Days after the colossal tragedy in the Philippines where Typhoon Haiyan caused deaths of upwards of ten thousand people, the midwestern part of the United States was hit by powerful tornados.

Just 151 miles away from the eBoundHost.com home base near Chicago, Illinois, a massive tornado touched down in the city of Washington.

The images of devastation and news of loss of life are so completely overwhelming that it’s amazing how anyone survived. A good portion of the city has been reduced to rubble, houses, businesses, stores, hospitals, schools are simply gone. People who planned their lives and retirements, and worked hard to build and to save, are left with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

The realization sinks in that this could have been us, any of us.

Most importantly it’s time to help our neighbors with the very basic needs in life like clean water, food and shelter. We are entering the coldest part of the year where temperatures are dropping to below freezing and these people need help today, right now.

Please join us in doing what you can. Volunteer your time or help by donating funds to the relief fund. More information can be found here:

http://ci.washington.il.us/

Our hearts go out to the victims of Typhoon Yolanda/Haiyan in the Philippines.   We are extremely saddened by the loss of life and hope that the  survivors find comfort in the world community joined together to rebuild what was destroyed.  eBoundHost.com is donating to the relief fund  organized here:

http://www.itmatters.com/typhoon-yolanda/

100% of donations collected go directly to the victims. Wecall on everyone who can to join us.

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9s3PmasGVnw9Yl58aAuwiQ/videos

Millions of Americans oppose SOPA and PIPA because these bills would censor the Internet and slow economic growth in the U.S.

SOPA / PIPA

Two bills before Congress, known as the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House, would censor the Web and impose harmful regulations on American business. Millions of Internet users and entrepreneurs already oppose SOPA and PIPA.

The Senate will begin voting on January 24th. Please let them know how you feel. Sign this petition urging Congress to vote NO on PIPA and SOPA before it is too late.

https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/

It’s been quite a while since the last official blog post, specifically almost 6 months.  This is in no way due to a slowdown of eBoundHost activity, quite to the contrary, we have been so busy that it’s been difficult to keep up with non-critical things like this blog.

The last 6 months have brought a lot of behind the scenes changes to our team, office, data center, even a refresh of our office computers.

Most importantly we have added some fresh new faces to our customer support team.  Of course, the term “fresh” is relative, since our team members are industry veterans (if you can say that for a 10 year industry).  Those of you who have the pleasure to work with our support team will notice some new names on your support tickets, be sure to put them through their paces!  No need to go easy on them just because they are new.

Our data center has been expanded in order to accommodate projected growth.  This has involved new rackspace, more bandwidth and more electrical power.    Since even the smallest changes to the data center can lead to unexpected consequences, we try to plan ahead as far as reasonable and make incremental changes. The latest update should take us through the middle of 2011 without any more major upgrades.

And finally, we are in the midst of a office move.  We outgrew the previous office of 7 years and have moved up to a beautiful new office with large windows.  It may be strange to mention that this office has large windows, but you would be surprised at how many potential offices we turned down due to the lack of sunlight.  We might be computer people, but aesthetics and comfort of the office environment are paramount.  We spend more time working than any other activity, even sleeping takes less time during the week, so the office environment has to be comfortable.

That’s it for now, lots of other things going on that we can’t get into just yet, but a few major changes are in the pipeline.  Stay tuned!

Today is the American national holiday of Thanksgiving. We gather from all over the country and sometimes the world for the purpose of sitting down around the same table and sharing a meal with our closest family members. The news reported that 37 million people are traveling the highways on this day to be with their families. That is more than 10% of the country’s population on the roads at the same time trying to join their relatives for dinner. Dwell on the enormity of that for a moment.

In the hustle of life its easy to forget that this is really what is most important, family. We work to live not the other way around.

From our table to yours, we wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving!

On this date, eight years ago, our world changed.  Never forget.

Technological advancements are not without caveats.  For instance, our VOIP provider is having issues and as a result our primary telephone line is not working for some callers.  Luck would have it that all of our other (secondary) lines are working without any issues, while the only one that truly matters is down.

For the next several days call this secondary number: 847-368-9490

We have used this particular telephone company for the past 2 years without any major issues and this is the first time we have seen how they respond to a real customer service trouble ticket.

Working with their first and second level support really makes me appreciate our own support team.  Our people know what they are doing and they don’t have idiotic scripts to read while you are aggravated on the other end of the phone call.  We don’t waste your time with endless “for this department press this, for that department press that”.  We don’t have you wait on hold endlessly while reading basic notes.  We don’t transfer you to five departments before reaching the correct person.  Bad customer service is infuriating.

If we don’t have a resolution tomorrow, we will move off to another carrier, telephone support is too important for our customers.

You don’t appreciate good service until you need it.

Whatever you celebrate, we can all join together and wish each other a happy holiday season.  With such awful weather (in Chicago), it’s the perfect time to gather indoors and spend time with the family.

Due to holidays our team is operating on a skeleton crew for the next few days but we are still here for you if you have any questions, concerns, or just want to say “hello!”

