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6:47 AM
@waffles isn't happy about it either
we are following up with them though
 
 
5 hours later…
11:48 AM
@Nick, I believe that Waffles verified last time that it was a connection pool issue, that is, the code was the problem.
Not to say that Azure didn't make it nearly impossible for him to figure that out.
 
ah gotcha
 
I say this partially because it's no secret that I'm fairly pro MS. But specifically because I used to work on Maintenance and Support, and the worst thing is when you have back-seat coders misdiagnosing the problem.
 
For me it's not just waffles, I have co-workers with azure uptime (simple html hosting as a time) that came nowhere near the SLA...they pulled out and went elsewhere
the problem was getting absolutely no explanation from MS and took over a week to get answers to any support requests, not sure if they're having trouble getting the support up to the level it needs since they're just starting out or what....but you couldn't run a commerce site on there a while back, hopefully it's improved now
 
Yeah, Azure's kind of terrible, but I'd say one of the biggest problems is that they have so little support for it, that even when it's not their fault, it still seems like it.
 
12:11 PM
the latest is this:
the theory is that I will somehow be able to open a ticket with MS ... personally I have recommended multiple times to move of Azure ...
I just got another crash today and was able to get a bit more diagnostics using IntelliTrace

What I am seeing:

1. The "server busy" state is triggered by a barrage of OData calls (they trigger a bunch of underlying connections to SQL Azure)
2. We already have a throttle in place that stops clients from performing more than 1 request a second
3. Memory seems fine when Azure flips this to busy
4. There are a series of SqlExceptions preceding the fault: "The client was unable to establish a connections because of an error during connection intialization"
 
Did you guys seek out Azure, or did you get sold by an MS salesperson?
If it was a salesguy, contact him or her directly and tell them that you're packing your stuff and leaving if this doesn't get escalated or resolved.
 
we didn't seek it, MS contacted us saying here is a free service for you ... and we jumped on the offer
the theory is that MS are paying the bills here and in return we are showing off Azure
 
@waffles, well you are showing it off, but I guess not in quite the way they (or you) were hoping :)
 
@waffles: Well, that's perfect then. SO is the exact target market they want. Because it is filled with both the coders and the admins who will choose Azure IF given a reason.
So you have to lay in more pressure about the fact that even if you don't leave, the downtime and lack of response will be noted by all their possible clients.
 
well, I hope I manage to get an official ticket opened on this ... I went to the support portal today and was afraid, so Ill leave that till tomorrow. too many buttons and options
 
12:24 PM
lol... but they're all such pretty buttons
 
seriously ... look here microsoft.com/windowsazure/support
now ... how do you open a ticket ... its a maze of links
also I know what happens in level one support, they basically try to convince you that its your fault and you have no idea what you are doing, stuff is pretty sad till it escalates up the chain
This product may not have all the support options that are available online.
To obtain support, choose one of the following options:
Call (800) 936-5700 for more help. ... just shoot me
 
Yeah that's why I recommend contacting your human vendor and having THEM navigate the crap.
 
my human vendor is Scott Hanselman ... he has no time :)
 
Ah... yes. He's not a regular guy.
 
@waffles I think you're suppose to log in with the button on the right
 
12:38 PM
Doesn't @JeffAtwood have a red telephone for phoning Steve Balmer directly? :)
 
@benjol :) sure ... I should have thought of that
 
He ought to - SO has got to be the largest concentration of "developers, developers, developers" there is.
 
Why would he want a red telephone for Balmer? Surely if you wanted a red telephone to anyone it'd be Scott Guthrie?
 
No, I'd still want mine to be the Kremlin.
 
Hmm... SO rep doesn't count here then? I'm feeling a tad noobish - What's the point of chat anyway?
 
12:47 PM
@GenericTypeTea, chatting :) Beyond that, nobody really knows yet...
 
@generic The purpose of chat is to be able to continue discussion off of an SO (MSO) thread.
And possibly to fulfill some "social need" that people have. People who enjoy the company of others, that is.
 
@devinb Give the number of people in the chat I don't think there are that many of them...
 
@balpha wasn't the point of chat ... unicorns?
 
Yes, unicorns; but no waffles -- sorry, Sam
 
:)
 
12:53 PM
Anyone tackling anything puzzling or just down-right bad at the moment...? I'm attempting to refactor a 200 line method that a co-dev has butchered. (It only used to be 10 lines until a week ago.)
 
Finally got my company-approved work gear. Had to spend some time at the customs office, but got my t-shirts in the end
 
I'm still wondering whether the IE4 in this question is a typo
1
Q: Quick Way to Convert Existing CSS Layout to IE4 Friendly?

inaThe built-in WebBrowser Control in Visual Studio apparently only supports up to IE4. When wrapping your typical jQuery/jQuery-UI, some layout errors abound. Is there an easy way to convert the webpage's layout to IE4 friendly (I'd imagine, table-structure rather than div-based etc)?

