XB Stream

re: XB Stream

pgxl — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 15:47:47 GMT

Starting from version 1.2 (now available) on the default settings is to update every 30 minutes and only 15 feeds are kept. Also version 1.2 fixes many problems regarding resource usage, downloading and converting images>text has been optimized and I will continue to focus on optimizing this portion. Optimization to rss downloading is also implemented, rss feeds will only be downloaded if the header on the http call notes an update has occured with the page - this means faster xml updating for users and alot less bandwidth/cpu for site owners.

re: XB Stream

Steve519 — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 03:30:08 GMT

awesome fix, now that its fixed I wanna give my full xblradio.com endorsement to xbstream, its a great program but if you don't have extra hard drive space or don't wanna configure the settings yourself I would recommend not getting it.

re: XB Stream

curry684 — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 20:53:05 GMT

Well on our site the extra stress was mainly noticeable in the CPU load department, and HEAD requests don't really matter there (the full page is rendered). As for the bandwidth itself: I don't care, I've got more than enough gigabytes to burn.

re: XB Stream

pgxl — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 16:48:18 GMT

Hi Curry, Thanks for the assitance. The Last Accessed time is not really a reliable method. I actually tried this earlier and the access time is not propery updated. It sometimes updates itself even when the WMP11/WMC network service scans shared folders for valid files. Then it on occasion does not update the last accessed stamp when the 360 loads the images. I've actually implemented ETag/Last-Modified into version 1.2 - it now only downloads the rss feed if the etag/last-modified has changed. Otherwise only a HTTP HEAD is called which is a few bytes to get the header info. I've also changed it so the program defaults to update every 30 minutes rather then 15, this should also reduce stress on text feeds. Finally I'm adding an auto-updater into the software so problems like these do not arise again without a way to provide an update to users who do not check up on their software versions regularly. Of course it will prompt the user if they want to download the new version that was found and not auto install it.

re: XB Stream

curry684 — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 15:18:34 GMT

I've also got a tip for the affected sites btw, I really don't understand why they didn't take proper action: http://forum.xboxic.com/showpost.php?p=17016&postcount=618

As for reducing load based on 360's usage: NTFS filesystems support the "Last Accessed" time which you can probably check for when the file was last served.

re: XB Stream

pgxl — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 14:23:42 GMT

Curry thanks for the tip. I've looked into this further and it looks like most blogs support the custom header Etag, and Last-Modified. I'll use this to check when the last modification to the rss was made and if there was one then the full rss is downloaded otherwise it doesnt download it again.

re: XB Stream

pgxl — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 13:39:10 GMT

Hi Curry, theres really no way to know if a user opens the Xboxic folder on their XBox 360 and views a feed/image. But I think I have a way to fix this, simply checking the http header of the file I can get the size/checksum - if it matches from the last update then the software will not even download the rss feed since no new content is available. I'll get to work on this now, also I'm adding in an auto-updater to the software so it prompts the user when a new version is available.

re: XB Stream

Hoos30 — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 13:35:26 GMT

The solution to all of this is for MS to hire PG4 and incorporate an official, debugged version of XBStream into the fall dashboard update.

This is a pretty neat program...I hope everything gets ironed out.

re: XB Stream

curry684 — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 11:10:58 GMT

Since we had our part in spreading the unexpected popularity, let's hope we're also able to help correct some of the damage: http://www.xboxic.com/news/1633

re: XB Stream

curry684 — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 10:17:01 GMT

PG4: another idea would be to improve the "on-demand" aspect of the data, not hammering sites' RSS-feeds frequently unless the user is actually looking at the data.

I am the administrator of Xboxic, and I actually had to change code in our site since XBStream's release, since it more or less *doubled* the load on our rather-not-so-wimpy dedicated server. I've solved it by introducing some aimed caching without any problems, but obviously it cannot be the intention that servers are hammered *this* bad.... ;) I suspect Major has less powerful hardware for his blog than us.

re: XB Stream

pgxl — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 04:32:57 GMT

Version 1.1 is now out which fixes the MAJOR bug of multiple podcast/blogcasts being downloading and eating up bandwidth of podcast sites. The new version no longer downloads the back catalog of audio files, rather only downloads the most recent audio podcast/blogcast. Also the new version no longer uses alpha transparencies on the forms/windows of XB Stream which was causing problems with some users being able to view the form/windows..

re: XB Stream

pgxl — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 04:32:55 GMT

re: XB Stream

Sharky — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 02:48:27 GMT

either way, this is a great program. I can't wait to see what else you come up with!

re: XB Stream

pgxl — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 23:50:45 GMT

Hi Guys, I really did not overlook that the shows would download the current and past shows. What I did not expect was that the program would be downloaded by 20,000 people within 24 hours :( I expected at most 100 people downloading thus that bandwidth usage on those sites would be minimal at most. Then the program was featured at xboxsence, major nelson, and tons of other huge xbox sites and everything blew up fast.

re: XB Stream

pgxl — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 23:49:08 GMT

EPIC > email me at PG4@XBSTREAM.COM and I'll work with you to get that fixed. You should see an xbox 360 ball logo, if you do not there might be a problem. If you click on the XBSTRAY.EXE program more then once it will not open more and more copies of the tray icon, only one copy of the tray icon can be opened at the same time.

re: XB Stream

EPIC X 24 — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 22:09:31 GMT

Agreed with ZaaM IT.

It's great someone finally made a way to get RSS feeds on the 360.

It's even greater that you're willing to pay out of pocket what the podcasters are out.