If you're seeing this post you're seeing the site on the new server, an Intel Xeon E5335 2GHz 4-core CPU running on 64bit Linux with 4GB RAM and RAID disks. It's supposed to be really fast. The front page loads in an average of 212ms instead of 1700+ms on the old one running on Dreamhost.

We also upgraded the engine to Drupal 5.7, which forced us to completely rewrite the theme from xtemplate to phptemplate. That's why you were seeing some bugs in the last week. I apologize.

All these changes were possible thanks to JM and Khalid. These infrastructural improvements are paving the way to a new creativebits. If you have a suggestion or comment on what would you like to be changed or improved please chime in.

Dear creativebits readers, members and contributors. Thank you for all your help and encouragement you demonstrated towards each other in 2007. Hope you will have an amazing year both in your private life and in professional career in 2008.

This is a good time to do a review of your last year in terms of your career. Did you achieve what you set out to do? If not why? Can you you make new plans to tackle the same objectives next year?

It is a good time to formalize your goals for the next year. Be specific in both regarding the goal itself and time you want to achieve it by. For example, don't be generic and say, I want to learn more Photoshop, but be specific and say I want to master Smart Layers by March.

Set a definite plan to achieve your goals. Try to set out a goal that scares you. Something that shakes you out of your comfort zone. Try to be super optimistic. Don't worry, I guarantee you will find the tools to realize these goals along the way.

Feel free to write your achievements and desires down in the comments.

Wish you fantastic holidays!

I thought you may find interesting to see a statistic about the most read posts on creativebits. The first post on the list has been viewed more than half million times.

1. Creative business cards
2. OS X keyboard shortcuts
3. Copy your Mac OSX Tiger disc
4. Photoshop's first version
5. Play all region DVD's on your Mac
6. Photoshop magic hat light effect
7. Free up hard disk space on OS X
8. Arabic calligraphy inspiration
9. Mac Book Pro review
10. Google maps on your website

Sites I started, Creativebits.org and AdsoftheWorld.com have been acquired by Jupitermedia Corporation. The two sites have a combined traffic of more than 1 million unique visitors per month and now, they will become part of Jupitermedia's Graphics.com network. One of the many sites you're probably using daily that are part of Jupitermedia are the stock exchange sites: sxc.hu and stockxpert.com.

What does this mean for you? I will have more time to work on creativebits and Ads of the World, which should mean more and better content. It will also be able to develop the sites further to offer you more features.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for making this community a vibrant and active place that we all enjoy day in and day out to learn more about our beloved profession and to socialize with people who share our interest.

As most of creativebits' audience consists of designers and web developers I thought it would be a perfect fit to promote the new full time and freelance job site called Jobs and Gigs. You can check out the latest entries by visiting the jobs menupoint in the menubar right here on creativebits. Hope you will find your dream job or the next gig that will pay for your new MacBookPro soon.

The story I wrote about surviving the digg effect got dugg and ironically the server died within 15 minutes of hitting the front page.

On one hand this demonstrates the effectiveness of the tips described. On the other hand it shows that the server was not ready to be dugg, so I didn't practice what I preach. I officially made a fool of myself.

Actually, there is a twise to the story. The server was indeed ready for a digg, but something came up. A second story was made popular 15 minutes after the first story hit the home page. This was a double digg effect. I was definitely not ready for that.

After disabling all dynamic content in the sidebars for at least 30 minutes the site was still unaccessible or terribly slow. Once the two stories moved below the fold on the main page the load decreased a bit and the server recovered.

So, here is one more tip to add to the previous article. Avoid being dugg twice at the same time.

Now you can get a quick update on what's hot in the world of Macs, Design and everything else in between — check out the news section. At the moment we only have about half a dozen feeds, but please suggest and we will expand the number of quality news sources.

Creative Guy and CreativeBits. Sisters? That's what Scott Kelby had to say in the July/August Layers Magazine issue. The article titled Ten Cool Sites You Need To Know About lists both CreativeBits and my site, Creative Guy.

The description of Creative Guy reads:
----------------------------------------------------
Like CreativeBits.org, this site (from James Dempsey) gives a great overview of what's happening in the design community, along with lots of focus on the Creative Suite and some Mac OSX tips as well. In fact, this almost seems like a sister site to CreativeBits, and maybe that's why I like it so much. Luckily, although they both cover similar topics, the news and tips are totally different. A nice, clean layout helps make it an easy, fun read, and you'll always pick up something new there.
----------------------------------------------------

If Mr. Kelby only knew. For those new to this fantastic site, Ivan started CreativeBits not too long ago and I came aboard, and shortly after that I spun off my own site to focus more on "software-related" tips, leaving the "design-related" tips to CB. Though I was concerned that it would either hurt Ivan's efforts here, or cause a backlash at my site, it turned out beautifully, as both sites have flourished since then.

I'm proud to have someone of Scott Kelby's stature in the graphics industry recognize my efforts with Creative Guy, and include it in his list with this great community we know as CreativeBits. Congratulations to Ivan and everyone else who makes CB what it is!

We are delighted to see that Jeffrey Zeldman from Happy cog, publisher of the respected magazine A List Apart has linked creativebits form his blog.

In an attempt to address why Creative Bits is slow at times, we have temporarily disabled RSS feeds to assess their impact on performance.

We appreciate your patience while we try to address this issue.

--
Drupal development and customization: 2bits.com
Personal: Baheyeldin.com