Author: Brant Tedeschi

Revamped backend with better caching to make sure FantasySP stays fast and will continue to be fast for many months to come.  It has been about two weeks in the making and lots of late nights.  I managed to do this without any downtime whatsoever, which is pretty remarkable considering how many changes had to take place under the hood.  I will continue to monitor the speed of the site in-case any further tweaks are necessary.

But that’s not it.  There is more good news.

Team / Trade Analyzer Updates

The Trade/Team Analyzer for all 4 major sports have undergone a face-lift and major speed enhancements.  The analyzers interface has undergone improvements in the past, but this is the biggest overhaul it has had in many months.  Previously, graphs and player breakdown information would appear when mousing over particular icons or text.  A window would appear that sometimes would jump off-screen where it was unreadable.

The new trade analyzers have tooltips when mousing over particular icons, and when clicked, opens up a dialog box that encompasses everything you need to know about the player.  You can see it live with this nba trade.  It’s easier to read and easier to navigate.

Unlike before, the player graphs are now interactive.  When you mouseover the data in the graph you’ll see totals pop up making it easy to follow and understand.  These new player graphs are also found on their player pages, such as Kobe Bryant’s.

Team Ratings

Fantasy team graphs have also been updated to showcase our new charts.  Have a look at my fantasy basketball team’s chart, which showcases how my team has performed across the season.  You can historical scoring charts for starters or the full roster.  Team FantasySP.com is currently sporting a less than spectacular 0-6 record thanks to some key injuries. 🙁

Enjoy all these changes as these are just a glimpse on what is about to come.  Stay tuned.

By now I was hoping to get the yet-to-be-announced feature out the door and work on tweaking its effectiveness.  However, server performance has been slowly eroding over the past 2 months or so.  While I was on vacation, it was particularly bad.  I’ve had no choice but to address the performance problem before it gets to be a big problem.

Without getting too geeky, I realized that I needed to move over to a new caching system because my current implementation was no longer good enough. I decided to move over to something called APC.  A lot of changes had to be made under the hood before I even got around to doing the real work. This also means that I need to revamp all of the old caching techniques to utilize the new caching system.  All of the stats for each player that are displayed on the site are cached for varying periods of time.   This also includes graphs, player analysis, and player breakdown data for the fantasy trade analyzer.

Of the top of my head, there are about 18 new sets of data that need to be reworked and cached.  It’s a huge pain in the ass, but I would say I’m about halfway through the process.  I will also be updating the graphs that are generated on the site to a more modern library.  This will cause the process to take a bit longer, but the current graphs are no longer adequate.

The site should be A LOT faster by the time I am finished with the revamped caching system.  I already see improvements on response times and these will continue to improve.  This will also give FantasySP a higher ceiling on the amount of traffic it can handle.

Now, after all of that has been discussed, lets get to the actual release notes:

• Styling tweaks to all tables across the site
• Player Alert email tweaks
• New Feature: Paying Member leagues are now updated every 3hrs instead of just once per day
• Site dupe improvements
• Caching improvements (listed above)

I am back from my vacation and have already unleashed quite a few code pushes.  I am inching closer to the major feature release that could happen by the end of this month.  Hope you guys have been enjoying the site in my absence.  Now, the updates:

• Major bug fix to the trade analyzer while I was on vacation.  Thanks to the emails that reported it.
• Yet to be announced new feature has been designed & sliced into HTML and ready for implementation. (You should be excited)
• NFL fantasy league updating disabled until August.
• Various updates to the NBA rosters and statistical fixes for player stats.
• Billing page bug fixes to increase speed.
• Users now automatically emailed invoice when their bill is due.
• Google Plus button added.

Happy new year folks.  I am sure when the clock struck 12 you were thinking about these weekly release notes.  Well, I’d hate to disappoint. . .

I’ve heard loud and clear that you guys want a way to have your team analyzed in a way to bring out suggestions and improvements for your team.  That is what I am working on currently and hope to have something out by the end of this month.  This is just as big, (or bigger) than revamping the billing process.  Right now a basic framework exists where the magic will happen, but lots more needs to be done.  From this point on, expect small bug fixes to existing features until the new feature is released.

Also, I am due for a vacation at the end of the week which will mean taking time off from coding.  As a developer, this is good thing so I keep my sanity intact.  But rest assured once I come back I will push onward to get new features out the door.  Now, onto the release notes:

• Lou Williams properly syncs via Yahoo and his stats are now available. (Thanks afrlol)
• Small tweaks to billing page
• Initial work has begun on a yet to be named big feature that I wish I could show you. 🙂

Hope everyone who celebrates Christmas had a great holiday weekend.  This weeks changes are focused on the relaunch of our billing page and upgrade process.  It is now streamlined and much easier.  You have two subscription options: monthly or yearly.  There is also a nice breakdown on the billing page that shows which subscription plan is right for you and what exactly it includes.  This is a GIANT leap forward compared to what we had before.

So why the new billing page?  In 2012, FantasySP is going to focus on cool and useful features to help manage your fantasy team.  Most of these planned features will be limited to users with subscriptions.  To celebrate the coming year, we are offering a 25% off coupon code for you to use.  Enter “holiday” at checkout to get 25% off.

Now for the complete list of changes:

• Completely revamped billing page and upgrade process (Nearly 3 weeks in the making)
• New buttons in your User Panel showcase what membership you currently have
• Bug fix to Player Alert emails and the addition of email link tracking
• NBA stats now reflect the 2011/2012 season