Ok. This one of the hundred or so photographs I tried today. I didn’t use any editing on the image (yet) but I thought you would like to see what I’ve been doing.

For those of you wondering what I’ve done on Obblogatory and here on InvestorBlogger to speed things along recently. I will tell you: I was playing with my other server space at MediaTemple because my blog had slowed to a crawl, and MT were shooting emails at me advising me of the server load on the Databases.

So I installed a couple of plugins there, including one called db cache and my site loads so much faster now. I matched it with a regular caching plugin, like SuperCache or HyperCache and the server just rockets along. Why?

The DB Cache plugin simply caches requests to the database, and the Caching programs just serve those cached files. Occasionally, the server experiences a slight hiccup, but even then I noted that server queries dropped from over 350 sometimes to a manageable 20~50 queries.

I thought you should try it out. It seems to be compatible with other caching programs like supercache, hypercache etc. and when both db cache and caching plugins are used together, the server really runs fast. And I haven’t found any incompatibilities with other plugins, yet.

I tried this solution matched with a different page caching plugin on different sites, and results are approximately similar: Obblogatory loads about 90% fewer queries, InvestorBlogger often loads just 10~20 queries each time. My school site occasionally loads in excess of 135 queries so there’s still some work to do there.

What I do notice even with sites loading so many queries is that the sites still load much faster than ever. I know though that queries can be cut down even more: by adding fixed urls in the header and footer, but that’s quite a bit of work to get rid of them. And subsequent page loads are significantly faster still, as much of the stuff needed is already cached in your browser cache!

But for the sites on Dreamhost, I also added a Database Virtual Server and Dreamhost upped my original Virtual Server Memory by 100%. So overall, any of my sites hosted on Dreamhost are loading much faster anyway. The database caching plugin keeps things chugging along!

For those bent on optimizing every last ounce out of their server, it might be worth doing! Getting a Dreamhost PS Server is worth it for me! It insulates me from flaky software running other people’s sites, it doesn’t cost the earth, and I have unlimited storage space and bandwidth… it’s an amazing deal, for about $31.00 per month all told. With a VPS system, I might actually get to use it, too!

This is my first successful picture on my new light tent. I thought you’d like to see the ‘fruits’ (or is that beans?) of my success. I had to crop a lot of the original picture out but I think in taking these pictures I discovered that I have too much shadow in the foreground. Something I need to work on.

Well, I am surprised.

For many companies and individuals worldwide, 2009 was a difficult year. I am surprised that even now my online income has only decreased a little in 2009 vs. 2008. Most of the income came as the result of advertising to my small network of blogs, some from my broker, a little from personal interest.

The grand total for adding up my extra income (not salary) was in fact, $5,386.51. Like always, this is the gross figure, not including expenses, and taxes. My only disappointment is that at this time, I am just not in a position to earn enough on a monthly basis to justify setting up a company or paying myself a decent salary.

I’m slowly getting to my target of $1500 per month, but without additional income streams, it’s difficult to get the most out of my existing streams.

Plans for 2010.

So, in 2010, I’m building a couple of new sites with SBI, to enhance my income stream. It’s my first real experiment with affiliate marketing despite dipping my toes twice this year already with EeeBlogger and TESOLTeachers, neither of which did much business other than pay for their own domains.

I’ve done some rough figures and for my first SBI site, I think it should be able to pay for itself in about 12-18 months because I’m going into a more saturated market, even though my keywords have less competition. One of the reasons, I suspect, is that the payouts are a little less, so profits are likely to be less.

However, if I can even reach levels seen on this site or my other main site, that’d be a blessing! Why? I love creating content, but creating static quality content is a whole new field for me. I think, for the time being, I will ease up on the regular blogging to concentrate on creating real niche sites. 2010 should be really interesting!

To multiply small successes is precisely to build one treasure after another. In time one becomes rich without realising how it has come about.

Frederick the Great (1712-1786).