System.out.println(“Hello World!”);

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Duke SkardaHello World!

Please allow me to introduce myself in this inaugural blog entry. My name is Duke Skarda, and I have the privilege — and challenge — of running the IT and Development organization here at The Planet. Prior to joining The Planet last summer, I spent 15 years working in the telecom industry as a software developer and architect, enterprise architect and as an executive leading development organizations. I love the challenge of leading technical teams to develop and apply technology solutions to tough problems. The telecom and hosting industries have proven to be great hunting grounds for me in that respect.

I plan to use this blog to talk about what we’re doing, why we’re doing it and what we will be working on next. We have great plans for our systems and our business, and I want to let you in on them. My goal in this is two-fold: to keep you informed and to get input from you. I’ve taken a few months to settle in and get my arms around our opportunities for improvement and the resources at my disposal. I now have a good understanding of where we are and where we’re going. It’s going to be a great ride with lots of new ideas. We plan to share those ideas and get your feedback along the way, and I’ll keep you informed as we work our way through them.

When I took this role, the number one goal I was given was to improve our internal systems. We’re working to enhance our back-office systems with the application of new inventory management, billing and product catalog solutions. These platforms provide a foundation for our business, and are very important in our day-to-day operations, so as they are updated, our customers will notice subtle and continuous improvements in our service. We have a lot of resources focused on these improvements right now, and we’re making some great progress, so I look forward to sharing our successes with you.

However… what I’ve come to discover is that there is an even more powerful punch: Automation. “We want to automate everything!” That was the second goal our CEO gave me. We have a great automation engine we’re working to improve, and we’re embarking on several initiatives to add new functionality and better cycle times. Our customers will see these improvements directly in improved server delivery times and as new functionality on our portal.

So that’s the journey here at The Planet for the near future. I have a lot of people on the team helping me out. A few of them will also be writing blogs, so let me do some quick introductions. First, Stephen Johnson and Kyle Smith will each be talking about various aspects of our self-service portal, Orbit 2.0. Both Stephen and Kyle joined the company in the fall of last year and have been working hard to build a new plan and some cool new interfaces for our portal. Second, Marc Jones joined us at the end of last year and is currently driving the development of some great new products that are focused on cloud services. So look for some inside-baseball blogs from those guys.

In my next entry, I want to provide a little history and some context. The Planet development team has been working for the last few years to bring a lot of disparate parts together as one unified system. I will talk about that and I will also focus in on the most recent release of our self-service site, Orbit 2.0. There’s an interesting story behind that …

With that … engage …

-Duke

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Become a Castaway: How to Rent a Private Island

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3159-9-420x0It seems like every day there is a new article on island ownership somewhere in the world. Similarly there are often travel articles on unique island destinations. Rarely however is there an article written about renting your own Private Island. The Sydney Morning Herald recently published an article about the joys of renting your own island

The article notes that there are islands available all over the world from Canada to the Mediterranean to the South Pacific, and each island is unique, some are affordable, some are economical, some are environmentally friendly and some are truly unique (i.e. islands with castles, lighthouses and prisons). Here is what the author has to say.

Others are celebrity-friendly. At the Mayan-themed Nygard Cay in the Bahamas, famous guests have included Sean Connery, Robert De Niro and Oprah Winfrey and the nightly rate of $US42,000 ($46,000) includes Hummer or limo transfers from Nassau.

To read the full article and learn more about island rentals visit The Sydney Morning Herald.

Third Entry

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To get the bad news out of the way first we were robbed last night We went to the Koh Tao festival which is like a big village fate to raise money for and Eco project called lsquoSave Koh Taorsquo. Anyway while we were at the festival someone came into the apartment and helped themselves to a few things really strange choice of stuff to steal but they took my credit card and Rachrsquos

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www.bjbead.com Give Creative Ways to Store your handamde Jewelry

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There is nothing worse than tangled jewelry particularly if your collection lots of fine jewelry. When you have some jewelry over 20 pieces earrings bracelets necklacesring that are making your current jewelry box overflow. general size jewelry boxes and earring holders will not hold them all and I would like to have all these jewelry in the same place. Dangle earrings can be a huge pain t

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March 16th 17th Things that you just normally donrsquot expect to seehellipAfter the Zoo I made my way to my first Train Station. I was hoping to catch the last Train out of the city to Bangkok and make my way more south once getting there. As I walked into the station they informed me that the last Sleeper Train had already left however there was one more Train that I could catch. I reall

Marie Claire’s OhSoRealistic Trailer Park Photo Shoot Maghag

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Designers are raiding vintage shops and David Lynch clicks for ideas producing quirky glamourous clothes worn defiantly disheveled. That's the conceit of a Retro Fabulous fashion story shot by Mel Karch and edited by Tracy Taylor in the March issue of Marie Claire. The result A model pouts and slouches her way around a dusty trailer park clad in a fifteenhundreddollar Louis Vuitton