Picture this: It is just another day at ArcStone. We grab our morning coffee, chat about this and that, and check our email. Then it is time to get to work. Time to delve into the world of never-been-done-before.

That’s our world.

We Love A Good Challenge

Our latest project coincided with the kick-off of Minnesota hockey season. Atomic School came to us with a unique challenge: They needed an e-commerce website that would allow the parents of Minnetonka, MN hockey players to easily order clothing and accessories. But there was a catch.

There were over 730 youth hockey players in Minnetonka. Each player’s team needed to have its own “store,” meaning its own personalized URL, as well as a simple checkout that ensured their orders were sent to the right places. Timing was tight. Hockey season was only weeks out.

But Minnetonka loves its hockey and we will always love working on web apps, so it was the perfect storm.

Unique Problem? No Problem.

Using Magento, a popular open-source e-commerce platform, we did some intensive customization to to allow the Atomic School staff to setup multiple “stores” with the click of a button.

We were able to improve upon the base Magento functionality, in this case to speed up the setup process. A member of the Atomic School staff uploads the entire inventory to Magento exactly once. They then enter the URLs and shipping details for each team.

Now it takes a customer less than three minutes from start to finish to order a Bauer Team Jacket. That’s the magic touch.

What’s Your Idea?

We love new and fresh ideas and Magento is just one of the many tools that we have at our disposal. And yes, we still offer one of the best guppy consulting services in the Western Hemisphere. What’s your idea? It would be great to hear from you.

ArcStonian Ryan Brown celebrated a productive Monday of programming by letting his coworkers decorate his desk!

Our very own Jess Louwagie and former employee Tim Bramer both made an appearance on Robert Hodgin’s blog – the conference’s closing speaker.

See for yourself here – and be sure to check out some of Robert’s amazing Processing experiments while you’re there. (Thanks for the inspiration Robert – Amazing presentation!)

(This post started here and will end ridiculously)

To quickly recap, I recently found myself pondering the deeper facets of life and the universe. The budding Friedrich Nietzsche inside of me was twisting and turning, unable to rest. The ultimate question in question? If I could buy anything, and I mean anything, what expensive things would I buy? The list continues…

—

4. A $20,000 .mp3 player

The TrexStor i.Beat Organix .mp3 player is the geek’s ultimate bling. Adorned in 18-karat gold and 63 one-karat diamonds. Its wrist strap is made from aquamarine jewels and admittedly I don’t know what those are, but I want them. I can just imagine running into an iPod user on the street. Our conversation would go something like this:

iPod guy: Awesome, my iPod just shuffled to REO Speedwagon’s “Keep On Loving You!”

Me: My iPod is covered in diamonds.

iPod guy: …(cries)

I used to be an Apple fanboy but Apple just doesn’t seem to have class anymore. I don’t even think they have a product with gold or diamonds. Then again, Steve Jobs isn’t necessarily known to be an innovative thinker so I won’t be too hard on him.

All the same, Apple will be lucky to have even 5% of the .mp3 market in 5 years with jewel-encrusted devices like the i.Beat Organix on the rise.

—

5. The New York Yankees

The Yankees are America’s team and I love America so much that I would buy them in blink of a George W. Bush eyelid if I had the chance. I also love baseball and Coney dogs. Completely justified purchase, no doubt.

First order of business with George Steinbrenner out the door and the kid-phenom at the helm (that’s me, by the way), would be to replace those outdated pinstriped jerseys with American flag-inspired gear. A prototype of the new pants already exists.

Second order of business… sign Air Bud* to a lucrative contract. Air Bud brings marketing power and raw talent to the team.

Third order of buisness… trade A-Rod and Andy Petite to the Minnesota Twins for Nick Punto.

Then… sit back, eat 6 Coney dogs, and enjoy the game.

—

That’s all the time I have for today! I’ll leave you with another one of my favorite quotes, this time from Nietzsche himself: “Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?” Definitely, especially if you are super rich and can buy happiness. Tune in next time, world.

—

*Buddy the Wonder Dog, a.k.a. Air Bud, died 10 years ago this February but was father to dozens of healthy pups who have become famous actors themselves. With the world hanging on every one of my words right now, I’d would like to take this opportunity to pay my respects to Buddy; An inspiration to an entire generation, he is loved and missed everyday.

We have a whiteboard hanging on the wall near the front desk at ArcStone’s Minneapolis office. The intent is to keep track of who is offsite, telecommuting, or out on an errand. In reality, most of us never use it properly. We forget to erase our names when we arrive at the office, forget to put our names up the day before if we plan to telecommute, or neglect to ask someone else to write our status on the board if we’re out sick. And, since it’s hanging on the wall at the office, you can’t read it if you’re working offsite.

In response to the shortcomings of the community whiteboard, ArcStonians have turned to email. We often see messages to the office distribution list, announcing when a team member will be available and where they’ll be during the course of the day. I’ve never liked it; I somehow manage to miss the notifications from members of my project teams.

But, as always, there was a better solution. We recently subscribed to Google Apps, a set of productivity tools offered by Google that includes calendaring. It’s allowed us to have company-wide shared calendars without the hassle and expense of using Zimbra or Microsoft Exchange Server for our email. Google offers an API for their calendar service; you can quickly write web application code that reads data from a Google Calendar and manipulates it. And the idea for the virtual in/out board was born!

