Welcome to the thread Jay.
I enjoy your product immensely. I have no problem waiting while you work through your problems. I have no problem helping in any way I can. I am willing to help out when possible by reducing my server demands for a time. (You have to tell me how).
Ongoing and timely information from you, the providers, makes all of the above possible. Having built hundreds of systems, loaded all manner of programs thousands of times (and rebooted windows tens of thousands of times since it's inception), installed and maintained many LANs I am all too aware of the uncountable points of cooperation that affect the performance of anything computer.
I have spent many 48 hour marathon weekends trying to get a system or network up and running by Monday morning. Just about a month ago I gutted one of my trade stations and replace nearly everything. A brand new MB already had patches on their website. I needed updates for new and nearly new video cards. Anything over a year old requires all new drivers and programs from off the web. Missing information or patches on ANY part of the system can create repeated mysterious crashes and countless other funkies.
Now add the net with it's possible errors from phone companies, bad routing equipment, outdated anything, funky ISP's, solar flares, asteroid storms, space ships crashing on Mars. Virus', virusi, worms, snakes, programmers, overloads, and meltdowns. Then Joe, with his rented back hoe putting in a new sewer line does a practice dig in an empty field next door and rips up this strange looking wire cable thing. That's right Joe just pack it back in the hole and bury it quick.
Throw in the "Market" itself, too many people making too many trades too often. Naz breaking down, MM's switching off the auto-pilot, Wall street flooding, Chicago freezing over. Traders going berserk and trashing their key boards thereby ordering the entire available float on MSFT. Some wanna-be shorting ½ the available float for AMZN and Schwab loans it to her. The bill comes later, but not much later. Some brokerage company claiming they help one investor at a time (there's a hell of a busy signal). Juan Valdez picking coffee beans, bean by bean. No morning coffee.
Then there is you. New beta's, new servers, new owners, too many new customers, new stock options, too much money, not enough money, too much data, not enough data, up all night, spaghetti for breakfast, and oh yeah those guy's and gals over there on the SI thread. Upchuck.
Now I know there is some kindly, super IQ, person a thousand miles away that can narrow my missing chart problem down to a bad register in bank 0 of my ram chips. It's probably some Internet osmosis thing, but, before I tear everything out, start over, run a tight string from my house to your office with a tin can on each end, and start plotting charts on my left over high school graft paper, if you folks could just drop me a real short line now and then, I could put the string job off till after Christmas.
I believe most traders of any success, trading for any length of time, are fairly intelligent. They have a bit of a grasp on the great complexity involved in the technical aspect of the simplistic action of making a trade, or receiving information about the billions of transactions taking place in the market. Being in the market for any length of time successfully also indicates a fairly tolerant individual. A simple, timely, indication from you as to whether or not you have a problem and are aware of it saves us incalculable frustration, and sometimes even money. When I can save a buck it makes me feel, generous, even patient. If you are aware of a problem and are pretty sure it does not stem from your end, and you tell us, we know to go to work looking at the myriad of other possibilities.
As a final note I want to include a very recent e-mail that I received from IQC. I maintain an account with them because often when everything else is screwed I can still get their charts, or vise-versa. They are not the premium product that you are, they are not exactly real-time, but when nothing else is coming through they sure can be a life-saver. They, as everyone in the trading industry, have been having their own problems. Oh, and guess what, they are also in a take-over situ. Here is their method of handling these situations.
Dear IQ Chart Subscriber,
The folks at Go2Net and IQ Chart wanted to take this opportunity to both extend our warmest wishes for the upcoming holiday season, and update you on some changes that will be taking place with IQ Chart over the next few weeks.
For starters, we know that there have been some performance problems recently, and we apologize for the inconvenience. We have been working hard on resolving these issues, so we are confident that the brief overview below is the perfect holiday gift from IQ Chart to you!
* IQ Chart's hardware and network connectivity is currently located in Southern California. We are creating a duplicate environment with an expanded server farm in Seattle that has a direct connection to the Internet through Internap. Internap plugs into the main arteries of the internet, and has multiple, sophisticated redundancies in the event that a portion of the Internet is down. This environment is highly scalable, and we are capable of expanding capacity quickly. This duplicate environment should be live by December 17th.
* Our engineering team is installing new "code" on our servers which we expect to produce significant performance improvements. One example is the inclusion of sophisticated data compression technology, which makes the file size of the price data you download from IQ Chart's servers smaller. The smaller the download, the quicker the response time. This "code" is undergoing serious testing, and will be phased in between December 15th and the end of the year.
* We are releasing a new version of IQ Chart the first week of December. Although this version has a few new features and improvements, the major reason for releasing it is compatibility with the new "code", explained above.
IQC and Go2Net appreciate your patience during this transition period, and are excited to present you with a revamped product for the new year. If you have any questions about IQC's acquisition by Go2Net, the new version of the software, the expansion of our server farm, or bottom-up overhaul of IQ Chart backend infrastructure, please send a message to support@iqc.com.
Sincerely,
John Busby
Producer, Silicon Investor/IQ Chart
Now wasn't that a cool piece of communication. It hasn't solve the problem yet, and may not for some time. However, I know that I don't have to spend the weekend stripping down my hard drive and reloading everything trying to fix something that doesn't need fixed.
Man that was fun. No need to reply cause I ain't gripen at ya. Just a friendly gig. Truly looking forward to working with you in the new century. I am keeping that big ball of string and two cans ready in case YK2 gets us. <g>
KK |
