Funny Posts

At the beginning of the baseball season, we gave away tickets for a lucky customer to see a Texas Rangers game, and as a result of that generosity, the Rangers thought it fitting to make it to the World Series. Well … our little giveaway may not have had anything to do with their success, but we like to think our support helped a little.

Understanding that we have customers and employees who are die-hard St. Louis Cardinals fans, I don’t want to turn anyone off with this blog post, but with all of the buzz in the air about the World Series coming back to Arlington this year, I started thinking about the Top 10 Ways SoftLayer is Like the Texas Rangers:

10. Secret handshakes / fist bumps.
9. Have a no “I” in “Team” mentality … In fact, there are no I’s in “Texas Rangers” or “SoftLayer.”
8. Teams’ leaders (i.e. coach and the CEO) are … um … charismatic (to say the least).
7. Come ready to play on any day that ends in “y.”
6. Strong lineups all the way through.
5. Texas is home, but both teams do amazing jobs “on the road.”
4. Both have Michaels who like pink.*
3. Both have Louisville Slugger bats … The Rangers’ bats do great things, while SoftLayer’s bats are given to recognize employees that have done great things.
2. Support is awesome from the customers (fans) to the back office to the team on the field making plays.
1. Champions of the World, baby!!**

* Apologies to Michael Young, as this statement may not be true as applied to him. Each of my blogs to date has a veiled (or obvious) reference to our CFO, and it was very difficult to think of how to incorporate this reference in a blog dealing with the Texas Rangers, so I may have taken undue liberties for which I apologize.

** The aspirations associated with that last comparison may have strayed me from an unbiased comparison.

-@badvizsla

Is it possible to be in three places at once? For SoftLayer it is! Last week was an extremely busy one for the SoftLayer team. SLayers from the marketing and sales teams were dispersed to cover three different trade shows in two separate cities where we’d meet a few thousand soon-to-be SoftLayer customers.

I attended Web 2.0 Expo in NYC – a great event where I was able to once again demystify the SoftLayer Switch Ball and explain the awesomeness of SoftLayer. Nothing too crazy to report from the expo floor, but we did have one interesting experience outside of the event where we witnessed a man sleep while standing up. We don’t know how he was able to sleep for over two hours without falling over, but his execution was impressive:

While I was in New York City, cPanel Bootcamp was happening closer to home in Austin, Texas. From what I hear, a second annual rocket war broke out, and our booth was rushed by attendees looking to stock up on ammo.

Just down the street from the cPanel conference, GDC Online was up and running in the Austin Convention Center. This was another awesome event for SoftLayer and once again the Server Challenge was a huge hit:

Congrats to Anthony Pecorella for winning with a time of 1:00.84! We know you’ll enjoy your new iPad.

After both show floors closed, attendees from both cPanel Bootcamp and GDC Online joined us for some drinks, food and retro games at Maggie Mae’s on Sixth Street. Notable attendees included Mario, Princess Peach and our very own Jeff Reinis who happens to be a 1983 Pac-Man record holder!

If you didn’t have a chance to join SoftLayer, CoreSite and TeliaSonera at the Time Warp Retro Gaming Party, you can live vicariously via Flickr:

Thanks to everyone who worked so hard to make sure these three events went off without a hitch, and thanks to all of you who stopped by and said hi! We hope to see you all soon at one of our upcoming events: http://www.softlayer.com/Media/event-schedule

-Summer

Dealing with jet lag, unfamiliar surroundings, foreign currencies and different languages just begins to describe my hectic life over the past two months. We’ve been in overdrive, building out SoftLayer’s Singapore and Amsterdam data centers in weeks (rather than months).

Our “Go Live Crew” of 16 dedicated SLayers has been working ’round the clock to make sure everything is up and running on time. The biggest challenge has been building out both data centers simultaneously … With the “Go big or go home” mindset, when we decided to go international, we went all in. Our growing customer base of 23,000 won’t stand still, so we need to deliver, whether it be through innovation or expansion. In less than 60 days we’ve been able to add 31,000+ servers to our network platform, bringing our unique cloud, dedicated and managed hosting solutions closer to our customers around the world.

