Neatorama Update – SoftLayer Issue and Mystery Sale

By Alex in Neatorama Exclusives on Jul 29, 2009 at 1:15 am

Neatorama Server Issues
Late last night (two nights ago for our readers in the East Coast), our data center and hosting service SoftLayer was hit with a massive distributed denial-of-service attack. The attack was aimed at their DNS service, which caused many websites hosted at the company – including neatorama.com – to fail to resolve.

For those who don’t know, DNS servers (or name servers) translate domain name (like neatorama.com) into IP address of the website’s server. Without it, your browser wouldn’t "know" where to contact the website’s server.

The DDoS attack caused browser errors for some, but not all of you who try to visit the blog. I had trouble visiting the blog all night yesterday from home (with Comcast cable Internet) and all day today at work (with AT&T DSL). Anyways, the issue was finally resolved late today afternoon.

Softlayer is one of the largest data centers in the world (with over 21,000 servers). It’s DNS servers use anycasting, so I couldn’t begin to imagine what kind of DDos would bring them down for so long.

Mystery Sale – Quickie Update
We’ve shipped out about 3/4 of all orders – if you haven’t received yours
yet, please be patient! It’s on its way! (Again, our thanks for participating in the latest Mystery Sale). We’ll do another update after we’ve completed shipping all of the orders.


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  1. The Manticore
    Jul 29th, 2009 at 2:08 am

    I wondered if it was just me…thanks for the update!!

  2. nielo
    Jul 29th, 2009 at 2:24 am

    Blah blah blah… nerd talk… blah blah… more nerd talk… blah blah blah… nerd speak… nerd talk… blah blah blah!!!

  3. Alex
    Jul 29th, 2009 at 3:00 am

    … and yet you read this blog …

  4. nolly
    Jul 29th, 2009 at 8:25 am

    Glad you’re back up and running!

  5. carpwoman
    Jul 29th, 2009 at 8:27 am

    …and take the time to comment.

  6. edvim
    Jul 29th, 2009 at 9:40 am

    >> Blah blah blah… nerd talk…

    So someone at Neatorama not only wrote up a short summary explaining what happened yesterday (thanks for that by the way), but also took the trouble to add a simple explanation in detail for the curious — a little disappointing someone still found it daunting enough to mock it.

  7. Jaycatt
    Jul 29th, 2009 at 12:44 pm

    I just want to find out what the mystery sale things were this year, so I can decide if I should kick myself or not for skipping it this time around ;)

  8. naugahyde elvis
    Jul 29th, 2009 at 2:44 pm

    Jaycatt, don’t kick yourself… you want a Barack Obama rubber duck? it’s extra creepy!

  9. keith hanson
    Jul 29th, 2009 at 2:48 pm

    Hah! I wish that I’d gotten a Barack Duck. I got a Beethoven ducky, and that little duck just stares at me with a smirk.

  10. Staxeon
    Jul 29th, 2009 at 6:07 pm

    Hrmm, Barack O’Ducky might be cute. I got a Felix the Cat Ducky, it has no duck bill or anything just Felix’s torso on an innertube. Looks like a Felix with child-bearing hips.

  11. Sarah C
    Jul 29th, 2009 at 9:16 pm

    I got Uncle Sam. Beethoven sounds awesome.

  12. naugahyde elvis
    Jul 29th, 2009 at 11:18 pm

    oducky has got a brown bill so it looks more like “birth-defect obama”.

    /I’m trademarking that name, you can’t have it
    //crap, my Fark is showing isn’t it?

  13. quinnnchick
    Jul 30th, 2009 at 11:03 am

    just a little bit elvis

  14. Pepper Jack
    Jul 30th, 2009 at 1:43 pm

    Police celebriduck. Anyone with a Barackduck wanna put them in a tub of beer and see who wins?

  15. conanismyidol
    Jul 30th, 2009 at 3:22 pm

    I got a police duck. There is no way it’s worth $10. Seriously feeling ripped off. lol

  16. Samina
    Jul 31st, 2009 at 5:51 pm

    Yeah, first and LAST time I sign up for one of those mystery giveaways. I’m very disappointed – worst $10 I’ve spent in a long time.

  17. Cordelia
    Jul 31st, 2009 at 7:26 pm

    I love the site but I have to agree about feeling ripped off. And it wasn’t just $10. I’ve wasted $15 after S&H for a rubber duck I wouldn’t even regift so am planning to toss in the garbage. Even if I had just gotten a t-shirt at least that’s something I could *use.* I expected the high-end items would be a longshot, that’s the fun of it being a mystery sale, but seriously? A cheap rubber duck?? This will be the first and last Mystery Sale for me, Neatorama.

  18. silentluciditi
    Aug 3rd, 2009 at 10:13 pm

    Just received our items- I got a Wizard of Oz Scarecrow Celebriduck (great since I collect rubber duckies) and my boyfriend received a ‘perpetual motion’ top which is driving the cats nuts. I wish I’d gotten the Felix ducky (really loved the Pink panther ducky on the celebriducks site, and felix was also on my list), but, we’re both happy with our items. :)


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