News and Updates

April 18, 2014 – WordPress 3.9 has been released and contains a lot of new updates.   We are in the process of upgrading all of our managed WordPress sites to the 3.9 release.   During the update, the WordPress site being upgraded will shift to maintenance mode for a few moments.  This process usually takes less than 30 seconds before the site is live again.

This version of WordPress introduces a lot of nice features including:

• Improved visual editing (especially copying and pasting from Microsoft Word)
• Improved image editing with easy access to crop and rotate tools
• Drag and drop of images from your desktop directly into posts
• Gallery previews in the editor
• Audio and video playlists
• Live widget and header previews
• Header image tool which allows you to crop and your header image when customizing a theme
• Much more!

If you have any questions or concerns about this upgrade, please contact us at 256-547-6817 or email support@internetpro.net.

Update: All managed sites have been updated.  If your site is experiencing any issues, please contact us.

April 9, 2014 – A large power outage struck our area and our datacenter was affected.  Backup generation systems came online as expected. However, we did have one UPS failure which affected several servers.   Our technicians are currently working to bring up all affected systems.  The power failure occurred at around 9:45 local time.  Most systems remained online throughout the failure.  We will post updates here as we have more information.\

Update: 10:40pm   – One virtual server host has been adversely affected by the power outage.  It currently seems to have a controller failure, and several virtual machines are affected by this outage.  We are working on moving the affected virtual machines to other hosts.

Update 11:10pm – The issue with the virtual server has been found and corrected.  All machines which are supposed to be hosted on it are being moved/booted up on it.

Update 11:20pm – All servers seem to be up and running.

If you have any questions about this issue or if you have found any unresolved problems, please contact us at 256-547-6817 or email support@internetpro.net.

March 31, 2014 – We’ve been noticing several email issues today.  First, our mail server has gotten on some lesser-used blacklists.  Most ISPs do not use these blacklists because they are “pay to remove”.  If you do have email not going to someone in particular, please send an email to support@internetpro.net and we can implement a workaround.   The main ISP that we have noticed blocking us is Earthlink (formerly Deltacom).

We’ve also noticed several email account passwords being hacked.  We have had to disable several customer email accounts because of this.  When we disable an account it does NOT keep you from receiving email (to the server) so messages being send to you will NOT bounce and WILL be delivered.  However, you will not be able to retrieve your email into an email client OR send email using a deactivated account.  In general, you can contact us to establish a new password for your account, and you will be back up and running.

Lastly, there have been a lot of virus emails coming through today with a subject of something like “New Fax: 3 pages”.   The number of pages has been varying from 2 to 5 pages (that we have seen).   These emails contain a .zip attachment which is a virus.  Our virus scanner is not catching these as yet, but our spam scanner IS tagging them as spam.   Do NOT open these messages.

If you have any questions, please contact us at 256-547-6817 or email support@internetpro.net.

February 12, 2014 – As the weather continues to be dangerous, we are again being forced to allow our staff to leave early for their safety.  Our main office will be closing at 1:30pm today.  Phones will remain open and our technicians will be responding to calls which can be handled remotely.  We will post an update about our opening time in the morning around 7:00am.  We do apologize for the inconvenience.

February 13, 2014 –  Our office will be opening at the regular time of 8:00am this morning.  There are still some travel problems, so we may not be able to dispatch to all customers, but we will be doing our best to handle all calls.

February 11, 2014 – Our area is under a Winter Storm Warning and we have decided to delay opening until 9:30am for the safety of our staff.  Right now, much of the area is just wet, but according to the weather service, the freezing line is moving south and there is potential for hazardous travel conditions.  We will continue to evaluate the situation, but it looks like we will be able to open after this short delay.  We will continue to post updates here as there may be issues later today and tomorrow.

Our technicians will be responding to call and emails.  If you need to contact us, please call 256-547-6817 or email us at support@internetpro.net.

January 30, 2014 – 6:25am – It looks like Comcast is having an area wide outage that is affecting internet, TV, and their phone service.  We do not yet know the extent of the outage but we are working to find out more information. We will be posting further updates here as we get them.

Update 7:25am – They are aware of the problem and have a preliminary estimated time to repair set at 10:30am.  However, this time was just set by their automated system and means that no technicians have actually evaluated the issue just yet, so it is most likely not a good estimate.

