fixes #33

Gemfile

@@ -31,6 +31,8 @@ gem 'airbrake'
 
 gem 'ranked-model'
 
+gem 'newrelic_rpm'
+
 # Gems used only for assets and not required
 # in production environments by default.
 group :assets do

Gemfile.lock

@@ -56,7 +56,7 @@ GEM
       debugger-ruby_core_source (~> 1.1.3)
     debugger-linecache (1.1.2)
       debugger-ruby_core_source (>= 1.1.1)
-    debugger-ruby_core_source (1.1.3)
+    debugger-ruby_core_source (1.1.7)
     delayed_job (3.0.3)
       activesupport (~> 3.0)
     delayed_job_active_record (0.3.2)
@@ -123,6 +123,7 @@ GEM
     mime-types (1.19)
     multi_json (1.5.0)
     netrc (0.7.7)
+    newrelic_rpm (3.5.5.38)
     nokogiri (1.5.5)
     on_the_spot (1.0.1)
       json_pure (>= 1.4.6)
@@ -253,6 +254,7 @@ DEPENDENCIES
   heroku
   inherited_resources
   jquery-rails
+  newrelic_rpm
   on_the_spot
   pg
   pry-rails

README.rdoc

@@ -48,6 +48,17 @@ TBD
   rake secret # to generate a secret token
   heroku config:set SECRET_TOKEN={{your secret token}}
 
+== Preventing your Heroku dynos from spinning down
+	By default, Heroku spins down the dynos on sites that aren't accessed very often.
+	This can cause your site to take a long time to load when it is accessed after 
+	a period of inactivity. One solution is to use the free New Relic add-on with 
+	app monitoring, which pings your site throughout the day.
+
+  heroku config:set NEW_RELIC_LICENSE_KEY={{your New Relic License key}}
+  # Your License Key is listed on the New Relic Account Settings page
+
+  heroku config:set NEW_RELIC_APP_NAME={{any name you want to identify your app}}
+
 == Contributing
 
