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RackApps on Twitter
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_JackieD_: Rackspace Email & Apps softball team... I missed the picture, oops...http://ow.ly/1npzj 4 hours, 9 minutes
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SarahRobinson: @Rackspace Maybe i will email you a twitpic tomorrow. He has the word "Rackspace" right across his forehead. 19 hours, 48 minutes
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Rackcloud: @CodingSamurai sorry to hear that. could you email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) w/ your q's and we'll assist you. 1 day, 2 hours, 42 minutes
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lapaterson: RT @ehalman: Progression from Hard metal server to managed rackspace to "true" cloud for email, file and web hosting. #runserverlessbiz #sxsw 1 day, 3 hours, 59 minutes
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ehalman: Progression from Hard metal server to managed rackspace to "true" cloud for email, file and web hosting. #runserverlessbiz #sxsw 1 day, 4 hours, 2 minutes
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Funambol Developers’ Conference
When Funambol invited me to talk at their first ever Developers’ Conference, I immediately said yes but had no idea what to present. After some back-and-forth, they asked me to present about process. But which process, I asked myself. The process of building new and exciting software? The process of working with a company whose developers are based in Italy? I eventually settled on the process of working with and contributing to open source software that integrates with private, proprietary software.
As I began working on the presentation, I realized the best way to do this was to also talk about our system architecture. The final presentation gives a great overview of how we use Funambol’s open-source software to integrate with our proprietary email platform, Noteworthy. I focused on the lessons we learned along the way, how we tackled them from a scalability perspective, and the ways we’ve tightly integrated the two solutions while keeping them clearly separated.
When it was time to give the actual presentation, technical difficulties prevented me from being able to give the talk live. With only a few hours before I was scheduled to talk, I ended up doing a screencast of the entire thing, so the video you can watch is the exact same video the attendees of the conference got.
You can watch the video here.
Warning: Technical content ahead!
Launch: New Sync Client for BlackBerry
The Sync client for BlackBerry was the first mobile to desktop synchronization client we developed in-house almost entirely from scratch. When we started more than a year ago, we’d just finished launching Sync for Outlook, our first sync service. We learned a lot from the project and were excited to do something new. But we made one critical mistake in the first versions: we re-invented the display from scratch. After we launched Sync for Windows Mobile, the BlackBerry client stood out as being very different from our other clients.
We’ve gone back to fix that, plus re-engineered the whole project to bring you a more unified look and feel. In the process, we went back through all our code and rethought everything to be more maintainable. The end result is a sync client that looks totally new and fresh from all directions – the display and the code.
We also wanted to tackle the problem of how to better support our mobile sync clients. The most painful part of supporting sync is that it runs on your phone and not on our servers. And, we can’t look at your phone to find out what’s wrong. Getting the logs from the client is the only way to know what’s going on. Most clients are fairly simple. But for the BlackBerry, it’s about 12 painful steps and very easy to do a step wrong or miss it entirely. The bottom line: The process can be frustrating for everyone involved. Now, it’s a one-click process to submit sync logs from your phone! If you encounter an error, just select “Send Logs” from the menu, and you’ll receive a confirmation email within seconds giving you further instructions.
So, if you’re a user of Sync for BlackBerry, today you’ll be able to enjoy a new display with a look and feel similar to Sync for Outlook or Sync for Windows Mobile. And if you’re a customer interested in getting started with Sync for the first time we can show you how. It’s also easier than ever to get help for any problems you have a long the way. If you’re a curious developer, as always our sync clients are open source. Feel free to look at the new, better organized code.
Feedback? Email mobile-sync [at] mailtrust.com
Bulk Mailbox Creation Returns to Control Panel as Bulk Import
Since the release of Control Panel 3.0, users of the Control Panel were missing a feature we call Bulk Mailbox Creation or simply Bulk Import. This feature allows users to create multiple mailboxes at once from an Excel or Comma-Separated (CSV) file. With the recent launch of Control Panel 3.2, we are proud to announce the return of Bulk Mailbox creation for Noteworthy, and the ability to do it for Hosted Exchange as well!
The Control Panel team worked hard on perfecting the import process. Now it’s easier to use and more beneficial for users. As a member of the development team behind the Bulk Import process, I’m excited to introduce a few of the many new features of our Import process:
- Since the Bulk Import process requires a specially formatted file, we provided template files for both Excel and CSV formats with all the fields you can import. Only some of the fields are required (like Mailbox Name and Password) while others you can leave blank if you choose (like Phone Number and Address).
- Imports can take a while. During the process, you can navigate away from the import – even close your browser window and your import will still continue. You can start an import in the evening, log off the Control Panel, and sleep soundly knowing we’re importing your data and creating your mailboxes.
