iCharts Discussions

[rainbow]

Dear Icharts Management:

This post refers to the recent changes we have seen on Icharts which give
a 'facebook' feel and its implications. Speculator and I had a chat yesterday
on the subject, and this below is a brief summary. This opines on the 'what' and the 'how'

1. The changes implemented are nice to have, fosters better networking
between Icharts members. we can all see how handsome (or otherwise)
other members look. Amitsaraf, I am sure is already apparently high
up on the popularity charts
2. The blog posts that several members have added, are obviously a step in
the right direction. Gives a feeling of ownership, along with accountability.
While some of them are forwards by reputed traders, there are some views
which IMO is true imparting of trading skills/gyan.
3. It is deeply felt that the above value additions should not be at the altar of
compromise of the single killer app that Icharts provides. The RT data feeds.
4. I refer to the two recent outages of 'chart freezing' incidents which obviously causes panic amongst traders who trade 5 min charts. Jai2000 to a large extent, and me, fall into this category, plus the whole lot of day traders. At this time, I found that the home URL (www.icharts.in) was also not functional. This almost had symptoms of a DDOS attack (distributed Denial of Service Attack)

So, cards on the table.

These additional features could be tested on a *separate* test bench, rigorously for about 3 months. Provided to users for beta testing. And kept isolated from the live environment. On successful completion of the pilot phase, can be migrated to the live environment.

Suggestions to add/modify/delete the above are welcome.

Have a great day, folks

Cheers
Rainbow

[Thaavo]

[nsinojia]

[opportunist]

IMO making Icharts Facebook compliant may not be that great an idea. Serious traders dont need too much socialising. If they do they would go to Facebook or other such sites directly. Those who want popularity or fame have numerous options on the net to publish their blogs. There are many of financial / trading website to voice their opinions. Even for Icharts experts who are genuine masters there is the Forum to impart wise words to people like me who are yet to graduate to that level.

As rightly pointed out by Rain, the central offering of Icharts is RT data in all possible TFs along with major indicators. That is the life and soul of this website, literally so for many traders who make their living out of this space, SILENTLY. They hang for every market move for making a decent profits to pay their bills and would rather see uninterrupted service than links with facebook and blogs.

Also what I find from these blogs - they are mostly copy pasted articles. It is only a way to massage the egos of failed traders who either have rich dads to sponsor their time on the net or are on their way out to an alternative profession having failed in trading. Any way they are dispensable.

I think we need to be vigilant to the cause of dedicated day traders and refrain from walking towards the direction of being more social networking for in the end it will only dilute the value proposition of this great site. The administrators may kindly note that popularity of the site may not increase subscriptions as curious onlookers may merely drop in, dabble in the freebies and leave when they find trading more difficult than trapeze.

The serious trader on the other hand, will hunt and look for Icharts in his eternal search to reach his/her goal.

Regards,
Opportunist

[singh.ravee]

Anything new is always appreciable.

As far as disruption of data is concerned, I think its something exceptional that has happened and does not require that much of attention from user's side. Let admin handle it. The data was restored within no time. Even the best of systems are subject to breakdowns.

Short tf traders = concerns are valid. However, if one odd error in data feed, has a potential to spoil ur trade, then either it was something exceptional and can happen with anybody on this earth or trade strategies need to be reworked.

Just my opinion.

Thanks and Regards
Ravee

[rainbow]

Ravee:

thank you for the opinion. Like in trading, in real life too, contra opinions are stimulating.

Excuse my following analogy.

Imagine an aircraft landing at night, the runway lights are off. Pitch darkness. sole dependency on the ILS (Instrument landing system) which suddenly goes dysfunctional because the tower has recently introduced new features. Now imagine yourself in that aircraft.

Again, this could be an extreme comparison but I gather you get my gist.

Cheers
Rainbow

quote="singh.ravee"]Anything new is always appreciable.

As far as disruption of data is concerned, I think its something exceptional that has happened and does not require that much of attention from user's side. Let admin handle it. The data was restored within no time. Even the best of systems are subject to breakdowns.

