Yes. Very nice indeed! The Bitcoin meteor is a very creative solution.


Humor is good.

TFK

It's hard because you're focussing on the representation of the banker. You're focussing on the negative. The bankers' worst fear is Bitcoin itself. Or better, the number of people embracing it. That would be a better basis for a logo for it reflects the positive element in your theme.

My 50cts.

TFK

Nope, I'm in the same situation as you are. Obviously I'm dealing with this situation in a little bit different manner than you. That's OK I guess.

I just don't see why I should go on ranting about it. Honestly. It's their problem to solve. Not mine.

I hope that your last comment regarding my person helped you blowing off some steam. Please stay positive. Who knows what turn events will take.

Hang in there!

TFK

PS: Deletion of posts is absolutely not not the way to go. I'm absolutely in favor of free speech in any form.

It has nothing to do with being naive. I wager that most posts with more then one exclamation mark in their writing aren't based on fact but on emotion. I do understand this but I won't let it cloud my judgement on this matter. Yes, they have our coins. Will we get those back? I simply don't know. No prognoses on that one.

In my opinion it's not really relevant whether this is a scam or not. If they want to go that path then they have to bear the responsibility coming with it.

The insight that I find much more interesting is the insight of the security on technology level. You can see the difference in the design of the protocol and that of the exchange sites. It makes me appreciate more and more how beautiful the protocol is designed. It provides a level of security that exchange sites will never be able to deliver. Scam or no scam.

TFK

I still think they are in over their heads and that they are desperately trying to fix this.

However, the lack of information from the part of coinex is the principal reason that so many of us are coming to the conclusion that this is a scam. Keeping the trolls in this thread out of this equation of course. But still, keeping silent makes customers more and more uncertain.

One thing. Smashing in someone's face doesn't help. In fact it will make things worse. Remember the line Evil begets evil? Anyone?

Instead I recommend -when you would encounter one of the owners in the street- asking them what the actual situation is and telling them that the situation will not go away by keeping silent.

A few things I read in this thread.
Age is not a factor. The responsibility is the same. It could be a factor in them being in over their heads. In that case it's a good lesson in life. Also, the beta tag on the site is not a factor. When you let in real payments to do real transactions then you are live. A statement that this beta tag indicates that using this site is at your own risk doesn't take responsibility away from the owners.

CoinEx:
Even a statement that you are in over your heads and are working day and night to solve it is better then saying nothing.

Many customers complain about this IPO calls on Twitter. I know that your first priority is your shareholders. That's logical. When your shareholders pull out every single one of us will loose. So go and do that. But remember that shareholders don't look at their invested money alone. They also look at how healthy a business is. And that means: happy customers...

That's where we come in. Happy customers. Keep us informed. Please? I am saying this for your sake.

Again, if you need help ASK!

TFK

I'd be not so quick to run to the government for help. The reason these systems are failing is simply that the the principles aren't used which are used in the crypto currency technology itself.

The crypto currency system is designed in such a way that all controlling is done by a vast network. If a transaction is tainted, the system won't accept it. And you can't hack all miners in the network. That single element is what makes it work. Exchanges are set-up as single entities, a website, where you have to send your coins to trade them. And that is where it fails. You have to trust the owners of this website. And as always are people the corrupt element in the system...

And that goes also for government or the layer above them: banks. You only have to take a look at the mortgage bubble that popped. Sending vast numbers of people out of their homes. All because of the greed of bankers.

The only way exchanging coins is going to work is by applying the same system that is used by the crypto currency system itself. Thus peer to peer transactions and a system of miners to validate those transactions. No people allowed as in-between and no central storage of coins.

The best solution would be if the systems itself where adapted for multi coin type transactions - between different blockchains - and using the existing system to send in buy/sell orders that can be picked up by other buy/sell orders.

And if that isn't an option and it has to be a website than there shouldn't be coins allowed in the system. Just the users buying and selling but making transactions directly to each other when a buy/sell match is made. Again peer to peer, directly from the wallet. And there should be rules as when a user may trade and how many coins the user may exchange. Maybe a rating system where users can rate each other when a transaction is made.

Bottom line: I only trust computers.

