CartBuzz Reviews of Online Shopping Sites

Server Issue Revelations

2008-08-28T10:54:00.000-07:00

With the recent (actually, current) problems with our web hosting, we've come to a few revelations that have made us feel better about some of the decisions we've made.

When we decided to start a CartBuzz blog, one of the first decisions we had to make was where we would have the blog. We can easily integrate it into the main CartBuzz site at www.cartbuzz.com or we can set it up at a major third-party site like Blogger (owned by Google). We decided to go with Blogger in order to separate our blogging content (which often is about technical stuff like this) from our regular content which involves actual website reviews. In the past day, we've come to realize that we've made the right decision. If our main site ever goes down, like right now, we'll still have another avenue to reach out to our visitors and let them know what's going on. This would not be the case if our blog was hosted on our server because of course, it would go down too.

Though there's always the possibility that Blogger could go down, the chances of that are slim, and the chances of both Blogger and our main site being down are even slighter.

We've also come to the conclusion that we need a backup for our email, hello@cartbuzz.com, which is handled by our web hosting company. It would be very frustrating to not be able to send or receive emails because of server issues and even more frustrating to not know how long those issues will last.

Some good is actually coming out of this whole mess. Who would have thunk? :)

The Server Saga Continues

2008-08-28T10:47:00.000-07:00

So I woke up this morning, checked the site and it loaded fine. Yay.

A few hours later, being as paranoid as I am, I checked again...

500 Internal Server Error

WHAT!!!

Usually, an internal server error occurs if there's some misconfiguration between the code and the database. I've accidentally done this in the past - it's amazing what a misplaced semi-colon can accomplish.

BUT! I haven't touched the site, or any of our other sites, since yesterday, and definitely not since the morning check when everything was A-OK, so what gives? It had to be related to the server being down last night, which we learned had to do with an Apache upgrade to the server software. Well obviously, something went wrong with the software.

After another bought of panicking and frustration, I found this message posted from our web host:

Hello, We are working to correct a misconfiguration in the cpanel config files, which caused MySQL issues on your server. Currently, both MySQL and Apache are being reconfigured on the server. Once your server is updated and the issue resolved, we will post a Network status update to indicate this has happened. You may check the current status for this server at any time in CAP via https://account.lunarpages.com/ with your cPanel username and password, then by clicking the Network Status icon. Thank you for your patience and we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. If you have any issues with your site, please contact support@lunarpages.com Lunarpages System Admin Team

Just great. No ETA. Is this going to be a 5 minute thing? An all day thing? The waiting continues.

Server Down!

2008-08-28T00:38:00.001-07:00

We were really looking forward to adding a new section today where we spotlight a particular shopping website on a rotating basis. It would be something along the line of "Store of the Week" or "Shop of the Month" etc. However, it seems like the universe has different ideas, or at least, our web hosting company does.

Right now, www.cartbuzz.com is inaccessible. After some frantic phone calls, it turns out that the server box our website resides on is having issues and our web hosting company is working on it. Very frustrating, but the most aggravating part about is that there's nothing we can do but sit and wait.

Well, we all can just call it a night and actually go to sleep, but we already got ourselves in "the zone" for some hardcore design and coding tonight. That, plus a case of Red Bull, and we're thinking that we might just wait it out.

Utterly annoyed!

ShrinkTheWeb Saves the Day!

2008-08-26T21:11:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update to the previous post:

After some research, we've found several other websites that offered similar thumbnail preview servies. Of those, ShrinkTheWeb is the best fit for CartBuzz, and thank goodness! We were getting a bit worried that we'd have to change our entire site design.

Thank goodness for the internet!

websnapr no longer offering sizes M and L

2008-08-25T13:17:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed that the handy dandy screenshots on CartBuzz of our web finds have a "POWERED BY WEBSNAPR.COM" mark in the lower-right corner. websnapr is an excellent service that generates previews of a website so you can actually see what you're going to get. This saves you time so you can quickly gauge if the site you're going to is worth visiting or not.

