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Non-Tech : Quote.com QCharts -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Matthew L. Jones who wrote (5226)	1/2/2000 4:00:00 PM
From: E. Davies	Respond to of 17977

If data flow slows below a certain "predefined threshold", server connection is terminated. This is because late real time data is not real time data. It would be quite interesting if this indeed were the source of the problem, though somehow I doubt it is. Considering Nasdaq data is already several seconds behind the market I certainly would rather have it be a couple of seconds slower still than have no data at all. It would be an amazingly fragile system if a delay time through the pipe of .35 seconds vs. the "ideal" .2 seconds is enough to be considered "late". 350 ms is roughly the worst times I come up with on tracing the route. In addition I have found in general the servers in Virginia (about 6000 miles from here) to be more consistent than the ones in Mountain View even though the Virginia servers have a much greater ping time. the frozen chart thing seems to be related to a combination of a dataflow glitch and then the subsequent caching of the "blank" data in my own system. In technical terms that is known as a "bug". A glitch in the dataflow should only stop the data for as long as the glitch occurs- not until the user realizes what is happening and manually changes the time interval or clears the temp directory. In addition I regularly (usually once a day) see the link simply "freeze" and get no more data. Sometimes if I wait a minute or more it comes back, sometimes not. Usually I switch to another server and everything resets and works fine again- I can't afford to wait a whole minute. Did the server I was connected to die? Unlikely that servers are dying that regularly. I strongly suspect its just different manifestation of the "blank chart" bug. The worst part about having this inherent instability in the program is the intense thrashing it creates. Charts freeze- people start switching servers to find one that works overwhelming the other servers and triggering a massive chain reaction. If quote.com could unearth the actual source of the problem it would save them significant funds in upgrading servers and hiring customer support people. Not to mention the reputation they could build as a quality data provider. Maybe they know what it is already. Somehow I don't get the feel that they really do. Eric