Tuesday, February 21, 2012

How We Do What We Do


One really important thing that sets us apart from other system integrators is that, at IOI, we’re really mindful of the process of customizing a solution for our clients. In other words, when you come to us with a business need, you can be confident that you’re not going to get saddled with a cookie-cutter, “insert-the-product-of-the-month-here” solution that *should* do the job. We just don’t work that way. 

First of all, we go out of our way to gather the best and brightest on our team, from engineering and project management to customer support. And we combine all that talent with a killer methodology that’s designed to make sure that you’ll always get the right solution for your business.

And what is this methodology, you ask? Well, it goes like this:

#1 – We show up
We spend two to three days at your site, meeting with your team and analyzing your network setup so we can completely understand how each user accesses and uses your assets, and how projects flow between departments.

#2 – We make a plan
We identify your key business pain, like difficulty locating assets, or inconsistent branding. Using this information, your IOI team designs a strategy that includes a detailed breakdown of the solution, the customizations, the deployment timeline, and the total cost.

#3 – We roll it out
Once you’ve reviewed and approved our plan, we build your solution and work with your team to deploy it and test it so that we know that it will absolutely meet all your needs.

#4 – We never leave you hanging
At IOI, we don’t hit-and-run. After deployment, our engineers remain onsite to train your system administrators, production personnel, and other users so everyone can get the benefits from your new solution.

But even when we’re done, we’re not really done. After we leave your site, you can count on no more than a 10-minute response time, every time you call us with a question or concern. Every. Time.

This is why our customers love us—and why I love working here.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Createasphere DAM LA: Are you in?


Here at IOI, you know we love dynamic media, and we think the folks at Createasphere are pretty cool, too. So, are we heading off to LA this month for the Createasphere Digital Asset Management Conference? You know it!
On February 22 and 23, we’ll be down in LA, basking in the winter sunshine and taking part in what is truly one of the industry’s must-attend events for creatives, marketers, digital librarians, IT specialists, and execs. It’s two solid days of focused sessions on managing digital assets, media assets, marketing resources, the content and information lifecycle, storage, and security and preservation.


Don't miss our own Rich Carroll, Technical Sales Manager, who will be speaking on the panel "How to get the CFO to Buy into your DAM." Learn how to argue ROI, increased production efficiencies, and risk management with the best of them! They'll discuss how to pitch business and technology plans to the C-Suite and hit the soft spot of the CFO in particular that gives your DAM projects the green light and not the thumbs down.


This year, the keynote address will be delivered by Theodore Gluck, the Director of Library Restoration & Preservation at Walt Disney Studios. Speakers will include Stephen Beres, Technology Architect at HBO; Chris Orr, Information Services Project Manager at the University of California; Deborah Hunt, Principal of  Information Edge and President of SLA; and Nick Sincaglia, President of NueMeta LLC.

“Tell me more,” you say? We’d love to!
To find out more about this month’s Creatasphere Digital Asset Management Conference in LA, just click here.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Tip for Capturing Terminal Logs

 

This tip ran in a recent newsletter. Don't get it? Subscribe here.

Because I’m not a command-line guru by any means, I find it helpful to search my terminal commands. Capturing all those terminal sessions to log files really saves me time, and here’s how to do it:
  1. Create a folder in your User folder called "terminalLogs"
  2. Edit your .profile file which should live in your home directory. On OS X it is NOT there by default.
  3. Add these commands:

. /sw/bin/init.sh
echo "starting .profile"
if tty -s ; then
script ~/logs/termlog-date +%Y%m%d-%H%M.txt
fi

4. Quit the terminal and restart. You should see something like this when terminal starts:

starting .profile Script started, output file is /Users/myHomeDir/logs/termlog-20100301-1350.txt

As you can see by the output in the ~/Documents/terminalLogs folder, the text file has a handy date and time stamp, making it easy for you to go back and look through the old logs if necessary.

At the end of each year, I create a new folder, move all of the year’s logs into that folder, and gzip them individually (example: cd ~logs/2008/ gzip *) so they take up hardly any space. Later, I can use zgrep to search the compressed files, and gzcat to print them to screen.

Overall, it’s a great system and has saved me a lot of time and effort over the years.

Before I close here, I also want to give a shout out to Jerry Adlersfluegel and Dave Lawrence for putting me on to this—thanks, guys! If you have questions, or need more information on capturing terminal logs, just contact us at support@iointegration.com.

Monday, January 30, 2012

COMING SOON: IOI Toolbox Products Release!


You may have read about this in our latest newsletter, but in case you haven't, I wanted to let you know about some really cool IOI Toolbox products for Portal 4/Xinet 17. Some are updated, and some are brand-spanking new, so read on for more information.

As you know, IOI Toolbox is a collection of workflow-centric software applications that extends the functionality of Xinet so you can get things done your way. Soon, we're going to be rolling out two Portal 4 releases for each of the IOI Toolbox products:

1. The first will allow your tools to work in Portal 3-based sites running on Portal 4, so you can upgrade as soon as you are ready--without rebuilding your sites for the new Portal 4 template format

2. The second will provide native support in Portal 4 sites

Both releases should be out for all IOI Toolbox products by the end of February. For more information or to request a product demo, email sales@iointegration.com, or call us at 408-996-3420.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Remote Monitoring with IO Monitor


This year, we’re offering a special deal on our IO Monitor remote monitoring service, so I thought I’d tell you a little bit about it.