Our category listings use a small-sized websnapr preview while our main CartBuzz website review page shows the medium-sized preview. Well, as of today, it seems that websnapr is no longer offering medium or large sizes as part of their free services.

Understandably, we're quite disappointed about this. We've contacted websnapr to see what options are available to continue using the M sizes. We feel that the larger previews were a great resource for CartBuzz visitors and if we cannot work something out with websnapr, we will definitely find an alternate solution.

Egads.

Back to School Sales

2008-08-25T12:31:00.000-07:00

Can you believe summer is almost over! Egads!

Well, if it's any consolation, one good thing about the end of summer is that it's time for back to school sales! Now, most of us haven't been in schools for a few ahem several years, but that doesn't mean we can't enjoy the savings brought on by this time of year. You don't have to be a student to join in on the deep discounts retailers are giving on numerous items, especially computers, bedding, furniture, luggage, decor, and clothing. Along with Thanksgiving and Christmas, the end of summer/back to school/Labor Day season is a great time for bargain hunters.

Make sure you check CartBuzz to find great shopping websites you don't know about and get in on special promotions and coupon codes.

CartBuzz Homepage Nearly Done

2008-08-22T15:58:00.001-07:00

So after many hours of coding and buckets of coffee, the CartBuzz home page is nearly done. Yay!

Some features to note:

There's a "Latest Finds" section that will show the two newest websites we've reviewed.
The "What's Buzzing" section will feature a special deal, sale, or coupon code we've stumbled up.

We're still debating how often to change the "What's Buzzing" feature. Also, is showing two enough for the "Latest Finds" or should we do more? Hmm...

It's been a lot of hard work, but it's also a lot of fun and we're looking forward to cheering all the great sites we're finding with others.

Shopping Categories

2008-08-22T00:49:00.000-07:00

We're quickly realizing how much careful thought is required when it comes to categorizing the stores we find. A lot of online shopping sites site many kinds of different items, especially the bigger retailers. Though a few are easy, such as a clothing retailer can be put into a handful of categories, others pose a slight problem. Take NewEgg for example, an electronics retailer that sells hundreds of different kinds of items from computers to digital cameras, camcorders, printers, cables, mp3 players, TVs, memory cards, and the list goes on.

We can't create a separate category for every single thing they sell. Our site would be a mess, slow-loading, and complicated to navigate. Yet we want to make sure that the buyer looking for something specific, such as a USB flash drive, can find it. Would a visitor to CartBuzz know to check in the Electronics or Computers category? Or should we make a separate Computers Accessories category?

Right now, we're sticking to major and popular items. We'll probably add, delete, and modify categories as we go along, but the point of CartBuzz it to make shopping online fun! We can't do that with a cluttered site.

The Top Online Stores You've Never Been To

2008-08-21T15:45:00.000-07:00

So... much... work... must... sleep...

But not yet! We're a bit overwhelmed by how many great online stores there are. There's so many that you and I and the great lot of us have not heard of. Why? Well, there's just billions and billions of webpages out there. The search engines can't possibly show them all, and how many of us actually sit through pages and pages of search results? Sadly, if the site doesn't show up in the top 10 or so of search engine results, we've probably missed out on it.

However, through great word-of-mouth, a strong local following, or repeat visitors, many great shopping websites stay in business, happily churning away even if they remain unknown to the vast majority of online shoppers.

Well it's time to give a voice to these cool, quirky and CartBuzz worthy stores! Some have a huge selection, or just a wonderful catalog of hard-to-find items. Others have kickass polices on returns, free shipping, and stellar customer service. Still some just have a very cool looking website and a fun shopping experience. Plus there are also those that we're sure you've heard of, but often overlook when shopping online. Sometimes the obvious choice is often missed, like buying directly from a big-name manufactuer's online store (yes, most have them!).

So hopefully, with a bucket of coffee, we'll be giving some attention to these terrific stores and help savvy shoppers have a little fun and save a lot of money when shopping online.

It's the internet - why settle when you can shop around?