This accomplishment has been something of a “miracle,” and I really need to shout out to my team members on the GLC. Putting in 16-hour days and working weekends while still finding time to go out on the weekends (Jägermeister and Red Bull have been sampled at many a fine pub) has made us a pretty close-knit family. The old “work hard, play hard” saying is an understatement when it comes to the SoftLayer team.

If we’re ever dragging a bit in the morning, we can always rely on Duck Sauce to get our pulses racing again by the time we get to the data center. With such a full work schedule, we become creatures of habit, and “Barbara Streisand” is only one example of a staple for the crew. Our daily consistency has even carried over into meal time: My favorite luncheon spot in Amsterdam even named a sandwich after me – Da Bobby G Meat Sandwich. Apparently the combination of meatballs, salami, ham and (a smothering of) ketchup on a bun is not a common order at this establishment, so my innovation needed to be recognized. Nutritional considerations aside, this is one fine sandwich:

I’ve been on the road for a while now, and these are just a few memories I’m taking with me. Jumping around between three continents has definitely had its challenges, but with a great team of focused SLayers, we’ve been getting the job done. I’m proud to have had a hand in making our international aspirations a reality, and I know that even though this has already been an unbelievable adventure, we’re just getting started.

-Robert

SoftLayer is on the “bleeding edge” of technology, and that’s right where I’m comfortable. I love being a part of something new and relevant. I also love science fiction and find that it’s mixing together with reality more and more these days. Yay for me and my nerdyness! Beam me up Luke Skywalker! (I wonder how many nerds cringed at that statement!)

In a recent post from New Scientist, a test showed neutrino particles being clocked faster than the speed of light, and a dimension-hop might be the reason. Rather than go into the nerdy parts of the article that I’m sure you read before continuing to this sentence, I want to compare how SoftLayer would use this to our (and more importantly our customers’) advantage: A neutrino network! We could have the fastest network in the world, and we could use the technology for faster motherboards and components too. Because that’s how we roll.

Enter science fiction. Let’s say neutrinos were indeed using another dimension to travel. Like, say, the 8th dimension as referred to in “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension.” This dimension also happens to be a prison used by the Lectroids of Planet 10 to store criminals. Go figure, right? Obstacles always come up, so if our neutrino network was targeted by those Lectroids, Dody Lira and the abuse team would have no problems taking them down … After all, Lectroid’s fiddling with data can be bad for business (Not to mention the possibility of Lectroid’s using our network to come back to this dimension, wreak havoc, and eat all our junk food). Dody would have to upgrade some of the tools his team uses, like a Jet Car with an “Oscillation Overthruster” (which looks eerily similar to the Flux Capacitor) to travel in and out of the 8th dimension to hunt down those pesky Lectroids that won’t comply.

Then, after Dody and crew wrangle the Lectroids (as I’m sure they would), we could offer the Lectroids email and Internet service. Bam! More customers on top of a supernatural network!

Coming back to reality (a bit), we have an interesting world ahead of us. Technologies we have only seen in movies and some we haven’t even imagined yet are becoming reality! If they fall into the usable realm of SoftLayer, you can bet we’ll be one of the first to share them with the world. But not before we get all the bugs (and Lectroids) out.

-Brad

As many of you know SoftLayer is going global. Our Singapore DC goes live TOMORROW, and Amsterdam will follow suit shortly, so we put together a little “jingle” that I think you might know. It might be September, but if the stores are already putting out holiday items, Christmas songs should be fair game in October … And since we are entering that last stretch of work before those great end-of-the-year national holidays that give us a few days off, we can use a classic tune to help us power through.

