Freaky Frugalite

Yow. I wondered why Entrecards and Statcounter were down for so long yesterday. There was a fire at the database center in Houston, Texas! got this in my email this morning:

Greetings,

Unfortunately, there has been an electrical fire at the data center housing Entrecard’s servers. The servers have not been damaged, but the site may be down for as long as 12 hours.

Entrecard is hosted with ThePlanet, and this fire has effected over 9000 websites, as many of the world’s most popualar websites are hosted with ThePlanet. They are working around the clock to get their data center back online, and we are hoping that they get it back online fast.

Thank you for your pateince and understanding with this rare and frustrating problem. Unfortunately, there is absolutely nothing we can do but wait for The Planet to get their datacenter back online.

Please check back with Entrecard in 12 to 24 hours.

Thanks,

Entrecard Team

I did a search for news, and all I found was this at WordPlop:

The phone number on The Planet’s website leads to an auto recording stating that a transformer caught fire. The fire department has told them to shut down all power, including all generators and backup power. The Planet says no networking gear was harmed, so it sounds like all the servers should be fine unless the smoke got to them.

There is no ETA on when the entire datacenter, which is located in Houston, Texas, will be back up.

UPDATE: The Planet has confirmed that no servers were damaged. The cause of the fire appears to be an explosion that was caused by a short in some electrical equipment. The explosion took out 3 walls in the building. The Planet says some servers will be back up by tomorrow afternoon.

So that’s why your traffic stats are so low, if you’re wondering. LOL.

There’s a news story about it; I found it while searching news. All I can see is this:

The Planet Houston Data Center Goes Up in a Puff of Smoke
NewsBlaze, CA - 7 hours ago
By Alan Gray, NewsBlaze Tonight at 5:45 pm in Houston, Texas, a transformer in The Planet H1 datacenter caught fire. The fire department required them to …

When I click the link, guess what– the website is hosted by The Planet, so it’s unavailable. Statcounter is back up, for the most part, so they are making good progress on getting the sites back up, I think.

My sympathies to all bloggers who have their blogs hosted there. I hope things are up and running for you very soon!

So I can’t drop Entrecards. I didn’t know how addicted I was until this, lol! Well, there’s always the exciting world of shopping for a new cell phone repeater or something. :S

What’s going on with Entrecards? It’s been slow since Saturday, but I’ve been unable to sign in for almost three hours now. Can’t access the forum to see what’s up. Anyone have any ideas?

I’m nursing my wounds after finding out that my submission into the Renuzit Home Makeover contest didn’t make the semi-finalist list. It’s kind of how I felt after trying out for cheerleading in high school. There were 31 girls for tryouts and only 30 cheerleaders were needed. Guess who didn’t make it. :-p Story of my life *sigh*

Anyway… I was surfing Entrecards tonight and saw that my three blogs that I work on there have made the top three for their categories. I was flipping! Here are the screenshots, for posterity to remember me by, lol. It’s not exactly a cpm award, but this sure makes ALLLLLLLLLLLLLL that card-dropping worth it!

Freaky Frugalite for Trends:

New York Renovator for Home and Garden:

New York Traveler for Travel:

All is not doomed, lol. Now, if I can only figure out a way to raise $60,000 to remodel this lousy old house… *sigh*

I’ve noticed people listing their popular droppers on their blogs. I think this is a great idea! I am very thankful to be a member of Entrecards. I love it! I don’t see why some people are disgruntled. Even when the terms change and the prices of ads go up– hey, it’s still free! And even one visitor because of EC is worth it, in my opinion. Here are my top ten droppers and I thank you so much!

Technically Easy
Orangeinks
The Path to the Pegasus Letter
Lee Doyle - Contains Nuts
New York Traveler.net
Absolutely Mom’s
Daisy the Curly Cat
Lofty Matters
New York Renovator
What Lies Within The Mirror

The most gratifying thing is that I really enjoy reading these blogs. So it’s great to get reciprocal drops from blogs I love. Thanks guys!

I’m really happy have joined some excellent blogrolls recently. One is Frugal Hacks, a branch off one of my favorite mommy blogs, In a Shoe. And the other is Red Hot Drops, a new group put together by some lady Entrecarders. I’m glad to see a woman-based EC club! I am also a member of the Blogs Do Make Money Community, which is run by Elina at ImMomsDaughter. I’m so happy to be a part of these wonderful groups! Thanks for having me!

I’ve had Entrecard on this blog for a few weeks now. I’ve also read SCADS and SCADS of posts about Entrecards– how you can pimp the system, get more credits, sell credits, fanagle the widgets, make and use plugins… blah blah blah. I’m not a big dropper for this blog, anyway. Who has all that time?! And where do people get all that time to build plugins, create complicated Top 100 Droppers Lists, and fabricate and maintain contests?!

Well, I’ve come to some conclusions of my own.

–>   I will not– under no circumstances– advertise my card on a blog who dumps the widget at the bottom of their blog. That is so rude, and it just screams, “HATE ME.” So if you have your Entrecard at the bottom, or have it squeezed between those phony Entrecard images (you scheisters know who you are), kiss traffic from me good-bye.

–>   There is NO EXCUSE for 0 clicks. I have spent countless credits on blogs– some as high as 600 credits per day– with ZERO return. This is uncalled for. We are supposed to do this together, right? If you are at someone’s blog and you drop your card, is it TOO HARD to click the advertisement? For Pete’s sake, you get the chance to drop another card, anyway! 0 click-thru’s is criminal in the Entrecard system. I say we start an “I Click” movement amongst us.

–>   The higher the cost of the blog, the fewer the clicks. I’m not saying it’s a totally scientific conclusion, but it’s just something I have noticed. The “middle-class” blogs are the ones that give me the highest click-thru rate.

–>   The best time to drop cards is between 2 and 3am. Eastern Time. I have seen more traffic when I get my widget’s face in everyone’s drop inbox then.

So before you scoffers come out of the woodwork and pick on my little blog and my scanty droppings (oo that didn’t come out right), :-p on you. Cuz I have three other blogs in the Entrecard system, and I am a top-dropper for two of them. I think I’m qualified to speak my opinion.

Thanks for listening!

I saw these at JoshuaUn.com and they cracked me up! Thanks for some laughs, Joshua!

Perfect advertisement for the back of a bus. *coughcoughcough*

OK, this is not very funny, but I couldn’t stop laughing!

Now THAT is so creative! LOL!

This is my favorite. From now on, I’m checking those restaurant cups before I start drinking from them.

Ow! Doesn’t that look real?

You can see lots more here.

I’m having a lot of fun playing with Entrecards. I have found a number of blogs that are really terrific! I’ve also found out that a lot of bloggers like porno pictures, but I won’t get into that right now.I’ve dropped my card a few times on the hilarious Daisy the Curly Cat. I admit, I was hesitant about allll those pet blogs on Entrecards (how can people blog about their pets all day?!). But I am a convert to pet blogs.

I love Daisy the Curly Cat and I can’t wait until tomorrow’s post! Daisy’s owner is quite the funny blogger. The creativity at this blog jumps out at you and grabs you by the whiskers. The kids and I were busting over Daisy’s Monday Mystery:

If you are squeamish, do not read any further. I mean it! I am not joking! This is very, very serious. Another lizard got into my house! I was just sitting nicely looking at him, and he opened his mouth in a very MEAN way. Then, the lizard BITED me! Right on the paw.

This photo had me laughing so hard I almost bust my gut. There are also cute videos of Daisy. I have to say, I am a little surprised that one cat can be so enthralling so as to blog about her every day, but Daisy’s owner seems to pull it off with a lot of charm.