Now, we’re in the process of replacing literally all of the hard drives in our servers that are more than 18 months old. Even though our monitoring capabilities will advise us of drives that may fail in the future, we’ve opted to move to a new, standardized hard drive system. By installing the same make of drive in every server, we can more easily manage performance and reliability. Drive technology has evolved quite a bit, and for many of our drives, replacing them will add benefits such as increased speed, larger cache capabilities, and longer drive warranties.

Once all of the drives have been replaced, we’re going to add several new services which will be available to our clients beginning with our next renewal period. If you’re interested in a preview, send us a note and we’ll arrange a discussion or meeting to review the various options available.

Essentially, this is a wireless, handheld, follow focus automation device. One of the big problems with DSLR rigs is they’re still small, even when you add a mattebox, viewfinder, etc. So, when the shot really counts and you’re shooting with sticks, this is a terrific way to better manage the shot.

It’s totally cool that RedRock Micro has delivered an Apple-certified iPhone/iPod touch application specifically for focus automation. And, if you add all of the proper goodies, it’s so James Bond or Jason Bourne, or (pick fave actor or serial adventure star here). It’s also cool that you can use your iPhone without lamenting about how lame AT&T is.

I could go on and on about this neat new tool. I won’t. Instead, check out the totally sales-oriented, but still nicely produced sales pitch video [ watch video clip ]

There are some important things you might consider regardless of the tool or tools you’re using. The first is exactly that: You’ve got to use the tools if you expect them to do anything. In a recent meeting withe a client, when the topic of their Facebook page came up, one staffer asked, “who maintains our Facebook page?” The CEO replied without batting an eyelash, “nobody.”

If you don’t use it, it won’t work. And, it takes more than just using it. You need to know what you’re doing and why. We are often able to help our clients increase their return on investment (ROI) via a series of simple steps. One of them is to go back to earlier posts, videos, etc., and to establish how those elements faired against competitive examples. As one example, imagine you have added a video to YouTube about surfing in Hawaii. It’s a popular theme. Six months later, your video has received 3,500 views. You expected 100,000. So, what to do?

Example of Rcom's improvement to social media status of a client

We’ll evaluate other videos in the same space. That means evaluating the categories, the search results, and most important, the popularity. Then, by “editing” the video post, we can evaluate if making these changes will create an uptick in popularity. Recently, we reviewed a series of videos for a client, and discovered that they were posting all of them in the “film” category of YouTube. We changed some keywords, and most importantly, changed the category to “entertainment.” Within ten days, the number of views had increased tenfold. That’s 10-X. That’s awesome!

The most important trick is to stay on it. If you can’t do it yourself, get someone who can. We’re more than happy to discuss ways to help you increase your social media success metrics.

In short, this is a brilliant move.

Facebook is not an automatic avenue to success. But it does have millions upon millions of users, and anyone can access a facebook page now, so the timing is right. And, Ford’s use of Facebook is what makes this product introduction so special. Starting late last night, Ford began launching short videos every few hours on both Facebook and YouTube. Not only is this cool because each video focuses on a specific aspect of the vehicle, but it will help Ford determine what kind of interest, and from what aspect of Facebook, people are coming. If you watch one video, you’re not likely an early adopter. If you watch every one, Ford will expect to see you in a dealer’s showroom with a credit app or checkbook.

We want our clients to likewise use social media appropriately. This is just one example of a terrific use of the Internet, not to mention a powerful way to introduce a significant new product without having to sort through 45 product intros on the same day. I would consider this a warning shot across the bow of every trade show. As Apple learned to use its showrooms to reduce costs and improve revenue, Ford can do the same. If you have questions or an interest in applying this type of solution to your product, give me a shout via email at davidb @ rcomcreative dot com.

There are essentially two components to the monitoring solution: internal network testing and monitors, and external up-time monitoring. We use a powerful set of tools to accomplish this important and time sensitive task.

Externally, we monitor every site, every server box, and the network itself via two independent sources. This is important, because it is possible for connectivity to be interrupted by issues external to our data center. By using two independently and geographically separated sources, we reduce the chances of an external interruption creating confusion for either our engineers or our clients.