TFK

Most of us have MtGox fresh in mind. That and the fact that the fact that communication from coinex is non-existent. Is there evidence that it's all a big scam? No. But I do understand the FUD some are spreading.

There is much uncertainty...

TFK

Ok, old message deleted, new message made.

I'd mistaken the id field for the transaction id. So my transaction was never sent in the first place. Thanks to Ardolafat's screenshot for this insight.

Ontopic.

It sounds weird but that absence of a transaction id is a bit of a hopeful sign. Not in relation to getting back my coins but in relation to the captain being a scammer or not.

In that regard a public personal message to the Captain. (Is that his nick?)

Dear captain,

Because of my issue concerning ticket id 10197 and the issues of quite a few of our fellow coin enthusiasts I would like to bring the following to your attention.

I still don't believe that you are a scammer. Really I don't. But your clients are getting more and more worried. They have entrusted you with their assets. A trust that is not easily gained back when lost. This business is all about trust. You know that.

My original emails where strong in words, even using the word theft. And even while I typed them assuming the id field was the transaction id I still mean exactly what I typed. Why? Simple. The message needs to get across.

When you let your clients wait for months to get their coins back you can wait for this to happen. We all know what has happened recently and even after that there still is a loyal community which is willing to send their coins in for trade. Don't betray this trust by not answering! A simple sign of life could buy you enough time to set things straight.

And when you are overwhelmed by the amount of work, and I strongly believe that you are, a s k  f o r  h e l p !

It's as simple as that. As of the rest. Try to create a perspective time wise. How many refunds can you do in a day or evening? Maybe you can close down the possibility of sending in coins temporarily. It may be bad for business but it will avoid making the problem bigger than it already is.

In other words: create a plan.

Hope to hear from you soon.

TFK

PS: If you are a scammer, think of what your doing. Don't you get a bad feeling about this? With every item you buy will have that itching feeling because you know that money isn't yours to spend...

You mean not even one?!?

TFK

Hi!

Color:
Go for a light theme. These work much better by the majority of people. Also, the payment provider logos will embed better in your site. This because they also were made for light themed sites.

The purpose and naming of your site.
This may be a bit of a shocker but bear with me.  When I read the name bitroad I immediately made the connection bitcoin and silkroad. And I must say that I did expect to enter a new online drugstore. What I'm saying is that piggy bagging on existing names doesn't always work. These things can backfire. Remember, many people in BTC-land are glad that the link Silkroad/BTC is severed because it gave BTC a bad name.

So my question to you is: what kind of shop do you have or do you want to have. What should it communicate to the outside world? And did you position Bitcoin in the right place? With the last one I mean the following. You basically have a shop. It's great that you accept BTC and LTC. But does that mean that these should be in the name/theme of the shop?

I would suggest that you think of your own and unique identity. A mark so unique that it will be a a hallmark in the BTC/LTC community. How do you do that? Simple. By delivering top products, at top prices and with top service. The fact that you accept BTC/LTC will help tremendously as the BTC/LTC community welcome's every new addition to BTC.

As for information to your clients. I assume that you buy products in using fiat currency? Maybe you can play with the exchange rates between dollars (or euro's for that matter) and BTC/LTC. When you inform your clients of the current rate you show them that your prices follow the exchange rates closely and thus the products won't be overpriced when BTC is worth more then it did at the moment the product was bought in by you. Also in the event a coin would become worth less you could hold on to the original exchange rate and create a BTC-discount for a while. Nice for products that aren't selling that well and your clients will love that because this illustrates your commitment to BTC/LTC.

It does this more than a name and a logo with coins...

My 50 BTCcts

TFK

Payment received! Thanks for the opportunity!

TFK

Ow sorry, I didn't mean an app like a smart phone app. I now realize that apple has a monopoly on that word. 

I meant an application in the broadest terms.

I don't know what your plans are. My suggestion was merely to take a look at a prototyping / process flow application to help you get your ideas across. That's all.

TFK

Hi!

So you want to build an app that talks to the bitcoind / litecoind deamon? Very curious what plans you have. 

