Metadot's Blog

Win a $50 Amazon Gift Card from Montastic

2012-01-27T16:31:00.001-06:00

Montastic is holding a Twitter contest the week of January 30th. Each day, we will give away a $50 Amazon gift card to a lucky Twitter follower.

To Enter:

Follow @montastic on Twitter.
Retweet the following message each day to be entered for that day's drawing:
Follow @montastic, the free website monitoring service, and RT this for a chance to win a $50 Amazon card. http://bit.ly/zpwy0H

We'll announce each winner on Twitter the following day and contact them by direct direct message.

The last day to enter is February 3, 2012.
Contest is limited to the US only.

Happy Holidays to Our Customers from Metadot

2011-12-22T18:35:00.001-06:00

We've almost reached the end of 2011 and while it feels like the year flew by way too fast, we're excited to ring in 2012. The Metadot team, the people behind Mojo Helpdesk, Das Keyboard, Montastic, and typrX, thanks you for your continuous support. We wish y'all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Enjoy this video of an Angry Birds Christmas Light setup:

Announcing the Winner of Montastic's Google Chromebook Contest

2011-09-26T10:05:00.000-05:00

We want to thank everyone who participated in our Twitter contest to win a Google Chromebook. We enjoyed seeing such a large response from our online community.

In the end, we took all of the entries and picked a winner at random. The winner of the Samsung Series 5 3G Chromebook is @DinaJ.

Congratulations Dina and thank you all for participating in our first Twitter contest. And don't forget to check out Montastic for website monitoring that doesn't suck.

If you haven't already, follow us on Twitter.

Win a Google Chromebook with Montastic's Twitter Contest

2011-09-15T16:28:00.002-05:00

We’re running our first Twitter contest from September 19th-23rd and offering up a Samsung Series 5 3G Google Chromebook as the prize.

Many of you know that Montastic provides free website monitoring that doesn’t suck. For those that don’t, we suggest signing up for a free account so you won’t be surprised the next time your site goes down.

Help us spread the word about Montastic and you could win!

To enter:
1. Follow us on Twitter
2. Tweet the following: I want to win a Chromebook! You can enter to win by following @montastic and retweeting this message. http://bit.ly/ohswOo

We’ll post the winner September 26th on Twitter.
All tweets must be made before September 23rd at midnight to be eligible.
Contest limited to the US.

Follow us on Twitter and enter to win.

Panel on How Government Fakes Transparency Panel Proposed for SXSW

2011-08-18T09:58:00.003-05:00

Each year, SXSW asks people to propose ideas for panels for the SXSW Interactive Festival. One of Metadot's programmers, Jeremiah Akin, created a proposal for a SXSW Interactive panel for 2012: Open Data FAIL: How Government Fakes Transparency.

Jeremiah and speaker Jim March, of BlackBoxVoting.com, will focus on exposing sleight of hand tricks used by government agencies to make them appear more transparent than they really are. They will explain why Open Data Centers supposed to increase transparency don't actually give you the tools you need to spot waste or corruption in the government. They'll also discuss how processes that used to be transparent are now closed and the ways government dresses them up to make them seem like they are still transparent. Jeremiah has extensive knowledge in this area and wrote a chapter in HACKED! High Tech Election Theft in America.

Not all proposals will be accepted and SXSW uses public votes and comments as part of their decision-making process. If you are interested in transparency theater, help Jeremiah's panel make the cut for SXSW Interactive 2012 by voting here: http://goo.gl/qmuzM

Metadot's Recap of Google I/O 2011: A Geek Paradise

2011-05-20T09:22:00.005-05:00

Metadot's experience at Google I/O 2011 went beyond expectations. Showcasing Mojo Helpdesk (pictured below) amidst 5,500 brilliant developers, attending quality presentations on everything from Android @ Home (computer controlled lighting, appliances, you name it), Chrome OS, ChromeBook, and viewing various other breakout sessions was nothing short of spectacular.

Highlights from the two days packed full of geeky goodness, include the Google Chrome Keynote (which can be viewed online), the Android: Momentum Keynote (also available to view online), and the fact that Mojo Helpdesk took the gold and came in first place for the Google I/O Video Sandbox Contest hosted by ShortForm was pretty sweet too (click this link to view the winning video).

In short? The whole experience was awesome. Google I/O was an amazing opportunity to be a part of. Here are the Google I/O highlights, all of which are totally worth checking out.

Visit Google I/O for a total recap, to watch videos, and get full coverage of this year's event.

Google I/O Guest Blogger: Amy Unruh, "Designing large applications for Google App Engine"

2011-05-06T13:52:00.010-05:00

Amy Unruh, co-author (with Daniel Guermeur) of Google App Engine Java and GWT Application Development recently published a guest post on The official Google Code blog, as a part of the Who's at Google I/O guest blog series.

Her post details the uses of Google App Engine (GAE) and Google Web Toolkit (GWT) in regards to Metadot's migration of Mojo Helpdesk (an RDBMS-based Rails application) over to GAE, Java, and GWT along with helpful techniques used for the migration process.

View her post here: Designing large applications for Google App Engine.

Amy and Daniel will both be attending Google I/O to present Mojo Helpdesk on May 10th-11th in the Developer Sandbox.

Receive 25% off Google App Engine Java and GWT Application Development Book

2011-05-05T10:03:00.006-05:00

For a limited time, Metadot founder, Daniel Guermeur's book, Google App Engine Java and GWT Application Development is being offered at a discounted price with use of Promo Code: gio25.

To receive the discount, add the eBook or print copy of the book to the cart from this page: Google App Engine Java and GWT Application Development, then enter the promo code gio25 before checkout. This discount will be active until June 10th 2011.

With this code, any customer can obtain a 25% discount on either the eBook or Print version. Additionally, if the customer decides to buy both the print and the eBook versions of the book- when the promo code is applied, he/she will receive a 25% discount on the print book, and a 85% discount on the eBook.

Metadot's Mojo Helpdesk, Showcased at Google I/O 2011

2011-03-29T17:08:00.010-05:00

Metadot is proud to announce that this year Mojo Helpdesk will be showcased at Google I/O 2011. Our inclusion was due in part to the November 2010 publication of Google App Engine Java and GWT Application Development, authored by Metadot CEO, Daniel Guermeur. (Cover art pictured below, click HERE to order through Amazon.com).