The virtual in/out board is nothing more than a ColdFusion page that reads data from a shared calendar. When someone wants put their availability up on the board, they create an event on their own calendar and invite the in/out board as an attendee. The page checks the calendar for updates every five minutes or so, and refreshes the display (which is an otherwise unused PC at our front desk). We even have the data available in the ArcWeb, our custom time tracking and business management application, for viewing by offsite staff.

I’ll never have dry-erase marker on my hands again!

Move over Betty Crocker, there’s a new Sara Lee in town.

Today, ArcStonian Pamela Schott brought in a batch of what she calls Oh! Henry bars. They should be called Be-Still-My-Beating-Heart bars because I’m in love.

I want to be locked in a prison made out of Pam’s Oh! Henry bars so I can eat my way to freedom.

I want to collect them like baseball cards, only to eat my whole collection and start all over again.

I want a device hooked up to my desk that rewards me with a bar every time I click my mouse.

I want Steve Nash to practice his free throws with them, shooting at my mouth.

I want to travel back in time so I have more time to eat them.

I don’t want to write anymore because it means I’m not eating.

HELLO WORLD!!!

Welcome to my very first blog. It’s an honor to write for TechnologyTranslated.com and I plan on making the most of it before I actually get real work to do here at ArcStone. For those you who are wondering who the never-before-heard-of-but-severely-articulate author of this article is, well world… I’m the new guy. “Office Cohesion Specialist” is my title, or OCS for short. An OCS is exactly like the company CEO or COO, minus the experience and responsibilities (and pay). I’m an important piece of the puzzle here at ArcStone… but not really.

For the past couple weeks I have been testing Wonderfile, running through every inch of the site to check for bugs. I used our project manager Bart’s company American Express card to register new accounts for the testing process. Wonderfile accounts cost between free-99 and almost $500, but I was using the company’s card and since the company owns Wonderfile, we were basically paying ourselves. No money was actually be lost in the process.

Short story long, using the company’s credit card got me thinking. If I could buy anything, and I mean anything, what expensive things would I buy? Here’s three items on my wish list (with more to come in the future editions of my blog).

—

1. A monkey

Intelligent, agile, funny, and hopefully not of the poop-throwing variety. He would gather donuts and other goods for me (a la Mojo, Homer’s helper monkey from the Simspons) and would attract babes like a magnet (a la a babe magnet). A monkey would be my first purchase. It’s the most obvious choice. Practical and very entertaining.

The site Primatestore.com also sells giraffes and siberian tigers. Doesn’t seem like a legal operation, but they do good work. Mike Tyson rated its customer service a 10 out of 10 in 1994.

—

2. The Best Dinner. Ever.

I would have dinner with family and friends 100 feet in the air. With Taco Bell, a personal favorite cuisine. For 8,000 Euros these “Dinner In The Sky” folks will lift a table, along with you and your guests, up into the air for a unique dine. Check out the website for more details. I’m currently taking requests to join me. Request should should be no longer than 250 words; send them to dsundquist@arcstone.com.

I’m curious what happens when you have to go to the bathroom.

—

3. The most expensive, ridiculously over-the-top fish aquarium money could buy

I have an aquarium at home right now. I have a catfish, two angelfish, and a beta among a few others.

What I don’t have at home is a 2,500 gallon beast of a tank, filled with with exotic corals and tropical fish/sharks/octopi. I want multiple main chambers spread around the rooms of my house with glass tubing running through the walls, connecting the chambers. It’d be pretty much the most baller thing ever.

I’d definitely throw some lion fish in there too.

—

Let me wrap this all up with a favorite quote: shoot for the moon, because if you fall short, you’ll land amongst the stars (credit goes to my 13-year-old cousin Katie’s bulletin board).

Until next time, world.

Sincerely yours,
Daniel Sundquist

I am a wireless keyboard guy. Actually, wireless everything. I like the freedom to type while spinning in my chair, email with my feet up, or throw the keyboard across the room without endangering my laptop.

So naturally I was puzzled when my co-worked chose to do her daily ration of typing on an older Apple keyboard. That is, until I noticed what she had plugged into it.

Since winter set in our office has been like a meat locker. Many Arcstonians go through the day wearing mittens or clutching hot cups of tea. My cube neighbor found a better way to beat the cold; sport a pair of USB fingerless gloves. With a port on each side, an old school Apple keyboard works great with the gloves, preventing tangles during intense typing sessions.

Alicia 1, Jack Frost 0.

These days it’s nearly impossible to go an entire day without being caught on video, whether you’re a celebrity or not. The UK is saturated with cameras, boasting more than four million CCTV connected cameras.

Most people are not even safe from prying eyes at work. I was able to catch a co-worker on video once with a well-placed phone camera, and the results were stunning.

This relatively unknown individual has now been transformed into a YouTube celebrity of sorts, all without his knowledge or consent. I think the moral of the story is clear: if you’re camera shy, it’s best to just stay home under the covers.

A new study proves what I have known for a long time: a fun office environment is a productive one. At ArcStone we believe in this so much, it is even part of our core values.

The basic idea is that as people form tighter bonds through fun shared experiences they open up more, trust each other more, and can generally work better as a team.

To all my past bosses who frowned on my antics: I told you so.