IO Monitor is a new IOI solution that remotely monitors and supports your systems 24/7, helping find and fix issues with your servers and custom apps before they affect your productivity—or your bottom line. Essentially, it enables you to sleep through the night, knowing that you won’t be hearing the phone ring at 2am with a problem. You can see it in action at our live webinar "Maximizing Production Performance and Uptime with IO Monitor" on February 15 - register today!

IO Monitor comes in two versions, both of which can be set up in just minutes. If you require OS monitoring only, I’d recommend IO Monitor Lite. However, if you need more robust monitoring, choose IO Monitor Full, which tracks your critical Windows-, Solaris-, and Linux-based custom apps, web services, OS, disk, memory, and CPU around the clock.


Cool features include:
  • Critical log file review to address specific issues
  • Automated help desk ticket generation with IO Integration whenever an issue is detected
  • Email updates to keep you informed about issues
  • Full statistical reporting on server function, performance, and power utilization
And now, here’s the deal: When you buy an annual license for IO Monitor, you’ll get the first 30 days FREE. Try it out and see what it’s like to have problems identified and fixed before you’ve even had your morning coffee! And of course, you can cancel your license at any time if you're not completely satisfied.


Find out more
Learn more about the IO Monitor special offer. Want an in-person look? Simply request a demo, or buy it and try it, money back guaranteed, if you don't experience better productivity, uptime and sleep.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

What’s New in DALIM TWiST 6.4?






DALIM Software's TWIST product is used by the world's top brands, publishers and advertising agencies to automate creative workflows and speed production, reducing costs and resource strain through optimization. It is entirely customizable and drops right into an organization's core processes to fit their unique way of doing business. And, now it is even better.

As you may know, DALIM Software just released an update of its flagship product, TWIST 6.4. As expected, there aren’t any major changes, but a number of bug fixes have been rolled out, which is great. Here’s an overview of a few key improvements:

Multi-page files – Now, a workflow will never “fork” any additional processes than the initial one and all tools are now able to process multiple pages in one shot (This improvement includes some of the most widely used tools like PsCheck, MergeXP, O_PDF, Transmit).

New e-publication PDF output format – DALIM has now created a dedicated PDF format for e-publishing, so you can generate a light-weight version of a file and still maintain readability.

Screening in PDFs – The O_PDF tool now features a new tab that deals with controlling screening information inside PDFs.

PDF Channel Order Control - It is now possible with the SeparationMap tool to control the channel order in files as well as opacity, which will allow the user to create proofs of complex inks that will match the final printed result.

Quality Control - The visualCompare tool has been greatly improved in TWIST 6.4 in order to be able to ignore certain channels as being part of the ones to compare as well as avoid false positive detection in the comparison engine itself.

Normalizer Tool – The Normalizer tool has been introduced in TWIST 6.4 as a variation on PsCheck that focuses on file normalization, simplifying the workflow design by introducing tools that are specialized in the certain key pre-press functions.

Improved Reporting - The CreatePreflightReport tool has been improved to be able to aggregate different sources of information into a single report.

Overall, these performance improvements are really significant - may the upgrades begin.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

IO Integration Celebrates 10 Years - Letter from the President

Ten years ago this month, IO Integration opened its doors. Our beginnings were modest, but we had high hopes, plenty of energy, and a single goal: To bring effective technology solutions to creative marketing professionals who were being under served. We were lucky to quickly gain some fantastic customers who understood what we were trying to accomplish, and we were also fortunate to attract talented employees who were committed to looking after those customers at all hours of the day and night.

Our initial group of four has grown into a strong team of more than 30 people across North America and Europe. Their combined knowledge and experience are unmatched in our market, and I am immensely proud of all of them and the work they do to deliver exceptional service, support, and solutions to you. As we progress beyond our first decade, IOI will continue to invest to make the best people, products, and services available to you, even as your needs grow and change.

Of the more than 60 customers IOI worked with in our first two years, almost all are still customers today. We are extremely grateful to them, and we have never taken that loyalty for granted. As we move forward, we will maintain our core belief that delivering the best services, solutions and value to our customers will enable us to grow and prosper during the next ten years and beyond.

Xinet was our first software partner, and the company continues today as one of our core partners. Over the years, the Xinet WebNative Suite has evolved right along with IOI. DALIM was IOI’s next major partner, and we have steadily grown our user base and ability to get the most out of their workflow tools. More recently, iBrams brand management technologies have become a major part of our solution set. This year, we have added censhare to offer production solutions in the ever changing and expanding print and digital arena. We also continue to deliver our world-class Professional Consulting Services and in-house development expertise in the form of applications that complement and extend our partners’ solutions. IOI would not be where we are now without the support of our Solution Partners and I am personally very thankful for their help and assistance.

It has been our pleasure to work with you, and we remain committed to serving your business and technology needs. We’ll strive to rapidly respond to and resolve tickets, bring best-of-breed solutions to the table that make you more efficient, and deliver better services to you and your customers. We could not be here without you, and we truly appreciate your business and support. We look forward to many more prosperous years together.

Thanks and all the best in 2012!

Mike