

Reminder: 1/7/10 is SparkFun Free Day (get a free Arduino) - larrykubin
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/categories.php

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kellishaver
It's over now... I could never get the actual page to load, but the error
message was in the URL, saying Free Day has ended.

I made it to the final page of the order confirmation process with $72k left
to give away and could never get past it.

~~~
julsonl
Wasted my entire morning. Still contemplating on getting at least an Arduino
Starter Kit...

~~~
kellishaver
I'm going to get the starter kit, but since I have to pay for it, it's cheaper
from Hacktronics. They call it something else, but it looks to be the same
kit, or maybe better, for my purposes.

[http://www.hacktronics.com/Arduino/Arduino-Educational-
Learn...](http://www.hacktronics.com/Arduino/Arduino-Educational-Learning-
Kit/flypage.tpl.html)

I wanted "Programming Interactivity" as well, which is cheaper on Amazon.

~~~
Jach
I was going for that too, but wanted the "Making Things Talk" book (which is
also cheaper on Amazon). Getting the individual pieces for the kit on sparkfun
was also cheaper than getting the kit, and you could get a full size
breadboard too. Thanks for the find.

~~~
kellishaver
Hmm, I never thought to price them individually. I'd just assumed that the kit
would be cheaper. I wonder how many kits they sell based on that assumption?
Oh well. Even with shipping from hacktronics it was still $5 cheaper than
sparkfun's base price before shipping. I built radios and stuff as a kid, but
I've never done any micro-controller programming... should be fun. :)

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bajsejohannes
Well, this campaign certainly worked for me. I have filled my cart with over
$150 worth of electronics, and I'm already excited enough about it that I will
buy it whether I get the discount or not.

Added to that, this is the first time I've actually bought anything from
sparkfun, and browsing around the store, I realize that it's a lot better than
my previously preferred seller (although being on the 'wrong' side of the
Atlantic is a drawback).

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ErrantX
This is my Arduino shopping list, for anyone already with an Arduino: almost
exactly $100

Arduino Ethernet Shield $45.95

Arduino ProtoShield Kit $16.95

GPS Shield $16.95

Joystick Shield $4.95

microSD Shield $14.95

total: $99.75

(I realise I dont have a GPS unit for that shield or the joystick parts - but
they will be in a bin somewhere at work :))

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bajsejohannes
Seems they are going to have a hard time giving away $100,000. They have given
away $2,952 in 26 minutes. At that rate they will have given away $13k by the
end of their 2 hour limit.

Interesting from a game theory perspective: If everyone had cooperated to
select 1000 people to get it, the total winnings would be higher.

Edit: And if it wasn't obvious, the "slow" rate is caused by extremely slow
servers.

~~~
timmaah
The time limit was until 11pm.. so 14 hours not 2

~~~
bajsejohannes
Ah, thanks! I completely missed that; being a Norwegian AM/PM illiterate.

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mattmichielsen
I guess the $100,000 they're going to save by being down for the sale duration
will pay for some nice infrastructure upgrades.

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aarongough
Their servers are really taking a beating... They must be in panic mode at the
moment.

Methinks they probably should have invested in _way_ more caching in
preparation for this day...

------
mattmichielsen
Well, I was hoping to get some free parts for my RepRap project. Oh well, I
guess I'll just order them tomorrow.

------
covercash
A bit frustrating to get all the way to the final order page and then have the
site crap out...

~~~
assemble
You made it all the way to the final order page? After two hours I was able to
get a few items in my cart and have -almost- managed to create an account.

~~~
tudorachim
Wow, you actually need to create an account to order? I suppose there's no way
I'm getting through _that_ gauntlet before the $100k runs out.

edit: In case you want to create an account in parallel while you're waiting,
see <https://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/create_account.php>

~~~
shpxnvz
Not necessarily. Based on the running total ($1400 or so) it looks like only
14 people have managed to place an order so far.

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paulhart
Looks like SFE is going to have a fun customer experience situation on their
hands - how they deal with the collapse of their website will go a long way
towards burnishing (or burning) their "friendly neighbourhood electronics
supplier" brand.

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newhouseb
Quick, someone write a Chrome extension that alerts me with a really loud
sound if the page loads and refreshes until it successfully does so.

I'm tired, and I want to go back to sleep. Must. Get. Free. Stuff.

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yardie
I'm like a kid in a candystore on their site. So far the only thing I really
want is the Arduino starter kit
[http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_i...](http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=9284)
Everything else are parts, supplies, and replacement tools. I haven't done
hardware development since college, so I'm hoping my surgeon-like skills at
wielding a solder pencil hasn't been diminished by banging on keyboards.

------
noonespecial
Rats. Filled my cart with goodies and now the site's hosed. Still 2 hours to
go.

Hang in there sparkfun guys. Its going to be a wild, wild day!

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krupap
It looks like I'm one of the fortunate few who managed to place an order. I
had an account set up beforehand but didn't have my cart full until 10:45am or
so. SparkFun was, indeed, exceedingly slow but my tactic of pressing "refresh"
every minute or so seems to have paid off. I'd say it was an hour's worth of
effort in total. Best of luck and keep trying!

