Servers Moving Friday night 9pm

Thanks Mike, it does. We have ours ending 8:00PM - 11:00PM, EASTERN TIME, so I think with the time difference they will be fine.

Ditto to Bobmill's Comment to everyone with Auctiva!

Beer and wings are on me Saturday..ok?

Let's get this rockin!
Donna

I think it would make a little more sense to start at 2am PST though my logic being that prime time (for me anyway) would be 8pm PST until 10pm PST. I figure it this way I live on the east coast and schedule my listings to start at 11pm EST thats 8PM PST. THe reason I do that is the people on the east coast are probably willing to stay up until 11 or 12 and the people on the west coast are already home from work done with dinner and off to ebay to spend their money. I don't know how well early morning sales between 2am and 6am but mis you started at 2am PST thats 5am EST and most people are either sleeping or getting ready for work who has time to be bidding anyway. You might want to consider that. I am only making the suggestion because afterall it is our listings that you are affecting.

It is not all about you. this is much bigger then just you so lay off and let them do thier job. Once done it will be better for all of us!

where did i say its about me? I am making a suggestion whats the problem?

what no one is allowed to think here?

Elfin, you are allowed to think but just realize that Jeff and crew have been thinking about this for weeks.

I used to be in IT and a move of this size is not something for any company to be looking forward to. The amount of work involved is atrocious. And the possibilities of problems is endless.

Like Jeff said, just moving a server that has been running non-stop for 12 months is asking for trouble, not to mention the parts that can get shaken loose in transport and the trouble-shooting that unforseen problems can entail.

If they were to wait until 2 AM PST and then hit a glitch, we could see auctions down until 2 pm. That would not be a good thing on a Sat.

As for all the whiners, if you think you are having to work overtime due to the site problems, imagine what Jeff and crew are doing to bring us better service. I promise you , their work load is considerably greater at this time.

Auctiva is a great site. I think they are providing a terrific community service. And there ARE other auction host providers out there who will gladly take your money for their services.

For the people who want to complain about the level of service here, please try some of the other image hosting sites.

I appreciate this website a lot and have made some suggestions in the past that seem to have been put in place. I am looking forward to seeing how things work over the weekend. But like you say "Jeff and crew have been thinking about this for weeks" Then why not email us weeks in advance and say we are moving the servers on march 3rd if you don't want to experience interruptions or image outages that could result in loss of bids on your auctions ending that day plese don't schedule listings to end on this date." It's cut and dry. I don't think this is bad I just think it's bad planning and to have someone who calls himself the CEO of the company tell us to go elsewhere that makes me think it's all about him and not about us the people who are using the site.

The level of service here has been great I send a suggestion it gets put in place, I have a problem it's dealt with quickly. I don't have a problem with that at all. When this is all over will I still be here you betq I will. BUt like I said how would you or Jeff & Crew feel for one thing if you took the day off thinking "ok they will make the move and tomorrow will be a better day" only to find now you wasted a day and tomorrow isn't looking any better. Also How would Jeff and crew feel it "The New Datacenter" decided we need to move our servers around so we'll just take everyone offline to do that but we don't have to give any notice. I don't get to come on these boards very often and yes I see that it is posted at the top of this thread if you click that link but what is it so hard after they posted that notice to click Ctrl C (copy) then open their email address books and click Ctrl A (thats select all) paste the message in the email and send it. Then we all would have known about the move on 2/26. Plain simple nothing to cry about. I am not whinning too much and I am really not that upset and it sucks that I have to experss myself like this because I can come off as being angry and so can others.

Oh well I am off to scan images. Good Luck tonight there Jazzy Jeff Mikey Mike & and the funky bunch. And let me tell you after these guys work all night they sure are FUNKY.

quote:

Originally posted by Auctiva Mike D.:
agemortwo,

The images will most likely be down Friday night from 9 PM PST to about 2-3 AM PST, so if you have listings ending during that time period, you may want to add an image or two through eBay's "Revise Item" form.

I hope this helps=)

-Mike

Mike or any of the Auctiva support team - To add pictures thru the "revise item" link on ebay in our listings will cost me money. I have over 60 listings, is Auctiva going to credit my account for this?