The real power comes via our new hardware/software solution internally. Allow me to put on a techie cap for a few moments…

R/com uses a hierarchical data tree of ‘entities’ to store monitoring data. At the top of the tree is our Customer – and a software container for all monitoring data related to a single organization or installation. Beneath the Customer are the various individual Sites, which contain Devices (read that as hardware). Each Device is a single logical or physical node on your network that Lithium is monitoring (for example a Server, Switch, Router, or Storage Array). Within each Device is a hierarchy of Containers, Objects, Metrics and Triggers. Containers hold groups of Objects of the same type such as Network Interfaces or CPUs and each Object is a unique item of that type. A Metric is a polled or calculated value that relates to the operation of that Object (e.g. Percent Used, Input Packets Per Second, Temperature, etc). Triggers define conditions under which an Incident or fault condition should be raised for that Metric.

I know it’s a bit over the top in terms of techno-speak, but essentially, what we’re doing is monitoring every element within each server and within each website to determine if anything either will go wrong (a warning), or has gone wrong (a notification). An example might be a hard drive. Our new system will let us know if a drive is getting too full – but is not yet at capacity. We can then, in turn, share this information with our customer, hopefully resulting in their approval to make adjustments and to prevent a failure or problem.

Each monitored server and related component has an Operational Status of Normal (Green), Warning (Yellow), Impaired (Orange) or Critical (Red). The operational state of an Entity is controlled by the Triggers that are applied to the Metrics being collected or calculated for the device. Okay – say that quickly ten times. If there’s a problem, we’ll find out! We can also adjust the metrics so that each server and in turn, customer, can determine the “line in the sand” that we need to be aware of.

As this solution learns more about how the devices in our network are operating over time, we can extract trend analysis that predicts when a given Metric will reach the defined Trigger values. For example, we can perform a predictive trend analysis on a particular Storage Resource and provide a prediction on when that Resource will hit the Warning, Impaired or Critical trigger conditions set for it. We’ll consider this aspect of our solution active 90 days after our launch date (which is today).

Recorded Metric values are written to disk using the open-source RRDtool file format. Unlike other monitoring systems where the resolution of historical data is lost or truncated over time, our solution keeps track of every recorded sample from the moment it is activated. Data is stored in a rolling file-per-year and file-per-month data storage format in a very neatly arranged directory structure that follows the Customer, Site, Device, Container, Object and Metric hierarchy of monitored entities.

All in all, we’re very excited about this solution. We strongly believe it will provide added value and functionality to our hosting and support services, and will benefit all of our clients. Note that these capabilities are being provided at no additional charge to any of our annually hosted customers.

Watch the 60 second commercial: click here

Watch the 30 second commercial: click here

Cloud-based computing offers tremendous upside opportunities for developers. By offering a subscription rather than a disc or download local solution, a relationship with the client is created. Renewal marketing is reduced. Packaging and shipping are eliminated. Service options are increased.

But all of this predicts the user will always have access to the Internet. And, that such access will be of a high quality. Before that happens, the quality of Internet connectivity must not only improve, but stabilize. Mobile companies in particular must put on big-boy pants and recognize their clients for what they are: users of technology, not dependents without choice or options.

There is a group of people who believe we’ll all be living in the clouds fairly soon. A recent survey by Elon University of more than 900 Internet and technology experts found that 71% predicted the majority of people will use web-based and mobile apps by 2020. Working in conjunction with Pew Research Center, the experts predicted that entities like Google will own the airwaves not only as a conduit, but as a destination for personal and business users.

Make no mistake, we’re very strong supporters of Software as a Service. At the same time, the ability to utilize applications on a local level remains equally important. It isn’t a game of lessor or greater – it’s an apple to an orange.

Overall, our record for keeping websites up and running is excellent. We average 99.958% up-time during the past eight years. That’s high. But it isn’t perfect, so why does this happen?