For those of you unfamiliar with Google I/O, it's pretty exciting for us geeks. Google I/O, "brings together thousands of developers for two days of deep technical content, focused on building the next generation of web, mobile, and enterprise applications with Google and open web technologies such as Android, Google Chrome, Google APIs, Google Web Toolkit, App Engine and more." (taken from the Google I/O webpage).

At Metadot, our goal is to go beyond cutting edge and be the leaders in our technologies bringing the most up to date products, with the highest-quality, and most efficient services possible. Mojo Helpdesk allows businesses to provide the most efficient customer support and service possible, and we're really looking forward to showcasing its features and the technology behind it. More news to come. (cross-posted on the mojohelpdesk blog HERE).

Google App Engine Java and GWT Application Development - Now at Amazon

2011-01-12T08:55:00.002-06:00

We are glad to announce that our previously released programming book is now available at Amazon. If you are looking to develop a scalable web application with Google Web Toolkit (GWT) and App Engine (GAE), stop reading and get this book now:

Remember that the book comes with the complete source code of the demo application Connectr.

Montastic Monitoring Front Page Upgrade

2011-01-03T17:58:00.000-06:00

We are glad to announce that we added a demo video on www.montastic.com homepage. This allows users to get a 1 minute product tour without having to signup. We also tweaked the language to explain what Montastic does in fewer words : 'Get an email when your website goes down' - Check it out.

Montastic New Feature: Web Page Keywords Verification

2010-12-10T10:38:00.002-06:00

We are glad to announce that Montastic now includes the ability to check for the presence or absence of a keyword on a web page. This is useful in a number of cases. For example a web master can catch web application error (e.g. MySQL error) or if your company manages an inventory, you can catch the 'out-of-stock' keyword and send an alert to your store manager when it occurs. For example in our image, the server in red is in error because mysql_connect() text has been found on the page. On the other hand, the green site - daskeyboard.com - is alright.

We also tweaked the user interface to make the uptime information visible all the time.

Thank you to our users for their continuous input.

New Book: Google App Engine Java and GWT Application Development

2010-12-03T10:21:00.002-06:00

The authors, Amy Unruh and Daniel Guermeur are proud to announce the availability of their new book. This book is designed to give developers all the information they need to develop their own GAE+GWT applications, with a particular focus on some of the technologies useful for building scalable social-media-oriented applications including MVP, push with Channel API, Facebook, Twitter and Google Accounts integration, JDO, transactions, Memcache, XMPP and much more. It is an easy-to-follow guide that shows you how to get the most out of combining the powerful features of GAE and GWT. It provides developers with solutions to many of the problems that arise in developing, maintaining, and scaling web applications.
Learn more

Microsoft Upbeat

2010-10-25T21:01:00.003-05:00

Despite a noticeable slide in hipness, Microsoft management still upbeat. Check it out.

HTML 5 Rocks

2010-09-27T17:49:00.002-05:00

HTML5 brings user experience to the next level. To what level? The next one... which means in this case, to kind of experience you can get with desktop applications. Nothing less. Users are going to love your HTML5 apps.
HTML5 is also fantastic steps forward for all application developers because it simplifies considerably what was hard or simply impossible to do before. To name a few features HTML5 provides: Canvas, semantic tag, video + audio, new form fields, vector graphics, drag and drop, fancy font support, opacity, shadows, rounded corners, local database storage. You name it, it has it. Check out the HTML5Rocks web site.

www.HTML5Rocks.com

HTML5 is still not finalised completely. However, some browsers already implemented what is considered to be stable specifications as you can see on the HTML5Rocks website.

Mojo Helpdesk gets its own blog

2010-09-08T13:20:00.000-05:00

Long overdue, Mojo Helpdesk, our SaaS ticket tracking has now its very own blog. Keep an eye on it for news related to this product.

August upgrades to Mojo Helpdesk

2010-09-07T17:13:00.039-05:00

We had a very busy month of August at Mojo Helpdesk. We completed upgrades to our infrastructure (see previous blog) and updated the UI (user interface). The infrastructure work provided for a more scalable application and the changes to the navigation buttons made Mojo Helpdesk even easier to use.

We are not slowing down in September, as we will continue to make enhancements to our application. Stay tuned for a number of announcements very soon.

Maybe the end of email overload: Gmail Priority Inbox

2010-08-31T18:12:00.000-05:00

Cross-post from http://www.daskeyboard.com/blog/?p=1052

Google is about to release a feature that I am looking forward to: Gmail Priority Inbox. It is supposed to make important emails more visible in our overloaded inbox.

A few years ago we had lots of spam: the spam filter was born and saved us from insanity. Nowadays, email overload is the problem and hopefully Gmail Priority Inbox will help.

How does it work? It compares incoming emails to similar older ones and increases an "interest" value based on the number of reads and replies. The highest ranking emails will wear a visual cue to make them stand out. There is probably a lot of Bayesian statistical computation going on as there is in spam filters, but I am just guessing here.

Mojo Helpdesk is rocking with more speed and reliability

2010-08-23T12:42:00.027-05:00

Mojo helpdesk has turned it up a notch and our client's feedback has been great. We had a few hiccups (slowdowns) in July but addressed them accordingly; the results we are happy to announce, have been phenomenal.

Why the slowdowns? The good news is that we had a significant surge in new customers recently; the bad news is that it stretched the limits of our infrastructure and caused intermittent slowdowns for our users.

What we did? We spent the better part of July re-architecting the system bottlenecks, concentrating mostly on the database. The work focused on replacing queries that were no longer scalable and also making UI improvements using AJAX technology. Consequently, when a user requests information now, only that specific content is retrieved and displayed.

We have answered the bell with upgrades to our system and now we are ready for the continued growth of our community.

Montastic Widget for Windows 7 contributed

2010-07-20T09:48:00.011-05:00

We are thrilled to announce that Pål Andreassen has developed a new Windows sidebar widget for Montastic, making it even easier for Montastic users to keep an eye on their servers from their desktops.

We also have Montastic widgets for Mac dashboard and Yahoo available.

Completed maintenance upgrades last night

2010-07-15T11:39:00.007-05:00

We completed the second phase of the maintenance upgrades last night.