I have a suggestion that I really can't post here probably. And no it doesn't involve curse words. It will be a pain in the butt to do but it can be done.

email me auctiva@astoriabooks.com

I am not affiliated with auctiva in anyway shape or form I have several different email address to deretmine where my mail is coming from.

OK well here is my suggestion. Go to www.sparedollar.com open a 30 free trial account. Then make a listing profile and select a pre-designed template that you like or look in the community's template forum and find the template warehouse they have custom templates stored there also. They have similar ones that auctiva has. Upload the images that you want to use to sparedollar. Open a new ad copy and paste the title and description from auctive to sparedollar and fill in any information that you want to use. once you have done that scroll down to the bottom of the page, you will see a button that says "preview" click that button. The ad will open up and you will see what it will looks like on ebay. right click and the the drop down window will open select "view source" the HTML code will open. Copy that code and paste it into ebay's revise your item in description area, and then save it. Make sure that you clear auctiva's code from the description. Your images and description will be working off sparedollar and will not be affected by auctiva's servers being down. It's tricky and sneaky but it will save you from being down while auctiva is. I am considering it. I have an account over there that I dont use but i might have to do that also.

I cannot believe that anyone would spend the amount of time its going to take to join SD, then go thru all that rigmarole for 60(or who knows how many) listings, when our Auctiva is only planning to be down for 12 hours (we fervently hope!) After reading all your comments, my advice to you is "Grow UP!".

quote:

Originally posted by Cindys Treasures:
Thanks Jeff, for all your hard work that you and your staff do, to make this a great service to us for FREE... don't let the people that nag get to you. Have a great day, and looking forward to the new transaction. Cynthia

Yep, ditto for me. Hang in there.

quote:

Originally posted by Mikebiker:
Are we going to lose our pictures and auctions that we currently have running? If so how long. many of us end auctions on Sunday. Will they be up and running the.
Thanks, Mike

During the move, if the server your images are on gets unplugged and physically moved to the new datacenter, the images will not be available until that machine goes back on line. If everything goes as planned, the images should be back up within a few hours.
They are making the move during the absolute deadest time during the week, everyone should be up Saturday morning with everything intact.
The issues like DNS, nameservers and the like are already handled in advance and will go into effect very quickly once your server is connected to the network again.
I say list away, the pictures will only be out for a short while.

quote:

Originally posted by efilnikcufecin:
OK well here is my suggestion. Go to www.sparedollar.com open a 30 free trial account. Then make a listing profile and select a pre-designed template that you like or look in the community's template forum and find the template warehouse they have custom templates stored there also. They have similar ones that auctiva has. Upload the images that you want to use to sparedollar. Open a new ad copy and paste the title and description from auctive to sparedollar and fill in any information that you want to use. once you have done that scroll down to the bottom of the page, you will see a button that says "preview" click that button. The ad will open up and you will see what it will looks like on ebay. right click and the the drop down window will open select "view source" the HTML code will open. Copy that code and paste it into ebay's revise your item in description area, and then save it. Make sure that you clear auctiva's code from the description. Your images and description will be working off sparedollar and will not be affected by auctiva's servers being down. It's tricky and sneaky but it will save you from being down while auctiva is. I am considering it. I have an account over there that I dont use but i might have to do that also.

Use your web site space.

I have unlimited storage.

You'll be good to go and have a backup at the same time.

Best of luck to everyone!
This site is working so sweet today.
Donna

quote:

Originally posted by Roamer:
I cannot believe that anyone would spend the amount of time its going to take to join SD, then go thru all that rigmarole for 60(or who knows how many) listings, when our Auctiva is only planning to be down for 12 hours (we fervently hope!) After reading all your comments, my advice to you is "Grow UP!".

That depends if I had listings ending tonight after midnight you bet i would. I get almost 90% last minute bids. It would take about 2 mins to set up an account and about 1 min per listing so what wasting an hour of my time isn't worth it to make $375 bucks rather than $75 that I have bid on right now?

quote:

After reading all your comments, my advice to you is "Grow UP!".

