It’s hotter than sin outside and Texas has been breaking heat records for the past week. You know things are bad when you break into sweat walking to your car. With heat hitting pretty hard we decied to take advantage of this an see if the old expression is true, is it really hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk? With a quick trip to the local grocery store we had our supplies.
If you want to try this at home you will need:
-Eggs
- Foil
-Texas Heat: It was 103 when we conducted this experiment.
After about 10 minutes your egg should look something like this:
Select your favorite salsa or add some pepper and dig in!
(It should be noted that we have absolutely no intetion of anyone trying to eat an egg cooked this way. In fact we strongly recomend against it.)
So I’m a big Firefox guy. I have been for a while now, so you can bet that I find it interesting to see a big majority of eleven2’s site traffic comes from folks with firefox, at about 57%. In comparison only 14% of our visits are from people using Safari and 19% using IE. I think the Safari data is more interesting when put in the context of the OS statistics. We have almost just as many OSX users on firefox as we do on Safari. I just thought I’d share. If you want to leave a comment on which browser you use and why, please go right ahead.
We understand allot of people in America and even the World are facing a great deal of economic crisis right now. I know many personally that have lost their jobs or have been foreclosed on and it is very sad to see what men really high up in suits will do for greed. Just yesterday I went into a Washington Mutual Bank to close our old Eleven2 account, the teller asked why I was wanting to close my account my response was very simple: “You guys went under, why do you think?”. I truly felt sorry for the guys at that branch, as I know any day they will be let go as they merge with Chase. That is what bugs me here, the people that are working hard on the ground level really had no control of this and still will have no control of when their boss says there job is over. I truly believe in order to maintain a market ran economy we cannot give into these stimulus plans and bail everyone out.
Luckily, for the hosting business, without knocking on wood or speaking too soon, we have been very luckily and have continued on a constant growth including our largest month ever in February and even our largest day ever, which was yesterday. We want to give 3 ways to help yourself through the economy (and I am not trying to sound corporate here or promote our sales, these 3 things really can help).
Outsource Hosting
Most companies are moving to outsourced hosting, this saves allot of cap-ex for companies that may have the money right now to pay a monthly recurring cost, but cannot drop 10’s of thousands of dollars on new servers, licensing and such. We are seeing a huge spike in sales on all 3 of our businesses, www.eleven2.com, www.360dart.com and www.180servers.com. We are driven to give our customers the best prices, which is what we feel is driving our crazy growth right now in all 3 businesses. We are about to launch 2 additional brands here shortly, that we are faced with doing based on the demand from our customers. We are selling of exchange exchange hosting through our 360Dart brand, as it saves larger companies allot of licensing and server expenses. We are seeing allot growth in our 180servers business solely based on the the fact that customers who are doing allot of processing or virtualization need there own dedicated server at a great price, which we deliver.
Get a Job
In the past year we have quadrupled the number of employees we have here at Eleven2 and are still hiring, yes we are not crazy.
We are hiring for the following positions:
- Technical Support Representative
- Level III Linux Administrator
- Dedicated Server Sales Representative
- Outside Exchange Sales Representative
- Outside BCP/Colocation Sales Representative
One of our local competitors was stating in a blog post recently how they cannot find employees in this economy, we actually do not see that as accurate if you pay them a honest wage and treat your employees correctly, which we do. We have a great benefit package, we pay well and give out free iPhones, Macbooks and fireworks.
If you are looking for a job, please e-mail me directly and I would love to schedule a person interview with you – rodney@eleven2.com
Extra Income – promoting Eleven2
Allot of people may not know about our affiliate program, it is very simple, we will pay you up to $125 per customer you send us. We will pay you $35 right off the bat for sending us 1 customers, then the more you send us the more you get, which you can see on our tiers on our affiliate page. If you know anyone that needs website, this is a great opportunity to make money and send your customers to a great hosting company.
If you have any questions on our affiliate program, you can contact our Affiliate Manger, Brett at brett@eleven2.com
Again, we understand allot of people are struggling through this time of need in our economy and we just wanted to lay out a few ways we can help, if you have any suggestions or anything, please contact me anytime rodney@eleven2.com and be sure to checkout our newly updated Eleven2 Foundation where we try to give back to our community the best way we can.