We will have 2 more maintenance upgrades this week. We are also tweaking the schedule and will have it updated this afternoon. We will continue to update the service status at http://status.mojohelpdesk.com/.

Phase 3 of the maintenance upgrades will be completed this evening.

These upgrades will continue to respond to the intermittent slowdowns of our service.

New Helpdesk service status site

2010-07-14T18:18:00.018-05:00

Mojo Helpdesk is now providing service status updates on the following website http://status.mojohelpdesk.com/.

New: Email Attachments – Include attachments to any emails you send

2010-07-07T16:13:00.007-05:00

We are happy to announce that your Helpdesk agents can now send emails to customers with any attachment they desire in Mojo Helpdesk. Simply create a new ticket (or work with an existing one), click “attach files” and then “Choose File.” You now have the option to “add to email.”

Why is this important to you?

Your customers now have the option to view ticket attachments either in the portal or their email.

Change: Tweaking the attachment interface

2010-07-07T16:01:00.008-05:00

We have listened to our customers regarding our recent update of the attachment interface, and we are quickly moving to change it back to what it was previously.

When you are working with an existing ticket, you currently find the attachment icon (with the list of attachments) at the top of the page (beside the “event log” link). Per your request, we will restore the list of attachments back to the bottom of the page. Please stay tuned for our next update regarding this change.

Add a ticket form in your web site with a form widget

2010-06-30T18:10:00.002-05:00

We have been quietly rolling out a new feature: the form widget. It allows adding a ticket form inside any website by just adding a small HTML snippet of code.
As shown in the picture below, the widget creates a tab that, when clicked, opens a ticket form. When the form is submitted, it creates a ticket in your Mojo Helpdesk.

The form's tab is customizable so you can choose a color that matches your website. You could also add multiple forms and change the text to relate to a necessary topic. For example, one form can be for general questions and another for technical support.

The form widget is available for all Mojo Helpdesk plans.

Montastic DNS glitch fixed: do not use OpenDNS

2010-06-11T14:31:00.002-05:00

We fixed a DNS issue that caused non-existent domains to resolve. This happened when "someone" at Metadot reconfigured one of our DNS servers to use OpenDNS as a forwarder. To our surprise Montastic started to alert us of a non-existent domain name being "up and running." This happened because OpenDNS intercepts all unresolved requests and returns the IP of their server instead of nothing. This violates the DNS protocol.

Why does OpenDNS do this?

To make money. From a practical standpoint, web users misspelling a URL will end up seeing an OpenDNS search page filled with advertising. OpenDNS has contracts with major search engine providers to do this.

Why is this bad?

Resolving non-existing domain names is wrong because it breaks the domain name protocol which is a standard used by hundreds of millions of systems.

On the Internet, network standards must be followed just as driving rules are on the road: most accidents occur when rules are violated.

Add Notes to Your Servers

2010-05-11T09:23:00.005-05:00

We implemented a feature requested by many users: the info field. You can now add some notes to your monitored URL. For example you can write a special reboot procedure, or specify the webmaster contact information.

As usual, contribute your suggestions via our website: www.montastic.com.

Get your Mojo Number on iGoogle in 5 Easy Steps

2010-05-03T09:26:00.015-05:00

Did you know you can have your Mojo Number in iGoogle? Here is how:

In Mojo Helpdesk, click on “profile” (top right) and copy the access key.
Click on the Mojo Number in the Mojo Star icon.
Click on “Add to Google” - in the box on the right hand side.
Click on “Add to iGoogle” - again. You may be asked to login to iGoogle.
Paste the access key into the gadget and click “save".

You now have your Mojo Number your iGoogle page.

You now have your Mojo number available anytime you are logged into your iGoogle page.

Mojo Helpdesk Maintenance Completed

2010-04-25T16:17:00.000-05:00

The maintenance has been completed as planned. All services are up and running normally.

While there will be no visible changes in the user interface for a while, this maintenance work prepared Mojo Helpdesk backend sub-systems for exciting upcoming features.

Thank you for supporting Mojo Helpdesk by being a customer.

Give Me More Power - How to Assign, Change Status & Comment, in Bulk

2010-04-15T14:03:00.002-05:00

You probably have noticed in your My Assignments tab a small link titled Give Me More Power. Well, this link allows you to perform bulk operations i.e. you can apply an action to several tickets at one time.

For example, if you had 42 tickets that came in assigned to you all regarding the same issue, you could select all of them and simultaneously change the status from assigned to in progress. Then, when you have solved this issue (because it was the same for all 42 tickets) you could change the status to solved and reply with one message that will comment back to all 42 ticket submitters.

Will you be out of the office or going on vacation? You can also re-assign tickets to your lucky colleague, in bulk.

What's New for Mojo? Speed, Webinars and more...

2010-04-13T15:23:00.001-05:00

Many thanks for your feedback about Mojo Helpdesk. Based on your suggestions, we are happy to announce upgrades have been made and new features have been added.

Mojo's faster
We increased speed of the application by optimizing database queries. Most screens are much snappier than before.

Welcome Email configuration
Now whether your helpdesk sends new users a "Welcome" email is an option you can change in the help desk settings.

Daily webinars
New to Mojo? Need a quick intro? Take a live 15-min webinar to learn the basics of Mojo or learn how to best configure the helpdesk settings. Webinars are offered daily at http://www.mojohelpdesk.com/webinars

More Storage for Mojo Users

2010-04-01T12:42:00.005-05:00

Mojo Helpdesk has moved its storage to Amazon's Simple Storage Service. This allows us to provide up to 20 times more storage space without price increase.

Here is the split for each plan:

Plan Storage
Free 0
Basic 100 MB
Plus 500 MB
Business 3 GB
Enterprise 10 GB
Enterprise Plus 50 GB

Checkout all Mojo Helpdesk features at www.mojohelpdesk.com.

Montastic Update: HTTP Authentication and More

2010-03-30T09:09:00.003-05:00

We implemented few tweaks to improve reliability of our web site monitoring service and also added one new feature: HTTP Authentication. Montastic users can now monitor their protected pages by embedding credentials in the monitoring URL as shown here:

http://username:password@mysite.com/protected_page/

This also works with HTTPS and port numbers. Here is another example:

https://username:password@mysite.com:8080/protected_page/

One feature that was also requested is to show the pricing from the front page and not bury it in a deep place inside the application: It's done, it is now accessible from the front page.