Short tf traders = concerns are valid. However, if one odd error in data feed, has a potential to spoil ur trade, then either it was something exceptional and can happen with anybody on this earth or trade strategies need to be reworked.

Just my opinion.

Thanks and Regards
Ravee[/quote]

[opportunist]

[hbanerji]

allow me to use this opportunity to remind ST that we are waiting for your p & f charts. also, pls let us know whether we will get the heiken charts. many thanks as always for providing this service. thanks once again, to ST, PT and everyone else at i charts

[rainbow]

Oppo:

Thanks! your comment makes one feel ten feet tall

Only wrote from top of mind recall.

Nice evening.

Cheers
Rainbow

[opportunist]

[ProTrader]

I will try to address all of you in the same post. I am not an excellent orator or writer so my humble apologies for missing pointers.

Thanks for your free and frank inputs....Rainbow, Speculator, hbanerji, opportunist, Ravee.

Firstly I would like to apologies for the recent small outages. Yes, the first one was related to the Chat bar we were trying to implement. This was tested in a test environment and it worked fine (it always works in test). But we could only know the real load when it is production (as always happen in real life). There are many permutations and combinations that are only possible in a real environment. Also, this would have introduced our PUSH based tools though which we could implement features like Alerts, watchlist and new generation charts. Nevertheless, it couldn't manage the load and resulted in an outage. The second outage on Tuesday was related to a Core switch that was being replaced at the data center. Though we have requested many times that tasks like these are carried out during weekends, it is not so. We are shown the 99.9 % uptime guarantee clause.

There are two things that we learnt (we keep on learning):

1. We should not spring surprises at our members, but prepare them for change
2. Communicate proactively about outages (which we want to keep to minimum), through twitter and other tool.

We have investigated Cloud computing to see if we can have 100% uptime. But even Microsoft Azure cloud platform offers 99.9% uptime and you know what happened to Amazon Cloud..it got burst

As owners, I and ST have made commitment to first and foremost provide top class and the best customer service along with the tools you need as traders. This is the Mission and Value that is embedded in Team iCharts.

With respect to the smilies, blogs and forums it is more to do with quality interaction and communication between members. For some it is useful and for some it of no use. I will not argue on this as it for individuals to interpret. We are going to provide tools that we think are useful based on our research. If it becomes Titanic, no issues. It is the best known ship and someone made billions out of it and still making.

I am not going to be specific on whether there will be PF or Heiken charts in a future version of charting tool, but there will be a lot that you will love. And yes, we will ensure that it is tested properly for 3 months, before it goes Live.

We will ensure that we do our work more diligently and with rigor.

Once again please accept my humble apologies on behalf of Team iCharts for the recent outages and for anything where we have failed to meet your expectations.

Last but not least, please subscribe to our Commodity Charting service.

Regards,
ProTrader
------------------
Without You No Way

[rainbow]

Hi PT:

Thank you for the nice and lucid response. your disclaimer about 'not being an excellent orator or writer' is *not* being accepted

IMO, Icharts subscribers, by now, know that Icharts management is responsive, interactive and *listens* hence all this hate mail coming your way when there are disruptions to service.

Personally, I do not look at most of the value added features you offer except for RT charts. and mostly in 5tf. I plan to spend sometime going through your 'playback' feature and understand what it is about.

and when I have learnt to walk, will attempt to run. P n F, heiken charts, and more.

Coming to these changes in progress. forgive my assumption that there was *not* a test environment. prolly, the only thing that comes to mind, was, to have a - load test - which simulates the maximum number of users an environ can have in *live* conditions. Just a thought.

Regarding dissemination of information to subscribers on unplanned outages and expected turn around time, I have a suggestion.

There are plenty of free tools available online (paid ones also without ads) which allow an SMS to be sent to unlimited no of subscribers with a single click. prolly worth a try. I use *way2sms* dot com for our school, and it is efficient. reaches in less than 2 seconds.


and finally,

javascript:emoticon('')


for being a responsive service provider

Have a nice day, all

Cheers

Rainbow