As some of you have noticed about once a week it seems like the site really starts to slow down and get sluggish or not let you log in. This is caused by a few issues which I'll explain below. We're also working to fix these issues so the site continues to run quickly and efficiently in the future.

Issue #1: Complex Database Queries
ClearCheckbook has massive amounts of data we have to process each time you perform an action on the site. To give you a little perspective, we have over 39 MILLION transactions in our database. On an average day we're getting almost 50,000 new transactions added to the site.

This is a lot of data to handle and some of the reports or search functions require processing a lot of this information. The database queries to perform some of these actions are very complex and can take a while to complete. What we've noticed by looking at our logs after a site outage is that people get a little impatient and refresh the page or click the search button several times in a row which adds to the list of complex queries being run. It acts a bit like a snowball where the more of these complex queries that add up, the longer it takes the site to get to other less intense queries. If enough of these build up, it causes the slowdowns you experience.

We're usually around to catch these pretty quickly but sometimes they happen early in the morning before we're at our computers.

Issue #2: Site Growth
This is something we've had to deal with since we launched the site almost 7 years ago. ClearCheckbook is very popular and always seems to be growing. We're not complaining about that at all, but it seems like with each growth spurt we discover new issues that arise due to large amount of traffic hitting the site.

When you combine both of those issues, it means our site is getting used at all times by people all over the world and there's constant database activity. As more people use the site, more of those complex queries are getting regularly run.

What We're Doing:
Each time the site goes down it's because of the database being overloaded. When this happens we can look at the longest running queries to figure out what started the so called "snowball" mentioned above. Whenever this happens, we look at the queries in question and work on optimizing them and the database to prevent this from happening again.

We've fixed countless queries and performed more optimizations to the site than we'd care to admit and we believe we're getting close to optimizing all of these complex queries that take a little longer to run.

I built ClearCheckbook because I wanted a way to easily manage my money. When I made this my full time job in September 2009 it became my main focus and all I wanted was to see the site succeed and help people with their finances.

Whenever the site has these hiccups it may frustrate you, but believe me when I say that it's infinitely more frustrating to me. We have almost a quarter million registered users so whenever there's a site issue I feel like I'm personally letting everyone down.

All I ask is that you're patient with us while we're going through some of these growth spurts. We're constantly working to make the site better by providing updates, new features, quick bug fixes and more.

-Brandon

We did this last year and thought it would be good to give everyone some information about the site from 2012. We had 42,534 new users sign up (43% from mobile devices).

In 2012 we had 2,475,672 visits (466,274 unique) to the site which added up to a total of 15,492,688 pageviews. The average person visits 6.25 pages each time they come to the site and stay for an average of 7:42. All of these stats are up from 2011 which is a great sign.

In addition to the site numbers growing, we were also busy keeping the site updated. Over the course of the year we issued 227 bug fixes, updates and tweaks to the site. There were also 8 major updates / new features in 2012. We added/overhauled the following:
* Auto-Jive Tool
* Balances Timeline in Reports
* iOS app redeveloped
* Investment Portfolio
* Automatic categorization of Imported Transactions
* Re-arranging Transaction Register Columns
* Money Lending Tracker
* Budgets Overhaul

We've already mentioned it recently, but our plan for 2013 is to focus on the mobile apps the first part of the year. We plan on overhauling/updating the existing apps as well as building apps for other mobile platforms such as Blackberry and Windows Phone. Once we have the mobile apps all updated and available for download we will focus on some new features and updates for the site.

We wanted to keep you in the loop about what we've been working on lately. In 2012 we focused very heavily on making improvements and upgrades to the main website. Unfortunately that meant our mobile apps started to fall behind as far as features and updates went. Well, 2013 is going to be the year of mobile apps. Right now we have apps available for iOS, Android and WebOS. Over the next few months we'll be working heavily on updating our current apps and getting apps out there for Windows Phone, BlackBerry and Symbian devices.

In order to get to that point, we needed to start somewhere. That start is with a huge round of updates we're making to the iOS app. This update we're nearly finished with will be the benchmark we use when updating and creating the other mobile apps.

What does this latest round of updates contain? Well, we've been collecting feedback for quite some time about our apps and we've been working on implementing as much as possible into the app.

Here's what's included in the latest update we're working on finishing now:

• Improved Navigation (easier access to adding transactions)
• User selectable start page
• Jive Mode (to make it easier to jive transactions from your mobile device)
• Running Balances (for premium members)
• Adding transactions offline (to sync up later)

Again, we've been using the iOS app to set the standard that all of the other mobile apps will need to follow. We're not saying the iOS app is going to be 100% perfect after this update, but it will be considerably more reliable and easier to use.

Here are some screenshots of the iOS app under development right now (click to enlarge):

We hope to submit this update to Apple this week. Based on past experience it seems to take about a week for them to approve the app and release it for download. If all goes well, in about 2 weeks you'll be able to install the latest app on your iOS device.

Update (November 28, 2012): The app has been approved by Apple and should be available in the App store for download!

We've been busy working on a huge amount of updates and tweaks to the site plus a new tool that will help people track who owes them money and who they've borrowed money from.

The updates and tweaks revolve around the way we calculate your Overall and Jived balances. Right now, those balances aren't calculated live each time the page loads. Instead, there is a table in our database that is constantly updated when you add/edit/delete transactions. This table is used to calculate your balances. Some of you might have noticed that occasionally this table gets a little out of balance and requires the clicking of the "Refresh Balances" link. This link goes through and re-calculates the balances and corrects any issues.

Well, we're tired of having that table get out of whack every once in a while so we're doing away with it and the need to refresh your balances. Coming soon, your balances will be calculated on the fly each time the page loads so you can be sure the balances that are displayed are the correct amounts.

We're also optimizing the rest of the site to help improve the responsiveness and load times when you navigate through the site. We've cut the number of database queries on the dashboard page alone to 1/4 what they are right now.

The new feature is a Money Lending Tracker that lets you track who owes you money or who you borrowed money from. This feature has been requested by several users and we believe what we created will work well for your needs.

We're working on finishing the tweaks and making sure there aren't any issues with the new updates and then we'll release all of the above updates. Keep an eye out on the blog to learn when the updates have been launched.

You can now add the ClearCheckbook Money Management app through the Chrome Store. The ClearCheckbook Money Management app is a quick link to the main site so you can easily access your account from Google Chrome.

The Chrome Web Store is an online marketplace where you can discover thousands of apps, extensions and themes for Google Chrome.

To add the ClearCheckbook Money Management app, make sure you're using the Chrome browser and then search for ClearCheckbook or click on the following link: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/clearcheckbook-money-mana/ncgheejpeplfmifkibfifpdhceopaifp

Help us get some extra exposure to the site by adding ClearCheckbook to your list of apps!