New to Montastic and want to monitor your websites? Give it a spin at www.montastic.com.

Video of Ultimate Typing Championship Final

2010-03-24T13:52:00.002-05:00

Two of the fastest typists in the US came to SXSW for the Ultimate Typing Championship Final. Sean Wrona and Nate Bowen competed head to head to determine who is the fastest typist. Pay attention to the complexity of the text they typed during the second race... Sean Wrona won.

Here is the interview of Daniel Guermeur on Austin KXAN TV channel:

Originally posted on Das Keyboard blog.

High-Performance, Full-Featured Search Capability for Mojo Helpdesk

2010-02-09T12:38:00.007-06:00

Metadot is excited to announce an upgrade of Mojo Helpdesk. With a major change in the ticket’s search system, Mojo Helpdesk now provides a high-performance, full-featured search capability. As the number of customers using Mojo grew, we found the previous search system did not scale well. The new search capability means minimal waiting time and increased flexibility in defining search criteria. For example, you can now perform term, phrase, field, Boolean, wild, and fuzzy queries, allowing you to find specific tickets quickly and easily. Search speed is greatly improved, as is Mojo server accessibility. For more information, see http://www.mojowiki.metadot.net/faqs/search.

Announcing the Ultimate Typing Championship

2009-11-11T12:40:00.002-06:00

How fast can you type? Do you think you’re fast enough to be the Ultimate Typing Champion?

Now you can prove it.

If the title isn’t enough for you, perhaps $2,000, a free trip to South by Southwest in Austin, TX, a free keyboard, or a few other prizes will entice you to compete.

Today we launch the Ultimate Typing Championship. At its core is TyprX, a multi-player typing game that allows players to race in real time over the internet. The idea is to help you show off your mad typing skills and/or to increase your typing speed. TyprX will keep track of all your scores from when you’re signed in and enter you in the Championship.

Check it out at www.UltimateTypingChampionship.com.

Montastic Monitors Your Sites Every 5 Minutes

2009-10-21T16:59:00.001-05:00

We have been working on our Montastic Website Monitoring application for a while now. We rewrote a lot of the backend to allow faster monitoring intervals and to prepare for future new functionality. As a result, Montastic has now paying plans with advanced capabilities.

It allows now to check your sites from once a day down to every 5 minutes. If your site is down, you get alerted by email.

Credit card payments are managed by Google Checkout which was easy to implement with Ruby On Rails. It makes the payment process very painless, reliable and secure.

We also added the ability turn monitoring off on a individual server basis. Here is the new color coding as depicted above:

Green => server is OK
Red => server is unreachable
Blue => monitoring is disabled

Check it out at www.montastic.com. You can use the free plan to monitor few servers.

Mojo New Features: Event Log & Automation

2009-08-31T11:31:00.008-05:00

We rolled out 2 new features for Mojo Helpdesk: Event Log and Automation.

Event log: Mojo now tracks all help desk events and user actions. Since some businesses require long retention periods, Enterprise Plus plan customers can retain their logs for up to two year versus one day for the free plan.

Automation: It is obviously about automating repetitive tasks like automatically assigning a ticket based on its category, or based on certain keywords it contains. For example all tickets in the category 'Repair' could be automatically assigned to Bill while tickets in the 'Refund request' category will go to Isabelle.

Automation actions are not limited to assignments. Other actions are available as well: email someone, change ticket priority, re-assign, add a message, etc...

A typical usage of automations is to create escalation paths to manage ticket service levels, such as late or about to be late tickets. All plans have this feature enabled and the more powerful plans have a bigger number of automations than the smaller ones.

Check out what plan fist your needs best at:

http://signup.mojohelpdesk.com/signup

Mojo Helpdesk Website Has Gotten a Face Lift

2009-06-02T15:34:00.010-05:00

The Mojo Helpdesk website has a new skin! The new design conveys more clearly what the Mojo Helpdesk is about: simple ticket tracking that helps organizations efficiently manage customer and employee requests. In Mojo Helpdesk requests are centralized and assigned, therefore nothing is dropped and customers have their requests answered. They are happy. Your staff is happy. This is what "getting your Mojo back" is about.

Recession Sing-A-Long by prize-winning polical cartoonist

2009-05-11T09:27:00.009-05:00

Some of us love one of the main virtues of open source software during this cash-strapped ~~depression~~ recession time, namely its free nature. If you are part of the too-big-to-fail companies then you can use bailout money to buy expensive software but if you not receiving tax payer money to run your business, then free open source software and inexpensive online apps can help decrease the cost of your IT.

Try out Ubuntu Linux for your servers and workstations, Metadot Portal Server for your intranet needs, Mojo Helpdesk for your customer support needs and Montastic to monitor the up-time your web sites. If you want to be more efficient and go home work earlier every day, learn how to type twice as fast (literally) using Das Keyboard Ultimate.

These hard times are best described by Walt Handelsman, Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist and animator here.

Windows 7 RC – First Impressions

2009-05-09T11:16:00.004-05:00

In one word: Great.

Windows 7 has been available in its pre-release form (called RC: release candidate). After few days of test we can say that Windows 7 is a huge improvement for people running Vista and a great one for those running XP. The installation is a breeze, everything works right away. Things you will first notice when you run Windows 7:

Windows 7 is very stable and fast even on old hardware.
The interface is clean and elegant.
Windows 7 in non intrusive. The OS stays where it should be: in the background, leaving the user in a one to one relationship with their work.
The Windows Live apps are, partly, Microsoft’s answer to Apple iLife.

If you have the opportunity to get your hands on Windows 7 RC it is worth a try.

Mojo Helpdesk April Update

2009-04-23T14:21:00.006-05:00

Thank you to our customers for their input. Here are the improvements we did based on your feedback.

New features

Added Email templates to allow customization of outgoing emails.
Added role admin with privileges same as owner.
Centralized most email settings into a new view “Configure Emails” located in the ‘Manage your help desk’ view (owner and admins only).
Added a flag for private messages. Private messages replace ticket notes. Private messages are visible by help desk staff only.
Added customizable ticket types (question, incident, task, etc...) in the ticket form.

