Hey Guys,
The video course updates are ready to go. However, there are a few things you need to know.
This post explains in detail how and when the NickB Method updates will be released. Please read it in full! If I get any emails asking questions that are answerd below they will be ignored!
Some Changes
There will be a few differences though. The old videos were shot in 640px by 480px resolution and the new ones have been shot in 800px by 600px.
‘px’ or ‘pixels’ are a unit of measurement in digital imaging. It’s all very boring stuff that you don’t need to know. What you do need to know is that the old videos are smaller than the new ones.
I made the new videos bigger so I could fit more of my chart onto the video. Eventually plan to re-shoot the entire course is 800×600 resolution. It will make for a much better course as I won’t be trying to squash everything onto the on small chart.
Anyway because of this change we might run into some problems with the current video course software. I doubt we will, but I have never used 800×600 vids so it could cause issues on some browsers.
So what I am going to do is a scaled released.
Scaled Release Plan
- Tomorrow morning I will give access 10% of course owners access to the new videos. Throughout the next two days I will monitor and see if all goes well.
- Provided all goes well (which I am sure it will) Sunday morning I will give an additional 40% of user’s access to the new videos. For the next two days I will monitor the situation so I can be sure that we have no issues.
- Again, if all goes well on Tuesday morning I will release them videos fully to all course users.
Why a Scaled Release?
With a scaled release If something does go wrong I will have 10% of users email me with the issue rather than 100%. This allows me to quickly deal with the problem, and not have to go through and respond to hundreds of separate emails.
The other advantage this is having all users’ access the videos at the same time might cause a massive slowdown in site speed and could even crash the server.
Again this is boring stuff you don’t need to know. But, for all you inquisitive guys and girls out there….. Websites are hosted on servers. Servers are special computers that allow the storage of a websites files and allow people around the world to access those files. You can buy really cheap servers for $5 a month. These are fine for very small sites as very few people will be accessing a small sites files. However when you have thousands of people downloading big files like course videos a cheap server won’t cut it. The server computer hosting the files just isn’t powerful enough to allow thousands of users’ access at once. This is when you need a big powerful server which hosting companies charge a lot of money for.
Forex4Noobs is already on a powerful dedicated server as we have thousands of visitors a day. However, just to be safe I have upgraded my hosting package to a bigger server to cope with the demand. I would still rather monitor the situation and make sure my current server can cope with the demand. Again I am sure everything will be fine but having 10% (followed by 40%) of users access the course to start with will allow me to be sure the server at its current level can cope with the demand. If it can’t then I can at least upgrade my server before allowing more users to access the course. This will prevent crashes that will shutdown forex4noobs entirely for hours.
The first 10% and the following 40% of users will be selected completely randomly. I have no intention of selecting individual users so please do not ask. If you’re not one of the first selected sorry. But do not ask me to be given access before anybody else. I see that as dishonest and selfish. And if you ask I will put you right at the bottom of the list. Rules are rules guys, please wait your turn and please be patient.
It’s not only Forex4Noobs that does scaled releases. Huge companies with hundreds of thousands of users do it to. Companies like Twitter and Aweber. It just allows them to deal with major issues quickly and efficiently.
Passwords
One more IMPORTANT thing guys, if you purchased the course but have forgotten your password. It should be the same as your forum username and password. However if you can’t access the course and you can’t recover your password please do not email my personal email address. Please follow these simple steps and allow up to 24 hours for a response (although it should take less than 4 hours).
- Go to the Contact Us page and choose the ‘video course passwords’ option from the ‘Subject’ drop down field.
- In the email please provide me with:
- Your PayPal transaction or receipt number for the purchase.
- The date and if possible time of your purchase.
- (If you purchased the course before July 1st 2009) I need your forum user name.
- (If you purchased the course after July 1st 2009) I need is your PayPal email address.
This will make it easy for me to give you a new password. If you do not have all that information please give me as much information as you can.
Ok that wraps it up. Thanks guys!