HaHa !

EDITED

:)

Why the f**k is that funny!!! Do u want to be working on a sunday morning trying to fix it?? Twat!

thats funny!

is Wapping Worrier a hacker?

RPM is Wapping Worrier a hacker?

haha!! i recognise that reference :p

jonaent (Jon) Why the f**k is that funny!!! Do u want to be working on a sunday morning trying to fix it?? Twat!

Uhhhh...nice pitch. composure is a sure sign of self-confidence ey ?

Mate that you think a server needs someone sitting next to them for restarts or housekeeping can only mean that
a) Jon is the Bomb
b) BP has a poor provider
c) you should relax and watch some Simpsons

so don't take it personal, as I shall not and we can enjoy this crappy sunday

it doesn't matter now.

he got it back up.

(the BLB site)

StarrerGang
Mate that you think a server needs someone sitting next to them for restarts or housekeeping can only mean that
a) you have no clue about IT
b) BLB has a poor provider
c) you should relax and watch some Simpsons

so don't take it personal, as I shall not and we can enjoy this crappy sunday

I just do my job mate, if they want me to sit next to it I will in order to not let them down, sunday or not. Just because everyone hates BLB on here doesn't mean you have to drag my company into it, if the website is down for any reason there is no need to point it out and laugh or even insinuate that we 'have no clue about IT'. Please, it's just not fair... the BLB hatred on this site has had an effect on our business due to this site having quite a high Google ranking. I'm not saying that this isn't right, if they are doing what is said of them (and before you ask, I wouldn't know as I don't work there) then they should be held accountable, but thoughtless threads like this piss me off when I'm working hard. I can only hope that someone on here understands this. We work hard, and this is a silly, unnecessary thread!

i laughed at the fact that he started the discussion's.....i have no problem with blb...thats maybe because i haven't bought anything from there.i know that you built the site and that you maintain it.....but like you said if BLB has a bad rep from its customers then it their own fault..i don't think that is any reflection on what you or your company do...its true that the two should be judged together.

+1

Ohhh.. excuse my ignorance. I did not really notice that BLB had such a bad press in here.
And as you can see behind my member ID I am quite a resident here
I bought some repair bits there in the past and think they were OK.
as looking me into the eye and saying thanks and Bye (not normal in London retail) and I surely will buy there again.
To the IT bit:
I was a freelance allinOne Webdesigner for some years and dare to give some advice:
For a standard setup in PHP & mySQL backend with few page impressions and transfer volume
I highly recommend a mass hoster. They are very cheap and have nice data center with all the backup strategies.
You as a webdesigner can even become a powerseller and nobody notices that someone else hosts it.
I hosted a dozen customers and my own website at 1and1.com. All happy with it and less than a tenner a month for
a setup like at BLB. The server should not be underneath some desk. Its not worth it

Apologies if I hit a wound I honestly just tried to be funny.
But as it seems Germans do not seem to be good at that, somehow they always start a war with it.

A hug is offered...

well, you started it...

StarrerGang
I was a freelance allinOne Webdesigner for some years and dare to give some advice:
[snip]
For a standard setup in PHP & mySQL backend with few page impressions and transfer volume
I highly recommend a mass hoster. They are very cheap and have nice data center with all the backup strategies.
You as a webdesigner can even become a powerseller and nobody notices that someone else hosts it.
I hosted a dozen customers and my own website at 1and1.com. All happy with it and less than a tenner a month for
a setup like at BLB. The server should not be underneath some desk. Its not worth it

For advice dared to be given, perhaps fact checking first is in order? If you check the IP number of BLB.co.uk, you'll see it belongs to the New Dream Network, which is http://www.dreamhost.com . Shockingly this is precisely the type of package you recommend, that is to say that it is hosted just as you would've hosted it.

Now, the database is down. That can happen for a split second with MySql. You only need a flood of connections on the server, a tmp file corruption, and the database will recover by ditching the tmp files, recycling and issuing a new lock file before coming up again.

It's dreamhost, so how many sites will be on each front end web server? Or do they share file storage over vast arrays and load balance front ends? In which case, what are the odds that the number of sites on each server, the network infrastructure, etc can all conspire to flummox out MySql and cause a hiccup in the connection. Not impossible by a long shot, MySql does such things.

At times this site rocks out. It's only one of 10 sites on a very powerful server, all low volume, RAID'd SCSI drives, multi-core dual server CPU's, stacks of RAM. And yet, still the database will occasionally see fit to throw a hissyfit and drop connections.

This stuff just happens. It's the internet, and nothing on it is perfect and perfectly available.