Website security is so challenging because there are a tremendous number of variables that can affect a site’s performance. The Internet itself, access to the Internet, the health of the hardware in use, the switch, the routers, the cables, the power supply (direct and indirect), the performance of the applications, the impact of users visiting the site, hackers trying to kill the site, etc. We work diligently to ensure we keep all of the above in balance, and it is that balance that provides the greatest degree of comfort and security.

Most clients want their websites to work, and they don’t care how that happens. If something does happen to their site, it is never their fault. We try to encourage that level of responsibility, but internally, we are always studying ways to improve. We’re in the midst of an upgrade, in fact. A new switch system, upgraded cables (we replace them over time, not when they fail), updated OS installations, and continued testing of the network are just a few of the activities under way at the moment. And all of it designed to ensure that the most important thing happen to your website when hosted with us. Nothing.

Our team understands this issue, and we’re working diligently to move a number of our products and services forward. To that end, this summer will see some significant evolution in how we support our clients.

Actually, before noting what we’re going to be doing this coming quarter, let me quickly review what we’ve already done this year… We’ve completely converted our media production to a tapeless workflow. All of our media capture is now sans tape.

We’ve spent a lot of time focusing on the quality of work we produce, and the recent spat of awards and trophies for our work product is both gratifying and supports the effort. Our team is very much on the quality bandwagon. We want that to translate to better products and services for you, our clients.

We’ve also just completed a completely new hosting and server environment. We’ve created a completely new set of cabinets, server architecture, wiring, firewall, switch, etc. The immediate result will be improved performance for all of our clients. The more long-term result will be announced over the course of the coming few months.

So, on to the new stuff that is coming…

The first step will be a completely new web environment for R/com. We will launch the new site in June. It will be very simple, but will clearly communicate what we do with our client and prospect base. And, we are adding some important support services, for both web and media clients.

The second step will be the addition of a new Internet environment for our content management software. It will focus on the capabilities of the software, as well as offer training and support for our existing and new clients.

The third step will be a new revision of our content software overall. We’ll be implementing some new ideas, combining various capabilities into object-oriented presentation of “ideas” via the web. Imagine being able to automatically create families of information (PDF, video, data, etc) around an object (product) and then to present that to the viewer.

There’s more to follow, but in the short run, that’s what we’re up to. And, we invite you along for the ride.

HBO is currently about three quarters of the way through presenting The Pacific, the story of young marines fighting in the Pacific Theater in World War II. Like Band of Brothers, this is a Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, and Gary Goetzman production. And like Band of Brothers, just minutes into the program, you feel as if you’re right there with the First Marines.

A number of my relatives served in World War II. As a boy, I was able to thumb through their photo albums, and I was able, from a distance to look at what a boy sees: the glory of battle and the pride of service to country. Most of what I saw was from Europe, were my uncles served in the Army Air Force. But another, my uncle Frank, served in the Pacific… in 1944 and 1945. Unless someone told you he was there, you’d never know. He never talked about it.

My uncle Frank was single, lived with his parents, and from my youthful point of view, only cared about two things: golf and gin. Every evening, he’d walk up to the full bar my grandparents had in their house and tell nobody in particular, “it’s time for a drinkee-poo.” And he’s pour himself a full glass of gin. At the time, I hated it. I couldn’t understand why that old fashioned alcohol drink was such a part of him. He always seemed aloof, distant, and silly. He was my least-favorite uncle because I could never get to know him.

After watching the remarkable and horrifying episode on Guadalcanal, I thought of my uncle Frank, who passed away a number of years ago at a nice old age. I hadn’t thought of him in several years. And then, more recently, the even more graphic episode on Peleliu made me wonder where exactly my uncle had been in the Pacific. He was with the First Marines. No doubt, he witnessed in person what I watched safely from my couch, with my two dogs and wife for company, safe and secure. We cried in the safety of our home.

If I knew then what I know now, I’d have poured my uncle a glass of gin every day. He deserved it.

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The Pacific is based loosely on the books “Helmet for My Pillow,” by Robert Leckie, and “With the Old Breed,” by Eugene B. Sledge. Additional material was used from “Red Blood, Black Sand,” by Chuck Tatum, and “China Marine,” By Eugene Sledge.