Saturdays File Delivery Blues

Last Updated on Tuesday, 06 April 2010 08:11

Folks, The Hack had a HUGE sale day Saturday, April 3, 2010 and it continued into the early hours of Easter Sunday. A handful of people who purchased downloads were unable to get them. Rest assured, even though I drunk Herculean amounts of liquor Saturday night, I was up at 5 am to write a chapter and noted the emails. Let me say from the start, none of ya was bitchin' at me, not a single one—and I appreciate it. It goes to prove that you rubes who enjoy the Hack's stories are sensitive, intelligent, and damned good looking.

Anyway, I quickly discerned, despite a hangover that would strain a sumo wrestler's belt, that something was wrong. The company I use to deliver files is top notch, and I will recommend them to anyone. But, the volume of sales came at a time when they were instituting new upgrades to their system. (see below) There were so many of ya downloading at once, the system belched, and nothing worked. So, I have installed and tested a redundant delivery system for use in the event of catastrophic failure. HAR! Everything (four-gigs worth of files) is staged for delivery on another secure server so I can leap into action (even while shitfaced) and make sure you get your download links.

I think you will see vast speed improvements in your downloads; what took 25 minutes should shrink to 20 minutes or less. It's a symptom of growing pains as more of you people lower your literary standards to laugh at my work. And believe me, there's more coming. So, I want to apologize publicly to those five folks who had to wait for me to upload, stage, and deliver links from a new server. I now have the infrastructure in place, and we should see no more problems. PLUS! take a look at the neat upgrades my third-party delivery pipeline have installed.

Server Infrastructure Upgrades: Gigabit Connectivity, Dedicated Asset Servers, Automatic Failover

We are pleased to announce several improvements to our infrastructure to accommodate recent growth and to improve service quality for all customers.

In addition to overall performance improvement, these upgrades are especially designed to facilitate large file uploads (500-1000MB in size) and greatly increase the number of users who can download files simultaneously.

Below is a list of some of the improvements:

Dedicated asset servers which are streamlined to handle files of all sizes, both during uploads and downloads.
Upgraded to full Gigabit connections (1000 megabit). With home Internet connections approaching 25 megabits per second, we don’t want to ever be the bottleneck on download or upload speed.
An automatic failover system where a single server can temporarily take over all responsibilities in the event that any other server is unavailable.

In layman's terms, you WILL get your stuff faster. Never let it be said The Hack, even though an alcoholic of epic proportions, does not take care of his buddies!

Now, when you buy off me, it's my responsibility—no matter whose responsibility it really is. No passing the buck. So any burps are my fault, and I personally take care of it. And no, I'm not absolving the company I use of responsibility because I need them, they can suck wind out of my ass. You know I don't care who the frig I piss off. They did a great job, delivered a shitload of files. But, I learned a lesson; always have a backup system. It took 12 hours to upload and stage that four gigs of content on another server. It's done. I'm ready. Bring on the Zombie Outbreak. HAR!

Thanks for making Saturday, April 3rd, a record breaking sales day, and thanks for sharing a laugh or twelve with me.

Greg

Now, maybe I can get back to writing stuff.

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