SilverMarc

I have over a dozen trackable geocoins hanging out with me here, and they're all "Event Geocoins" intended to be logged by people at events. But in the midst of the holiday shopping season I have no events on the calendar. So I'm having a short but spirited "Virtual Event" where you can "see" my trackable coins and grab a few icons for yourself. [link removed by moderator] Visit the list containing all of my Event Geocoins, and click the image called "Virtual Event Coins" to grab" a few. No need to "put 'em back," just hang onto them until someone grabs them from you. --Marc December 18, 2005 @ 12:00 AM N40° 46.565' W073° 58.756'

Just like breathing! --Marc December 8, 2005 @ 11:09 PM N40° 46.565' W073° 58.756'

Because nobody has yet sent us a "step by step" of exactly what they do to make this error happen. It doesn't happen to us (I'm on a Mac and Willie is on a PC), so it must be a browser (or firewall!) issue. Please email that to "admin@cointracking.com" and we'll see the error and fix it. --Marc December 8, 2005 @ 7:57 PM N40° 46.565' W073° 58.756'

You can unsubscribe from (or subscribe to) the Group Email that automatically sends out an email alert when a new Coin Edition or Trading List is created. You can get a real "heads up" on new coins: http://cointracking.com/alert.php But it is, for the time being, also automatically sending the alert as people recreate their Coin Editions and Trading Lists. We are getting closer to what we had before the loss - about 112 Coin Editions and 122 Trading Lists - so the extra alerts will subside. --Marc December 8, 2005 @ 6:02 PM N40° 46.565' W073° 58.756'

I use the site for my Trading List too, and Monday I started my "Get 'em out by the end of the year" push for all of the extras I have on hand. All but one was traded, and all the data was put into my Trading List. I spent hours at it, and was terribly pleased when I was finished. I know how much time I lost just for what I did myself over my big push just this week, so I take every, single mention of lost hours or lost days very seriously, and I make no light of the fact that I know that judging from my 3 or 5 or 7 hours to get all of my Tracking Numbers back, and redo all the traded coins that have magically re-appeared in my list, that multiplying that by all of the people who were affected comes out to a massive amount of lost time in the aggregate. Don't think that I haven't spent most of my waking hours mentally kicking myself for not expecting the worst case scenario at all times. Worst-case scenarios have a way of sneaking up on you when you least expect them, or manage to fail to plan for them. The one light in this, aside from every individual mention of support (even if it's mixed in with being peeved off), is that our available backup was only two weeks old because we did the major restructuring of the databases and backed up before and after that. The Hosting Provider only could restore from October 21st - we could back up from November 21st. We are leaving them today for a brand new host with more redundancy, and have built in the Excel Download so every Trading List manager now "Owns" their own data. --Marc December 8, 2005 @ 3:12 PM N40° 46.565' W073° 58.756'

Willie also mentioned working up an Excel Upload as well, but that's a tougher thing to do. (It would certainly serve people with already existing spreadsheets to let them become "Instant Trading List" managers). An automatic download feature of the file doesn't seem too problematic either. --Marc December 8, 2005 @ 8:55 AM N40° 46.565' W073° 58.756'

Willie added that last night. We'll announce it later today. (Or I guess I just did...) People with Trading Lists can now do exactly that. --Marc December 8, 2005 @ 8:39 AM N40° 46.565' W073° 58.756'

I almost signed up last night but waited 'til today.... but the site didn't work. I'll stick to Excel and keep another online list of my coins. We've learned a lesson as well. We respect the "You didn't back up!" people, we respect the "I'll keep my spreadsheet" people, we even respect the "Ha ha, you fools" people because we made an error in judgement that affected a lot of people in a bad way and depended ourselves on the passive backup strategy of our data center (we're the "All our eggs in one basket" people). And we certainly respect the people who will give us the opportunity to pick up the pieces and get back up to speed, and work with us to help us make your experience with the site the way it should be. Say what you will, but what Willie and I can do is to stay with it and keep dealing with our users in the one-on-one way we always have, because anyone who has -ever- sent in a comment, suggestion, or complaint knows they have always received a personal response from Willie or I on every occasion. So I've said my piece here in the forums in a general response to the posts so far, but this is the GC forums and I will rankle feathers if I continue my own discussions here. Anyone is welcome to email me, or keep posting here, but I've been upfront about the situation, and I shouldn't use this thread to keep unfolding the story. Thanks! --Marc December 7, 2005 @ 8:00 PM N40° 46.565' W073° 58.756'