~~~
p4ncur
What was the page you saw after clicking sth like "Yes, i want to get this
stuff by Sprakfun Free Day"? I was able to get only to that moment and the
next site (after a milion of "refresh") is just blank... Do you know anything
about it?

~~~
krupap
The page went blank for me too after pressing "yes, I want free stuff..." but
refreshing that blank page 10-20 times got me to a "congratulations" page with
a SparkFun guy wearing a crown and an order email in my inbox (though my order
total, which was well over $100, didn't reflect the $100 off I'm assuming it
came through...but I saved the congrats page just to be sure).

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Derferman
Any suggestions on a kit / parts for a novice?

~~~
kgroll
pmorici has good recs (XBee is especially fun), but the Arduino starter kit
alone can be found here:
[http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_i...](http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=9284)

~~~
silencio
Just as a heads up for anyone considering buying the kit regardless of the
$100 off, it's actually cheaper to buy the parts in that kit individually, and
it's really easy to do that because they link all the individual product
pages. Not to mention if there's any parts you want to buy more of, you can
get volume discounts on that. I don't remember exactly how much less, but I
believe it was ~$10 or so in total.

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cubtastic71
Way fustrating for regular customers, and still having issues trying to just
log in so I can check out!

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aarongough
Wow. As of 1:00pm EST my browser is not even sitting and trying to load... The
connection immediately times out.

Perhaps they realized that the site had become unusable and have pulled the
plug to try to reduce the load while implementing a fix?

I've never had to do it but I should imagine that a local reverse proxy cache
should be able to be setup pretty quickly... That would definitely help them
with their main pages (products etc..) and leave their servers free to deal
with requests pertaining to making and placing orders.

This is all assuming that their server-side code already outputs the correct
cache control headers of course...

~~~
aarongough
It would appear that I was partly correct. The site is back up now and
performing much, much better from what I have seen. Free Day is officially
over though (apparently they gave away the whole $100k!) so perhaps the load
they're seeing is now just drastically reduced...

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daveungerer
Didn't make it. I even did all my shipping details before it started. But then
again, refreshing the ckeckout started to get old and my attention went
somewhere else. At least I know what's in their catalogue now!

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plaes
It looks more like a self-inflicted DDOS..

~~~
plaes
...and now their IRC channel is full of pissed people:

[snip] < pissedagain> NEVER ORDER FROM SPARKFU*K !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
[/snip]

PS. Edited a bit..

------
daveungerer
It would be cool to know how many of us tried this and what the result was.
Timing out for me at the moment. Will post again once I have a final outcome.

------
dhennessy
They had the javascript countdown timer set to refresh the pages at exactly
when the sale started. Instant server death.

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shpxnvz
Hmm, I'm seeing:

 _SparkFun Electronics is Temporarily Closed!

SparkFun Electronics has been temporarily closed while necessary upgrades are
installed and configured. Please be patient and check back soon. We're working
tirelessly to make this down time as brief as possible._

Mid-rush server upgrades?

~~~
Pahalial
They had to restart apache, according to IRC.

------
kellishaver
I am attempting to create an account... wish I'd known beforehand that I
needed one, but HN this morning was the first I'd heard of this. It's slow
going, but the good news is, it looks like if you can manage to actually get
in during the 2hr period, there will still be discounts available.

------
credo
It will be interesting to see whether the site is able to deal with all the
extra traffic tomorrow morning

------
dminor
This reminds me of trying to buy playoff tickets online - an exercise in
frustration that probably just ends up pissing off most of your customers.
Although the PR might end up being worth it.

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cracki
OMG... i had a few tabs of their site open. right this instant, they all
reloaded! they're hammering their own servers, which is kinda funny.

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tybris
I'm going to try modesty, but I doubt I'll be able to get through. Also,
CloudFront is ideal for events like this.

~~~
ErrantX
> Also, CloudFront is ideal for events like this.

Interesting point. I wonder what CF's total peak load/capability is? There
were almost certainly upwards of 3000 people (and I think that is a
conservative guess) clicking "checkout" within moments of each other.

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noonespecial
I want some S3 instances for free day...

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daveungerer
Did anyone reading this actually make it through?

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zoba
Can you order over the phone for this event?

~~~
shpxnvz
No, they said that only Credit Card and Paypal Express orders are eligible.

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phsr
They closed temporarily to make upgrades

~~~
ErrantX
1200 users in the IRC channel and counting..... I suspect it is going to be
absolute luck whether you get the $100 or not...

~~~
phsr
I noticed they pulled the irc info on the "Closed" page.

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oomkiller
Down already?

~~~
dmnd
The site's been going up and down all day, despite a server upgrade. I'm not
confident it will be up when the sale starts...

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dtby
_1/7/10_

Why in the world would one choose this as the date format, if not 'forced' to
do so by faithful reproduction of an external title? It seems that even on
SparkFun's site they would use 2010.01.07.

~~~
johkra
I actually agree, it's very confusing. I'm European and I would write
07.01.2010.

On topic: I, too, am Arduino shopping. First I though about getting a Spartan
FPGA development board, but I honestly don't think I'll have the time to learn
enough to make useful things with it.

It's a really cool action by SparkFun and I hope it will be a success for
them.

~~~
aarongough
I'm Australian, but I work in Canada. I have _never_ been able to get the date
formatting here right all the time...

Now, whenever I have to write a date by hand I make it impossible to misread.
Like so:

01/Jan/2010

