oneBackup XE Version 3.0 is being substantially upgraded to Version 4.0. Customers will see the time it takes to prepare their backups decrease 12-18 times. This is due to the oneBackup client’s ability to now take advantage of multithreading in modern CPUs. CPUs without multithreading will still see an improvement due to improved algorithms that detect the change between backups.

In addition to multithreading capabilities oneBackup Version 4.0 will also support Windows 8 and Windows 2012 in addition to the other operating systems previously supported with Version 3.0.

We are very happy to be able to include this upgrade free of charge to our current customers. Expect to see performance increase the first week of June 2013.

This spring, NIRIX paid a visit to iHuman Youth Society, a non-profit organization providing Edmonton youth at risk with a safe, sober space to connect, share, and develop their creative skills. A few weeks earlier, iHuman had been in the news as the unfortunate target of crime. Their Boyle-McCauley studio and offices had been broken into overnight, and several valuable items destroyed or stolen. Doors and locks were broken, tools had been used to damage hardware, and some office and studio equipment was taken. Worse, irreplaceable digital files of client art, both completed projects and works in progress, had been stored on local hard drives and were lost. As a cloud computing company with passionate feelings about data backup, this felt like a punch in the stomach to us here at NIRIX. We like to prevent this stomach-punchy kind of thing from happening, and so we made contact with the director of iHuman, Catherine, who invited us for a visit to their facility.

From left to right: Steven Hsu (NIRIX CEO), Catherine, Alex, Laurie-Ann and iHuman artists on site that day.

The main floor of the building, a lively, friendly retooling of a former neighbourhood eyesore, is the visual art studio, welcome area, and clothing workshop. Every wall, floor-to-ceiling, glows with the energy of dozens of paintings, drawings, and collages. Three-dimensional projects, including a set of lanterns, hang from the high ceiling. On the day we visited, people were working on a series of large format canvases in acrylic and mixed media. Artists of varying styles and levels of development are given the space, the materials, and opportunity for skill improvement they need to get their ideas into visible format. “We teach other skills too,” said Alex, the studio manager. “We train artists to prep and stretch their own canvases. We sell some original art and prints through our store, with proceeds to the artist, and also have some wall space locally where work is sold on consignment.”

In the clothing workshop, fashion design projects, performance costumes, and creative clothing re-use and repair are underway. For young people who may be homeless, sharing accommodation, or in transit much of the time, clothing might be the main way they can “hang some art” by expressing personal style and showing their individuality. By providing a sewing machine, cutting table, and materials for everyone to use, iHuman takes what would otherwise be out of reach and makes practical and fun creativity a possibility.

We are escorted through a bright stairwell filled with art into the sunny communal kitchen, childcare facility, and staff offices – in which we met Laurie-Ann, the iHuman office manager. “I love coming to work every day,” she told us. Formerly with the provincial government, she finds it extremely rewarding to make an appreciable difference at work, and is happy to be surrounded by people at work on creative projects. From her work table, you can hear the kids in the childcare unit laughing, and occasionally a little person runs by, followed by one of the early childhood staff. What does childcare have to do with art? Simply – it’s a matter of inclusion. Safe, reliable childcare makes it possible for participants (mostly young women) with children – a group that might otherwise be excluded – to choose to participate in iHuman activities.

The musical studios and performance space are in the basement of the building. This is the area where evidence of the break-in is most visible. iHuman artists and staff are a supportive community, who celebrate each other’s successes and help each other to achieve goals, so the community rules are posted plainly at the door – no violence, no criminal activity. “This is their safe place,” said Alex, the studio manager, showing us the hammer damage to one of the soundproof booth doors. “The break-in felt personal to a lot of people.” So personal, that one of the instructor/volunteers covered some missing equipment with recording equipment out of his own recording studio so artists could continue to work while replacements were sourced.

NIRIX was happy to be able to replace some of the missing computer equipment with donations from our own inventory, and to set iHuman up with a oneBackup account to keep their data safe from harm. Keep up the good work, iHuman!

About the Author

PJ is an IT professional who writes on subjects of interest ranging from business implications of international law to the best statistical analysis for your wildlife tracking camera.

We’ve discovered that spammers, just like moms, eagerly look forward to mother’s day. Not to get presents of ceramic cigarette trays, breakfast in bed or spa gift cards but they look forward to all of us dropping our guard so they can spam the heck out of our inbox. One of our email experts was going through the spam filter reports and found that the amount of email spam sent on Mother’s Day was 16 times more then on normal days. Luckily our spam recycling program can easily process the excess spam back into the environment with no negative effects.

For those of you that like spam and seeing all of the deals and scams out there you will like the updates we are making to our oneExchange service. One of the updates allows you to adjust what email your filter blocks or lets in. Expect to see updates in the next several months.

We are heading out to Ontario to attend the ChannelNext Value Added Reseller Conference on May 30-31. Creating relationships with the businesses that use our services has been a rewarding experience. With our Channel Partner program we get to help our partners to strengthen their connections with their customers. Whether they specialize in providing services to the medical, construction, oil and gas or other regulated industry, NIRIX gives them the services their customers demand.

At the end of May we will be looking for more channel partners that need to supply their customers with cloud services. We are excited not only to visit the other side of the country but also to be updating our Channel Partner Program to Version 3.0. This is a more flexible and attractive program that we expect will appeal to many new channel partner relationships. There will be more about this new program in the next several weeks.

Learn more about the opportunities our channel partner programs offers.

