Is it my computer or the web?

[klmno]

This is a question about a problem I'm having on a different board/website. That site does not require a person to register or log in before posting as a guest and I never had any problem doing that before. The past two days however, it will not let me. It automatically jumps back to a main forum page when I hit the "submit" area. Also, when I've done a search it shows the first page of the results but when I click to go to the next page, it clears the results altogether. I've noticed my computer or web connection is really slow the past couple of days and I'm havuing to "refresh" a lot because the connection seems to be shorting out- no matter what website I'm on. But I haven't had any trouble posting on this board or reading pages on other sites- like our local news website. So, would the problem be that other board/website? I did notice that no new posting has shown up on it for a couple of days but it isn't as active as this one.

 

[GoingNorth]

There are reports of a "denial of service" (DOS) attack over the holidays that impacted a lot of internet sites and domains. Add that into unusually heavy shopping traffic this year, and yes, web access and performance has been negatively impacted.

 

[klmno]

Sorry about my computer illiteracy- but would DOS be a virus? I ran a virus scan last week but maybe I should do it again.

 

[GoingNorth]

A DOS is an automated way of flooding a site or group of sites with so many service requests that their servers cannot handle the load and either bog down or shut down entirely.

Amazon is one example of a major site that was heavily impacted this year by DOS attacks and heavy traffic.

 

[klmno]

Ohhh!! That might be the problem. That site is a place where people report their opinion/experience with court systems and it has a whole lot of topics because it is national. I tried to connect to it yesterday and it couldn't saying "too many connections". People on there mention names of people in their court systems so they stay concerned that some attny is going to get really tic'd off someday and sabatoge it.

 

[GoingNorth]

KLMO, the actual data in a website is stored in some sort of database, most often Microsoft SQL. The website interface is then configured to pull up data from the database when certain commands are issued and then configure it to display properly.

When a company buys a database application, they pay for x number of connections at a time. In addition, the servers themselves are limited in how many transactions they can handle physically.

The error message you got indicates that the number of connection requests exceeded the number allowed. That can be due in most cases to higher than expected traffic, but DOS attacks can also do this.

hth
ToK

 

[klmno]

OK, Thanks! maybe it will be better in a day or so. I'm really trying to communicate with someone on there soon so I'm just antsy about it.

by the way- what do those letters at the end of your post mean? (I know- I'm WAY behind on this computer stuff, including the lingo, LOL!)

 

[GoingNorth]

hth is old time bulletin board (long before the Web) slang for "hope this helps".

ToK stands for "The Other Kat". Back when I first joined this site there was another member who used "Kat" as her handle.

Just for giggles, back in the day, DOS stood for Disk Operating System, and was the command line interface used on the early personal computers that ran Microsoft's then operating system.

I'm not current on most of the current bells and whistles since I've been out of the business for so long (five years...I can't even program my new cellphone, LoL), but I sure know about the older stuff.

In fact, I go back to the days of punch cards and reel to reel tapes in the mainframe rooms. My first A+ technical certification was in the old DOS system and Macintosh...Windows hadn't been invented yet, LoL

 

[klmno]

Ohhh!!! I thought you were cursing me or calling me a dummy or something! (Not really!)

Believe it or not- the DOS for an old system is about the only thing I already had experience with!

That other site is working now so I feel a lot better. Unfortunately, it's a place where people only check threads every few days.

 

[GoingNorth]

Glad it helped you understand the situation. I tend to worry about either geeking out on people or coming off as condescending...it's sort of an AS issue with me.

 

[Star*]

could not resist klmno - sorry.....hehehe ----so many times....? It's me.

Is it my computer or the web?

IT'S YOU. pft.

 

[klmno]

LOL! Star, I have found that my problems with the computer have been "user fault" several times in the past!!

 

[GoingNorth]

There is an acronym that tech support people used to use in their case logs. It was 'PEBUAK" and stood for Problem Exists Between User and Keyboard.

It sounded a lot politer than "user is a moron" but still used to get us chewed out, LoL.