 In the spirit of [free software][free-sw], **everyone** is encouraged to help

config/newrelic.yml

@@ -0,0 +1,255 @@
+# Here are the settings that are common to all environments
+common: &default_settings
+  # ============================== LICENSE KEY ===============================
+
+  # You must specify the license key associated with your New Relic
+  # account.  This key binds your Agent's data to your account in the
+  # New Relic service.
+  license_key: '<%= ENV["NEW_RELIC_LICENSE_KEY"] %>'
+
+  # Agent Enabled (Rails Only)
+  # Use this setting to force the agent to run or not run.
+  # Default is 'auto' which means the agent will install and run only
+  # if a valid dispatcher such as Mongrel is running.  This prevents
+  # it from running with Rake or the console.  Set to false to
+  # completely turn the agent off regardless of the other settings.
+  # Valid values are true, false and auto.
+  #
+  # agent_enabled: auto
+
+  # Application Name Set this to be the name of your application as
+  # you'd like it show up in New Relic. The service will then auto-map
+  # instances of your application into an "application" on your
+  # dashboard page. If you want to map this instance into multiple
+  # apps, like "AJAX Requests" and "All UI" then specify a semicolon
+  # separated list of up to three distinct names, or a yaml list.
+  # Defaults to the capitalized RAILS_ENV or RACK_ENV (i.e.,
+  # Production, Staging, etc)
+  #
+  # Example:
+  #
+  #   app_name:
+  #       - Ajax Service
+  #       - All Services
+  # 
+  app_name: <%= ENV["NEW_RELIC_APP_NAME"] %>
+
+  # When "true", the agent collects performance data about your 
+  # application and reports this data to the New Relic service at 
+  # newrelic.com. This global switch is normally overridden for each 
+  # environment below. (formerly called 'enabled')
+  monitor_mode: true
+
+  # Developer mode should be off in every environment but
+  # development as it has very high overhead in memory.
+  developer_mode: false
+
+  # The newrelic agent generates its own log file to keep its logging
+  # information separate from that of your application.  Specify its
+  # log level here.
+  log_level: info
+
+  # Optionally set the path to the log file This is expanded from the
+  # root directory (may be relative or absolute, e.g. 'log/' or
+  # '/var/log/') The agent will attempt to create this directory if it
+  # does not exist.
+  # log_file_path: 'log'
+
+  # Optionally set the name of the log file, defaults to 'newrelic_agent.log'
+  # log_file_name: 'newrelic_agent.log'
+
+  # The newrelic agent communicates with the service via http by
+  # default.  If you want to communicate via https to increase
+  # security, then turn on SSL by setting this value to true.  Note,
+  # this will result in increased CPU overhead to perform the
+  # encryption involved in SSL communication, but this work is done
+  # asynchronously to the threads that process your application code,
+  # so it should not impact response times.
+  ssl: false
+
+  # EXPERIMENTAL: enable verification of the SSL certificate sent by
+  # the server. This setting has no effect unless SSL is enabled
+  # above. This may block your application. Only enable it if the data
+  # you send us needs end-to-end verified certificates.
+  #
+  # This means we cannot cache the DNS lookup, so each request to the
+  # service will perform a lookup. It also means that we cannot
+  # use a non-blocking lookup, so in a worst case, if you have DNS
+  # problems, your app may block indefinitely.
+  # verify_certificate: true
+
+  # Set your application's Apdex threshold value with the 'apdex_t'
+  # setting, in seconds. The apdex_t value determines the buckets used
+  # to compute your overall Apdex score. 
+  # Requests that take less than apdex_t seconds to process will be
+  # classified as Satisfying transactions; more than apdex_t seconds
+  # as Tolerating transactions; and more than four times the apdex_t
+  # value as Frustrating transactions. 
+  # For more about the Apdex standard, see
+  # http://newrelic.com/docs/general/apdex
+
+  apdex_t: 0.5
+
+  #============================== Browser Monitoring ===============================
+  # New Relic Real User Monitoring gives you insight into the performance real users are
+  # experiencing with your website. This is accomplished by measuring the time it takes for
+  # your users' browsers to download and render your web pages by injecting a small amount
+  # of JavaScript code into the header and footer of each page. 
+  browser_monitoring:
+      # By default the agent automatically injects the monitoring JavaScript 
+      # into web pages. Set this attribute to false to turn off this behavior.
+      auto_instrument: true
+
+  # Proxy settings for connecting to the service.
+  #
+  # If a proxy is used, the host setting is required.  Other settings
+  # are optional.  Default port is 8080.
+  #
+  # proxy_host: hostname
+  # proxy_port: 8080
+  # proxy_user:
+  # proxy_pass:
+
+
+  # Tells transaction tracer and error collector (when enabled)
+  # whether or not to capture HTTP params.  When true, frameworks can
+  # exclude HTTP parameters from being captured.
+  # Rails: the RoR filter_parameter_logging excludes parameters
+  # Java: create a config setting called "ignored_params" and set it to
+  #     a comma separated list of HTTP parameter names.
+  #     ex: ignored_params: credit_card, ssn, password 
+  capture_params: false
+
+
