Silicon Computers - IT Solutions and Consulting Services

Brief Outage – 2011-02-22

Tim Dachtera — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 17:00:01 +0000

There was a brief and unanticipated outage with our provider about 10:50am this morning.. During this time traffic was slow to pass in and out of our network. After rebooting the gateway router, this problem was resolved and traffic flowing as expected at this time.

Now Accepting Visa/Mastercard payments

Tim Dachtera — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 14:40:36 +0000

For many years, Silicon has taken payments by check, cash or PayPal. Now, with the recent launch of merchant services from @Square, we are not able to take payment by credit cards for monthly fees, on-site work and hardware purchases.

We can now take payments in person, or via phone with our new processing abilities, as well as continue to take payments via PayPal and check/cash.

My Photo Biz Coach

Tim Dachtera — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 15:29:44 +0000

My Photo Biz Coach is a site to coach rooted and rising photographers alike grow their photography business and provide tools and training. Led by a photographer who has many years in the trade, she has been able to use this site to deliver podcasts, information and training sessions via e-commerce to her customers. With a simple integration of Google Analytics, one can easily see where traffic is coming from, and what topics are driving the most traffic to the website.

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Mail Server Swap

Tim Dachtera — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 03:48:28 +0000

2011-02-08-UPDATE: During the upgrade, the configuration setting to use port 587 for SMTP did not carry over and needed to be reset today after being discovered. This was updated by 3pm this afternoon and sending mail via port 587 is now working as expected.

Our E-mail service was offline for about 30 minutes tonight from 9:00-9:30PM CST while we swapped out mail server hardware. We had been running on a backup machine, and we returned to our primary machine for mail.

We shall monitor this for the next day or two and ensure everything is operating as normal.

IMPACT: The only impact you may notice is a slight delay in receiving email that would have come i during this time. At the present time, we see mail flowing in and out of the server as expected.

As always, please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.

UPS Services Upgraded

Tim Dachtera — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 03:20:32 +0000

At approx 10:30PM tonight, our network was offline for approx 15 minutes for UPS replacement and hardware maintenance. As of this time, all network services are up and responding normally.

Server Reboots

Tim Dachtera — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 19:47:30 +0000

Oct 26, 2010: 19:16

Due to the bad weather, there was a spike in power which caused the UPSs to reset and reboot the servers. It appears this power fluctuation damaged the UPS batteries and new ones have been ordered. They will be replaced during off-peak times as soon as they arrive.

All services were restored by 19:30 tonight.

Western MN Steam Threshers

Tim Dachtera — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 07:45:45 +0000

Background:
Western Minnesota Steam Threshers Reunion has been a pro-bono client of Silicon for about 3 years now. Starting with an old, non SEO friendly website, one of the WMSTR volunteers designed a new layout, and a Developer at Silicon build the back-end, including a one-off custom member management tool that spurred his new product “Traction”. It allows members to submit vital information that pertains to the show and, allows Admins easy access to review and input this data.

WMSTR also has an E-Commerce site that was brought to life in 2008 as well.. Starting only selling DVD’s and Showbook, they now sell the annual showbook, clothing and other WMSTR related items online.

In addition, WMSTR has a tremendous Social Media exposure. Between Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, there are over 2000 followers of all ages, from all over the US and other Countries as well. the WMSTR experience is a great example how a non-profit organization benefited from the tools and capacities of Silicon. All of the development resources, hosting and fees are given at no charge to this organization.

Overall, the contributions Silicon Computers has made to the site has helped generate more visibility online, attracting new and different visitors, and also helped its Membership handle their administrative tasks more efficiently.

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Tickled Pink Beach House

Tim Dachtera — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 16:57:33 +0000

Tickled Pink is a rental property down in Florida, and the owner wanted to get some additional online exposure at a low price to see what the online interest was. Silicon provides hosting/email services for this client, and assistance to upload the client-driven website when needed.

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St Croix Yacht Club

Tim Dachtera — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 16:56:47 +0000

The St. Croix Yacht Club is one of our oldest clients. Dating back to about 2000, this site started as an informational site about the club and how to join. As technology and the integration with a LAMP back-end became more feasible, they added a small ‘Members Only’ portion with party information and primary contacts.

Starting in 2011, they now offer a full web-based roster management tool for handling all of the roster/membership duties from simple tasks like member maintenance, up to handling the accounting tasks, statement and roster generation with the click of a button, and looking ahead to online sign-up for parties later this year.

Most of the content has been migrated into a custom built CMS for their needs, along with security levels and access for membership types, site admins and back-end members to manage their tasks.

This is a great case study of how an organization that has been around for decades has taken the leap into the technology world and adopted the integration of technology into existing processes to save time, improve usability and attract new visibility online!

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Jake Bastyr Music

Tim Dachtera — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 16:56:31 +0000

Jake is a jack of all trades when it comes to music styles, instruments and information. He however was in need of a website to help promote his music, and his repair business. We put together a simple site he could maintain on his own built on WordPress and showed him the ropes.

With this site, he’s able to update his schedule of performances, upload photos when he has a chance, and get information out to his followers and fans.

Having heard this guy play his accordion, he sure knows his stuff! His music was featured on the 2010 edition of Memories On the Hill for the Western MN Steam Threshers!

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Valley Photography

Tim Dachtera — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 16:56:21 +0000

Valley Photography is the hobby/obsession of a location shutterbug in the Twin Cities. He wanted a way to showcase some of his photography and sell some of his prints to support his hobby. Built again on the WordPress platform, he is able to easily setup his gallery and e-commerce site to get his photos online quickly. Coupling that with an attractive layout from ThemeForest.net, he can display a slideshow of photos when viewers land on the page, and quickly navigate the site to find what they are looking for.

Since updating from an old static website in the fall of 2010, VP has seen an increase in online sales and traffic to the website. In addition, they also utilize a twitter and facebook presence to help gain name recognition online.

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Medsource, LLC

Tim Dachtera — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 16:56:13 +0000