To those of you who love the song, “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” you may not want to play the video below. To those who want to rubberneck at our goofiness and join us in a little fun … play away:

If you want to sing along at home (because who wouldn’t?), here are the lyrics for your karaoke pleasure:

Shout-outs go to all the SLayers who indulged us in this little song. We hope it’s less embarrassing than you expected … And if it’s more embarrassing, we hope it’s as terrible and catchy as “Friday.”

Tip: If the song is stuck in your head now, one great way to distract yourself from it is to go and order a server in Singapore!

-@SKinman454

As the “abuse guy,” I deal with all kinds of abuse issues, and as you would imagine, SPAM is the primary point of concern. You’d probably think that dealing with spam ALLLLLL day every day would make most meat products sound unappealing, but there’s one that’ll never get on my bad side.

Bacon … wrapped around random slices of meat.

Now, I could draw a comparison with bacon and a server and tell you that bacon is a mandatory component of any good breakfast, the way memory is to a server is key, but I won’t. I’d rather get right to my point: Bacon, make everything better!

And when its wrapped around another piece of meat, it’s like it marries the meat and they combine during the grilling process and make some sort of new flavorful offspring full of taste, combining the amazing taste of bacon with the inferior yet still good taste of the meat it’s wrapped around!

But wait, there’s more. Bacon also wraps nicely around chicken and cheese stuffed jalapenos, bringing a unique taste of crunchy jalapeno, melted cheese, moist chicken, and of course MORE BACON.

You should really try this at your next party. It’s not hard to do. You need (1) Bacon, (2) Something to wrap it around and (3) Toothpicks. I usually cook the “wrappee” to the point where it’s almost ready to eat before adding the wrapper so the bacon is perfectly cooked at the same time the internal meat is ready to eat.*

The best thing about bacon is there are sooo many choices, from kinds of bacon to available brands. Some bacon is thin, and some is thick. Some bacon is cured and some is smoked. The choice is really yours. And you can’t go wrong! (Well, if you don’t know what you’re getting into, you might go wrong with tofu bacon and other types of fake bacon -aka- facon)

- Dody

*One note to keep in mind and this is VERY important. Bacon tends to be greasy and fatty and if you’re grilling bacon over an open flame, the chances that the grease from the bacon will drip down and catch the area it lands in on fire are very … no EXTREMELY likely and dangerous. The result could be the loss of a lot of arm hair.

There are so many different types of Social Networks nowadays: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube Channels, the faded MySpace and recently popular Google+. They all have different features but are essentially used for the same purpose. Facebook is the largest player in the market, and every time it makes a change, the world collectively gasps … And a lot of people start yelling.

When Facebook launched back in 2004, it was designed with college kids in mind. I remember when you HAD to have a college email address to set up a Facebook account – the good ole days. A year or two later, Facebook created a separate section for high school students, and not too long after that, anyone on the planet could get a Facebook account, and the growing/changing audience necessitated changes in the platform.

Facebook is a great way to find old friends and catch up, and it’s also an easier way to update everyone all at once what you are doing. I found out my best friend was engaged on Facebook … That’s right. I found out by Facebook before I got a phone call. Facebook is like a drug – it’s addictive. Some people live there all day.

If you work for an IT company, you know that technology is constantly changing. To keep up with evolutions in technology and perceived needs of the growing user base, Facebook will update its platform every few months. If you have a Facebook account, you’ve probably noticed that they released a new layout this week. You’ve probably also noticed all of your friends’ status changes complaining about how they hate the way it looks, how “It’s too hard to use.” Those friends hated the old “new Facebook,” and somewhere down the road, they’ve learned to love and/or depend on that “new Facebook” which is now in the “old Facebook” category. It’s pretty annoying right?

