We recently had a client call and they had been working in their content management system and she accidentally deleted (she had admin rights) the entire blog section of their web site.  The blog had over a year's worth of entries and they posted at least once a week.

Obviously they were very concerned that they had lost all of their blog entries for an entire year.  They did not ... we had a backup of the site.  However, another problem lied in the fact that while we had a backup of the database from the night before, other people in the organization had made 40 other content changes.  We determined this by running a query against the database for changes since the backup the night before.  We could not simply restore the backup copy of the database because all of the other 40 plus content changes on the site would have been lost for that day.

On further inspection, one of our developers was able to take the backup copy of the database from the night before and retore ONLY the blog posts.  So, the only thing "lost" was one blog posting for that day.  We received this emergency notice from the client at 2:32PM.  The blogs were restored by 5:34pm.  This involved triaging the problem, restoring a backup copy of the database, verifying our what we could do, obtaining confirmation from the client, and restoring the blog to the production servers.

This is an example of the type of support we provide every day to our clients ... regardless of their size.  Every site and database gets backed up.  Every client is important.  Can your developer and/or hosting provider do this?

Event Focused on Celebrating Innovation in Illinois

Chicago, IL – Adage Technologies joined TechAmerica, the leading voice of the U.S. technology industry, in New York City on Tuesday, November 15 to open the NASDAQ Stock Market, the premier exchange for technology companies. The event, arranged by TechAmerica, emphasized the Association's Illinois Tech Index (NASDAQ: ILTI), the winners of the 2011 Chicago Innovation Awards, and the growing innovation economy in Illinois and the city of Chicago.

"This annual event is an excellent example of TechAmerica's dedication to supporting growth, visibility and advocacy for the Illinois technology industry," said Ed Longanecker, Executive Director, Regional Vice President, TechAmerica Midwest. "We applaud Adage Technologies for their commitment to innovation and ongoing achievements."

"Being a part of this event is exciting.  This year we had the pleasure of having Illinois' Govenor Quinn join us for the opening followed by a roundtable discussion," said Roy Chomko, President of Adage Technologies. "It was great to have the opportunity to advocate on behalf of technology firms in Illinois with Governor Quinn and share with other technology leaders."

About Adage Technologies

Adage Technologies was formed in 2001 with a specific focus on driving business value through web technology. Today, Adage offers a wide variety of business technology solutions, including custom software, content management, and mobile applications. The company specializes in providing solutions for across a variety of industries, including healthcare/medical, entertainment, and insurance. To learn more, visit www.adagetechnologies.com.

About TechAmerica

TechAmerica is the leading voice for the U.S. technology industry – the driving force behind productivity growth and jobs creation in the United States and the foundation of the global innovation economy. Representing approximately 1,000 member companies of all sizes from the public and commercial sectors of the economy, it is the industry's largest advocacy organization and is dedicated to helping members' top and bottom lines. TechAmerica is also the technology industry's only grassroots-to-global advocacy network, with offices in state capitals around the United States, Washington, D.C., Europe (Brussels) and Asia (Beijing). Learn more about TechAmerica at www.techamerica.org.

Something interesting is happening. While touch screen technology has been around for a long time in the form of kiosks and food service seating or other niche applications, it seems to be ready for the masses. With the iPhone, people are becoming accustomed to working sans mouse and using something that we learned as a child ... pointing with our fingers to elicit some action. While it seems Apple is the only company out there with touch products, Microsoft has several tricks up it sleeve and one of them is code named Courier. Courier looks to be a tablet type device (1st image below ... courtesy of Gizmodo.com) that will allow you to point, type, and use a stylus for a wide variety of applications.

Microsoft Courier

Microsoft Windows 7 Touch on a Dell Lattitude

Microsoft Surface

Also, a lesser known technology of Microsoft's is Surface, a touch screen that comes in the form of a coffee table that provides multi-touch kiosk functionality. This is still largely limited to vertical applications (i.e. retail, healthcare, public sector, etc.) but portions of its underlying technology were likely used in development of Courier. Finally, Windows 7 is multi-touch capable. A host of tablet-like devices are due out soon (read October) using this technology.

What does all this mean? We can start to expand on our conceptions of application interfaces in ways we never imagined. At Adage, we have already begun experimenting with portions of the underlying technology and are excited about its potential. Tablet applications that did not make sense before because they required a mouse, may be worth another look.