talkmagic.co.uk

i wish they'd get rid of that stupid fancy display in the centre of the screen, takes ages to load and doesnt really do much...the simpler the better...nice clean code, and easy nav...thats all i want...

IAIN wrote:i wish they'd get rid of that stupid fancy display in the centre of the screen, takes ages to load and doesnt really do much...the simpler the better...nice clean code, and easy nav...thats all i want...

That's all anyone wants. I guess the guy that sold them the shonky hosting also sold them the annoying centre bit.

I love in the email how the problems were unforeseen.

"Let's do a 25% off email and spam everyone"
"Brilliant, it won't mean we get lots of traffic to our site will it? Cos you know it's hosted on a spectrum 48k and will fall over"
"No, it will be fine, trust me"

The Spectrum 48k was a fine piece of kit, I'll have you know. Although possibly not intended for hosting Alakazam.

The extended sale now includes telephone orders, folks. I still can't access their site, though. Probably just as well, given my finances right now.

And yes, I wish all websites would cut out the cr*p and keep it simple. I'm sure my blood pressure would be lower if they did.

I still can't access their site, though

I second that...stupid s**ding website!

Replicant wrote:The Spectrum 48k was a fine piece of kit, I'll have you know. Although possibly not intended for hosting Alakazam.

It was, I bought one in 1983 and it was my first home computer.

It's still more reliable than their hosting!

Chris, you're probably better off giving them a ring, assuming their phone lines are not constantly engaged.

I wonder how this sale will affect their profits. If they make enough sales to cover the discounts, then they won't really have lost money. 24% is a pretty decent discount so I'm guessing they would have to make a large number of sales. If it all goes to plan (without crashing the site!) they could hold more 24% sales and make loads more money. Everyone wins (assuming they sort out the hosting, of course).

For those complaining about high traffic making a server fall over; it happens. Quite a lot, actually. There can be several causes for it: sites sometimes fall over whenever they're on the front page of Slashdot or Digg, twitter used to (and sometimes still does) fall over at major events, and stephen fry is now very reluctant to tweet links to sites unless he's completely certain it will withstand the onslaught of visitors. Heck, he's even made his own servers fall over!

A server falling over doesn't mean bad hosting, it just means unprepared hosting. It's a common thing to happen. Alakazam probably sent the email (which by the way isn't spam, if you were a customer in the past and left the "please email in future with special offers" checkbox checked, it's not spam. You asked for it. If you no longer want it, unsubscribe) and didn't realise that such a large amount of people will take advantage of the offer. Which all of us could be very guilty of, it happens to the best of us

I managed to get on OK this morning and preorder the Paul Stockman DVD set, saving about £7...

Agree about that central spinny thing though... in fact, the same could be said about a lot of sites - style over content!

Sean

kolm wrote:if you were a customer in the past and left the "please email in future with special offers" checkbox checked, it's not spam. You asked for it. If you no longer want it, unsubscribe

Quite right, I welcome messages relevant to my interests and deliberately made the choice to receive these, plus those from other reputable suppliers.

(PS I still have my Speccy 48k and the QL 128!)

Mandrake wrote:(PS I still have my Speccy 48k and the QL 128!)

While you're waiting for the Alakazam site to load, why not take a trip down memory lane?

Play Lords of Midnight on the Speccy!

kolm wrote:For those complaining about high traffic making a server fall over; it happens. Quite a lot, actually. There can be several causes for it: sites sometimes fall over whenever they're on the front page of Slashdot or Digg, twitter used to (and sometimes still does) fall over at major events, and stephen fry is now very reluctant to tweet links to sites unless he's completely certain it will withstand the onslaught of visitors. Heck, he's even made his own servers fall over!

You think it's acceptable for an email to a couple of thousand people to bring down a server?

I am damn glad you're not working for the place I host!

kolm wrote:Alakazam probably sent the email (which by the way isn't spam, if you were a customer in the past and left the "please email in future with special offers" checkbox checked, it's not spam. You asked for it. If you no longer want it, unsubscribe) and didn't realise that such a large amount of people will take advantage of the offer. Which all of us could be very guilty of, it happens to the best of us

It is.

Commercial, unsolicited email.

Is it commercial? Yes. Did I ask for it? No.

They use a pre-checked consent form, which is both against the TOS of almost every Email Service Provider in the UK and US and the opposite of Best Practise.

I mean, I don't mind getting it because I like seeing what's new, but technically it is spam.

damianjennings wrote:You think it's acceptable for an email to a couple of thousand people to bring down a server?

Are you are quite sure that only 2,000 or so people responded? I doubt that 2,000 visitors would bring many sites down, even if they piled in over a period of just one hour.

The nature of the internet being what it is, word has spread fairly wide about this offer. I, for example, heard about it here and not from an Alakazam email. I visited the site a few times and eventually placed an order.

A quick Google shows that details of the offer have appeared on other sites too, as well as Twitter (Alakazam's own Twitter feed plus others).

damianjennings wrote:a pre-checked consent form, which is both against the TOS of almost every Email Service Provider in the UK and US and the opposite of Best Practise

Going wildly off topic for a mo, travel agents and holiday firms have recently been brought to task over this. It's supposed to be 'Opt In' but they still use 'Opt Out' for their travel insurance and other 'extras'. Despite being told it's illegal, their response was that they intend to carry on doing it their way so that customers don't miss out on the extras or necessary insurance. Bare faced cheek but so typical of the way those firms flaunt the law. Bring back the noose, I say!!

They effectively launched a DDOS on their own site by inviting all those ppl to come see. They are hosted on webfusion.co.uk. Not the most reliable of hosts. They come up as indifferent or bad hosts quite a lot on discussion boards.

It only takes fifty or so netbots to bring down an average site. Hundreds of visitors continually hitting f5 or the refresh button is essentially the same thing. They brought it all on themselves.