Uptime is a measure of the time a computer system has been “up” and running. It came into use to describe the opposite of downtime, times when a system was not operational. The uptime and reliability of computer and communications facilities is sometimes measured in nines (similar to the unit of metallic purity). “Five nines” means 99.999% availability, which translates to a total downtime of approximately five minutes and fifteen seconds per year. [Wikipedia]

Uptime is increasingly important. For some sites that we’ve developed and that we maintain, there are “incidents” with uptime. We host a recipe site, and every so often something pops up that needs to be dealt with right now. That’s just the nature of high traffic websites. You come to expect it.

We now use a lot of services on the web, and those often require a ton of work to keep up and running at top performance. Some folks do a great job of it, like Google and 37signals. Some companies fall flat on their face, despite running a service that you’re paying good money for, and that you expect to just work.

Like GoFaxer.

About a month ago, we signed up for this promising service. They are one of a number of companies that will provide you with a fax number, and let you send and receive faxes via email or the web. It’s a great idea, because I hate fax machines with a passion. The problem is, as you might be able to see from the above link, is that they’ve been down for 23 days now. The service has not functioned almost the entire time we’ve been paying for it. The same vague message has been shown this whole time.

All of us are working hard to quickly resolve this issue so that we can bring our services back online. However this process may take some time and we apologize for any inconvenience that this unforeseeable issue has caused you.

Maybe we just don’t need a fax service after all.

We’ve mentioned to you how over the moon we are about Amy Tavern’s jewelry. That’s no secret - the girl is a metal artist (we’re especially excited about her June jewelry of the month, East Meets West). This week, we’re equally impressed with Amy’s online presence. After taking a self imposed month off from online activities, Amy is back with unparalleled enthusiasm. Whether she is putting out here summer newsletter, Twittering up a storm, or organizing her links page – Amy is completely present and enthusiastic about her online presence. And, from her summer news, it is obvious that she is plenty busy offline as well. Kudos, Amy.

I met with a potential client the other day, and as with many such meetings, I probably spent more time giving advice about marketing and promotion (and Twitter) than I did “pitching Needmore.” Funny thing is, I hear this a lot, in many different industries. You spend a surprising amount of time when you first meet with a client just giving them advice which is more or less free. And then you hope they decide to work with you!

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Did you know that Rachel Zoe has a Twitter account or that coral is the color of the season? Whether you are wondering who Rachel Zoe is or you are already swimming in coral, Savoir Flair is set to be your new best fashion friend.

Founded by Haleh Nia, Savoir Flair is an online fashion magazine and daily free e-mail.  Haleh makes it easy to keep up-to-date with Twitter, Facebook, articles and a free daily e-mail.

Introducing Urban Fiber Studio, a new venture and website for the talented Leslie Cumming. Launching just in time for TNNA, the project is a collaboration with the ever delightful Sonia Jones, of Sonia Jones Design.

We are working away on an exciting project for Savoir Flair, a stunning new fashion magazine built for a global audience. While we’ve been enjoying crating the website and newsletter for the magazine, founder Haleh Nia has been stunning us with her approach to getting the word out about her project before it is even launched.

Haleh has set up an active Facebook page (with 75 followers and counting to date). Her fans are already brimming with excitement for the magazine to launch, “I love it!” they’re saying. Savoir Flair also has a Twitter page where followers can see a countdown to launch as well as glimpses of what the magazine will be covering.

If all of this isn’t enough, you can also head right over to Savoir Flair’s website and sign-up for their newsletter now.

Well, I guess it’s that time again. We wait until early next week to see what Apple has in store for us, both on the iPhone and in the desktop Mac OS. There have, of course, been plenty of rumors, but there are two features I don’t expect, but would really like to see.

1. Guest accounts. Sometimes you want to loan someone your phone for a few minutes - or hours, or days - and it would be nice to have a “guest account” like the desktop OS does. They wouldn’t be able to see any of your customizations, applications, or personal data. The user would only be able to use the basic iPhone applications and features, and when you got your phone back and turned that mode off, it wiped all the data. This is one of those features that seems like you’d never need it, but then you do, and you would be quite grateful.

2. Reminder sync. I’m calling it this for lack of a better name. The problem is that I have a MobileMe subscription, and so my calendar stays in sync between my two Macs and my iPhone. Problem is, last night was “garbage night” and I needed to remember take out the trash. My iPhone reminded me, then I got a reminder on my laptop. When I got into work this morning, I got a reminder on my desktop Mac. It’s not a big deal, but why can’t MobileMe remember that I was reminded - and acknowledged that reminder - once already?

At any rate, I’m pretty excited about the new phones, and while I don’t expect to wait in like like I did for the one I have right now, I am definitely hoping to get my hands on one as soon as I can!

We’re doing our best to keep this all in mind these days, as we do some big-picture thinking about Needmore Designs!

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Times have changed. I know it’s a cliché, but they have. It’s no secret that any potential client of ours no longer needs our help to get their voice on the web. If they are motivated, they can get a Twitter account, set up a Facebook page for their business, or use Google or software that comes free with their Mac to create a basic website. All of this without paying a cent to a designer.

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Needmore Designs has been in business for about six years now. For the first four-odd years, we worked out of “home offices,” if you will. We were always interested in getting an office, and looked at several before a friend recommended the Olympic Mills Commerce Center. We’ve been here for a year and a half, and we love it.

One of the biggest attractions for us was working around other people. It’s nice to have a quiet place to work in, but it’s also nice to have other similarly-minded people around to talk to. Maybe you can bounce ideas off some of them, maybe you can just chat and get inspired. When we first moved in, there weren’t a whole lot of offices filled, but it quickly became apparent that we didn’t have time to walk around introducing ourselves to everyone we saw, nor did we want to look crazy.

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