Young Writers Society

I made this announcement earlier, but there were some technical hiccups that have since been fixed. So...

YWS is now on a brand new server hosted by VPS.net. The server is actually a virtual server, primarily meaning that YWS can now take full advantage of the cloud. This means that as YWS grows, I no longer need to switch servers. Instead, I just add on more capacity through VPS.net.

Moreover, I can now make it such that YWS is available from more than one location. At the moment, the new server is located in Chicago, Illinois. The closer you are to Chicago, the faster the site. But in the coming weeks, I'll be adding a second server in London through VPS.net. This way, YWS will be just as fast for those in Edinburgh as for those in Topeka. Adding a second server in London also has the advantage of speeding up YWS dramatically for everyone in Europe.

Since VPS.net only has datacenters in London, Atlanta, Chicago, and San Diego, I'm limited to those options for additional servers. Plus, adding servers gets expensive fast. So for the moment, just Chicago and soon London. But I am looking into other ways to speed up for folks in south-east Asia, India, Australia, and New Zealand.

At any rate, though, the new server is dramatically faster than the old server. My tests show a 10% to 20% increase in speed, although folks far away from Chicago probably won't notice a difference.