Today I was thinking how useful it would be to see a list of the most popular deals at Amazon in Blu-ray, and I realised that this is actually a pretty straightforward task, given the database capability.

So a little bit of PHP coding later and we have a Popular Amazon Bargains and Deals section on the home page.

It is pretty easy to see that discounts on Firefly: The Complete Series and The Dark Knight are doing well since they are in the top 10 titles, but other great bargains like Up for $17.99 and The Fifth Element or 2001 for $10.49 are now revealed.

The table updates automagically, so you will always be the first to see the most interesting Amazon bargains using this table.

Hi all - hope you had a fun Earth Day. I hope some celebrated by getting a copy of Avatar on Blu-ray - only  $19.99 at Amazon!

Mine was pretty busy but I did get to ride share, which is a little out of the ordinary for me (I usually take a train but that was not possible today).

I also had the pleasure of having lunch with one of the Blu-ray Stats readers over lunch - I am always up for great Sushi and it was a pleasure to meet one of our most active users!

Then tonight it was great to see the San Jose Sharks take it to Colorado with a 5 goal shut out game! (My commiserations to readers in Colorado)

Things are pretty busy for my day job and with a lot of weekends out of town and a ski week in Canada (I live a rough life!) it has been hard to keep things moving forward here at the site.

My wife notes that with all the time I work on the site, I wouldn’t even make minimum hourly wage off it, but none the less I enjoy it - call it a labour of love.

In any case, now that ski season is over I will hopefully get more time to dedicate to the site infrastructure and will slowly port all the functionality over to a new version of the database (version 4!).

These enhancements should allow for much better representation of multi program titles, box sets and foreign titles - but there is a lot of work to do just to get all of the current titles into the new format.

So if it looks like I am getting behind on adding new titles, in some cases I am just waiting to put them in the new database since the old one has trouble representing some of this data.

Also on the plus side, I see that the forum now has over 500 members! I imagine most are simply tracking their collections with MyBlu-rayStats, but none the less it is great to see that growing.

You can always use the forum to let me know what you think and ask for new features, though keep in mind that there is a lot going on behind the scenes already right now.

Well I have rambled long enough - hope everyone had a great day!

Sorry folks that I have not had much to say lately.

I had this mad idea that I needed to upgrade the database significantly and have done a lot of reading about relational databases and I think it is fair to say that I am in MySQL Hell right about now.

The reality is that there is a lot of work to do both in creating the new database format as well as an infrastructure to support it and display the contents, and then to transfer all of the data!

Sadly this means that it will probably be quite a few weeks or more before the new database is ready for use, but when it is, it promises more search options and deeper information, especially for multiple disc and version titles.

It has been a long time coming, but really I think it has all reached the point where it has to be done.

This will likely mean less posts here though I will try to at least keep all of the current releases current as they street.

Hopefully this will result in a more functional database system, and with any luck it will also be faster and have many more search terms and options.

Feel free to comment below if there is anything you think should be included that is not already, since now is the best time for me to add new database fields, etc.

I just wanted to let folks know that there is a new revision of code for the stats page that is purely to make it easier to make new pages in the future.

My plan is to add some new charts that may be fun to check out for movies you might like.

If I did my job right, you should not see any difference from the old version of the page.

If you see any strange happenings, please let me know

This is just a heads up for anyone keeping track.

Since Universal distributes Summit titles, much like Pararmount does for DreamWorks, I have attributed the Summit titles to the Universal total instead of just ‘Other’.

This will have caused the pie charts to jump a little, but be assured that this was expected and is not an error.

Sorry to the 2 people that care!

Some of you may have noticed a new feature block on the home page for the site.

The new Recent Amazon Bargains and Deals widget lists the most recent titles listed for 50% off or more.

And to prove it’s worth I see right now that Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen has been dropped to half retail price, selling for only $19.99.

So if you are interested in the most recent bargains available at Amazon, check the home page for a regularly updated list.

Just wanted to let you know that the server move is now complete and we are operating off a dedicated server now.

So no more issues with the server being disabled when too many of you visit!

I found a couple of bugs this morning, and no doubt there are more remaining - if you find anything please let me know in comments or on the forum.

To me it feels like it is a little slower, so the next phase will look into ways to speed things up.

I am happy to report that the database is back online and that it is pretty much business as usual on the regular pages.

However this outage has pushed me to move the site again to yet another server after only a month at DreamHost.

This time I am acquiring a dedicated host, so we should see some performance improvements.

On the downside, there may be some more down time as the move is made.

Thinking about how this ‘hobby’ site has grown has gotten me a little philisophical and misty eyed - my how things have grown.

With over 50GB of traffic a month, the shared server approach is not working out.

The downside of dedicated server of course is the costs, and I will probably implement a couple of things to help defray this cost.

Perhaps the most fun will be a subscription membership, with special privileges and services, like the ability to list titles for trade or sale.

I expect that the subscription will be in the $2-3 per month range, and will offer new services - all current free services will remain free.

If you have any ideas for services that could be offered or any thoughts at all about this, feel free to comment.

I want to avoid moving towards Adsense and other intrusional advertising, so hopefully we can build a small community of users that can support the site through this small monthly fee.

As I noted the other day, I had to move the whole website over to another server this weekend.

The mopping up is mostly done now, and you should see most pages functioning normally, or even looking a little nicer than before.

Please let me know in comments or on the forum if you see anything strange.

Interestingly enough, the problem that caused the relocation was a mixed blessing.

Essentially the site shut itself down due to too much traffic.

When the monthly traffic exceeded the 50GB of my account, the management pulled the plug.

The site has been moved to a new service that does not have such limits and I think that most of the pages actually load a little faster.

In any case, just wanted to keep you all informed as to what went on… I spent most of the weekend updating code which was not what I had planned!

While I was thinking about relocating the site due to increased traffic exceeding my ISP limits each month, I was heavily encouraged to do so today by the site outage that started last night.

So it all moved ahead of the time I expected to have to do it!

As a result, some stuff won’t work correctly for a while.

Update:  Almost finished with the code - hopefully will have more fun things to say soon.

Those with a Fry’s nearby may be interested in an LG Blu-ray Burner for $200 today only.