Changes & Improvements

Improved ticket display response time.
Tickets notes have been replaced by private messages.
All ticket form fields can now be reordered.
Redesigned ticket view for better speed and improved user experience.
Closed tickets can be reopened by helpdesk staff.
Redesigned rating interface in user portal view to make rating mandatory when closing tickets.
Added attachment icon and number of comments in ticket list views.
Users (people with user role) are no longer listed in the help desk staff view.
Removed display of priority and queue name in the user portal views.
Improved payment receipt information.

If you want to try the new version you can try for free it at www.mojohelpdesk.com.

Exponential times: IT is just at the beginning

2009-04-20T17:01:00.009-05:00

Reed Overfelt, CEO at www.OptimizedNow.com, pointed this video out. It shows the exponential growth of IT and how mind boggling the numbers are. For example, this year alone, we are going to produce 4 exabytes (4x10^19) of unique information. This is more the previous 5,000 years.

Mojo Helpdesk January Release

2009-04-01T12:15:00.000-05:00

We've been busy upgrading Mojo Helpdesk. Here is what we have done:

Bye spammers!
We added an anti-spam feature so we only get requests from real people.

Better email notifications
We improved our subscription options so tech staff gets only what's wanted.

API improvements
You can now import or export users from the API in any languages like Perl, PHP, Java, VB or Ruby.

Improved ticket management efficiency
We added actions you can apply on several tickets at a time.

And there are more improvements. Check them out at http://mojowiki.metadot.net.

Launch: a blog about typing productivity

2009-03-11T12:24:00.003-05:00

Das Keyboard blog has always been part of the Metadot blog and the rising success of Das Keyboard as a product and the enthousiasm of our user community have created the need to have a blog specific to the topic of typing, and more generally about input devices and how they affect our daily productivity. So visit Das Keyboard blog, the blog about keyboards, typing productivity, and efficiency.

It's The Click

2009-02-10T08:13:00.004-06:00

Zachary Gasiorowski, MyGamer.com, reviewed the Das Keyboard Professional and says: "Until I typed on a Das Keyboard keyboard, I didn't realize how satisfying hitting keys can be. With an incredibly satisfying "click" noise with every key tap, this keyboard is bound to make typing more accurate… and entertaining."

Fight: Das Keyboard versus IBM Model M

2009-01-21T09:50:00.002-06:00

Cyril Kowaliski at The Tech Reports has a review on Das Keyboard Professional and compares it to the IBM Model M. They are both mechanical keyboards, they both focus on great tactile feedback and typing efficiency. Who wins? Could that be both keyboards? Read the review at www.techreport.com.

New musical instrument: The Wii Theremin

2009-01-20T13:51:00.005-06:00

The Theremin, invented in 1920 by Russian physicist Léon Theremin, was one of the world's first electronic instruments. It's the only instrument that is played without being touched.

Ken Moore got a Wii for Christmas and did this:

Thank you to our Metadot customer www.noeq.net for pointing great project out.

Mojo Helpdesk site updated with new look and videos

2009-01-02T17:52:00.004-06:00

Mojo Helpdesk gets an updated website and some videos showing the application. Check it out at www.mojohelpdesk.com.

Here is an overview of Mojo Helpdesk:

Happy Holidays!

2008-12-19T10:43:00.002-06:00

On behalft of the Metadot team I wish you a Merry Christmas and a fantastic new year. Everything has been great in 2008 (minus this little thing called the economy) and we are preparing some great things to make 2009 an equally exciting year. We thank you for your ongoing support.

Watch this: a computer-controlled Christmas light arrangement of 70 thousand bulbs!

Metadot Rails December update

2008-12-12T15:18:00.009-06:00

We are glad to release Metadot Rails 7.4.0. The update includes an up-to-ten times increase page rendering speed as well as other goodies such as an upgraded image library that allows registered users to upload images, a setting to prevent oversized image upload, and a 'send this page to a friend' liquid tag.

Check Metadot out at www.metadot.com or wiki.metadot.net.

Mojo Helpdesk December Upgrade

2008-12-10T15:36:00.012-06:00

We are glad to announce the upgrade of our Mojo Helpdesk application. There has been a lot of work put into this new release and we hope you are going to like it as much as we do. We created a video to summarize all the changes:

http://mojowiki.metadot.net/whats-new

Here are the improvements:

Redesigned user interface

Smarter use of screen space and less clicks to achieve most tasks:

Revamp of unassigned ticket screen
Redesigned helpdesk management screen
Revamp of ticket listings
Reassigning a ticket can now be done in the ticket view
The search is now available on every page

A new customer portal

The helpdesk landing page is now The Customer Portal that includes a customizable home page. Go to manage> Configure Mojo Helpdesk to change it.

Improved branding customization

Mojo Helpdesk now also all plans to customize logos and helpdesk pages.

Guest request revamp

Unregistered users can create new tickets w/o you having to create accounts. We removed the 'request and account' feature since user accounts are created automatically when an unregistered user create a request.
Custom ticket fields are now present in the guest request

We also fixed few annoying bugs.

As we develop most features based on customer input please don't hesitate to contact us with your suggestions.

You can Mojo Helpdesk for free at

www.mojohelpdesk.com

More great awards and press for Das Keyboard

2008-10-29T13:58:00.015-05:00

We are glad to announce more press coverage and awards for our keyboard. The one thing most people seem to agree on is the addictive nature of the Das Keyboard tactile feedback. Check that out.

Keyboard not found, press F1 to continue.

2008-09-11T14:34:00.002-05:00

The other day we got a message from a Das Keyboard customer saying that his PC did not recognize the keyboard. The error message was

"Keyboard not found, press F1 to continue"

Seriously, who is in charge of writing this stuff? Is this an official body governing the BIOS specifications? Can any one ping them about this?

3G iPhone: The ideal product for math idiots

2008-06-20T09:44:00.004-05:00

Chip Rosenthal who helped develop MojoHelpdesk says on his Twitter: "3G iPhone. $100 cheaper up front. $10 more expensive/month. It's the ideal product for math idiots".

Introducting Das Keyboard Professional and Ultimate

2008-06-09T15:12:00.003-05:00

It's official! The third generation of Das Keyboard is now available for pre-order at www.daskeyboard.com. The new Das Keyboard is a complete redesign that focuses on providing the best typing experience. I think we succeeded but our users will have the final word on this.