And jonaent has done a stunning job. The only thing I'd critique him for is one very small thing, a prettier (static) error page. Beyond that, he's done superbly.

Just consider for a moment how bad most bike websites look. And how appalling most bike shops online look. BLB may have (no experience, so I don't know) a bad mechanic and a blagger behind the till, but the website raises the bar for bicycle shops and I'm pretty glad it does. Have you even seen what the Bob Jackson website looks like?!

fair point! should have checked nic.com ..and that it was a mass hoster takes away the point of the discussion.
but I havent critized the webdesign/ or the page in any way mind you.

That dreamhost had the DB sit there for several hours is really shocking. Cause if its not
inside a virtual machine their monitoring should have picked it up remount or relocate
the db files. In my experience my hosted services were above 99,6% availability.

Enough tech speak...and I hope its all good now...I am off playing with my new toy now..
Best timekiller ever : http://www.gadgetepoint.co.uk/prod-picoo-z.php

i agree with david here, you really should double check before posting... and for what i know, i have had very bad experiences with 1and1 and am using dreamhost myself now.
i'm quite sure jon knows all those points you mentioned already, i'd say anyone who has their fingers dipped in php and mysql would know those things about hosting.

one's got to be careful with one's humour sometimes...

How are you finding dreamhost? I'm thinking of moving a few sites over there mid-2008. It would be good to know if they're worth it. All the usual things are required of course, uptime, performance, availability, backup and of course for dirt-cheap!

to be honest they used to be better when i started out with them, really is almost 99.99% uptime. had quite a number of issues this year, none of them too bad, but i was seriously quite distressed when my mail server has gone down sometime in january 07 for a few hours... apart from that avg uptime is about 99.7 - 99.8%, fair enough for how cheap they are, i'm on their cheapest plan and i only get to use no more than 10% of all those numbers (space, bandwidth etc). i don't have a lot of traffic so it's hard to tell what's it like with server performance.

another reason why i choose to stick with them is that they're a co-op and the guys are friendly (no phone support though, but i wouldn't call america anyway), same reason i choose brixton cycles, in a way.

velocity boy
For advice dared to be given, perhaps fact checking first is in order? If you check the IP number of BLB.co.uk, you'll see it belongs to the New Dream Network, which is http://www.dreamhost.com . Shockingly this is precisely the type of package you recommend, that is to say that it is hosted just as you would've hosted it.

Now, the database is down. That can happen for a split second with MySql. You only need a flood of connections on the server, a tmp file corruption, and the database will recover by ditching the tmp files, recycling and issuing a new lock file before coming up again.

It's dreamhost, so how many sites will be on each front end web server? Or do they share file storage over vast arrays and load balance front ends? In which case, what are the odds that the number of sites on each server, the network infrastructure, etc can all conspire to flummox out MySql and cause a hiccup in the connection. Not impossible by a long shot, MySql does such things.

At times this site rocks out. It's only one of 10 sites on a very powerful server, all low volume, RAID'd SCSI drives, multi-core dual server CPU's, stacks of RAM. And yet, still the database will occasionally see fit to throw a hissyfit and drop connections.

This stuff just happens. It's the internet, and nothing on it is perfect and perfectly available.

And jonaent has done a stunning job. The only thing I'd critique him for is one very small thing, a prettier (static) error page. Beyond that, he's done superbly.

Just consider for a moment how bad most bike websites look. And how appalling most bike shops online look. BLB may have (no experience, so I don't know) a bad mechanic and a blagger behind the till, but the website raises the bar for bicycle shops and I'm pretty glad it does. Have you even seen what the Bob Jackson website looks like?!

There's easier ways to stop a website responding.. for example, a simple migration to .NET 2.0 would do it :)
(This thread makes no fscking sense without the original post intact.. SINK)

velocity boy How are you finding dreamhost? I'm thinking of moving a few sites over there mid-2008. It would be good to know if they're worth it. All the usual things are required of course, uptime, performance, availability, backup and of course for dirt-cheap!

i have used them for about 3 years now, never had major problems although agree with others that there's occasional downtime - but i've had worse service with other providers and DH are extremely cheap so yes, i would recommend them. i don't really use their mailservice that much so haven't been able to tell about the problems there, but everyone i know who does use them thinks it's ok, and my personal opinion (based on what edmundane said) is that a few hours 10 months ago ain't bad at all ;-)
PS if you do decide to go with them, please could you say that someone referred you (doesn't have to be me - could be edmundane or jon or whoever) as the person who referred you will get some money back in some way.