Do you have a clue about how an ebay business runs? I am not sitting on my ass making extra money part time. NO PICS = NO BIDS. NO BIDS=NO Money. I don't like wasting a day listing only to have images shut off at the time that my listings are ending. I depend on this for my livelyhood and what you may thgink of is not being grown up I think of as I need this site to be working and the staff to be professional. Shutting down the servers and not notifying all users through email is not quite professional. If you ask me. I don't know what you sell opr how much but I am very successful and don't like losing sales because auctiva decides to shut the servers then can't make up their mind to do it today or tomorrow. Like I said I took yesterday off thinking this would all be done today and i'd be working worry free. It's that simple. If your boss told you "next week we are going to be off on thursday and your not getting paid" and you take the day off and then calls you and says "well we really didn't get around to it today so we are closed tomorrow and you have another day off with no pay." how would you feel? This is a business for me not a hobby.

Besides that I have no complaints sow WTF is your problem with me? That siad I have no listings ending tonight anyway.

I think I'm going to take my chances here with the team of Auctiva. I'm not going to spend $.35 (or whatever it is) on each auction adding a picture through ebay. I really like it here just worried about last minute bidders and not being able to view pictures BUT if they do all of this transferring in the deadest times (very early am) then I think I'll be ok. My auctions are due to end until around 8 and 11 am (cst time). If I'm reading everything right then my listings will be fully viewable by then.

IF I was told by Auctiva that they were going to do this I would not have listed last week. That is one thing that does upset me, is that we did not get any type of warning.

Well I guess I have a free weekend. Going out tonight and having a few margarita's. Jeff, Mike, & entire Auctiva team - I'll have a few for you and cheers for the hard work.

Hey How's your antique glass???

Here's hoping all goes well tonight, I have complete faith in you guys

I'm off to the Strawberry Festival in Plant City this weekend and I'm sure I'll return to a new and improved Auctiva!

Keep up the good work guys


Skips away singing "Strawberry shoortcake cream on top . . ."

BTW - www.Vrane.com can bulk add anything to all your listings at once if you wish, or just a select few.

Anyway my point is that it will take 60 seconds to add a "blurb" about the images being down to all your auctions if you want.

Plain and simple

Edited to add this direct link: http://www.vrane.com/pa.html

Thanks, wahm922. I did it and it worked like a charm. And I would just like to say to efilnikcufecin that I understand your anxiety about losing business, but I would really like to know if you purchase any insurance thru auctiva?

No I don't. I usually don't use insurance it's very rare. I will insure it if I am asked. I don't charge handling either. Priority mail flat rate envelopes cost 4.05 and that is what I charge. Want to combine up to 6 mags thats cool no extra charge. Priority mail flat rate box I charge 8.10 for as many will fit in the box. Of course I have no no suplies to buy either though. I get all my supplies from the PO, and use carrier pick up so I don't even have to leave the house. and I don't either. Thats the sad part .Well just to pick up payments at the PO and go to the bank. I haven't had the oppertunity to use the insurance yet.

Let me add that I do use USPS insurance when needed because I don't want my customers to have to deal with auctiva or any other company than the post office if there is a problem. I haven't looked into auctiva insurance because it hasn't come up yet.

Moonandstarman,

No, Auctiva would not credit your account for image fees to eBay.

-Mike

quote:

efilnikcufecin

I've decided to get on the insurance bandwagon because it seems that money may be at the root of auctiva's problems. Maybe if more people used what they sell (of course not everyone sells items that need it)they could provide better service. I have started requiring insurance on every item, which no one has complained about yet. Like I've said elsewhere I've had problems buying the insurance from auctiva because they cannot seem to update my sales files quickly enough, if at all, but am hopeful after the move they'll be able to fix that. It seems like it ought to be a priority. Anyway it seems wrong to complain that a free service (the value of which easily translates into real dollars) is costing you money. If we support them monetarily, then we will be justified in asking for better service.

Personally I think it would be worth 8.95 a month for auctiva just the way it is. They have come a long way. I have no real complaints other than the fact that they didn't contact us last week. I have not had a problem with usps yet and I have mailed over 5000 packages. I have customers that spend $600 a week sometimes.