Here’s my advice for the change-averse:

1. If Facebook didn’t change, it would get stagnant and someone else would introduce something better … The same way Facebook supplanted MySpace. DEAL WITH IT.
2. If you don’t like the changes Facebook makes, DELETE your account and move to a new Social Network like Twitter or try out Google+.
3. Instead of complaining how hard the new Facebook is to use, take the time to READ the instructions they have provided for you … From a desktop you are able to mouse over a section and it will tell you what it means and how to use it.
4. Last but not least – whining is for babies and last time I checked you were in your 20′s, 30′s, 40′s, and up – so suck it up!

Whew! Now that felt good …

- Natalie

This year has been exciting for me at SoftLayer. I took on a new role here as a member of our marketing team, and in that role, I’ve played a big role in our trade shows. We participate in a huge number of trade shows each year, and I’ve been lucky enough to meet thousands of current and (hopefully) future SoftLayer customers. To give you an idea of how often I’m on the road, I probably spend about 2-3 weeks each month away from home … And that means I am in airports all the time.

I happen to be one of those weirdos that actually enjoys traveling, but honestly, the travel experience at airports and on planes can be pretty annoying at times, so I thought I’d put together some traveling tips before my next trip so I can hand out the URL when I see violations. Here’s the short list of tips I’ve come up with in my travels:

At the Airport

• When going through security do not choose the “Expert Traveler” line if you are not an expert. The experts will know you don’t belong, and we will sneer at you.
• The security line is not the time to make jokes on terrorism. In fact, there’s never a good time to make jokes about terrorism, especially at an airport.
• If you are selected for random screening, please do not throw a fit. The officer doing the pat down probably isn’t trying to make a pass at you and hates the process just as much as you do.
• If your boarding pass says Group 5 there is no point in huddling near the boarding area when the airline representative has called Group 1. You are the reason the boarding process is moving slowly.

Boarding the Plane

• When the flight attendant announces that everyone should move into their row so other passengers can get by you, he/she is probably talking about you.
• If you have a small enough bag to place under the seat in front of you, please do so. There is a person in Group 6 with a full size carry-on bag that would rather not have to check his bag because your shopping bag is taking up his valuable space.
• If you are seated in the back of the aircraft, don’t place your bag up in the front bin just so you do not have to roll it to the back. The people sitting in the front of the plane would rather not have to wait for everyone to get off the plane so they can walk to the very back to retrieve their bag.

On the Plane

• You aren’t fooling anyone by trying to hide your cell phone between your knees after the cabin door closes.
• If the person next to you puts on their headphones it probably means they are not interested in having a flight long conversation about your life.
• Please don’t get mad at me if I decide to put my seat back. If you need more legroom, spring for First Class or at least an exit row. If you absolutely need me to stay upright, ask me nicely, and you’ll have a lot better chance that I’ll be able to help you out.
• I got the window seat so I wouldn’t have to get up if someone next to me needed to get into the aisle … You got the aisle seat with a little extra room, so please don’t have an attitude if I need you to move to get into the aisle. That’s the tradeoff.
• Yes, the armrest is shared, so you have a right to half of it … This means that if your arm is on my half of the armrest and you’re in my personal space, we have a problem.
• If you decide to talk to the person sitting next to you on the flight, please keep your voice down. People five rows behind you are not interested in your conversation.

And lastly …

• Do not eat foods that may make you gassy before you travel. Passing gas in a plane where air is re-circulated is not cool.

Safe travels!

-Summer

Once again the Dallas Cowboys let a game they weren’t supposed to win slip away from them in the 4th quarter. Again it was Tony “oops” Romo that had a hand (or “didn’t have hands”) in the loss. I can’t blame it all on him as I saw many problems that led up to the defeat. I, as a master football coach of 4-6 year-old flag football, could write multiple paragraphs on that subject, but because this is a social media blog, I will get back on topic.

