O’Malley the Alley Cat – Happy Birthday Sclera

Each of us has that one time a year when we must succumb to the inevitable. Birthdays – and growing old.

Even though I spend a great deal of time on the road – we have a new addition to our team – and he’ll frequent the office when I’m in the field working.

Meet O’Malley – he’s as laid back as they come for a kitten:

Complete with a catnip mouse – well, he’s pretty content.

MikeH… Just Another Geek in Need…

Microsoft Online Services – Online is not always Online

As a software engineer for a small Microsoft Partner – I have had a blast working with the enterprise technologies – especially since the release of the beta bits of MOSS 2007.

The firm I work for is also a Microsoft Hosted Services Partner, and we host key technologies like Exchange, MOSS, Dynamics CRM, SQL Server and the latest craze – the Business Productivity Suite. The following is a blurb from the MSFT Help About BPS Online:

The Business Productivity Online Standard Suite is a set of Microsoft hosted messaging and collaboration solutions including Microsoft Exchange Online, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Office Live Meeting, and Microsoft Office Communications Online.

As a services corporation – I will be the first to tell you – this is an excellent offering, and I consider it a Flagship of online hosted services from the software giant.

HOWEVER… You have to love that part – HOWEVER…

I had the recent opportunity to experience the Microsoft flavor of this service – versus a partner’s similar offering of the hosted services.

Microsoft has scheduled maintenance programs – ones that literally take your Business Productivity Suite Standard hosting OFFLINE for 3+ hours – on a Friday evening. I found this not a little fascinating.

The clients that we (our company) provides hosted services to – well, a 3 hour window of maintenance downtime would pretty much run off the lion’s share of our business.

A lesson learned – not all things Online – are Online.

As you consider the suite of Microsoft Online (keyword, Online) hosted services – keep in mind – you are subject to that same unexpected downtime. I’m a bit perplexed that they do not shift services to one server farm or another during any maintenance plans. They did not – they literally took the online services OFFLINE for 3+ hours on a busy Friday night.

So… as you consider hosting options and hosting providers – keep in mind – even the biggest – is not the best.

Supporting Jobs in Michigan – And Much More

Sclera Design and Sclera Hosting Internet Services is proud to announce that we have been selected as the key hosting provider and development partner of www.supportsmichigan.com.

Supports Michigan .COM is a service site that allows users to basically register on the site, opt to make a contribution to the site, and the user gets a site hosted on the parent domain of Supports Michigan .COM.

The site that the user gets can be as simple as a one page blurb about what they are doing to support Michigan, to a complex web solution that tells the public what the subscriber is doing to support Michigan.

The site that a user or small business owner can get for a small contribution is a very comprehensive, search engine friendly ad site that the user or small business owner can use to drive web traffic back to themselves as well. So, you can speak out about what you are doing to support Michigan, and at the same time, drive traffic to your business, or personal site.

For major industry like General Motors, Meijer, Wal-Mart, and many others that are headquartered, or that do business in Michigan, it is an outlet to run continuous advertising about what your organization is doing to support jobs and the economy, in Michigan.

For State Representatives, municipalities, and any of the public officials in our State – this is a simple, no frills way for you to provide the people of Michigan more information on what you are doing to support Michigan.

Microsoft Online Services and Hosted Solutions

Sclera Design, Inc. is happy to announce that we are expanding our hosting division to now include the full range of hosted services available from Microsoft. Initially, we will roll out and host/manage the following technologies:

• Microsoft Exchange Server
• Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (Enterprise/Standard)
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008
• Microsoft Office Communications Server – Live Meeting
• Microsoft Office Communications Server – Communicator
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM
• Office 2007 Live

Sclera Design is a Microsoft Hosted Services Provider Partner with Microsoft, and we are focused on providing these services to individuals, small-to-medium sized businesses, Education/Life Sciences organizations, and enterprise clients that are looking to outsource their infrastructure and support of these technologies.

Visit our site and use the Contact Us link to get in touch with a sales representative and to learn more about how we can make these technologies available for you.

I had to take this moment to that the team that brought our skin from the corporate site to our blog site.

Thank you Ryan S., Carolee H., and Scott W.

Michael... Another Geek in Need...

Welcome to Sclera Design, Inc. a Microsoft Certified Partner and Advantage Hosting Partner

This public blog is intended to allow employees and staff of SDI to post informative information pertaining to the corporation, and to allow our customers and the community the opportunity to provide input/feedback on these posts.

Sclera provides professional services in the UI/UX (user interface/user experience) and human elements design, and development of commercial web sites. From small startups, to enterprise-class Extranet, Intranet, and Internet-facing sites, we staff the personnel that can take your ideas and bring them to life.

Sclera provides professional services in the development areas of ASP.Net, Office SharePoint Server, Windows SharePoint Services, BizTalk Server (for host integration, enterprise legacy system integration, foreign systems integration), and Commerce Server. Our developers bring years of experience in all of the core competencies of Microsoft, and working with our UI/UX designers and business analyst, provide best-of-breed solutions, following proscribed patterns and practices from Microsoft.

Sclera also provides basic to advanced web hosting solutions, custom templated solutions (Saas - Software as a Service) that allow specialized service industries custom portals to meet their business requirements - using ASP.Net, DotNetNuke and ASP.Net/AJAX, Windows SharePoint Services, and Office SharePoint Server.

Finally, we provide custom development support and integration with Second Life a growing, interactive media framework that provides another dimension to your personal or corporate web presence. Sclera specializes in bringing your existing web presence into the world of Second Life, and provides expert integration and marketing support to help you extend your corporate live meeting / presentation, or e-commerce solutions in a whole new dimension.

Thank you for visiting and please come again.