What it takes to internetwork 2 floors and 110 people. . .

We have all the hardware in place to make the move to the 3rd floor. Two 24 port switches for our lan (wired network), one 8 port switch for our wlan (wireless network), four gigabit fiber transceivers, and six 802.11n wireless access points. All of the equipment uses PoE (power over ethernet). This means that our wireless devices mounted in the ceiling will have power provided by the switch over the Ethernet cable. No need for a separate power cord. This will come in especially handy when we migrate to VoIP. Phones won't need to be plugged into the wall, power will be provided over the Ethernet line. This will save a valuable space for more important clutter.

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The Great Social Networking Experiment Continues. . .

I setup our 'free' account with Onesite today. The registration process was as easy as buying just about anything else online. The 'free' site was not really free though. To use the free site you have to transfer your domain name to Onesite (meaning they become the registrar for the domain and it would have to be transfered again if we ever left Onesite). This cost $9/yr. I also added spam/virus protection for the domain for another $15/yr. After all was said and done I ran into a serious problem. To qualify for a 'free' Onesite, you have to transfer your domain registration to Onesite. Since we had already registered with another registrar, we have to wait 60 days to change registrars. This is a rule of the ICANN. So. . .the experiment is temporarily on hold.

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The Great SRG Social Networking Experiment

As we take on more and more interactive initiatives, it becomes increasingly vital that we keep abreast of the latest trends and technologies floating around the internet. Social Networking and Web 2.0 are 2 of the biggest trends going. As we explore the usefulness of these trends for our clients, it is important that we explore these trends on our own behalf. Hence the beginning of The Great SRG Social Networking Experiment. I am comparing Drupal, an open source CMS/Community platform that is free and fairly easy to setup. The other contender is Onesite a third party hosted, developed, and maintained platform that is free for personal use, and about 50,000/yr to execute on the enterprise level (ie 50,000 users). Both platforms have their advantages and disadvantages. I intend to explore those more closely as I build out sites on both platforms.

Today was phase one of the experiment. I got the basic setup of a Drupal Community setup. With a little finagling and a little learning, I had the site setup in no time using our hosting solution provided Mosso. It is complete rough around the edges and in it's most basic infancy, but you can check out SRGinspired.net to watch as the site evolves.

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Great Example of Viral Marketing - Create Your Own Simpsons Character

Here is a great example of a viral marketing tactic used to promote the new Simpson's Movie. Create your won Simpson's avatar. Just let the page load and click the "Create Your Avatar" at the top. The image to the left is my avatar sans beard. Matt Simpson. Check it out.

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Coolest iPhone App Yet!

The Google Code Project has released the coolest iPhone app I've seen yet. Telekinesis is a small app that runs on your mac desktop or laptop and lets you control your computer remotely from your iPhone. You can do just about everything. . .control itunes, view a webcam, launch apps, browse files. It is pretty incredible. Check out Telekinesis.

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gTalk

It looks like in the next few months we will be rolling out an Instant Messaging client company wide. After evaluating several of the biggest clients, it looks like we are landing on gTalk. All the major players have similar sets of functionality. . .user to user calling, a web client, cross platform functionality. . .and then some. However none of gTalk's competitors are part of a broader productivity/messaging suite (ok, well M$ is the exception). One day in the future I'd really like to move the entire company away from M$ Outlook/Exchange and over to the Google Apps Suite. No more server, no more software upgrades, no more licensing hassles. . . and all the functionality a traditional desktop client provides. Moving to gTalk may just be the first step in this process. Check out gTalk here.

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