If I may make a suggestion: when you want to lead the project from the architecture perspective I recommend a app like Pencil project ( http://pencil.evolus.vn ). It's an open source prototyping tool which let's you create mock ups for interfaces and also let's you draw out process flows.

These two can be shared and edited by the developers and this could aid in a broader understanding among developers on what was meant by certain comments or ideas. This could be important since communicating over the internet has some drawbacks which could result in the loss of some of the necessary context.

You can install Pencil on Linux using your favorite package manager. For Windows and Mac there is a download on their website and also there is a portable Windows version on PortableApps ( http://portableapps.com/apps/graphics_pictures/pencil-project-portable ).

Maybe this will help you a bit.

TFK

Thanks for the votes and congratulations Anon135246 for designing a fine logo! I couldn't say too much because we were adversaries   but I just loved it. BitcoinLeader has two very nice logo's to work with and some mighty fine idea's from the rest of the contributions. I just love these contests. These show the craftsmanship floating around on this forum which otherwise remains hidden. I call upon everybody who likes to do some designing every now and then to contribute to events like this. It really is an addition to this forum.

Cheers and thanks again!

TFK

Hi, thanks for sharing this. I'm always interested in what views other people have in certain matters. I must say that I agree on most topics you cover. For instance letting other people decide on the look of what is really your calling card is something that should be managed. However, I don't think it's a bad idea. It's a great way of creating some exposure and get some intel on what you intended audience expect of you. This is important information from a commercial perspective.

I know that writing this could cost me a BTC but I like sharing these kind of thoughts more than I like BTC. It's also a good source of feedback for me. When people are sharing their thoughts on my contributions I also get intel on how I can improve. Even if I'm called a eight year old.   That's really my reason for playing these games. A little exposure and intel on how my intended audience wants to see things...  

Are some people trolling or using more  then one account? Maybe. But when managed by the OP this shouldn't be a reason to let a very good source of feedback pass.

On the glassy bit. Most logo's used on website and other media are flat.  That's true. My design also started out flat. But it evolved into a glassy look. This isn't a noob thing. It just happened. Just as Bitcoin just happened.

Beautiful isn't it?

Peace

TFK

---

For reference my noob contribution:

Let's start by the definitions. Because you're talking about three different fields in the business.

1. VPS: this means Virtual Private Server. And it just means a server that is really a virtual machine. So there is no physical server in the rack but the service provider sells you a virtual machine as a service. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_private_server.

2. A TOR Hidden Service is a website which is hosted within the TOR network. Mostly these are websites that are run at home. What you do is install the TOR browser bundle, install a local web server, place your website in it and pass the information to the config file of TOR. The TOR software creates a unique id for it. The all known .onion address. Mostly TOR hidden services are used to host content without revealing the location of the website. And it also means that it is necessary to configure the server to give away as little information as possible because this information could be a fingerprint to your location. As you can read, this is a very different world. I don't know if this is applicable for your situation? This is really all I know about this item.

3. Owning domains is relatively simple and is only needed when you host a public website. It's not needed for TOR since TOR uses it's own system to publish your site, .onion adresses. Registering a domain can be done at every provider. Providers often sell packages with hosting and one or more domain names included.

One note on hosting, there is shared hosting and dedicated hosting. Dedicated means owning your own server. This can be a physical one or a virtual machine. That is item 1 in the list, making the circle complete.  

TFK

Ok I hear you, standard glass effect. I'm playing with the graph on top or beneath the glass layer. If you have some comments on that one I'm all ears. I'm also going to look into the orange bits too. But let's first check if this is what you've got in mind.




More glass effect.


Little tweak:


Tweaking mode:


Orange accent:


TFK

Text layer switched off, better gradient and inverted glass effect layer.



TFK

No problem. Good luck on selecting a hoster.

TFK

The free hosting question is the easiest part: Google. But I can say nothing on quality or unwanted advertising.

This is what I found in two minutes: http://woork.blogspot.nl/2008/12/5-awesome-free-web-hosting-services.html

According to the documentation of the MyFaucet - Bitcoin Faucet Script. Is should be as simple as filling in all details necessary in the config.php file. For instance your Inputs.io account details for your Faucet.

After that is only a matter of uploading the files to the server via FTP.

Does this help you?

TFK