Rodney Giles – CEO & Owner
Eleven2 Hosting
I am sitting in my neighbors house right now sucking some juice from there generator as my house is now sitting 6 days without power. I have some power lines down in my backyard right now, but are very blessed to only have that as the extent of my damage at my house. Allot of people in the Houston area were not that lucky from Hurricane Ike.
After going 6 days and counting without electricity, I begin to appreciate how important it is. Electricity unlike Internet or Cable is not something that you want to switch around or get a better feature, it only works or doesn’t in this case.
This past week has been a odd week, I have been working at my parents house, which only 2 miles away does have electricity or at my fiance Lauren’s house, which also has electricity. We have also made a trip up to college station a number of times where Jon and a team of employees are working full time keeping things rolling here at E2. So ya, it has been allot of chaos, allot of uncertainty in our work hours, but number one, we never went offline in a major storm!!!
As hurricane IKE is now only a few hours away eleven2 has taken every precaution necessary! If you did not receive the email update from Rodney feel free to check it out in our forum. I thought I would just blog and assure you that eleven2 is still very much functioning, I am taking shelter north west of Houston in The Woodlands TX. I thought I would show you some of the cool things that allow me to track the storm, and still work efficiently.
- Apple iMac
This is the computer I work off of on a daily basis at the eleven2 head quarters. This extreamly powerful yet very easily transported computer has allowed me to pack up my work gear with relative ease and set up here where I am taking shelter. - Spaces
With the release of apple’s most powerful operating system “Leopard” came the handy feature of Spaces. This allows me to have as many as 16 virtual desktops. This allows me to work with multiple windows, multiple applications in a clutter free desktop! - Storm Pulse
This is the website that I am using to monitor the path of the storm. This is by far the coolest weather interface I have seen online. - iPhone
Well we all know how awesome the iPhone is but it is going to be my most essential tool of communication if I experience any power outages.
Please only submit Critical issue during this time. Thanks for all your support while we work through this storm!
Kevin Rose, Founder of digg.com, announced last week on kevinrose.com the following:
- Revamp of entire iPod line.
- Small cosmetic changes to Touch, Nano to see significant redesign.
- iPods to see fairly large price drops to distance itself from the $199 iPhone.
- iPod touch 2.1 software, iPhone to get update very soon after.
- iTunes 8.0 (”it’s a big update w/new features”).
- All of this coming in the next 2-3 weeks.
Now I am a huge Apple guy and news like this is always awesome! I just wish it came from someone who has a little bit more credibility when it comes to this. Now Kevin did announce the intel core 2 duo macbook and macbook pros correctly, gaining all apple geeks trust for any apple rumors but anyone could have told you that! Not long after came Kevin’s announcement about the first iPhone features which were:
- Coming in January to all providers
- 2 batteries (1 MP3, 1 Phone)
- 2 capacities (4GB & 8GB)
- Prices will run $249 & $449
- Flash memory (surprise)
- Slide out keyboard
- Touchscreen (on outside)
- “Cool” OS
Just in case you know nothing about the iPhone, that was wrong! Then kevin went and drank some of his “special” tea and forgot about this situation and decided yet again he should tell us what to expect in the 2nd generation iPhone He told us that we would have a front camera on the iPhone that would let us video conference with iChat on the and yet again time would disprove Kevin’s prediction.
These new rumors with the iPod nano changing, a complete revamp of iTunes, and lower ipod prices would be awesome. So keep your eye on apple for 2-3 weeks and pray that Kevin can salvage his reputation for leads on what apple is doing behind the scenes. Let us know what you think and vote on our poll!
With the release of the iphone 3g and the iPhone 2.0 upgrade there has been alot of negative responces about them both like the worst battery life ever, droped calls, calls don’t come through, apps crashing, and even rumors of a 3g recall! and the list goes on and on! But some features work and they rock! Like Microsoft Exchange support, We love exchange to have instant push on email, contacts, and calenders is just awesome! So awesome we bought out our Microsoft Exchange provider 360dart.com. Another plus side to the new software is 3rd party application support! I love the applications it makes my phone way cooler being able to do some of the things I can do. Want to know what they are? Here is a list of my top 10 free applications!
10. Remote.
Apple released this simple app to assist you in controlling your iTunes with your iPhone via wi-fi so I can now controll my iTunes from accross the room whenever I need. Another good use for this is when someone is using your computer and you just want to blast them out and have a good laugh.
9. myLighter.