The new Das keyboard comes in two models:

Das Keyboard Ultimate: the blank mechanical keyboard
Das Keyboard Professional: with inscriptions

Here are some feature highlights:

Mechanical key switches
USB hub
Blue LEDs
Glossy black enclosure
extra long USB cable

Check it out at www.daskeyboard.com.

Google is the new IBM.

2008-05-29T07:51:00.003-05:00

After few weeks of beta testing, Google App Engine has opened their signup to everyone. This is significant for several reasons: It makes hosting your web app really simple, cheap and scalable.

If you think at all the steps it takes to host a web app and all the knowledge required to make it work, it is a fairly complicated and slow process.

What we need from a hosting company to host a database backed website:

Simple, affordable and quick setup
Enough CPU cycle when the app needs it
Good tech support

The painful reality includes the following steps:

Buy a domain name
Choose a hosting company
Log in using the web hosting proprietary and sometimes not easy-to-use control panel
Setup users, passwords
Create a database
Zip your web app on your PC and upload it on your server via FTP
Transfer the domain name to point to your hosted server
getting upset with the bad support of your hosting company
get enough CPU cycles for your app to run smoothly

With Google App Engine it’s incredibly easy:

Register your app
Run the deploy script from your development environment (yes, this is the only step!)

Done(!)

What you get on top of it:

Dynamic webserving, with full support of common web technologies
Persistent storage (powered by Bigtable and GFS with queries, sorting, and transactions)
Automatic scaling and load balancing
Google APIs for authenticating users and sending email

and also...

It’s free for small scale hosting and reasonably cheap for bigger scale requirements.
The application life cycle management is included: Google App Engine allows you to roll back to any previous version of your app at any time.
Automatic database schema update: no need to mess with phpMyAdmin. Your app will talk to Google and the database schema is managed automatically.

Google App Engine provides an ultra simple web app hosting solution that is more efficient, cheaper and dead easy to us. It’s only available in the Python language at this point but Google plans to rollout other languages shortly. This means 90% of all standard web apps could use this service and they probably will because it only requires running the ‘deploy’ command to send your app to Google.

Did you hear about the computing grid that is as pervasive and invisible as the electricity grid? I thought IBM would make it available to the world like they did it for the Personal Computer but Google made it a reality for all of us.

Google is the new IBM.

Pre-announcing Das Keyboard III

2008-05-23T09:55:00.000-05:00

We are glad to pre-announce the all new Das Keyboard III. It is a entire new design, slick and shiny. The Das Keyboard III sports mechanical key switches, a USB hub, and blue LEDs and n-key rollover. The tactile feel of Das Keyboard III is just incredible. It is not available for sale at this point and we hope it will be in few weeks. We'll be show some pictures shortly so stay tuned.

Please call the helpdesk

2008-05-02T14:06:00.001-05:00

IT support at its best...

How do you know your tech staff is not acting like this? With Mojo Helpdesk, each ticket is rated by your customers, so you know if your tech staff is doing a good job or not!.

Handy gadget for Das Keyboard users

2008-03-03T07:18:00.000-06:00

The world typing speed record is 212 wpm (words per minute). A fast hunt-and-peck typist will be at 25 wpm, a slow touch-typist at 50 wpm. Most Das Keyboard users are above 50 wpm. How fast can you type? Check your speed and monitor your touch-typing daily work out with this USB speedometer.

Be dense: Edward Tufte about the iPhone interface

2008-02-19T07:25:00.000-06:00

"Pack it to the max" would be a good summary of the iPhone efficient interface. But it could be better according to Edward Tufte. Watch the iPhone interface explained in this video.

"The iPhone platform elegantly solves the design problem of small screens by greatly intensifying the information resolution of each displayed page. Small screens, as on traditional cell phones, show very little information per screen, which in turn leads to deep hierarchies of stacked-up thin information--too often leaving users with "Where am I?" puzzles. Better to have users looking over material adjacent in space rather than stacked in time."

Rackspace fanatical support dropped below four nines

2008-01-11T18:12:00.000-06:00

As many other companies offering high availability online applications to their customers, we provide Mojo Helpdesk and Montastic to tens of thousands organizations around the world. And since we want the best hosting experience we host our production servers at Rackspace. It has been a great experience until the last 2 years. Finally, Rackspace recent outages in November and December have propelled them below the 99.99% of availability, which is, by today's standards, just terrible. Here is a table showing what downtime percentages truly means:

Availability %	Downtime per year	Downtime per month*	Downtime per week
90%	36.5 days	72 hours	16.8 hours
95%	18.25 days	36 hours	8.4 hours
98%	7.30 days	14.4 hours	3.36 hours
99%	3.65 days	7.20 hours	1.68 hours
99.5%	1.83 days	3.60 hours	50.4 min
99.8%	17.52 hours	86.23 min	20.16 min
99.9%	8.76 hours	43.2 min	10.1 min
99.95%	4.38 hours	21.56 min	5.04 min
99.99%	52.6 min	4.32 min	1.01 min
99.999%	5.26 min	25.9 s	6.05 s
99.9999%	31.5 s	2.59 s	0.605 s

I am pretty sure I could host some server under my own desk and achieve a decent four nines with a little UPS. Rackpace downtimes, which the longest was 2 hours 30 minutes (!!!) place them below four nines. Interestingly enough their web states: "100% Network Uptime Isn't Wishful Thinking, It's A Guaranteed Reality". And... that's more nines they can afford.

The history of operating systems powered by Metadot!

2008-01-02T19:57:00.000-06:00

Reading Wikipedia's article on the history of computer operating system is fascinating, but a picture is worth a 1000 words. Here is it, in picture, on a site powered by Metadot Portal Server:

www.oshistory.net

How-to: DIY Das Keyboard for free

2008-01-02T19:23:00.000-06:00

If you haven't got a Das Keyboard II with mechanical key switches for Christmans, don't be discouraged: you can have one for free (excluding sweat) if you dedicate a weekend building it:
Here is how from SaneAsylum.com:

How-to: DIY Das Keyboard from SaneAsylum.com

Mojo Helpdesk 1.3.0: API improvements

2007-08-21T21:16:00.003-05:00

We have done more improvements for our favorite online ticket tracking service: the API has now the facility to create tickets and comments, the search facility has been greatly improved as well. For more information about Mojo Helpdesk 1.3.0 visit the wiki. For a free Mojo Helpdesk account, sign up at www.mojohelpdesk.com.

