Archive for the ‘Stuff That Sucks’ Category

Thanks to IRC user “hilt” for logging in today and informing us that keyword searches were broken on Camelegg and our other sites.  I have just fixed the bug and things are back to normal, but if you see anything like this in the future, please let me know.

Thanks!

Amazon recently sent us a nasty letter indicating that our browser extension, the Camelizer, runs afoul of their Terms of Service and that we should disable it immediately.  Since Amazon is big and we are tiny, and we rely on its Amazon Associates program to stay alive, we are disabling access to the Camelizer from camelcamelcamel.com and Amazon.com until we can talk to Amazon and figure out how to resolve the problem more peacefully than simply informing us of the problem and closing our account.

I’m sorry for the interruption of service, both as the provider and as a Camelizer user.  Hopefully it will be back online soon, and in a more Amazon-friendly form.

Added 2010-06-16

Amazon is technically correct: we did break some rules.  Specifically, those against having “Special Links” (affiliate links) on Amazon.com — our Add to Cart button on the Camelizer popup — and the modifying of their site in general.  As the Camelizer works by injecting itself into product pages, obviously this was a problem.

We’ll rewrite it and hopefully Amazon approves.

Added 2010-06-21

I am back from my vacation last weekend and working on the new version of the Camelizer.  Until that’s ready, you can always try using this camelcamelcamel bookmarklet to get from Amazon product pages to their corresponding pages on our site.

Added 2010-06-30

It took some time but I have finally released a new version of the Camelizer that works with Amazon and abides by its rules.  You can install it by visiting the blog post that announces the Camelizer’s release.

We have noticed some requests are failing today — returning the HTTP 503 error code –  and we don’t yet know why.  We will figure it out and get things back to normal as quickly as possible.

Thank you for your patience!