This month’s give away winner will get their choice of either an iTunes or Google Play $25 gift card. Everyone likes being able to buy a couple of apps for their tablet or phone. We had one winner almost not enter the give away but asked himself “Why not?”. He now is getting himself a sparkly Nexus 7.

To enter use the widget below. You will have to connect with your email or facebook account first. Privacy and security are top priority with your information. We will not be using any of that info for diabolical purposes, only for the giveaway. Once you are connected answer a short question and you are entered into the contest. You can also enter by following us on Facebook or other social connections.

Sign up for our monthly newsletter to get notices of upcoming giveaways and to stay up to date on how cloud computing is impacting Canadian business.

You can now get in touch with NIRIX using a variety of social media outlets. We now have another avenue to connect with our customers to share important service updates, announce new services and build a community centered around businesses and the benefits of cloud computing. Take a second to connect with NIRIX on the networks you use.

• Linkedin
• Google+
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Youtube

If you have more than a second of time and would like to recommend one of our services you can fill out a contact form or try out the Linkedin recommendation links below.

• oneBackup
• oneExchange
• oneDesktop
• oneServer

Want to know more about recommending services on Linkedin?

This month we are giving away a $25 iTunes or Google Play gift card. Everyone likes being able to buy a couple of apps for their tablet or phone. We had one winner almost not enter the giveaway but asked himself “Why not?”. He now is getting himself a sparkly Nexus 7.

You can enter below. Just answer the question and you will be entered. You will have to connect with your email or facebook account first. We will not be using any of that info for diabolical purposes, only for the giveaway. You can also enter by following us on Facebook or other social connections.

Sign up for our monthly newsletter to get notices of upcoming giveaways and to stay up to date on how cloud computing is impacting Canadian business.

House Cleaning, Name Updates, and General Improvements

So what exactly did we change? Once we started to look at updating our site to reflect the name update we realized that we should also do some other updates. These are the updates that we ended up making:

Creating the Multisite

There are some exciting products that we are working on at NIRIX. To help us deliver these new products we wanted to showcase them on their own site. We considered using separate WordPress installs to achieve this. After consulting with our in-house SEO expert we were advised that we would get better traffic if we could somehow build the new site off of the one we currently had. WordPress has a feature just for this called multisite. It has allowed us to create a network of sites all managed by one dashboard. Not only would that be useful but is also fits in nicely with the strategy behind our new product naming scheme (oneBackup, oneDesktop etc). Once we launch these new projects we will make sure to share them.

Updating WordPress to the latest version

WordPress has been good to us and millions of other sites. They are always improving what they do and we wanted to be a part of that. Updating your site to the latest WordPress version is such an easy task but, if done wrong, can wreck havoc. We tested this on the development server to make sure we weren’t watching our traffic jump ship to our competition due to a botched upgrade.

A Better Contact Form

Our site used to have about 17 contact forms for various purposes from quote requests to hiring inquiries. We wanted to streamline the process to not only make it easier for those visiting our site but also for in-house analytics – tracking one contact form is easier than tracking 17. We also pre-filled some of the input fields depending on where the customer came from when visiting the contact page.

A Better First Impression

A home page is a website’s first impression. With all of the other updates I couldn’t resist improving our first impression. Previous to this update our home page was wordy and a bit challenging to navigate. With a couple of small layout changes and updated visuals the content is now easier to find and digest.

Product name change

We moved away from a generic naming of our services and into a naming scheme that would help us define the NIRIX difference. Doing the name update meant finding hundreds of old products names and updating them to the new ones. Luckily there is control “f”. This was one of the more time consuming tasks. We searched through webpages, HTML code and database entries to make all the updates. We also created a bunch of new icons and product logos for the update.

Takeaways

Make a Plan

Whether you are updating websites or running a business, making a plan is crucial. This not only helps spot potential challenges before they happen it also helps reduce wasted time trying to figure out the next step.

Build a Team of Experts

Have a team that you can plan with and rely on. Going at it alone can leave you vulnerable to overlooked areas of inexperience.

Have a Deadline

While I didn’t mention it above some of those late nights were due to meeting a deadline. I am a list checker and it is always nice to check one more thing off your outstanding items list.

Where to next

There is always more work to do on our site. I am fortunate enough to enjoy working on it. Over the next little while we will be updating our product information, adding videos, and studying our analytics to find other improvements.

This update will bring better spam filters to the email services found in oneExchange and oneDesktop at no extra cost. The update will happen automatically and will give you more control in filtering unwanted and wanted email. As we get closer to launching new product improvements we will be sharing more information.

Simplified
Service Plan 2.0 had three levels of service for all our products. This made it a tad more confusing for our customers than it needed to be. In designing Service Plan 3.0 we wanted to simplify the plans while still offering a great and flexible service. Soon we’ll have done this by including the most used features into one plan. This essentially took our top level service and made it the only service we now offer. We’ve also been able to keep pricing at the entry level service plan seen in Service Plan 2.0.

Feedback Driven
Our customers have helped us sculpt the plan so it best fits their needs. Being able to offer one plan that will cover the majority of customers’s needs is a big win for NIRIX. We have also added some options to tailor our services to our customers’s more unique needs.

Improved Operations
Lastly, reducing the number of all of our service plans reduces the amount of account data we manage. As any business knows, improving operational efficiency allows resources to be allocated to other areas of the business. This is something that we are looking forward to.

The service plans are up now and you can have a look at the specific service plans below.

oneDesktop Service Plan 3.0
oneBackup Service Plan 3.0
oneExchange Service Plan 3.0
oneServer Service Plan 3.0
oneDatacenter Service Plan 3.0