+  # Transaction tracer captures deep information about slow
+  # transactions and sends this to the service once a
+  # minute. Included in the transaction is the exact call sequence of
+  # the transactions including any SQL statements issued.
+  transaction_tracer:
+
+    # Transaction tracer is enabled by default. Set this to false to
+    # turn it off. This feature is only available at the Professional
+    # and above product levels.
+    enabled: true
+
+    # Threshold in seconds for when to collect a transaction
+    # trace. When the response time of a controller action exceeds
+    # this threshold, a transaction trace will be recorded and sent to
+    # the service. Valid values are any float value, or (default)
+    # "apdex_f", which will use the threshold for an dissatisfying
+    # Apdex controller action - four times the Apdex T value.
+    transaction_threshold: apdex_f
+
+    # When transaction tracer is on, SQL statements can optionally be
+    # recorded. The recorder has three modes, "off" which sends no
+    # SQL, "raw" which sends the SQL statement in its original form,
+    # and "obfuscated", which strips out numeric and string literals
+    record_sql: obfuscated
+
+    # Threshold in seconds for when to collect stack trace for a SQL
+    # call. In other words, when SQL statements exceed this threshold,
+    # then capture and send the current stack trace. This is
+    # helpful for pinpointing where long SQL calls originate from
+    stack_trace_threshold: 0.500
+
+    # Determines whether the agent will capture query plans for slow
+    # SQL queries.  Only supported in mysql and postgres.  Should be
+    # set to false when using other adapters.
+    # explain_enabled: true
+
+    # Threshold for query execution time below which query plans will not 
+    # not be captured.  Relevant only when `explain_enabled` is true.
+    # explain_threshold: 0.5
+
+  # Error collector captures information about uncaught exceptions and
+  # sends them to the service for viewing
+  error_collector:
+
+    # Error collector is enabled by default. Set this to false to turn
+    # it off. This feature is only available at the Professional and above
+    # product levels
+    enabled: true
+
+    # Rails Only - tells error collector whether or not to capture a 
+    # source snippet around the place of the error when errors are View 
+    # related.
+    capture_source: true    
+
+    # To stop specific errors from reporting to New Relic, set this property
+    # to comma separated values.  Default is to ignore routing errors
+    # which are how 404's get triggered.
+    #
+    ignore_errors: ActionController::RoutingError
+
+  # (Advanced) Uncomment this to ensure the cpu and memory samplers
+  # won't run.  Useful when you are using the agent to monitor an
+  # external resource
+  # disable_samplers: true
+
+  # If you aren't interested in visibility in these areas, you can
+  # disable the instrumentation to reduce overhead.
+  #
+  # disable_view_instrumentation: true
+  # disable_activerecord_instrumentation: true
+  # disable_memcache_instrumentation: true
+  # disable_dj: true
+
+  # If you're interested in capturing memcache keys as though they
+  # were SQL uncomment this flag. Note that this does increase
+  # overhead slightly on every memcached call, and can have security
+  # implications if your memcached keys are sensitive
+  # capture_memcache_keys: true
+
+  # Certain types of instrumentation such as GC stats will not work if 
+  # you are running multi-threaded.  Please let us know.
+  # multi_threaded = false
+
+# Application Environments
+# ------------------------------------------
+# Environment specific settings are in this section.
+# For Rails applications, RAILS_ENV is used to determine the environment
+# For Java applications, pass -Dnewrelic.environment <environment> to set
+# the environment
+
+# NOTE if your application has other named environments, you should
+# provide newrelic configuration settings for these environments here.
+
+development:
+  <<: *default_settings
+  # Turn off communication to New Relic service in development mode (also 
+  # 'enabled').
+  # NOTE: for initial evaluation purposes, you may want to temporarily 
+  # turn the agent on in development mode.
+  monitor_mode: false
+
+  # Rails Only - when running in Developer Mode, the New Relic Agent will 
+  # present performance information on the last 100 transactions you have
+  # executed since starting the mongrel.
+  # NOTE: There is substantial overhead when running in developer mode.
+  # Do not use for production or load testing.  
+  developer_mode: true
+
+  # Enable textmate links
+  # textmate: true
+
+test:
+  <<: *default_settings
+  # It almost never makes sense to turn on the agent when running
+  # unit, functional or integration tests or the like.
+  monitor_mode: false
+
+# Turn on the agent in production for 24x7 monitoring.  NewRelic
+# testing shows an average performance impact of < 5 ms per
+# transaction, you you can leave this on all the time without
+# incurring any user-visible performance degradation.
+production:
+  <<: *default_settings
+  monitor_mode: true
+
+# Many applications have a staging environment which behaves
+# identically to production.  Support for that environment is provided
+# here.  By default, the staging environment has the agent turned on.
+staging:
+  <<: *default_settings
+  monitor_mode: true
+  app_name: <%= ENV["NEW_RELIC_APP_NAME"] %> (Staging)