Ok so it seems like every concert I go to these days the band allways asks us to hold out our cell phones and it will be cool looking. What happend to the good ol days where we busted out our lighters and held them up for 14 minutes during freebird at a Lynyrd Skynrd concert? Is it because of this new fad to be “green” and keep the polar ice caps from melting? Well Al Gore fans, download this app and keep the polar bears happy!
8. urbanspoon.
If your anything like us here at eleven2, you can never decide where to go grab lunch. This helpful app solves that issuse buy determining your location and randomly decides where you are to go for lunch. Never heard of the restraunt? Well you can also look up reviews, and contact information. This app can be kind of a pain when it always gives you that small town backyard grill to go to, but then again you asked for it.
7. WordPress.
Well for all you wordpress users out there this app is for you! You can now write posts and upload photos making it super easy to blog on the go! You can even generate a preview of your post! With support for wordpress.com blogs and self hosted blogs this is the best blogging tool for the iPhone yet!
6. AIM.
These days it seems when anyone is not out of there house they are on AIM. Well now you can be on AIM 24/7. However I recomend you don’t use this while driving only bad things could come of this! This app will soon inprove when apple releases there instant push system so you can not be using the app and still get your Instent messages!
5. WeatherBug.
This app blows the native weather app on the iPhone out of the water! Not only can you get a weekly forcast you can get the percentage chance of rain, heat index, humidity level (currently at 83% in Houston…yeah it sucks we know!) You can even get a radar image, and view local weather web cams!
4. Shazam.
Have you ever been listening to the radio and you hear a “fat beat” or a “sweet guitar lick” and wonder who is this? How can I download this awesome music? Well with this app you can have your phone listen to the a piece of a song and then it will tell you all the information about the song and even provide links to the iTunes store where you can download it!
3. CubeRunner.
This is the most addictive game I have ever played! I really have played it for about an hour with out stoping to do something else just because I need to beat my high score to prove to myself that I am the best! So get this game and clear out your schedule because you will be busy for a while with this!
2. Twitterrifc.
Twitter fans? We are! This app makes it supper easy to update your twitter and to see what all your pals are doing at the same time. You can also upload pics to show people even update your location. If it weren’t for the Ads on this free app it would be number one!
1. Facebook.
The best social network brought to the iPhone! If your like me you wonder why they needed an app if they had a great iphone mobile site. Well there are plenty reasons number one being facebook chat! Facebook chat is great and now its on the iphone. This app has great functionality, It works how you would want facebook to work. Another great feature is mobile uploads, you can now take pictures and upload them directly to your facebook for all of your friends to see!
So there it is the top 10! So get to the app store and try them out!
Don’t have an iPhone? Do you want a free one? Well we are giving one away! I know what your thinking you have given 2 away already. We just had to again, since we launched our new affilaite program! So yes, we are giving away a new iPhone! To whoever brings in the most affilaite signups through September 31, 2008 will win a brand new Black or White 16GB iPhone!
I’m not one to go out in cowboy boots that often, but I have been known to wear them a time or two. What better time and place to wear cowboy boots than at a local high school FFA event? Eleven2 has always sought to give back to the community. So, we took this opportunity to go spend a day supporting Klein ISD’s FFA auction. There were a lot of kids in their blue jackets running around with their animals with the goal of winning some sort of prize or something. After all the prizes were awarded, an auction was held and all money was given to the kids of the FFA. We took this opportunity to bid on some select animals. At first we were just throwing numbers out so we could saw we had actually bid on something before. …Then we met “Babe.” Yes, though she was a pig, we thought, “She’s the one!” Without much time, we got the winning bid on “Babe,” took some pictures with her, and the rest is history! I don’t really have much to say other than the following:
1. Go buy a pig. You know you want one.
2. Have a kid take care of it, because you know you don’t have the time to do so.
3. Buy cowboy boots. You will thank you later.
4. When you go to your next FFA fair, tell them Eleven2 sent you!
5. Pigs smell.
With that, have a good day.
Eleven2, born back in 2004 has been a project so to call, we have grown from nothing to a company with tens of thousands of customers in almost every country in the world. Pretty big feat in 4 years. Eleven2 has been grown like crazy through the help of you, our customer and we thank you for that.
So today, we are officially announcing our affiliate program, which is a step to give back to you our customer, for the help you have given us over the years.
We are starting out with some of the biggest payouts in the industry and are putting together a very simple way for you to make some cash, we know how it is with all the gas pricing and all now.
For more details you can visit: www.eleven2.com/affiliates/