Metadot 7: The Last Touches

2007-07-02T12:47:00.002-05:00

We have been collecting the feedback from our first distribution of Metadot 7 based on Ruby on Rails. So far so good: we have found no major issues, just tweaks to be done in the installation scripts. For those who want to get their hands on Metadot 7, go to www.metadot.com and sign up to the Metadot Rails forum.

Time Tracking For Mojo Helpdesk

2007-07-02T10:33:00.002-05:00

We added a time tracking feature to Mojo Helpdesk, our hosted ticket tracking service. You can now track how much time your tech staff spends helping customers and get statistics per tech, customers, queues, so you know where the real costs are spent. This feature is available for the Enterprise plan customers.

We have also rolled out our a new documentation site, Mojo Helpdesk wiki, that provides our Mojo Helpdesk users not only the online doc, but also the latest news and notices for planned maintenance. Check it out:

Time tracking information: mojowiki.metadot.net/faqs/time-tracking
Mojo Helpdesk wiki: mojowiki.metadot.net

If you don't have a Mojo Helpdesk account, get one for free at www.mojohelpdesk.com.

ABC News: Das Keyboard, The Reason Why

2007-05-16T07:18:00.000-05:00

According to Richard Hart, ABC journalist:

"Das Keyboard has a great feel, because it uses classic mechanical switches. No labels on the keys. Why? To force you to learn to touch type, das why."

Full article here.

All-you-can-eat Das Keyboard

2007-05-09T12:59:00.000-05:00

For the culinary demanding users, we have now an answer. Scott Thomsen from Agave Design sent us a pointer to the waffle keyboard.

Useful Web: Try This On The New York Times.

2007-04-19T12:09:00.000-05:00

Go to the New York Times and double click on any words. You'll see a pop up windows with its definition! Quite handy.

Watch & Listen to Das Keyboard II

2007-04-08T13:01:00.000-05:00

Das Keyboard II: the keyboard that clicks. Watch and listen to this YouTube video from modology. It seems that mechanical key switches are addictive to many users...

For more information go to www.daskeyboard.com.

New: Montastic Mac Widget

2007-03-21T11:52:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Jim Menard, Montastic now have its Apple Mac OS X widget.

Announcing Metadot 7

2007-03-14T11:48:00.000-05:00

Over the last months, we worked very hard to develop Metadot 7. We are pleased to announce that it is finally around the corner.

Metadot 7 is the easiest-to-use, most intuitive content management system, portal server, wiki or site builder that you can find (or whatever the latest name is) and also the most fit for work group collaboration and organizations of all sizes.

Some of the things we focused on:
• Clean and clear interface
• Content drag and drop
• Easy theme (skin) editing for professional looking web sites
• Powerful permission system
• Search engine friendliness
• RSS for most functionalities

Metadot 7 is about keeping what was good in the previous versions and adjusting or eliminating some features that did not age gracefully.

Metadot 7 is written in Ruby on Rails. We are now very versatile with RoR (we also released Mojo Helpdesk and Montastic using Ruby on Rails) and our conclusion is that it is a great web development framework. It provides a clear MVC structure, AJAX goodies and all the tools for professional software application life cycle management such as testing, debugging, database migrations and production environment upgrades.

Metadot 7 is open source as before and will be available to download in the near future. At first we are going to release our hosted version so you can experience it online. It has been in production mode for beta users for the past 2 months and the feedback has been outstanding.

We are also going to provide migration tools so existing Metadot sites will be able to upgrade to Metadot 7 easily.

Not only have we revamped the Metadot software from A to Z but we also took a hard look at our open source model and user community. We decided to improve the contribution process, feedback input, and code exchange. So we are going to setup a download/exchange place for gizmos and themes.

We hope you’ll like it.

Stay tuned for the latest posts on Metadot 7.

Metadot.com fighting back against spammers

2007-03-01T08:54:00.000-06:00

Spam is a growing problem for blogs, open discussions, wikis, and also our Metadot.com site. We recently got hit pretty badly.

Metadot.com has been providing a free web space to all registered users for years. Everything was great and some 7000 people were able to share information with others via our reliable portal service.

Unfortunately some 'users' have used their 'my website' space to upload inappropriate material. Search engines doing their job, found and indexed their content. When search engines compiled and ranked our site, Metadot became listed as an adult site (which is not really this year marketing direction). This resulted in being removed for major search engines like Google. As a consequence, we disabled all my website spaces. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused but we had no other choices.

This also happened to other Metadot sites whose owners were nice enough to provide 'my website' to the public. They are taking similar steps.

Now the good part: we will be providing an alternative way to use a free web space and test drive our new software version in a short while. So stay tuned.

MTV goes blank with Das Keyboard II

2006-11-30T09:07:00.000-06:00

If your are looking for a nice gift for yourself, your friends or your kids, check out the MTV Christmas PC product guide that includes our high end mechanical keyboard, the Das Keyboard II. Also they have a pretty funny product description check it out.

The Das Keyboard II has received outstanding feedback from our user base. Once you put your hands on one, there is no coming back to the low end keyboard technology. It is addictive more than you can imagine.

New Mojo Helpdesk Release

2006-11-01T15:01:00.002-06:00

This new release provides the capability to create tickets from emails. It is available for all non-free plans. If you have a Mojo Helpdesk account, you can enable it in the Helpdesk Setting page.

We also reformatted the email notification messages to allow a better fit on small-screen devices like pagers, phones and other SMS capable devices.

Announcing Mojo Helpdesk reporting API

2006-09-15T11:24:00.004-05:00

We are pleased to release the first version of Mojo Helpdesk API. It is implemented with web services and SOAP. The API allows programmers to access the ticket information and create custom reports.

The API is available to all Mojo Helpdesk customers, from the free plan to the Enterprise one. Thank to all for their feedback and suggestions.

For more information about Mojo Helpdesk:

How not to make money on the web...