- If any mailboxes could not be created after the import is finished, you’ll find a message in red that tells you how many mailboxes were created out of the total. Plus, a link to the Import Summary for an error log that details why the mailboxes could not be created. For your convenience, at the bottom right corner of the error log is a link to download all the mailbox data that failed to import.
We hope the new and improved Bulk Import feature saves you extra effort next time multiple Noteworthy or Hosted Exchange mailboxes need to be created.
Top 100 Companies To Work For
My job here at Mailtrust is simple: I live to create a great culture here at Mailtrust. I spend a lot of my time talking to employees, learning more about their experiences here, and understanding what fuels their passion for this company. My goal is that every Mailtrust employee look forward to working because they do exactly what they love doing in exactly the environment they want to be in.
As you can imagine, finding out that we (Rackspace as a whole) made Fortune’s “Top 100 Best Companies To Work For” list again this year has made me amazingly, fanatically, superbly excited.
Want to see what Fortune had to say about us?
Or, better yet interested in working for the 43rd Best Place To Work? We are hiring!
Birthday surprises
WARNING – Mailtrust reserves the right to decorate you or your desk with toilet paper, paper shreds or other festive decorations on your birthday. Don’t worry though, it’s all in good fun and we’ll enjoy laughing about it together.
Want your desk covered in toilet paper and paper shreds on your birthday? We’re always looking for new members to join our team. Check out our careers page and apply today.
At-a-glance scheduling
I love the shared calendars feature in Noteworthy Webmail. As a project manager for Mailtrust, a lot of what I do involves scheduling meetings with various people to discuss priorities, work out processes, and plan our work. Since we have a fairly flat leadership structure, our managers are typically in high demand and have full calendars. Trying to get several of them together at once can be quite a challenge.
The shared calendar tool enables me to view everyone’s calendar at the same time. With access to everyone’s calendars, I can select meeting times when all the people I need are available.
With one look, I can send out a meeting invite for the right time and lock in the mix of people I need for the task at hand.
Software Developers Forum – Test-Driven Development
Wednesday night, I’ll be giving a presentation on Test-Driven Development (TDD) at the Software Developers Forum. Sponsored by the NCTC and made possible by many local companies in the New River Valley, the Software Developers Forum is a peer group for information exchange and relationship development, which strengthen the local technology industry.
In a nutshell, TDD is a software development technique that promotes a test-first method often advocated by the agile community. If you’re interested in learning about TDD, sharing your experiences with TDD, or eating free food, please attend the forum. We really want to see a great turnout.
The presentation will be on Wednesday, January 21st at 6pm. Luna Innovations is hosting the event at 1 Riverside Circle, Suite 400, Roanoke, VA. If you plan on attending, please kindly RSVP to Michele Wright at NetVentures by Monday, January 19th (Call 540-527-9000 or Email michele [at] netventurescorporation.com).
Use your cell phone for calendar reminders
Like most people these days, I am addicted to my BlackBerry. You can find me walking down the street with device in hand, eating lunch with one eye on the phone, or checking my email in meetings. Ah, meetings. Most of my life is actually spent in meetings. Because of this hectic schedule, I need more reminders than ever to let me know where I need to be and when I need to be there. Luckily, Noteworthy allows for all types of reminders for calendar events. My favorite, just happens to be the text message feature.
This way, my reminder comes directly to the device that is without a doubt already in my hand. It tells me where to go and gives me ample time to be there. In fact, I can set up the text to remind me anywhere from 2 weeks before the event, up to 5 minutes before the event. This frees up my memory for other important events (such as the score of last night’s game, or the lyrics to my new favorite song). The point is, Noteworthy takes half of the hassle out of my life. Now, if we can just develop something that will actually go to the meetings for me…
Does Your Inbox Have Xobni?
Anyone out there tried Xobni yet? It is an Outlook plug-in that helps users organize email and attachments. They just received $7 million in financing from Cisco and others. So, it looks like they’ll be around for a while. We’d love to hear feedback if you’ve tried it.
Post your feedback in the comments section.
Resume Tip: Cover Letters Matter
Do you want your resume to get noticed? Few things stand out better than a well written, well thought out cover letter. Honestly, it doesn’t take long to write a solid cover letter and the potential payoff is well worth the small investment. We normally see a lot of resumes, but with today’s economic climate, we’re seeing HUNDREDS of them. (Yes, we are hiring!) Unfortunately, very few people bother to write a cover letter, and even fewer seem to have the time to spell-check or proof-read their letters.
Take an hour of your time to do some basic research on the company and tailor your cover letter to highlight relevant experience. Does the company to which you’re applying specialize in web-based application development? If so, then maybe you should point out your experiences with Javascript, .Net, Perl, PHP, Python, or Ruby. Take this opportunity to tell the company why you think you’re a good fit. Make us feel like you actually care about whether or not you get a job, and that you actually have something invested in the process.