Blog

New Signature is excited to announce that the AFL-CIO’s Collective Bargaining Facts, Foundation for Excellence in Education’s Digital Learning Now!, and Food & Water Watch websites have won IMA Outstanding Achievement Awards. These awards recognize that the websites met and surpassed the standards of excellence that comprise the web’s most professional work. The judging consisted of various criteria, including design, usability, innovation in technical features, standards compliance and content. In order to win this award level, all three websites had to meet strict guidelines in each area — an achievement only a fraction of sites in the IMA competition earn.

The Interactive Media Awards are a highly sought-after prize, and this nod from IMA is a demonstration of New Signature’s ability to create world-class websites and capitalize on our close working relationships with our clients.  These awards further validate that New Signature is a leader in the interactive industry, able to effectively and efficiently develop powerful and appealing websites for our clients.

There are even more features coming to Microsoft’s Exchange Online service (part of the Office 365 cloud solution) starting this month.  Microsoft will stagger deployment globally and they expect full deployment to complete within six months.  There are a number of exciting improvements including:

• High Availability Architecture Enhancements
• Sender Photos in Outlook Web App
• Outlook Web App in Internet Explorer 9 App Mode
• Group Naming Policy
• Retention Policy and Tag Management
• Multi-Mailbox Search Enhancements
• Migration Enhancements
• Exchange Hybrid Configuration Wizard

The standout improvements that we are most excited about are:

Outlook Web App in Internet Explorer 9 App Mode: Outlook Web App can now be pinned to the task bar using Internet Explorer 9 App Mode. This gives you the ability to launch Outlook Web App with one click and run it with fewer distractions, separated from other browsing sessions. It also keeps you informed of incoming email and IM when minimized or hidden and offers quick access to common Outlook Web App commands from the taskbar.

Group Naming Policy: You can now standardize and manage the names of distribution groups, also known as public groups, created by users in your organization. You can require a specific prefix and suffix be added to the name for a distribution group when it’s created, and you can block specific words from being used. This helps you minimize the use of inappropriate words in group names.

And for those of you that didn’t think office 365 had great uptime before… High Availability Architecture Enhancements: Microsoft is extending their high availability architecture across additional sites to provide greater resilience in the event of network failures.

Visit TechNet to learn more about the Exchange Online December 2011 Service Update or give New Signature a call if you are interested in leveraging the capabilities, agility and security of the Microsoft public cloud.

Did you ever wonder how exactly Microsoft deploys exchange in its own network? Did you know that there are only 14 DPM servers to protect all 115 Microsoft branch offices? You can learn this and more by visiting the “Microsoft IT Showcase: How Microsoft Does IT” website–part of the TechNet Library. The articles contained within provide best practices and experiences from Microsoft IT that give a unique, inside view into how Microsoft plans for, deploys, and manages its own enterprise solutions. It is a favorite website of mine to read in my spare time and if you have a moment I highly recommend checking it out.  The website provides great case studies and examples of best practices that Microsoft IT uses to run their own solutions in their own offices.

Back in October, Michael Otey wrote a great summary in Windows IT Pro entitled “Top 10: New Features in Windows Server 8 — Get ready for better Hyper-V and cloud-ready management.”  The article provides a quick run down on why Windows Server 8 is one of the biggest and most important server releases by Microsoft.  New Signature has been working with Server 8 for some time now and we are really excited by the opportunities it presents to small, medium and large enterprises.

Otey points out that “Microsoft carved out a clear advantage [over VMware] by introducing the ability to perform Live Migration and Storage Live Migration without requiring shared storage.”  This is a game changer, especially for smaller firms that can’t afford the cost or any firm that doesn’t want to deal with the complexities of a SAN.

Here is a quick run down of the ten new features that are Michael Otey’s standouts from Windows Server 8:

1. Multiserver support in Server Manager
2. Server Core is the default
3. Ubiquitous PowerShell management
4. Built-in NIC teaming
5. SMB 2.2
6. Data deduplication
7. Expanded cluster scalability
8. Multiple concurrent Live Migrations
9. Storage Live Migration
10. Live Migration without share storage

Call New Signature today if you are interested in learning more about Windows Server 8 and we will be excited to advise you on how to position your firm to take advantage of this emerging technology when it is released to manufacturing.

Join us for a free breakfast and briefing on the morning of December 14th to discover how System Center 2012 can provide complete management from the datacenter to the desktop.  The event starts at 8:30am and will be held at the Turf Valley Resort (2700 Turf Valley Rd Ellicott City, MD 21042).