2006-09-08T06:49:00.000-05:00

An interesting article from Chad L Perrin that talks about Web 2.0 business models and takes Montastic, our free website monitoring service as an example.

http://sob.apotheon.org/?p=129

GWT: The end of HTML for web applications

2006-07-19T15:08:00.001-05:00

For those who have missed the start of this quiet revolution, Google is changing the way web applications are developed.
After rolling out Google maps, Gmail and Google spreadsheet (among many other tools), Google has released its secret sauce: the Google Web Toolkit (GWT). It is a Java development framework that makes writing Rich Internet Applications (understand Ajax applications) a breeze. Best of all it is open source.

It was the missing link. Now we can create web applications that are as powerful as the desktop ones.

We decided to invest some time to explore the advantages and challenges of this framework. The results of our experiment will be posted soon. Let the fun begin.

Google Web Toolkit - Build AJAX apps in the Java language

Das Keyboard II - 105 keys for accent users

2006-07-12T08:53:00.000-05:00

Good news for our non-US users: Das Keyboard II, the ultimate typing machine that sports mechanical key switches is now available with a 105-key layout. So if you are writting in non-US English like Spanish, Danish, Germany or even French, you now can feel right at home.

More info: http://www.daskeyboard.com/

Reid Levy Interviews Mojo HelpDesk

2006-06-19T17:14:00.000-05:00

Reid Levy referred to Mojo Helpdesk as 'the king of the helpdesk' and has interviewed us. Listen to the podcast on his site, here: Reid Levy Interviews Mojo HelpDesk.

Microsoft won't take your money if you don't use IE!

2006-05-04T03:33:00.001-05:00

If you are using Firefox or Safari and want to create online ad campaigns, don't waste your time on the new Microsoft Adcenter:

We gave copious feedback.

LAUNCH: Mojo Helpdesk

2006-04-12T10:58:00.003-05:00

We are happy to announce our new service Mojo Helpdesk. Mojo Helpdesk is a simple ticket tracking service that allows organizations to manage customer requests and get satisfaction ratings so they know how good their customer service is (or is not).

There is a forever-free plan. Check it out at www.mojohelpdesk.com

LAUNCH: Das Keyboard II - the ultimate typing machine

2006-04-06T20:15:00.000-05:00

Typing on a keyboard with mechanical key switches is like driving a BMW. Das Keyboard II, our new product is the ultimate typing machine. With gold-plated mechinical key switches it is simply the most comfortable and precise keyboard you can buy today. A must for the real programmers.

www.daskeyboard.com

Moved to blogger.com

2006-04-06T20:09:00.000-05:00

We moved our blog to blogger.com. Nice, easy slick interface.

Montastic upgrade

2006-02-06T07:58:00.001-06:00

We have been busy upgrading our monitoring service. Due to the success of our free monitoring service, we had to do some changes the core of our application so we can handle the growing load. We had some downtime but the result is worth it.

Furthermore, we are happy to release these new features:

Yahoo widget:

so you can keep an eye on your servers while doing other things

Capability to add several alert notification email addresses

so you can get them on your pager or cell phone

opt-in / opt-out newsletter:

so you can subscribe to our low traffic email newsletter (see your profile) so next time we upgrade you know about it

Pre-announcing Mojo Helpdesk

2006-01-27T19:58:00.002-06:00

Do you really know how your company is doing with customer support? We thought we did. At Metadot, we always wanted to do a good job. We use a ticket tracking system to manage customer requests and we answer the cases as fast as we can. We thought we did a good job until the day we started getting calls from unhappy customers: you close my tickets and it’s not solved, my ticket has been on hold forever, etc… Obviously, our customer support was not where we wanted it to be and we did not know some of our customers were not getting what they expected.

Companies are always trying to do a good job, or at least some folks in most companies try:

Your call is very important to us
We are customer-focused
Customer first
Our company is customer centric

Take this to the airliners:

Looks good on paper, but the reality is that traveling by air is one of the most unpleasant pastimes one can have unless they fly business or first-class. Can you image that the food they serve you in planes is so bad that even the crew does not eat what they serve you?!! That is what “customer first” means in some companies, just hot air.

Now back to us (and you). How to make sure our customers are delighted with our service and that we really know about that?

Enter Mojo Helpdesk, our upcoming helpdesk service we designed from the ground up. It is an attempt to track customer requests and get instant satisfaction feedback. If we missed something we’ll know it quickly. With Mojo Helpdesk you (and your company) know how you are doing at all times.

Mojo Helpdesk is developed with Ruby on Rails. It will be an online service, no download, no software to install. We are looking for beta testers. If you are interested please email me at supercobra_at_metadot.com.

LAUNCH: Montastic: the free website monitoring service that doesn't suck.

2006-01-27T19:56:00.000-06:00

We are proud to release this free website monitoring service to the world.

Montastic will alert you by email if your website goes down, so you know about it before your customers call you.

It is built with Ajax and Ruby on Rails. Check it out, it is really useful and it is the sexiest monitoring service available :)

Visit it at www.montastic.com

BBC on Das Keyboard: fat finegrs

2006-01-07T19:55:00.000-06:00

A simple typing error has triggered mayhem on the Tokyo stock exchange and cost one bank £190m. But in a world where almost everyone now is expected to type, how many of us really can?

How to tell the difference between web 1.0 and 2.0?

2006-01-06T19:57:00.000-06:00

Difference between web 1.0 and 2.0

Training

2006-01-05T19:51:00.000-06:00

By popular demand we released our 1-hour telephone training. It’s quick, easy and cost effective. The nice part is that we can do the training on the customer portal, thus not only we train our users, but we also do some real work.

Learn more on our Training page.

2006 Resolutions

2005-12-29T19:50:00.000-06:00

Finally we succumbed to the blog virus. Blog is mode? Certainly. But we also see that as a great way to keep our user base in touch with us.

So, for our first blog article I am going to publish the company resolutions along with mine.

Publishing them online put some pressure on us to make them happen. Once we brag about things it is difficult just to retract them. So here we go:

stay hungry, stay foolish (adopted from Steve Jobs’ advise to Stanford graduates
start a company blog :)
release great and useful online tools and services
micro manage pixels: make the above services enjoyable to use
try to become an important player in online services
stop using the laptop at night in the bed

Plan	Storage
Free	0
Basic	100 MB
Plus	500 MB
Business	3 GB
Enterprise	10 GB
Enterprise Plus	50 GB