Drakkn:
Hope you guys don’t lose too much revenue from giving away 100k and having an entire day lost.
remember: sparkfun does not buy their products for the same amount we end up paying
I was on again! $12,087.99
well, after an hour of refreshing, I’m headed to work. I can hit refresh there and get paid. Don’t think the 10 min drive will lose me anything…
-Taylor
In defense of their IT department, I’ve worked as a developer in a PHP/MySQL/eCommerce scenario with undulating traffic patterns, and I can assure you that it is very hard to prepare for such an influx of customers.
Someone had mentioned using the EC2 cloud…which might have helped. But you can only throw so many server resources at a web application. PHP/MySQL can only handle so much before you have to start reconfiguring Apache.
Don’t get mad at the IT department, their lives suck right now.
tlalexander:
well, after an hour of refreshing, I’m headed to work. I can hit refresh there and get paid. Don’t think the 10 min drive will lose me anything…-Taylor
if only i had a netbook + 3g dongle i could keep refreshing the whole way there 
only problem is i might drive off the road if my cart loaded
master_of_robots:
In defense of their IT department, I’ve worked as a developer in a PHP/MySQL/eCommerce scenario with undulating traffic patterns, and I can assure you that it is very hard to prepare for such an influx of customers.Someone had mentioned using the EC2 cloud…which might have helped. But you can only throw so many server resources at a web application. PHP/MySQL can only handle so much before you have to start reconfiguring Apache.
Don’t get mad at the IT department, their lives suck right now.
people are only mad at them from disappointment and frustration so the IT guys shouldn’t take any disparaging words to heart. they probably could have used an IT consultant w/ experience in this field for preparation though
Does anyone know how to fix the damn PHP problem? Windows + Firefox seems to do this occasionally. I know it has to do with content headers, but that’s on the server side so there’s not a lot I can think of to do on my end.
I can’t even ping sparkfun.com from either home or work, let along log in and load my cart. :-/
Great way to stress-test their new server setup, though. This reminds me of launch day for an MMO.
KofS:
people are only mad at them from disappointment and frustration so the IT guys shouldn’t take any disparaging words to heart. they probably could have used an IT consultant w/ experience in this field for preparation though
and maybe 5 or 6 standing around waiting for it to start to help with mitigation
KofS:
master_of_robots:
In defense of their IT department, I’ve worked as a developer in a PHP/MySQL/eCommerce scenario with undulating traffic patterns, and I can assure you that it is very hard to prepare for such an influx of customers.Someone had mentioned using the EC2 cloud…which might have helped. But you can only throw so many server resources at a web application. PHP/MySQL can only handle so much before you have to start reconfiguring Apache.
Don’t get mad at the IT department, their lives suck right now.
people are only mad at them from disappointment and frustration so the IT guys shouldn’t take any disparaging words to heart. they probably could have used an IT consultant w/ experience in this field for preparation though
I’m not sure there’s any way TO prepare for an insane number of hits to your website (which would economically be built and configured for maybe 1000th of the traffic…)
I thought it might get better as folks dropped out, but I think it’s getting worse as the West Coast (and further…) wake up and arrive at work…
smariotti:
I can’t even ping sparkfun.com from either home or work, let along log in and load my cart. :-/Great way to stress-test their new server setup, though. This reminds me of launch day for an MMO.
I dont think prime95 could even do that great a job.
I have not received any confirmation yet, though. To those worried about deserving people getting something - I am a new customer that probably would not have purchased as much as I did (if anything at all) without the promotion. I went well above $100 on my order. I thank SparkFun for this opportunity to get some fun stuff!
15 724 given a way. Come on people don’t STOP TRYING!!!
mikeyancey:
I’m not sure there’s any way TO prepare for an insane number of hits to your website (which would economically be built and configured for maybe 1000th of the traffic…)I thought it might get better as folks dropped out, but I think it’s getting worse as the West Coast (and further…) wake up and arrive at work…
sure there are, though the ones that come to mind are mostly throttling and non-technological solutions like buy 100 get 100 free. I’d certainly feel better if I got a page telling me im in place 500 out of 6200 for a 5 minute window or w/e they might come up with instead of Page Load Error
mikeyancey:
I’m not sure there’s any way TO prepare for an insane number of hits to your website (which would economically be built and configured for maybe 1000th of the traffic…)
Turning off SSL for everything but accepting the card number would be a start. It takes about 1000x as much processing power.
Something broke.
…not to worry. We’ve logged this error and will be looking into it, but please don’t hesitate to mail it@sparkfun.com and complain.
LOL… you’ve heard the man , don’t hesitate to mail it@sparkfun.com…
I had 7 items in my cart last nite ready to checkout when Free Day hours took effect, however, Sparkfun emptied my cart. It took over 30 min. just to find out the cart is empty. I’ve been on for an hour and managed to get 1 thing in my cart. You’d think they would know they would need more horsepower for this.
there’s a northwest bank in my town that’s giving away $100 as a sign up gift. I think i’ll open an account there and have my sparkfun free day at a later time 
hrm does sparkfun accept phone orders?? i cant remember
tylermenezes:
mikeyancey:
I’m not sure there’s any way TO prepare for an insane number of hits to your website (which would economically be built and configured for maybe 1000th of the traffic…)Turning off SSL for everything but accepting the card number would be a start. It takes about 1000x as much processing power.
Heh - They found a way - I got logged out!
Starting over…
$16,620.44 BTW