Okay, no need to mince words here, full disclosure this time, and every time. And yes, clear and unmitigated lessons have been learned today which will also be put in play immediately. The Hosting Data Center (they will be our PREVIOUS data center tomorrow) has admitted that some data was lost. Here is the text of their latest message to us: Damage seems to be concentrated in the databases that start with a b and c, with some other random ones thrown in...I'm still looking, but if you want to be back up now, I'll put in that database. I don't have a good feeling about getting newer data than that...this guy wiped out the dailies. He was supposed to wipe out the MONTHLIES and then repopulate the dailies with new, then delete the old ones when we were over to our new system. Instead, it appears, he deleted the dailies and then proceeded to delete the /var partition by accident...banging my head against the wall here. Sucky thing is that the system that we were switching this machine to would have stopped this kind of problem from happening. The old "we were about to..." excuse. It does look like data has been lost on the site. Willie and I have a backup from our recent work that's about two weeks old (An eternity considering the number of new people who have signed on lately), and we are going to restore to that back up today. The site will be back online, but it will be two weeks old. We have all of the Invoice Numbers for all the Coin Editions and Trading Lists. But of course, we lost a lot of the newer Sign Ups as well, so having one without the other will do no good. We will all be taking the rebuilding on a step by step basis - Willie and I will create a procedure and a form so that we can restore anyone with lost Coin Editions or Trading Lists. More info will be posted on this. We are also users of the site too, so I know how this hits you as well (I spent hours just last night trading off all of my remaining trading coins and redoing my list to get it totally up to date...) We'll put the site back online shortly, we'll get started on working with you on a one to one basis to get your data back online or recreated, and we'll keep the PR side of the whole situation positive by guaranteeing that we'll do whatever you need us to do so as not to lose even one, single client. More to follow, thanks! --Marc December 7, 2005 @ 4:14 PM N40° 46.565' W073° 58.756'

A major error by someone involved with the Hosting Data Center has caused a rather disagreeable problem with the databases. They are working to restore all database records and we will keep you posted on progress. It is important for everyone to know that essentially, Willie and I are also totally "with our hands tied" and are spending our energies right now lining up a new Data Center and will be moving the entire site as quickly as possible, as this particular data issue is inexcusable. The site will remain offline for now until we know the status of the restoration to the newest backup that we have on hand. We are learning new lessons every day, so bear with us as we right the service. Our users have always been the best, especially in a pinch. Marc & Willie December 7, 2005 @ 3:31 PM N40° 46.565' W073° 58.756'

Yep, we are on it! But it's a big pain. The hosting tech support managed to "restore" an errant database with a -very- old one. They are getting things back up, but we need to keep it offline until we are sure of the integrity of the data. Yikes! --Marc December 7, 2005 @ 2:17 PM N40° 46.565' W073° 58.756'

I am looking for a Silver Lighthouse Coin. I will trade either a SilverMarc New York City for a Lighthouse Silver (yes, I still have one for a special trade like this!) Or I will trade a brand new New Mexico for a Lighthouse Silver (it's a BIG 2" coin and nicely done!) Here is where you can see the SilverMarc: SilverMarc New York City Geocoin And here is where you can see my last trading coin for the year, the New Mexico: SilverMarc's Trading List I am ready to move if I can get a silver Lighthouse coin! Anyone interested! --Marc December 6, 2005 @ 10:15 PM N40° 46.565' W073° 58.756'

I have an Alaska Bronze coin (numbered) and I'd love to "off-load" all of my extra Trading Coins before the New Year. Any Trading offers for this shiny bronze coin from our 49th State? SilverMarc's Trading List (I have one remaining New Mexico (big!) coin as well. --Marc December 5, 2005 @ 4:39 PM N40° 46.565' W073° 58.756'

Here's another easy way to tell if it's a phishing email: Enter a totally bogus password when you log on. The bogus site will act as if you entered a real password. Some people I know -always- enter the bogus password first whenever they log on anywhere a a passive reminder that they are on the site they expect to be on - since the real site will flag the bogus password. (Of course, next the spammers will always have their bogus site reject the first password... and so on...) --Marc December 3, 2005 @ 7:00 PM N40° 46.565' W073° 58.756'

