Hosting, hosting, hosting. This week's updates are all about the cool sites we host for our great customers. And it's about the stuff we do to make hosting better, faster, and stronger for our customers.  

Looking for some northern Maine adventures? Try checking out the great, cycling, travel packages on Discover Northern Maine's web site! We've begun to revamp the web site with road biking getaways as well as German and French translations for our bi-lingual friends. Discover Northern Maine is a web site connecting Aroostook County small businesses with eager travelers from New England, the United States at large and Europe. Cycling Travel packages in Northern Maine: http://www.discovernorthernmaine.com/travel-packages/cycling/

Our friend and client Leslie Wagner of Leslie Wagner Photo has been busy! The Art Directing LLBean veteran is working regularly in the field but it seems she's going where the fun is! Leslie has recently been photographing numerous rock and pop bands (Neon Trees and The Avett Brothers) both in concert and candid portraits as well as charity events (recently the Maine walk for Haiti) and professional tennis players. Shouldn't we all be doing this? Check out Leslie's web site and follow her on Facebook!
http://www.lesliewagnerphoto.com
https://www.facebook.com/lesliewagnerphoto

Holz Creative of Atlanta Georgia tapped us to host the great new site they're working on now, even now, from faraway Germany, for Jeff Brickman Law. (Hey there, Cory!)

The righteously bad (bad meaning hot; righteously meaning, well, shooot) folks at BAD Studio and Packawhallite and Yellahooser Jim Cradock are building sites for Diane de la Rue, one she and her daughters are using to write about her benign brain tumor being shown the door – think of it as kind of TV situation comedy with one of the lead characters, though not the straight man, being the tumor – and another site for her legal consulting business. The tumor has a name, and the site is here: http://www.byebyebillybob.com/ Stay tuned for more!

Making hosting better:  

We recently upgraded our server in Texas to make use of Cloud services. There's a buzzword for your: Cloud. But it's a buzzword with some real substance behind it. Cloud services allow resources, whether bandwidth, drive space, processor cycles, to be shared across computers plugged in to the Cloud on the 'net. Practically, and really basically, it provides an even higher level of redundancy. Think of it like this: Cloud is to hosting and serving what RAID is to harddrives and storage. It's about keeping our customers' stuff online. Always. Just one of those proactive things we're thinking about in a meangingful way and utilizing when it appears ready for prime time.

It's June! We hope everyone is having a great summer. 

Packawhallop will have important news Monday. We're not teasing, but we don't want to say what it is now, because when the weather is this nice we know no one reads email, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc. Well, you shouldn't be. You should be outside! 

We would like to highlight some of the things our customers are doing. It's all really great stuff! 

Quality Care for Children launched its summer camp search site, hosted by Packawhallop. The site's really cool: It features an über database of camps in Georgia, searchable on a number of parameters (meals, activities, distance from parents' home zip) by parents in Southeastern states. There are mechanisms for comparing and reviewing summer camps, too. Scott Banks at BAD Studio did the hot design, Packawhallop co-owner James Cradock did the programming, information architecture and sysop, Chad Thompson and Reynaldo Green at QCC helped clean up data and facilitate user acceptance testing within Quality Care for Children. Here's the link: http://www.allgacamps.org

Packawhallop will be hosting a revamped and awesome new web site for the State Theatre Building, the Portland Arts District anchor, and the home to offices, studio space for artists and craftsmen, galleries, stores, and The State Theatre. The Building is managed by Stone Coast Properties. Yellahoose will be redoing the site, with help from Packawhallop partner Gordon Holman, and Kerryann McQaude at Stone Coast Properties. No link to share now, but watch for it! 

The Packawhallop artístes have been cleaning their fashionable berets, buttering their fluffy croissants, and steaming their strong cappuccinos to keep off the malaise of the weather. That doesn't mean we haven't been busy, or that our customers haven't been up to some incredible things. Voila: 

First, Bonney Staffing launched their Yellahoose-built and Packawhallop-hosted video interview app this week. It features web and iPhone and iPad video interview viewing, résumé submissions, some cool MySQL, PHP, Perl, Apache and iOS development. It's an internal app, and though we'd really, really, really like to share, we can't. Great work, Jim, Morten, Glenn and AJ!

Next up on the plate, we have three more Maine-based customers working with us on updates, SEO and great business development. 

We've just completed a round of updates for our friends at eco-kids^® including a new product launch! Something we've all been waiting for, eco-crayons! I swear these little nuggets of creative love are more than fun to play with and the tin they store in is just right. Go on and check out the eco-kids web site and pick up some eco-crayons or some eco-paint^™ and create some happy little trees: http://www.ecokidsusa.com

Uncommon Paws loves your pet. Really! Not only does this new company offer some super-edgy collars and leashes (check out the colorful "Retro Flower Dog Collar") but they've just expanded their store to offer All-Natural Flea & Tick, Dog Grooming and Suppliments for your pet! Just in time for the sun to come out and our beloved pets to play in the woods, roll in the dirt and eat something they probably shouldn't. I swear we just saw that dog collar on 5th in NYC last weekend... Visit Uncommon Paws' web site now! http://www.uncommonpaws.com/

Crossroads for Women are expanding their Kennebunk counselling office, and the agency will be moving to great new digs in the fall. We'll share updates through Packawhallop. Crossroads for Women's site: http://www.crossroadsforwomen.org