Previous updates

Jason · Posted: May 23, 2003 7:16pm Post subject: Previous updates

Fri, May 23rd, 2003

New option that lets you list all channels on a specific IRC network by size or alphabetically.
This option is accessible via network page (e.g; http://searchirc.com/network/IrCQ).
Be warned that the full list option is under construction, and may not work well on especially large networks at this time.

Wed, May 21st, 2003

Sorry, been too busy to update this page regularly, but here are the highlights
of recent changes:
Front page lists Eight of the most recent forum posts.
Recent forum post list now lists in order of most recently posted topic.
These topics retain the original post's title rather than the title the latest
poster used.
Fairly large amount of optimizations made to the server to make better use of RAM and CPU. This shouldn't make much of a difference right now, but should allow for the site to expand further without slowdown.
A large number of networks have had their info updated (network info, network history, etc).
SearchIRC now indexes 3,222 motds. The total size of all these motds adds up to 5.6 megs :) The search robots indicate around 5,000 - 6,000 irc servers, so we now have approx 1/2 of all the IRC server motds.
Taking care of network merges has reduced the actively indexed network count to 681 networks. Meanwhile the total number of IRC networks in the database climbs to 714 :)

Wed, May 14th, 2003

The network listing page
now allows you to list networks by user count.
Network pages now list the largest five channels on each network.
Search results for each channel now comes prefixed with "irc://", clicking on this link will let you join the channel using a standard IRC client (like mIRC, Klient, etc)

Sun, May 11th, 2003

Finally, I have made a [url=http://searchirc.com/networks.php]network
listing page[/url] that allows users to browse all networks SearchIRC is currently indexing. As of today, we have 670 live networks being indexed, and 8 networks not being indexed, but included in the database for historical purposes. Far as I know, SearchIRC now has the most complete listings of IRC networks, bar none. Oh, did I mention we're not yet done adding networks? It's taking so long because we are not just grabbing listings, but researching and visiting networks, verifying websites, checking services, etc. Once we're done listing the networks, we're going to publish all this information on the network pages.
SearchIRC is now caching over 2000 motd's, totaling 3.8 megs so far :)
Indexed channels now range from 550,000 to 650,000.

Fri, May 9th, 2003

Reworked the servers page. The network page now is better defined, and includes how many channels are being indexed by SearchIRC.
MOTD page for a network has been combined with the server list page. Also, motd's are now cached and the index robots will eventually "crawl" and pick up all MOTD's for all servers on a given network.
Of course, more networks added! Currently 463 IRC networks are being indexed by SearchIRC
Various networks have had their network information filled out. We're trying to fill in the largest networks first...

Wed, May 7th, 2003

Working for hours and hours each day just adding IRC networks. We're close to having the most complete list in existence. Starting work on developing the network pages, we need background history on each network, information about network services, and blurbs detailing each network. Any users who can help contribute would be appreciated. Each network page has a form that allows users to submit information regarding the networks to us for addition.

Sat, May 5th, 2003

We've been hard at work -- a lot of networks are being added daily. We're expecting to have over 500 networks shortly.
SearchIRC does more than index networks for search, we provide detailed network information. All MOTD type links have been updated to the new network info package. Here is a sample page: http://searchirc.com/network/undernet

Sat, May 3rd, 2003

Lots of changes being made. First off, we are expanding SearchIRC to include as many networks as we can find. A method has been developed to include ALL networks regardless of size. In the coming weeks, we hope to have the most complete IRC network listing around.
Front page has been tweaked some more. Top networks and channels are displayed side by side, with more information than previously. There is also now a &quick join& so if you know the channel and server you wish to visit, you can simply enter it, and connect.
IRC news is now scrolling in the side bar.
SearchIRC now regularly indexes 470,000 - 540,000, with close to 6,000 searches per day.

Sat, April 26th, 2003

Hardware downtime expected this evening... around 11pm EST time range. Adding another half gig of ram to speed up the search
Two great new additions -- first off, searches done that match SearchIRC's internal dictionary will display the definition of the term you searched on (only on the first page).
Second addition -- Searches that have definitions can also allow users to make comments. Example

Mon, April 21st, 2003

Updated from page stats to show the top 30 channels on all networks (by number of users), as well as dual top 25 networks (by users and by channels).
New message of the day, url of the day, quote of the day added to top of SearchIRC .... randomly displaying one of the three

Wed, April 16th, 2003

Added the option for MyChannel users to add their channel's homepage url into their MyChannel, and thus search results for the channel (ie; search results will show not only your channel and topic, but your homepage too).

Tue, April 15th, 2003 (AKA Tax Day)

Many changes. Layout of many pages modified to be cleaner and easier to read.
Added MyChannel -- users now can have free messagboards for their IRC channels.
These boards are mentioned in search results too.

Thu, April 10th, 2003

Added a page that [url=/removed_networks.php]lists IRC networks
SearchIRC does not index[/url], plus explanation why.

Sun, March 30th, 2003

Database normalization completed. Database size is decreased approx 40 megs in size and should help further speed up the search.
MOTDs are now stored for your viewing pleasure.
SearchIRC now has 400,000 indexed channels.

Fri, March 28th, 2003

I found a rather interesting problem. In some older code, I had instructed the robots to kill themselves if they found any problems. Forgetting this instruction meant that some networks would see an interesting problem, then quit. This caused some networks to never have complete channel listings. With this taken care of, the channel listings are going to look a lot more complete.

Thu, March 27th, 2003

Additional modifications to increase search speed. I think the search results are about as fast as they are going to get.
Most queries are taking around 0.02 - 0.30 sec to complete.
Starting to do some database normalization
Increased network crawling capabilities, channel freshness should increase as a result.
Avg channel index size is around 350,000 channels.

Mon, March 24th, 2003

More fine tuning done. Lowered index size, and streamlined search queries -- so search results should be a nice amount faster
Added Discussion boards. Only forum is currently for SearchIRC, but there will be additional IRC/Network related forums added soon.
Took a look at the database and cut some of the fat... eliminating channels with no users that haven't been seen in several days. The index of channels dropped back to 250k
Added more IRC networks. Right now there are 71 networks listed.

Sun, March 23rd, 2003

Tweaked searches on single keywords, should return better results. Keywords such as "irc-junkie" should also now function better.
Searches limited to specific networks and channel sizes should function again now
Enabled gzip compression on server so that a page of results is only a 3-5k download (instead of 30k uncompressed)

Sat, March 22nd, 2003

Sometime around 4am today, SearchIRC's index of channels reached 250,000 channels.
IRC Java applet integrated with search results -- click on the channel name to join.
~10pm EST, SearchIRC indexed it's 300,000th channel.

Fri, March 21st, 2003

Search logic modified -- searches are approx 9x faster than previous.
Currently in the process of adding boolean-type searches.
Hardware upgrade was made, and thus we were forced to shutdown and
reboot. The machine is back up and fully functional.

Thu, March 20th, 2003

SearchIRC is back online!
IRC news added, courtesy of IRC-Junkie.org