It's finally happened! Doing the right thing now has to be an embarrassing thing to do! [grin!!] --Marc December 1, 2005 @ 11:18 AM N40° 46.565' W073° 58.756'

This Chat will take place again tonight in case anyone is interested! --Marc December 1, 2005 @ 11:10 AM N40° 46.565' W073° 58.756'

The Alaska Mint is -near- Canada! --Marc December 1, 2005 @ 11:09 AM N40° 46.565' W073° 58.756'

I'm not sure who made SilverMarc's coin, but I know it was struck like a real coin (the same as US currency), which is why it has such amazing detail. I'm pretty sure The Rubicon Brothers coin was made by The Caching Place. Both of those are real top quality coins, if I do say so myself. So sorry I didn't spot this question earlier - it's been a busy few weeks! The Highland Mint (Florida) produced my SilverMarc coin, and I think they did a terrific job! I originally wanted a pure Nickel/Silver alloy coin, and we worked with that goal until almost the end when they suggested that because there was a large area of shiny silver, especially on the front, that there might be a "steamed mirror" effect caused by the metal moving during the strike. They showed me an example of what they described. They felt that going with a Silver-Plate on top of the metal would be much more shiny, and wouldn't have any possible problems with the polished look, so I agreed. I was happy with their work and their attention to detail. My coin was made in June/July and it was right at the onset of this huge coin minting craze, so I would expect that all of the mints are now extremely busy. Some might not have been able to "ramp up" their Customer Service to the levels needed, so take that in stride! --Marc December 1, 2005 @ 10:59 AM N40° 46.565' W073° 58.756'

I removed the offending post. (Actually, I couldn't remove it, so I changed it). --Marc November 22, 2005 @ 5:20 PM N40° 46.565' W073° 58.756'

Happy Thanksgiving! --Marc November 22, 2005 @ 5:21 PM N40° 46.565' W073° 58.756'

See if this is looking better for everyone tonight. One other simple fix: Make sure you don't have a "space" at the front of the coin name - this was one part of the problem. We have been doing quite a lot of things so we can rest (momentarily) over the holidays. We've added a link on the Coin Edition lists that points directly to anyone's Trading List, and you'll note the pages are loading much quicker now due to some internal rejiggering! Cool! --Marc November 20, 2005 @ 9:57 PM N40° 46.565' W073° 58.756'

This does not happen when I use the search. This should be back to working now. --Marc November 17, 2005 @ 2:20 PM N40° 46.565' W073° 58.756'

This does not happen when I use the search. We will restore that feature, thanks for letting us know. Here is a Discussion Topic where you can post site-related questions: CoinTracking Questions --Marc November 17, 2005 @ 11:05 AM N40° 46.565' W073° 58.756'

We are struggling with some "prehistoric" code (it was implemented before the users of the site showed us what they -really- wanted), so we'll fix this pesky bug, absolutely! It requires a major reworking of a lot of connecting functionality, and rest assured if it was an easy fix it would be history by now, but it's a real bear (not to disparage bears, of course!). Your comment has not fallen on deaf eyes (so-to-speak), and we'll quash this bug and rejoice! Never fear, just be patient! (We also, you'll note, don't act like our glitches don't exist - we value all the feedback and comments we receive! Our users have made the site what it's become - a useful, unique, and unparalleled Coin Trading Destination!) Alliteration always, --Marc November 17, 2005 @ 12:01 AM N40° 46.565' W073° 58.756'

Our newest feature: You can now include "comments" in your listings! (It's actually been working for over a week now, but I was away and couldn't announce it until now!) If you manage a Trading List, you can add a comment about the coin(s) that will appear under the coin name, or if you're adding your listing to anyone's Coin Edition you can include a comment which will show up in a cute little "cartoon balloon" in the listing. Take a look, I've included an example in my wooden nickels edition: http://cointracking.com/view_series.php?sid=25. It's a nice way to label a coin that's in trade, or make a note to keep your trades organized. Happy Trading! --Marc November 16, 2005 @ 11:54 AM N40° 46.565' W073° 58.756'