Come hear System Center experts Michael Van Cleave from Microsoft and Reed Wiedower from New Signature present:

• What’s new in the System Center 2012 version of solution
• A deep dive discussion of each System Center component
• Technical demonstration and preview of each solution

Microsoft System Center solutions help you manage your physical and virtual IT environments across datacenters, client computers, and devices.  Using these integrated and automated management solutions, you can be a more productive service provider for your business.  Register today for this great opportunity to learn more about System Center 2012!

Agenda for Wednesday, Dec. 14th, 2011

• 8:30 – 9:00am: Registration & Full Breakfast
• 9:00 – 9:15am: Welcome & Introduction
• 9:30 – 11:00am: Presentations with Demos
• 11:00 – 11:30am: Conclusion & Giveaways

The League of Women Voters has launched a new website that was designed and built by New Signature’s experts.  The website is built on the Drupal publishing platform and is built to provide a platform that energizes the League’s efforts in regards to educating voters, registering voters, improving elections and improving government.

The website offers visitors a number of interactive features–you can find a local League, contact your elected officials, and the League’s online community.  The website also supports offline activities.  For example, visitors can become an active volunteer and join their community local or state League and be part of the solution! This helps develop community leaders to participate in order to make the United States a strong, safe and vibrant place to live.

The League of Women Voters is a citizens’ organization that has fought since 1920 to improve our government and engage all citizens in the decisions that impact their lives.  We operate at national, state and local levels through more than 800 state and local Leagues, in all 50 states as well in DC, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Hong Kong.

Christopher Hertz will be one of two featured speakers at the Microsoft Western Europe: Windows Intune Partner Academy in Amsterdam on Friday, December 9th 2011.  This exclusive Microsoft in the Cloud event provides a hands-on workshop to enable Europen partners to master Windows Intune from a business and marketing/sales standpoint.  The event is from 08:30 – 17:00 at the Sheraton Amsterdam Airport Hotel & Conference Center. The Windows Intune Partner Academy will answer some key questions:

• What is Windows Intune? How is it connected to the Cloud?
• How can I transform my business from on-premise to cloud, and how can Windows Intune help?
• How can I build a profitable practice around Windows Intune?
• How is Microsoft going to invest in my business, helping me to become successful with Windows Intune?

The Trade Adjustment Assistance website launched today to help workers start a new chapter.  New Signature designed and built this online resource to help explain and promote the Trade Adjustment Assistance program.  The project was spearheaded by the AFL-CIO Working for America Institute in collaboration with a number of other partners.  The project was funded by the US Department of Labor under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Since the 1960s, the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program (TAA) has helped millions of trade-impacted workers who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own start a new chapter in the new economy by providing a path for employment growth and opportunity. Administered by the US Department of Labor, the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program is a federally funded program that provides long-term training benefits, health care support, job search and job relocation allowances, and income support for TAA certified workers. Once certified, workers must then separately apply for each benefit. Though the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program doesn’t replace the good job lost due to foreign trade policies, it does help the trade-impacted worker get back on their feet.

The website includes a wide array of information on the program, including compelling video narratives of impacted workers from across the nation.

New Signature teamed up with Working America to design and launch the “Nine Demands of the 99%” petition website.  The web application collects petition signatures from public supporters for the 99% movement going on across the country right now.  The application supports co-branded partner pages so that petitions and content management.  As of now, Working America has partnered with eight other organizations including Daily Kos, AFL-CIO, National Employment Law Project, Stand With Wisconsin, California Labor Federation, North Carolina State AFL-CIO, Wisconsin Alliance for Retired Americans and AFSCME.

The petition page was designed with two clear objectives:

1 Make the petition process straightforward, with a very clear call to action.

2 Integrate social media on both the landing and success pages.  This helps to spread the petition reach.

The petition application was created on an accelerated schedule, and went from concept to launch in less than three weeks.  The results have been fantastic, with the primary petition page receiving more than 4,400 Facebook likes and shares within 24 hours of launch.  This represents a social participation rate of one in four visitors!

The primary petition page received over 4400 Facebook likes and shares within 24 hours of launch.  This represents a social participation rate of one in four visitors!

New Signature teamed up with long time client Inside Higher Ed to launch the third major iteration of this highly popular online source for news, opinion and jobs for all of higher education.   The New Signature team collaborated closely with the Inside Higher Ed team to migrate the website from its eZ Publish platform to a Drupal 7 publishing platform.

The revamped website provides visitors with breaking news and feature stories, provocative daily commentary, areas for comment on every article, practical career columns, and a powerful suite of tools to help higher education professionals get jobs and colleges identify and hire employees. The website has been designed to make it an online gathering place for all of the many constituents and diverse institutions that make up the rich web of higher education.