It really is puzzling
 
probably means HTML4
 
I didn't know css even existed when ie4 was released ...
 
I seriously need to upgrade this app to .Net4.0. I hate anon delegates in lists:
List<FilterEntity> recipeFilters = this.CurrentFilters.FindAll(delegate(FilterEntity f) { return f.FilterType == RP_FilterType.Recipe; });
 
12:56 PM
afternoon
 
It sure is. A good one too.
 
@generictypetea you get nice lambda syntax in c# 3.0 anyway ...
 
I know. But why go to 3 when I can go to 4 :)?
 
ROFL at Marc's countdown display for chat room timeout
the commit message reads "Jack Bauer"
 
can you put this room on timeout for 10 secs ?
 
12:58 PM
everyone have fresh JavaScript?
 
well I just shift refreshed
 
you wouldn't see it, @waffles -- you're mod
 
:( I should have logged in as eggs
 
you'll see it if you're logged out
 
ok im logged out in my cough ie window
looking now
 
1:02 PM
okay, here we go
This room was placed in timeout for 15 seconds; the topic of this room is "Here we have our fill of bread and wine, and then tell of tales of other times we've had our fill of bread and wine." - conversation should be limited to that topic.
 
nice ... but it was cropped off in ie :(
I could see half of it though and I like the effect :)
 
Hmm, is it me or is there a bug with double nested bulleted lists? (superuser.com/questions/176367/openid-whats-the-point/…)
 
ul p + ul {
  margin-top: -1em;
}
 
Isn't there supposed to be an empty rule after each item in the second level bulleted list?
It looks weird this way. :-(
 
It's because there's a p inside each li
 
1:14 PM
Uh well... Fixed it by moving them one level up.
 
Jack Bauer fixed for IE7, @waffles
 
@balpha Marc also made a Bauer reference earlier today. I was clearly not around when this particular joke wass explained. What's going on?
 
lol hello folks
 
@devinb see Jeff's comment here:
1
A: Chat Timeout - Feedback

balphaThe only thing I did was taking a suggested (and only partially implemented) feature and simulated it with the currently available tools: I set the room to "read-only" for a minute and posted the message asking to move the non-chat related discussion out of the chat feedback room. That's precis...

 
Oh lord. Did you at least get the man his pony?
 
1:28 PM
Not yet -- but unicornify is animatable, and the horn can easily be lost. So I could :)
 
what's unicornify?
 
BLASPHEMER!
 
lulz
 
have you been living under a rock? :)
 
Unicornify! - Discuss your favorite unicorn avatar creating service
 
1:29 PM
180
Q: My God—it's full of unicorns!

balphaBased on this comment, I have started building a unicorn avatar maker. It's still quite ugly, and the results aren't different enough yet, but this is what it looks like so far: Question list / Joel's profile (removed the images from here to make this thing a little shorter). Is this just way t...

 
i've no idea about this business
 
Also, balpha, as creator, owner, inventor, primary-stakeholder, CEO and President of Unicornify, should be able to answer any of your questions
 
ohhh!
 
This is brilliant... no more ugly generic gravatars!
 
1:34 PM
this rocks beyond belief!
 
Just tried generating mine for the first time, nice :)
 
My unicorn is cool
 
put a "!" in front of it
then it gets displayed as an image
 
I like ponies.
 
never said something like that
goes to clear history out of database
 
1:40 PM
The eraser is mightier than the pen
 
You've NEVER said that you like ponies? You're a monster!
 
The only thing better could be a LOLcats avatar generator
 
@devinb don't make me go there -- the 2-min edit window doesn't hold for mods ;)
 
@balpha. I acquiesce. Please allow me to keep my head.
Mods don't have 'edit others' abilities though, correct? But you CAN delete my post-comment entirely.
?
 
1:47 PM
yes, mods do have 'edit others' abilities
just like on SO
 
not for nothing that 'mods' rhymes with 'gods' :)
 
no, it doesn't
mods is short, goooods is long
 
It's like Matrix, they can go back in time and change your mind :)
 
@benjol no one can change MY mind about how great, amazing and all-powerful balpha is.
believe you that!
 
@devinb, wow, it's working even better on you, he's editing your comments before you type them!
 
1:54 PM
I'm speechless. I'm in such awe.
 
but that's constrained to Marc and me -- regular mods can't do that
 
I can't tell which parts are me anymore.
Define "marc and me" is that SE employees? or SE Chat SuperAdmins?
and by mods you mean "room owners"
 
SE Chat SuperAdmins
when developing, you sometimes need to impersonate users
 
you're clearly not a true developer if you can identify with a lowly "user".
oh wait. "impersonate"
that's different.
 
@balpha (rationalises evil powers - "it's for your own good, I tell you")
 
1:56 PM
Muahahaha
 
reminds me of the BOFH series
 
 
1 hour later…
3:07 PM
Hi
 
and hi to you
 
Howdy
 
who said that?
 
Wore my SO t-shirt to work today for the fist time :)
 
me too!
 
