Easy CGI - RIP

We're developers. We make software. Hosting isn't our business and I never want it to be. Hosting is a thankless job where the margins are low, stress is high and computer glitches regularly cause major grief. Yet, reliable hosting and email is a must-have for businesses.

One of our hosting partners, EasyCGI, was recently sold to Endurance International Group, a consortium that has acquired quite a few hosting companies. We've been using EasyCGI for almost 3 years to provide hosting for a number of our clients who have basic hosting needs. We've been thrilled to have EasyCGI in our corner. The performance and reliability has been outstanding with only one outage of minor significance in over 2 years. Their online tools have been powerful, intuitive and convenient. When I have had to contact tech support it has been quick, courteous, competent and based in the US. All of which are rare when dealing with a shared hosting environment.

Unfortunately, the good times are over. The new conglomeration seems marginal at best. Despite the inconvenience of moving hosts, we've transitioned our clients to a new partner: Mosso. Mosso is a division of Rackspace, a hosting company we use for some of our more demanding applications and has been excellent. We'll be keeping a watchful eye on Mosso but if they're anything like their big brother we'll enjoy hosting and email service that may even eclipse what EasyCGI used to be.

Managed Web Applications

As a web 2.0 or web application developer, we've often been tasked with developing tools for organizations and businesses that have no internal IT department or have no experience with web applications. While we've always provided hosing and support of these online tools, we haven't given this aspect of our service a name. "Managed Web Applications" sounds a bit stuffy, but it does describe the process.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

• A client contacts us with a need or a problem that needs a web-based solution.
• We outline the details of the problem, the goals, the information that needs to be dealt with and determine how users will want to interact with the data.
• We design the back-end data source, specify the hosting requirements, design the user interface, and program the application
• We facilitate any necessary changes to the domain, the hosting, security and backup.
• After the application/website is launched, we remain on call to make adjustments, updates, or address any unforeseen issues.

Essentially this is a concept-to-completion-to-day-to-day-operations type of solution. "CTCTDTDO" is a bit awkward, so while "Managed Web Applications" isn't a particularly glamorous name, it will have to do for now. If you think you have a better name for this process, I want to hear about it. :)

Longest Rebranding Roll-Out Ever

Eclectic Studios has updated it's image.... finally. The re-branding of our company has been an initiative for some time. However, we feel that it is important to address the needs of our clients before we indulge in our own.

For several years now, Eclectic Studios has been evolving into a different company. We still provide graphic design services but these services have been an increasingly smaller portion of the work we do for our clients. The vast majority of our clients turn to us for web-based solutions, be they marketing, sales, management, or just technical issues. Symbolically, it was time to represent the company as what it has become.


Our new logo was designed to be super-clean and precise to reflect our technical precision. We kept yellow-orange as our primary corporate color as it has a friendliness that reflects our dedication to user-friendly design. As an homage to our old logo, which we affectionately call the "flying E" we have added dramatic wings to the "e" in "eclectic" that reflect both our company history and our outside the box thinking.

As far as the time to roll-out, this logo concept was initially created in mid-2005 and has been in use here on our blog for some time. If you have any questions about our company or how our offerings have changed over the years, please give us a call.