this didn't work for me 
That is unfortunate... for you. However, that doesn't make it nonsense 
I don't seem to be able to connect to that server either, but that isn't suprising... "hsmiths" is one of the older Electrum servers, it has been around for a long time and it wouldn't surprise me if they were a priority target for the DoS attack... also, given that one person claimed it had worked, no doubt everyone tried to use it... possibly DoSing the server some more!
Just keep trying various servers on the server tab... right click one, select "use as server"... then wait at least 5 minutes before you attempt to try another one. Unfortunately, the network is just slow right now, and will be until this DoS attack ends (or the devs get the updates completed to mitigate it).
