Hey there. 

Quick heads up, because we know some of you were starting the weekend early, i.e. last (Thursday) night, and if you're in Portland-town we know some of you were super productive attending the Abstract conference, but if you're hosted with Packawhallop our server (one of 'em) on which we host your stuff was upgraded. Thursday night. Cloud upgrade. Sorry, no iTunes gift cards... Maybe next upgrade... 

Good news is that because of Packawhallop's proactive measures to always make things better, your hosting with us got better. Even if you didn't notice. Which is kind of the point. We're always thinking about and doing stuff to grow our hosting business and to make it better without interrupting the things you need your site to do. 

Cloud. It's really great. Well, we're digging it. Our propellers are spinning really fast on our beanies right now so that we're floating – really, floating! – like three feet in the air. And yes, we love all our customer, and we understand and appreciate that you host with us because it's great having geeks, actual geeks listening to oftentimes dissonant music (although in our case that music isn't metal but Hungarian folk, but, alas, that's stuff for another post) doing your hosting. 

Have a great weekend! We have your hosting covered! 

The Packaworkers have been busy in the Packawonka factory making shiny golden tickets for some as yet unnamed golden ticket holders (there's more truth to that than you can possibly imagine), but we did want to do a couple of quick shout outs to just a few of our great customers.

Patrick Costin and the architecture and design wizards at Canal 5 Studio got some very nice press in Mainebiz magazine. Woo-hoo! Go Canal 5 Studio! Here's a link to the story:

http://bit.ly/ixIkTj

Canal 5 Studio's web site is here: http://www.canal5studio.com

The Children's Museum and Theatre of Maine's auction web swimmingly. If we saw you there... yeah, we didn't mean to keep outbidding you on the art work, and the dinner, and the Vinalhaven weekend getaway you really, really, really wanted. (Sorry!) (Come over later and see how great that painting looks in the dining room over the sideb... oh, nevermind.) If you were at the auction, then you might have seen Packawhallop CTO Jazzy Jim coolly working with Alex and John O. on some quick MS Access database modifications in preparation for the night's big check out. It was a really good time. Go next year! http://www.kitetails.org

We're really happy to announce we'll be hosting the summer camp search and camp comparison site for Georgia's Quality Care for Children. We can't tell you domain name just yet, because the shop workers have the site in the shop and are hammering and sawing and building the site right not. Stay tuned!

Well, there's more going on at Packaworld. But it is Cinco de Mayo. And we've got to run to the store to get vegan mayonaise (Nayonaise?!) before the after work crowds sweep in and buy it all up. Which we don't believe is actually going to happen.

Have a great Seis de Mayo! Tomorrow is First Friday Art Walk! Woo-hoo!

If you're a Packawwhallop customer (we, litereally, know who you are) and you're using a web mapping technology (MapServer, PostGIS) or you're using the Plone CMS, we've sent out direct updates to you, but if you happen to be following this: We have updated our servers and network hosting these tools. We did it last week.

Thanks. You're great!

Welcome to the sophomore edition of Packawhassup. Each week, or so, we here at the Packawhallamothership want to let you know about some of the things our customers are up to. Because what they're doing is cool! This is the second edition. Enjoy! 

Amy Holman, Big Apple author of poetry and prose, literary consultant to writers (and cousin to "Packapartner" Gordon Holman) is sitting pretty after moving her web site and email hosting to Packawhallop. Check out Amy Holman's site: http://www.amyholman.com

Stephens Waring Yacht Design is a distinctive yacht design firm working at the cutting edge of tradition. We mean really! Visit their site and take a look at some of their amazing work out of Brooklin, ME. New work is being added to the site as we write this including some SketchUp videos showcasing some of the process before physical fabrication of these beautiful sail and power boats begins. Transfer of files to and from SWYD and Slickfish Studios is executed with help from Packwhallop software FileTrunk. Sail over to Stephen's Waring's site: http://www.stephenswaring.com

The Children's Museum & Theatre of Maine is getting ready for their annual auction Friday. They'll have hors d'oeuvres and desserts... but most importantly (not that food isn't important) hundreds of items and original artwork by Maine artists, including great getaways, concert, cultural and sports event tickets... and a lot more! If you can think about attending the auction. It's really fun. http://www.kitetails.org 

Terry Barber, Suzanne Tulien (and a bunch of people they don't give us enough room here to mention) and the Global Institute for Inspiration are gearing up the "I-Inspire" feature for their inspired web site. "I-Inspire" lets users share great stories, with pictures and short video, of people being engaged in their communities ...volunteering, making donations, helping others one-to-one. Power of the positive - pretty cool stuff. Check out the GII site: http://www.giinspiration.com 

Or two plane crashes, one Thursday and another Friday. But that's beside the point:

Cloud computing, the thing that tripped Amazon up last week, and using the cloud for providing access to online servers, is where hosting is going. It might not be 100% there yet. But it is where it's going. Part of this is managing expectations. The airline analogy from NYT is a good one. Extend it:

Sometimes flights don't happen. They're cancelled. Handle it gracefully, professionally, and the customers with a rudimentary understanding (they don't need to be "techies") for how hosting works will in all likelihood understand. They'll give Amazon and Amazon's customers, like Foursquare and Netflix, the understanding they deserve.

The folks who don't understand and who react first by calling Amazon-Foursquare-Netflix "idiots," well, those are the ones who are going to call to yell and swear at you that their email doesn't work, when they've not entered their correct email password. Like most people working hard to provide what we believe are good services, like Amazon, like Foursquare, and like Netflix, we love all our customer. But are these the customers you really want?

Here's the article tracking the original outage Thursday:

http://nyti.ms/dQErAO 

Here's the Saturday NYT article:

http://nyti.ms/fQBvEW

Welcome to the inaugural edition of Packawhassup, the occassional update from PackawhaHQ (yeah, we can have a lot of fun with that) letting you know about some of Packawhallop's customers, the great things they're doing and the cool products and services they're offering.

The Maine Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program launched LakesofMaine.org with a much revamped and a  broadened information architecture plan. LakesofMaine.org is meant to be a easy to use portal for lake info in the state of Maine. It culls data from disparate governmental sources. And it organizes and presents information in user-friendly and easily navigable pages. Check it out: http://www.lakesofmaine.org/  

Packawhallop hosts the Maine Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program web site, too. Check them out: http://www.mainevlmp.org/

VoxPhotographs revved its online commercial fine art photography gallery with a secure and easy-to-use store. Check out the blog, too, to get the skinny on photography at Vox and in Maine: http://www.voxphotographs.com/

In the mood for spring and really impatient for it to start, for real? (And what's we hear about snow in the state today?!) Well, get inspired for your landscaping job, and visit the Snug Harbor Farm web site. Located in Kennebunk, Maine, Snug Harbor's got great plants, terra cota pots, topiaries and lots and lots of garden ideas for the professional landscape designer, and for the connosieur. Check out their site: http://www.snugharborfarm.com/

Gulf of Maine Council's Ecosystem Indicator Partnership has been busy! Added to its Indicator Reporting Tool, featuring a data-rich dynamic web map, are data on impervious surfaces in New Brunswick. On the Partnership's home page check out the Climate Change Fact Sheet, and watch for more great publications and data. Here's where to start: http://www.gulfofmaine.org/esip/