Have a happy and safe holiday season and we’re looking forward to working with you in 2009!

Its November 4th, election day in the USA, and all the nonstop political coverage is almost over. Whatever your political leaning, I’m sure we all agree on one important thing, electing our leaders is one of the few true freedoms we have. However you vote, its better than failing to show up. If you don’t like either candidate, then write in your own name. This is a much better way to protest than through aparent apathy. Howvever you vote, just vote.

Let’s hope that whomever takes the White House is going to unite the country that has been so bitterly divided politically for the last few election cycles.

As life gifts us with happy moments, we must always remember the tragedies of our past that shape our future.  9/11/2001, always in our hearts.

Someone emailed me these pictures and could not help but post them up for your amusement! This is the very opposite of how a data center is supposed to look.

Tomorrow is the fourth of July. This was the day The Declaration was approved and signed.  The day the Colonial Experiment became the American Dream.  The day everything changed.

This particular July 4th, is especially interesting.  I do not remember the last July 4th during a presidential campaign year because I didn’t happen to pay particular attention.  But today, our two (main) candidates will go on television and make flowery speeches and promise the world to us, just as long as we are willing to vote for them.  And then the political analysts are going to dissect and analyze every word and gesture and try to hide behind a journalistic lack of bias while steering the conversation in a particular direction.  And then the public is going to have private conversations about how a particular candidate is bad for our country and how the other guy/gal is going to be our savior.

Today’s political process seems very dirty.  The candidates appear inadequate, each in their own way.  The political commentators are biased and dishonest.  And the public seems to be the exact uneducated, unwashed masses, that are looked down upon by people who consider themselves the ‘elite’ and call the space between New York and Los Angeles, “flyover country”.

Somehow, I get the feeling that not much was different a hundred years ago.  Some Presidents have been unworthy of the title.  Newspaper publishers have been cheaters and liars, and the public, well the public literally didn’t bathe much.

But this is just an illusion.  The candidates at this level of the game are really the best of what is available to fill the Presidential shoes.  They may be unable to spell ‘potato’ or hold the book upsde down, but nobody can possibly stand up to this kind of scrutiny and constant pressure.  The candidates are good people who have already shown themselves to be good leaders.  The journalists are definitely opinionated but they maintain as much neutrality as possible and are balanced out by their colleagues on the other side of the political spectrum.  And the people are more politically savvy than they are given credit for.  When it comes down to it the system is brilliant.  And with all this imperfection, we somehow overcome the shortcomings and grow past the mistakes of our leaders.  Somehow, our country has been the innovator in almost every scientific field.  Somehow we have one of the highest qualities of life, and own the best ‘stuff’.  Even with the bad economy, most people have an excess of food, a flat screen television, relatively new car, a cell phone and computer.  We have it so good that we are STILL selling SUV’s the size of Caribbean inner city buses.  We invented the Internet.  We invented the automobile.  We invented the telephone.

Whoever wins the upcoming election, things are not bad now and they are probably going to remain pretty good.  The reason for this, in my opinion, is the very nature of our society.  We are Open Source.  We have checks and balances, we have the right to criticize our leaders, to replace them if necessary.  The right to become candidates and fix the system from the inside.  The system is not perfect, but we are always working on it.  We are a society that is truly governed by the people, from the people and for the people.

On behalf of the eBoundHost team, we wish a happy 4th of July to the world.

Today is Friday the 13th.  A mysterious day where you should stay in bed because terrible things will happen.  Don’t walk under the ladder, don’t spill salt, don’t cross the path of a black cat.  I don’t know, it’s the end of the day and still feeling happy and upbeat.

It has been an amazingly busy week in an overly busy month but for some reason I was able to tear myself away from the paperwork and look back in retrospect.  This happens less often now that things have become so busy, but I realize this is more important than having your head buried in daily routine.  Overall, I have to say that this was a very good week, much was accomplished.

It still shocks me to look over the New Sign ups roster and recognize just one or two of the names.  Used to be that majority of our new sign ups were either existing clients or referred by existing clients.  Today, our genetic pool has become diverse to the point where it is going to be difficult to say where the majority of our new clients are located.  Some in Europe, Middle East, Asia, South America and of course a great number from North America but it is becoming quite diverse.

While I’m here writing, something new and exciting is going to be announced in the upcoming week.  While I can’t tell you details yet, I will just say that we have added a sizable addition to our eBoundHost family.

I hope the week was as meaningful and successful to all of you as well.  Have a happy weekend and I’ll see you back on Monday!

Artur

On behalf of the eBoundHost.com team I would like to wish all of our US based customers a very happy July 4th. It is too easy to forget that freedom is not a given and by no means cheap. Much blood and sweat has gone into building this wonderful country and we must not forget that nothing is guaranteed. The First Amendment, freedom of education, lateral movement between social classes, world class medicine, and many others are what make this country so unique.

We are lucky and priviledged to be here, never forget.

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.