posted on August 31, 2000 08:24:25 PM
Friends have told me that ebay's clock is dead on to actual (national atomic clock) time. Whether or not that's true, esnipe's clock should at least match that of ebay. Well then esnipe's clock is fast. Dig this:
Auction ends at :30 sec past the minute. I put in a 20 sec buffer esnipe. You'd expect my bid to be entered at :10 sec past the minute plus delay transit time -- maybe it would show as :12 sec past.
Get this -- my bid is recorded as occurring at :08 sec !! This means that esnipe's clock is about 4 seconds too fast. Big deal, you say? Hey, if esnipe is working right and I wnat to be the last bid in, that four seconds may be enough time for someone to get in another bid (yes it can be done -- load a second screen and have your bid ready, pump refresh, watch the bids...)
So besides esnipe's other problems, their clock is off!
posted on August 31, 2000 10:48:52 PM
email just in from eSnipe:
***
Rapid site growth recently has begun to have an impact on the site this
week, and the number of missed auctions has suddenly increased. Under
the circumstances, you may wish to cancel your esnipe bids, and place
manual bids for the next few days.
Here is an overview of the actions we are taking to restore the site to
optimal performance...
1) We have acquired new servers, and are in the final stages of having
them set up in a new high speed hosting facility.
2) We are rewriting several of our software components to increase the
speed and reliability of the site.
3) We will be adding better monitoring tools to ensure we are better
prepared for potential performance issues in the future.
All of these upgrades are scheduled to take place on Monday, September
4th, 2000. During the upgrade, from 4:00AM PST until 12:00PM PST, all
sections of the site will be unavailable. Bids will not be placed during
the outage. If you have bids scheduled to be placed during this time,
they will be cancelled.
Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience this may have caused,
and we thank you for your patience during this upgrade.
***
posted on September 1, 2000 11:45:12 AM
In a older thread, I posted info from esnipe that they were weeks away from being fully functional as they installed new equipment and software. I would exercise caution about using them until perhaps the first weeks in October. This is just common sense.