Update 7:50am – The Comcast system seems to be back online across the area.

January 28, 2014 – Due to inclement weather conditions and for the safety of our staff, we have elected to close our office. Our phones will still be monitored by our technicians. However, our main office location will be closed for dropoffs, pickups, and other business. We expect to be able to reopen tomorrow (Wednesday) at our normal time of 8:00am. We do apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Update – 2:45pm – We are no longer sure we are going to be able to open at 8:00am tomorrow. Conditions continue to deteriorate. We will post updates as we have them.

Update – 4:45pm – January 28, 2014 – We have made the decision to postpone opening of our office until at least 10:00am. We will be reevaluating road conditions in the morning and will post another announcement around 8:00am.

Update – January 29, 2014 –  The roads in our county are still deemed “impassible” by the Emergency Management Agency.   It does not look like that will change by 10:00, so our office will be closed for today.  However, our technicians will still be available by phone for support.  We do understand that many of our customers are not affected by this weather, so we will do our best to handle your technical issues via phone.  Unfortunately, for the safety of our staff, we will not be able to dispatch technicians onsite today.   We will be evaluating the situation later today and/or tomorrow morning.  We will continue to post updates here.

Update – January 29, 2014 5:15pm – We are planning on opening our main office at 10:00am tomorrow (Thursday).   We will have staff manning the phones at 8:00am.  If conditions are still bad, we may end up not opening the main office until later, but we will post updates here.  There will be some customers who are scheduled for service calls who we will not be able to reach.  We will be rescheduling those calls.

Update – January 30, 2014 6:30am – The Comcast outage is affecting our phone system and the ability of our technicians to field phone calls from home.  We are working to find a solution to the problem but in the mean time, our phones will be unmanned and calls we will be checking our voicemail system to return calls as quickly as possible.  While our phone system is out, we also recommend emailing us at support@internetpro.net.

Update – January 30, 2014 7:50am – Comcast is back online and our phone system is back to normal.  We will have a skeleton crew in our main office by 10:00am.  Our scheduling is still going to be a little behind as we work with a reduced staff and try to handle emergencies first.  However, if you need to come by the office, we will be there.

We’ve updated our managed WordPress sites to a new version (3.8).

Here is the press release regarding the new version:

WordPress has gotten a facelift. 3.8 brings a fresh new look to the entire admin dashboard. Gone are overbearing gradients and dozens of shades of grey — bring on a bigger, bolder, more colorful design!

Modern aesthetic

The new WordPress dashboard has a fresh, uncluttered design that embraces clarity and simplicity.

Clean typography

The Open Sans typeface provides simple, friendly text that is optimized for both desktop and mobile viewing. It’s even open source, just like WordPress.

Refined contrast

We think beautiful design should never sacrifice legibility. With superior contrast and large, comfortable type, the new design is easy to read and a pleasure to navigate.

WordPress on every device

We all access the internet in different ways. Smartphone, tablet, notebook, desktop — no matter what you use, WordPress will adapt and you’ll feel right at home.

High definition at high speed

WordPress is sharper than ever with new vector-based icons that scale to your screen. By ditching pixels, pages load significantly faster, too.

Admin color schemes to match your personality

WordPress just got a colorful new update. We’ve included eight new admin color schemes so you can pick the one that suits you best.

Color schemes can be previewed and changed from your Profile page.

Refined theme management

The new themes screen lets you survey your themes at a glance. Or want more information? Click to discover more. Then sit back and use your keyboard’s navigation arrows to flip through every theme you’ve got.

Smoother widget experience

Drag-drag-drag. Scroll-scroll-scroll. Widget management can be complicated. With the new design, we’ve worked to streamline the widgets screen.

Have a large monitor? Multiple widget areas stack side-by-side to use the available space. Using a tablet? Just tap a widget to add it.

Twenty Fourteen, a sleek new magazine theme

Turn your blog into a magazine

Create a beautiful magazine-style site with WordPress and Twenty Fourteen. Choose a grid or a slider to display featured content on your homepage. Customize your site with three widget areas or change your layout with two page templates.

With a striking design that does not compromise our trademark simplicity, Twenty Fourteen is our most intrepid default theme yet.