ServerBeach Bowls for Kid’s Sake

Last month a team of Beachers traded in their geeky glasses for some super stylin’ shoes and headed down to the bowling alley to take part in the annual Bowl For Kids’ Sake Fundraiser.

The event is the largest annual fundraiser for Big Brothers and Big Sisters of South Texas, and very close to our own Alyssa Vargas‘ heart, as she was involved as a Big Sister back when she was in High School & College. She coordinated our participation in the event, and was thrilled to see that we were able to fill not one, not two but three teams to represent the SeverBeach family.

“Participating in the Bowl for Kids Sake fundraiser was a great experience” said Business Analyst Matt Valdes. “It’s always rewarding to help raise money for a good cause, especially one that helps children. To be able to play a game while doing it makes it a win-win situation!”

Congratulations go out to our Assistant Data Center Manager Brad Pearson for bowling  the game of his life, knocking down a 7-10 split. Apparently our team was defeated during the hula hoop contest, but I hear guarantees of redemption being promised for next year.

I’ve also been told there’s video of IT Support Guru Jim Park and our very own Big Kahuna Dax Moreno dancing the YMCA circulating on Facebook, but this has yet to be confirmed by the author.

Special thanks goes out to all of our friends and families who supported our efforts. In total we were able to raise almost $2000, all of which will go toward making a positive, long-lasting impact on children in our community.

Howdy! Meet Serra

Nice to meet you. My name is Serra Boten and I am PEER 1 Hosting and ServerBeach’s new Community Evangelist.

A little bit about me – I spent the last two years learning the ins and outs of the internet while working as a Network Analyst in PEER 1 Hosting’s Network Operations Center (NOC). I live in Vancouver, Canada where I am an avid cyclist, aspiring hula hoopist and obsessive blogger.

People often ask me what exactly does a Community Evangelist do? Well, it’s quite simple really. I connect with people like you. And by connecting with you, I’m hoping I can get to know you a little bit better, and let you in on what’s going on inside the company. The more we share information and insight, the better PEER 1 Hosting and ServerBeach can serve your hosting needs, as well as be good citizen of the Internet. You’ll find me on our company blogs, forums, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn under the handle “Serra Boten”. Reach out to me at any time, would love to hear from you. And if you’re a customer, would love to share your business story here. Just ping me to get it started.

Now you might wonder – how exactly does a Network Analyst wake up one day and decide she wants to trade in routing protocols for trending topics? Well, the truth is when I finished high school my fascination with the internet motivated me to pursue a career in information technology. I did the helpdesk thing for a few years before coming to work in PEER 1’s NOC, but the part I enjoyed most about either job was always the communications aspect of things.

Blogging and social media have also been an almost obsessive hobby of mine since I first learned some basic HTML back when I was eleven years old.  Also, I may have kept myself amused during the quieter hours of night shift by maintaining an unnamed number of blogs, twitter feeds and/or facebook profiles (some of which may or may not belong to my cat) – so when the Community Evangelist position opened up I jumped at the opportunity to put my passion for online communications to work.

It still amuses me to no end that my new official job title is Community Evangelist. My job is to Evangelize… for PEER 1 Hosting, ServerBeach and the Interweb! Three of my favourite things! Anyone who knows me thinks the role is hilariously fitting, and I’ve got to agree. I like to pretend I’m like Tron – Fighting for the Users! I’m going to be busy writing articles for our blogs and tweeting up a storm, but please feel free to say hi, follow @PEER1 and @Serverbeach on twitter, and let me know if there’s anything you’d like to see more of on our blogs  – I can’t wait to connect. 🙂

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SpawnPoint PWNage!

Recently we made a “You’re On My Shirt!” post about one of the largest public gaming communities on the Internet – SpawnPoint. In appreciation of our post, SpawnPoint sent our office their latest T-Shirts and we love them so much we wanted to show it.

You can't spell SpawnPoint without PWN!

We have many gamers within our company and many who frequent SpawnPoint.com so we’re very happy to be able to sport these cool T-Shirts around and we encourage all of you gamers out there to head on over to their web site and join their community. Who knows, maybe we’ll see you on the servers and enjoy some friendly gaming!

You’re On My Shirt! SpawnPoint

SpawnPoint is one of the largest public gaming communities on the Internet. If you’re a hardcore gamer then you already know who I’m talking about and if you don’t – give them a look because SpawnPoint.com is THE place for gamers to be!

Whether it’s information you’re looking for about a video game or gaming console such as XBox, Wii, PlayStation, PC, you’ll find it on SpawnPoint.com. If you’re more interested in gaming Forums, Videos, Blogs, and Clans, they’ve got that covered too! Don’t forget the downloads! Whatever you’re in search of, you can bet SpawnPoint has it covered.

Register at SpawnPoint.com, create a Clan, and join their game servers today!

Oh, and one more thing:

Can You Survive 24 Hours Without Your Computer?

May 3, 2008 is starting to draw a lot of attention around the internet. On this day, people from all over the world will shut down their computers for 24 hours.

In todays world I often wonder how difficult my life would be without my computer. Considering that it’s become a part of my daily life for both work and personal tasks. If I didn’t have it.. for just one day, would I be able to cope? Of course. Well…probably. OK, who am I kidding? As I type this blog post, I realize just how dependent I’ve become on my laptop to get me through the day or night. If I’m not doing work on it, I’m reading news and current events, e-mail, IM’ing, or shopping. Sure, I could certainly come up with other things to do – such as work in the yard, relax by the swimming pool and what not. Perhaps on May 3rd, I just may do that.

Now that I’ve shared that with you all, I’m sure many of you are thinking, “Wow, get a life!” But I’m also sure that many of you are sitting there nodding your heads, wondering what you’d do without your computer for 24 hours.

Check out what many are talking about over at a website titled Shutdown Day, which they’re claiming will be “one of the biggest global experiments ever to take place on the Internet.” The idea behind Shutdown Day is to find out how many people can go without a computer for one whole day, and what will happen if we all participate!