So I spent much of today re-working the Ecosystem code so that it isn't such a resource hog, and believe I have finally met with some success. There is a fresh run out there now, which I believe to be accurate.

To reduce the system load, I actually had to radically change the method I use for link-counting that sits at the heart of the Ecosystem --- the goofball "host" concept that always confused everyone anyway. This was a bit of work, but was something I always wanted to get rid of, so good riddance to bad rubbish. It also has the benefit of streamlining the process for adding a weblog to the Ecosystem, which was a nice bonus.

However, this means that this wasn't just a cosmetic tweak, but a rather substantial one. So: I would greatly appreciate feedback and assistance in validating the current results. If you see anything that doesn't look right, please drop me a line.

One casualty of the rework was the 'Blogosphere Daily News'. To support that feature required a more inefficient method of scanning, and since nobody really seemed to care for it anyway, I've ditched it. Maybe someday I'll bring it back in a different form; we'll see.

I still do not know if Hosting Matters will grant me permission to resume daily execution of the scripts; I have just passed on that request to them with a report on the improved performance. Hopefully they will have no problem with the load now (and to be clear, I don't blame them for being annoyed earlier: I really was pounding their box). Again: we shall see.

Anyway, thanks to everyone for their words of support while things have been in flux; they were much appreciated and certainly helped to motivate me to get things fixed.

More later...

Update: Hosting Matters has indicated they are OK with me trying the scripts, they'll be keeping an eye on them. Should be no problem, then: I really did get the load way down...