wherein every page will show unread articles only.

This should make it great for all users who come to our site and want to read fresh news on all pages - not just the one personal page we create for you.

[Update] Took some time, and additional complications but it works great now! - once you login, go to any page, read any article by clicking on it, refresh the page and you will not see it again.

[Update] By today midnight, you will be able to mark articles are read on the trending and realtime pages and only see fresh articles ever again. This will work very nicely!

Site Upgrade Completed

The site upgrade has been completed as of now. Most of the issues have been resolved, and any minor remaining issues will be fixed as and when we notice them.

Thanks. The site should run much faster now - and with much better resilience even during other upgrades.

Major site upgrade underway

In an effort to make the site as fast as Yahoo or Google, a major under the scenes upgrade is rolling out today and for the next few days. Expect service outages and some slowness. Rest assured, once done things will work much more faster and reliable than before.

Links not opening properly

We are aware that some links are not opening properly in the external window. This works on mobile safari, but has some problem within the iOS app. This will be fixed in the next update. We are trying to fix this comprehensively, so it never happens in any situation.

External links not opening in ios app

Weird! - it works fine in the regular browser. I will fix this ASAP.

- This issue has been fixed as of now.

So Google Reader is dying?

Just so you guys know, todayamerican.com is a genuine alternative to Google Reader without the hassle of manually adding RSS feeds.

For any tech news, you can simply register with us. You can read your news directly from the home page or take your feed URL from the home page and use that in any RSS feed reader.

Lot of people crying online when Google Reader death was announced. I think it is stupid they built products solely and totally running on top of Google Reader and requiring the login.

We keep track of read articles too, we present a unified news feed ranked by popularity. We are the next generation of news reader!

Single signon available now

Got single sign on working with my site with real SSL certificate - google, Facebook, yahoo and Microsoft.

Please note if you update to v2.5 of our iOS app, do not use this single-sign on because there is a bug. Please wait for v2.5.1 before using it - we have already fixed it and submitted it.

Why we built todayamerican.com

I created this application because I read a lot of tech news and I was not happy with any of the news apps out there. This is because most news apps either publish some news, or it is an RSS feed reader where you manage what you read manually. 

This app may not have the best eye candy, but it will get you the best news without your having to go and search for it. Everything is ranked by popularity from social networks like Facebook and Twitter. You don't have to search for good news, we do the work for you. We bring together news from all the major tech news sites in a unified way. 

If you register, login and use your personal news URL, you can mark articles as read, and we will never show you read articles again. So, you always have fresh news on your page, unlike your having to go to different sites and refresh the page and wait for new articles to come through. 

In addition there are several other features: 

1. Complete full screen reading without any menus. 

2. You can continue reading on your desktop, what you started reading on the iPhone. 

4. No Ads! 

5. The quality of the tech news articles you see right away. 

6. Our pages load faster sometimes than the links we show you. Many times you will observe, we are faster than other tech blogs. 

I continuously update the service all the time, so as long as there are people who buy the app, there will always be service. I have built this app and hosted it since 2006. I use it daily, so I know the pain points more than anyone else.

Massive updates rolling out today!

Around midnight today, massive site updates will roll out significantly improving the performance of user login and improves the user home page as well.

In addition in the past few days, we have started using metricshub as soon as it became free. This means our service will automatically scale when load increases. This should provide a good experience for the end user on any amount of load.

We plan to release an update to our iOS app very soon, and iterations will continue...

Thanks for using our service!

All is well right now

We had a very busy last week and weekend. All systems are up and running fine, everything is resolved. Everything is being hosted on Azure now.

We thank you for your patronage and would like to mention that don't worry, we use our own site more than anyone else and we are always aware of any issues. We will deal with everything proactively.

The best is yet to come... 

Currently experiencing DNS issues

Our site is experiencing DNS issues currently. To access it, please go to: http://taweb.cloudapp.net

We are working on a permanent fix to this issue which happens frequently now.

Released! New App for Windows

We have released a prelim beta version of our app for windows. You can download it from here:

http://bit.ly/YaYMPC

It has some basic functionality now which will be updated on an ongoing basis.

DNS Problems take down our site..

If you have issues, please browse to taweb.cloudapp.net

This URL will always work fine.

Lot of site updates today!

We have been very busy the past few days posting massive site updates. Please let us know if you have any problems further. Everything should be fine now - no major changes coming soon.

Site now supports swipes

You can swipe to move forward on any page and to go back. This is easier for navigation on any touch enabled device. Touching the logo on the top will always take you to the menu page. More changes coming soon - we are working hard!

Site updates rolling out...

We are now rolling out a set of massive site updates which make it easier to use our site on phones and small screen devices.

Enjoy!

All major site updates complete

Dear users, you may have noticed some outages in the past few days. We had to do those to reduce our operational costs and provide a faster experience to you. You will be happy to know that all these changes have been completed successfully and now you will have fewer outages (if any at all).

Problems on iPhone 5

I am aware of problems with the iOS app where the toolbar does not work only in iPhone 5. It works fine on the iPad and on the iPhone 4. Weird. Looking into the issue

All services are up and running again

Sorry for the inconvenience

Service outage currently

An unexpected problem is being investigated at this time.

We will restore service as soon as possible