talkmagic.co.uk

With any luck they'll be making shedloads of profit and will be able to afford to upgrade their systems!

I put in an order for my 3rd copy of Hollingworth's book. Dearie me.

gillows wrote: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.

Fifty simultaneous users (I assume you meant simultaneous) ought not to bring down a site, even one using shared hosting. Even if 50 page views per second did cause the site's scripts to fail (which would be very weird), that would mean that 3,000 visitors were loading a page each minute. Or more likely, 1,000 visitors were browsing per minute (read a page, click on Next link etc.). I don't imagine there are millions of magicians visiting the site over a period of 24 hours, though.

gillows wrote: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.

Oh. Lol. Netfusion. hahahaha.

That explains everything.

How can someone that has a business that depends on a site being up rely on 2 bob hosting?

^ Yes I meant simultaneous.

Whichever way you look at it the site couldn't handle the volume of visitors it had yesterday.

I didn't check too closely, but shared or not the server ain't up to the job. That awful Flash thing they have doesn't help much either. I have been to their site before but gave up as it was too slow to load.

And I never got any discount yesterday when I finally got my order in. My fault for not getting the full SP on how it was being done, but still...

*Edit* Spelling

damianjennings wrote:How can someone that has a business that depends on a site being up rely on 2 bob hosting?

If I could answer that question, I'd be rich. Or at least, I'd have more clients...

And the Flash thing is unlikely to bring the server down, as it seems to only weigh in at 20KB or so. The downtime was down to a badly prepared host (and yes, this could be because it was cheap hosting) rather than badly coded site.

For those complaining about the time it takes for it to load, the problem is likely with Flash rather than a slow server/large file. But I agree, Flash isn't so great when it comes to working smoothly without bringing your computer to a crawl, and the effect can easily be recreated using javascript (something I've actually done previously) and it'll work better

And do you have a source for the opt-in/opt-out thing, Damian? As far as I'm aware whichever way it is you've told the company that it's ok for them to email you so they can. I don't get their emails, but I also expect they'll have an unsubscribe option. I'm no expert in spam, but my opinion is that if that checkbox was checked when you made the order (whether or not it was checked by default) and there is a way to unsubscribe, it's not spam. Your repeated accusations of everyone spamming you whenever they send you an email is worrying; there's enough of a spam problem on the internet without people like you crying wolf

At the bottom of the e-mail I received was written:

This email was sent to ******@**********.co.uk by sales@alakazam.co.uk.
Update Profile/Email Address | Instant removal with SafeUnsubscribe™ | Privacy Policy.

I don't see emails from Alakazam as spam. I gave them permission to send me updates and news because it's a subject that interests me. If you agree to receive these emails, I don't see how it can be seen as spam.

Perhaps best described as 'Broadcast messages to interested parties'?

Mandrake wrote:Perhaps best described as 'Broadcast messages to interested parties'?

If I ever start a TV station, I'm going to call it that

kolm wrote:If I ever start a TV station, I'm going to call it that

Great, can I read the weather forecast please? "There will be shattered scowers over most of the UK today....."

I ordered the iDeck and an SA over the phone this morning, with the 24% discount applied. No problems, they answered after three rings. Didn't trust the website!

So you basically got a free iDeck (almost). Nice.

kolm wrote:And do you have a source for the opt-in/opt-out thing, Damian?

A source to list every ESP's ToS?

Oddly enough no. I just have 7 years of working in email marketing using systems like Lyris. You can check their website if you like, www.lyris.com.

kolm wrote:As far as I'm aware whichever way it is you've told the company that it's ok for them to email you so they can.

Yes, it is the 'if you've told them it's OK' part that is missing from this equation. Hence the issue.

It is not ILLEGAL spam. As the law is unproven in the UK. I believe it's ilelgal under the US CAN-SPAM law, but I don't really work there. It's just going to be against every single ESP's ToS. They require double opt in now. Not a pre-checked tick box.

It's a very serious business. I think Constant Contact, who Alakazam use require double opt in. I'd look into it if I cared more.

kolm wrote:I don't get their emails, but I also expect they'll have an unsubscribe option.

If they don't that would illegal.

kolm wrote: I'm no expert in spam, but my opinion is that if that checkbox was checked when you made the order (whether or not it was checked by default) and there is a way to unsubscribe, it's not spam.

As you say, you are no expert.

The definition of spam, which is maybe where you are struggling, is that it is unsolicited commercial email. This was that.

kolm wrote: Your repeated accusations of everyone spamming you whenever they send you an email is worrying; there's enough of a spam problem on the internet without people like you crying wolf

It may be your self-admited un-expert opinion it isn't spam. But it is.

Unsolicited? Yup.

Commercial? Yup.

Email? Yup.

That makes it spam. It's simple.

But you are more than welcome to your opinion that it isn't spam and carry on loving to get them.

maybe we could discuss something a bit more worthwhile, rather than vigorously mass-debate over the inane and unimportant?