I am so sick of seeing this in my browser:

Entrecard application server failed

The server that does the complicated work has not responded in time, this could be due to load, due to an upgrade happening, or something else even weirder. An alert should have been triggered to the admins so they’re no doubt trying to deal with it right now, we recommend trying again in 10 minutes.
Served from s02

What’s going on? Nary a clue from the big guys. ?? It’s going on the fourth day. I am still getting ad notifications via email– I just can’t accept the ads because the EC site won’t load!

My blogs seems to be sluggish, too. Is the Entrecard widget hangup slowing the loading down? Not a clue.

**UPDATE**

I got this is my email about 5pm:

Greetings, faithful Entrecard members.

We are experiencing a slowdown as a result of regularly increasing load. In other words we’re becoming more popular and it’s causing problems :)

Those who have been with us the longest are aware that these things happen when Entrecard hits milestones or users and widgets, etc. and we always scramble to fix it as fast as possible. Most importantly, we always do what is necessary to get the site back to its typical fast self.

So we will be having a performance-related outage 7 hours from the time of this email (on the hour) which will last for 2 hours max. We have also taken some temporary measures, in the hopes that things will be better for the next 7 hours.

So, yay! I got my drops in and I hope you all can, too.

I’ve been trying very hard to get 300 drops into my Entrecard account for this blog since mid-August, and I’ve been doing it! This is a thrilling sight to me! Wooo! I know, some of you will think I am nuts, lol. It’s hard work, and boy oh boy do I wish I had high-speed Internet. I haven’t been as consistent with my other blogs. How have you guys been doing?

I was laying in bed, moaning and groaning (my back is acting up again today, wah) before my Lenovo Thinkpad, and decided to drop Entrecards. I visited my friend Carole’s blog as I customarily do, and was I shocked to see this:

I’d helped Carole with some graphic design for her new geocaching blog, and she threw me a party in appreciation. Woweeee!

Look at that gorgeous cake– strawberry is my favorite. And see how she put all my Entrecard widgets on the cake? LOL! I love this lady, she is so creative.

Now with all due respect, Carole has made her blogs great because she is a fantastic and entertaining writer. That woman could discuss gravel or eggshell paint or pipe cleaners and make it fascinating. So be sure to read her blogs, you’ll love them!

and Carole– thanks. You made my day. I love you, sweet friend. :)

Enjoy that cake! ;)

Some bloggers have started up a really cool e-book. They are calling it the Entrecard Cookbook. I love the idea! It is a collection of recipes, stories, homilies, and other stuff by the Entrecard community. I cannot WAIT until it is released in its final form. My recipes made the cookbook, too! If you have something to share, please go check it out and submit your stuff. Learn more about it here.

I’ve moaned and groaned about my various problems with dropping Entrecards. A lot of time the cards don’t show up, and I have to reload and reload to get them to appear. But something mysterious has been occurring ever since I started Entrecards and I think I’ve finally pinpointed the problem. I’d appreciate it if anyone else who is experiencing this would leave a comment. Maybe something can be done.

I have Verizon DSL (ethernet and wireless). We have five computers connected to the network here. They are usually not all on at the same time… usually it’s just two or three online at a time. I am the only person in the household who drops Entrecards. Whenever i start dropping cards, our DSL connection drops- this usually happens after about 5 minutes. The disconnect lasts anywhere from one minute to four or five minutes. The DSL connection affects all the computers in the house. So when I drop cards and the DSL disconnects, my husband cannot surf news or watch videos and etc, and my daughter upstairs loses her IM chat and can’t surf the web. WEIRD. we all have to wait until the DSL goes back on, which is anywhere from one minute to five minutes. WEIRD. This has been going on for the longest time, too!

I think I am finally starting to put the pieces together. I saw this at the Entrecard forum. Apparently, someone else is having this problem, too. All the dudes at Entrecards are puzzled, but so far nothing has been done. The forum thread was initially posted 130 days ago!

My firmware for my DSL modem is updated. And I use the Internet very heavily a lot of times. But this seems to be an Entrecard filtering issue.

I’d like to know if anyone else has this happen? did you find a fix? This is affecting other things, too. When I use Firefox, the DSL disconnect screws with the browser, and Firefox crashes. I have been going crazy looking for a fix on that, too, to no avail.

Any geeks out there have any suggestions?

I won’t be doing much dropping today, looks like. The widgets are not showing up on a good 75% of the blogs I visit. I reload, reload, reload… nothing. The sun is shining, I have laundry to do… no dropping today! Sorry. I really do enjoy dropping. Maybe later.

How is it that I am not a top-dropper for those whose blogs I drop on every day? I mean, I drop once a day, how can I drop more than that? I am still not a top dropper for too many people (or, I am everyone’s next best secret!). And in some cases, not only do I drop once a day, I drop two or three times a day because I drop from my other blogs (I have four on Entrecards). Hmm.

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

OK, to make something perfectly clear– the following is not a criticism!!! It’s an observation. :)

I was dropping Entrecards and visited the entertaining Geek Mom Mashup blog. She has an interesting post about a Japanese-invented gadget (actually, they are stickers that you place on the toilet) that encourages proper “aim” for kids who use the toilet. A common complaint among moms is that the kids whizz all over the place. Yeah, I have kids and I remember those potty-training years, and all I can say is THANK GOD THAT’S OVER. lol. Besides childbirth, potty-training is the worst!

Anyway, I was absolutely stunned at the idea of stickers. Are stickers and such things really necessary?! Back in the old days, a swift little swat on the kid’s backside, or forcing the child to clean up after himself (*GASP*), was enough to solve the problem! What is this new fad where mothers are resigned to be their child’s slave? There is no way on God’s good earth that I would ever spend our hard-earned money on toilet stickers because the durn kid is too lazy to aim correctly! No wonder the youth walk around like they are God’s gift to earth!

Disclaimer *sigh* This post is not intended to criticise, disseminate, or otherwise offend Geek Mom or her devoted readers, or the Japanese, or Moms Against Spanking Kids (MASK), or anyone who happens to use said toilet stickers, or anyone who to this day still cannot aim. However, I am very comfortable offending youth who walk around like they are God’s gift to earth and to their parents who encourage that. :D

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*