After last night’s “4th quarter of doom” that probably led to crazy nightmares for my sleeping kids (I may have been yelling loudly and often), I decided to open Twitter to see what everyone in the world thought about the game. I have to admit I was a little shocked at how many Cowboy haters are out in the wild. Of course the game was trending, and the conversation was … diverse: You had your die-hard Cowboy fans that were saying, “Shake it off, you weren’t supposed to win anyway.” You had your fair weather fans that were saying, “Great, another season opener loss, I guess I’ll follow the Texans instead.” You had the fans of other teams that were saying, “Haha, the Cowboys lost again – Go (Insert your team here)!” And, of course you had the pure Cowboy haters who were saying, “#$%^#$%^#$ the Cowboys they #$%#$% and #$%# and then #$%#$%. Eat it!” I would say most were Cowboy haters, and most of the tweets were not even close to being rated PG-13.

Stay with me now … I’m finally onto the real topic.

Social Media
What I saw on Twitter last night was real Social Media to me. It was current, real time, opinionated, cool and sad all at the same time. It encapsulated the thoughts and reactions of the public to something that was happening or just happened. Why is social media cool? A couple of weeks ago when the earthquake struck the northeast, people were saying that they received tweet updates of the ground shaking and notifications that an earthquake hit seconds before they felt the tremors in their area. Think about that and how many possible uses that has in lots of different industries. X happens, Y needs to know about it right away, Z tweets it or posts it on Facebook (or any of the 2000 other social apps out there), and like magic you have the information almost before you are supposed to. That’s viral social media.

Social Marketing
Social Marketing isn’t nearly as sexy. It’s only and exactly what it sounds like. We do it at SoftLayer: You see tweets from us talking about press releases, new products, our new website, our new international locations and some of the other value we provide to customers because we know how easy it is to miss some of the best stuff in the noisy social sphere. It helps us build our brand and helps with awareness by getting our name in front of people who may not have seen it otherwise. It drives traffic to our website and straight to our order form. It is significant to our bottom line.

The challenge with this kind of engagement is that the volume of content can seem overwhelming to some. Some customers only want to hear the viral social media kind of stuff with up to the minute news (which is our vision for @SoftLayerNotify), but it’s tough to abandon the social marketing piece because it’s been so measurably successful for us.

With that being said, we want to hear from you about what you like and don’t like about our social engagement. What you would like to see more of? What would you like to see less of? Do you like it? Do you hate it? We’re definitely listening … Well as long as we’re not busy getting ready for the next flash mob.

-@skinman454

HostingCon 2011 in San Diego may have been a huge success for SoftLayer, but I walked away with a different experience following my intense pursuit of building the PHIL’s DC brand. Apparently, the hosting industry wants to see my data center succeed before they believe it, and I think it’s really just fear rearing its ugly head. People are afraid of what they don’t understand, so the uninitiated would probably be terrified as they try to learn what I’m doing.

In an effort to help some of the bigger names in the hosting industry get in on the ground floor of PHIL’s DC, I took a stroll down the HostingCon aisles. Vendors like Parallels and cPanel were obvious choices to discuss business partnerships, and I was sure TheWHIR wanted the scoop on the next big thing in hosting, so I made sure to give them all a chance to speak with me. The documentary film team I hired (the guy I met outside the San Diego Convention Center who said he’d follow me with a camera for $3.50/hour) recorded our interactions for posterity’s sake:

I’d like send shouts out to thank Candice Rodriguez from TheWHIR, Aaron Phillips from cPanel and John McCarrick from Parallels for agreeing to let us film our organic interactions. They’ve further inspired me to build a data center that will make these apparent “snubs” and “rejections” a thing of the past. To Summer and Natalie at the SoftLayer booth: Please stop making fun of my Server Challenge attempt every time you see me at the office … I think I had something in my eye when I was competing, so it wasn’t a fair measure of my skillz.

Oh, and if you didn’t get a chance to attend our “Geeks Gone Wild” party at HostingCon, you’d probably be interested in seeing video from The Dan Band’s performance of “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” cPanel posted it here: http://www.vimeo.com/28160105 (NSFW language, The Dan Band take artistic license with profanity)

-PHIL