3:11 PM
@balpha: is anyone aware of SO at yours? :)
 
Why did Neil quit?
 
@chacha exhaustion
 
did he quit just Meta or SO too?
 
He quit everything.
 
O wells..
 
3:21 PM
'tis a shame. I very much enjoyed reading some of his C++ answers.
 
Yeah, I'm frustrated that he deleted his account. It's a pretty strong action to take.
 
Did people hate the guy or what?
 
No one worth mentioning
he could be abrasive, and I certainly disagreed with him at times, but he participated diligently in the site and that makes up for a lot
 
@spouls He was certainly blunt, but everyone respected that he was a serious expert his field (C++). I'm frustrated he left because clearly it got to be so bad that he felt he could NEVER return.
And we didn't do anything to stop/help it.
We sympathized...
 
I guess I missed out on the drama. Sounds like a passionate type.
 
3:29 PM
not especially
he had his opinions, and stated them
 
Agreed.
 
3:51 PM
anyone ?
 
anyone what? what are you selling?
 
who said that?
 
I'm selling love and scones :P
 
what?
WHAT
runs away screaming
 
It's been my experience that love and scones are best sold separately
 
3:52 PM
cheers people. so how is this chat thingie going ?
 
utter silence
going pretty well, obviously
 
silence, is a heavy stone
I fight the world, and take all they can giveee
 
at least, with none talking, noone's complaining either :)
 
right
 
Why would I ever complain? ;)
 
3:59 PM
I have complaints.
 
like ?
 
I'm against famine and war.
I'd also like to be Miss Universe.
 
@devinb Well that reminds me of
You can be that guy !
 
logged in twice. let's see what happens
ooh... ok
 
you can log in anytime you like
but you can never leave
 
4:07 PM
but you can never logout
welcome to the tavern chatroom
such a lovely place
 
I guess something like "muhahahahaha" comes after ?
 
appropriate, I'd say
i'm so looking forward for RPG to open
 
I'm looking forward the "Not Programming Related", so that all subjective question gets off Stack Overflow.
 
I sense it coming in six weeks.
 
I'd say at max 8 weeks
 
4:12 PM
likely
 
I didn't say that because of the meme.
After six weeks, all the people who didn't fully participate in Web Apps (like me) will get a commitment token back.
 
ah right
 
Also... gaming? I don't remember exactly which beta came first/second/third.
 
they are in order on Area51
Gaming is #2
Prowebmaster is #3
 
what happens at evaluation ?
 
4:44 PM
So much fun...25 mins of waiting for 60 seconds of work. Gotta love waiting in queue. :)
 
"Queue" is a great word.
 
I like it. Esp the debate over the proper spelling.
 
1
Q: Deleted Questions Archive

Lance RobertsSince the Team keeps deleting questions with lots of discussion both relevant and/or historical, and we can't search on deleted questions, and they lock some of them so that they cannot be undeleted, I'm putting this question out, just for links to be posted, so that those 10ks who want to find t...

 
@holyvier That was earth shatteringly incredible.
 
@lanceroberts i rather expect it'll be deleted...
 
4:49 PM
Thank for your that.
 
@shog9 Quickly, then; add it to the Deleted Questions Archive!
 
@populardemand snicker
 
@shog9 And once again, I end up wanting to get lunch by showing up on chat.
 
@populardemand milky way
 
@devinb no problem, that producer is awesome
 
4:52 PM
I don't watch a lot of indie stuff.
 
yep, I expect so too, but I had to give it a try, next attempt will be to store them in my profile
It's so frustrating to see all of the historical stuff deleted and the big discussions.
2
 
You could always archive the whole discussion to your own site; this seems equivalent to wikidumper.blogspot.com for Wikipedia
 
@lanceroberts Agreed. There's a reason I rarely delete anything.
 
@michaelmrozek I'm scared of clicking on that link.
 
Actually @Shog9 that's a great idea, then I only have to store the link to the Archive question in my profile, and I'll be able to find the others.
What was the link for Cletus' farewell question?
 
4:55 PM
I delete stuff all the time. But then again, I prefer not to delete important discussions.
Also, Jeff shouldn't attempt to look like he's silencing opposition.
2
although, at the moment it's not like we can rise up against him.
 
@lanceroberts There's something in his meta profile; is that what you're talking about? I don't think I ever saw a post
 
oh, there was a post
 
I miss all the fun stuff not having 10k on meta
 
yeah, you do
 
Goodness, getting 10k on meta will take me forever.
 
4:58 PM
how do you find deleted posts? even if you have their titles.
 
unless there is a link somewhere, it's pretty hard
 
... Cletus is gone?
 
@devinb I don't know if there is a good way, but people tend to link to them a lot in other meta posts
 
@populardemand from Meta
 
long gone
 
4:59 PM
@populardemand He gave up on meta a while ago
 
@populardemand (except when he's not)
 
we mentioned it last week, but search doesn't work on chat yet
 

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