Blog Archive: January 1, 2013 - December 31, 2013

Internet Explorer 7 usage has thankfully dropped low enough worldwide that we feel that it's safe to stop supporting this browser on new projects. Below is the most recent statistics for Internet Explorer usage world wide according to W3 Schools. 

IE 7 is nearly 7 years old and in browser years, that means it's an old geezer. We are now 3 versions past that with IE 10. Facebook and Google both dropped support for IE 7 back in 2011.

Due to it's rendering issues, it's age and lack of support for modern development techniques, it's getting increasingly difficult to build modern websites that run successfully in IE 7 without a lot of extra work and hacks. 

Because of it's age, it's low usage, and the extra work to support it, we are now going to be charging a 20% or $1000 increase, whichever is greater, on projects that require full support for IE 7. 

I don't see this as affecting many, if any, of our clients. Most of them already use modern browsers and so do the audiences of their websites. 

If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact us. 

We have recently been awarded the opportunity to design and develop a new website for the Farmington Downtown Association. It is scheduled to launch late October or early November of this year. 

The new website will have a completely new design, an expanded member directory, lots more photos of the downtown area and more information for visitors and residents. It will, of course, also feature responsive design techniques so that it's easily accessible on mobile devices. 

Because we have a passion for the downtown area, have been located in downtown Farmington for 8 years and are a member of the Farmington Downtown Association, we decided that we would donate some of our time on the website. We are only charging about half of what it would take to build the website. The new website will be powered by our website content management system, Branch CMS, and we have significantly discounted the monthly pricing for that. 

We are excited to partner with the Farmington Downtown Association on this project and look forward to the opportunities that the new website offers them and the surrounding area. 

As a member of the Website Committee for the Farmington Downtown Association, I am pleased that Aptuitiv has been contracted with to develop a new website for the Farmington Downtown Association. Eric and his team are very professional and accommodating…they listen to what the client wants. They have expertise in functionality, design and user-friendliness for both those visiting the site, as well as, for the businesses using their content management system. I really look forward to working with Aptuitiv on this project! - Alison Hagerstrom, Greater Franklin Development Corporation

Today we experienced a server outage caused by a Denial Of Service (DOS) against one of our customers. In the spirit of openness we want to explain what happened. 

Around 10:40 am EST the attack started. It's what's called a SYN flood. Basically the attackers opened a connection to the firewall but did not do what normal clients do and complete their part of the connection. This caused a much higher than normal number of concurrent connections to be opened. Our firewall can normally handle over a hundred thousand connections per second, which is normally more than enough. The attack consumed all of the firewall resources, consequentially blocking legitimate traffic. 

We immediately started working with Rackpace's technicians to resolve the issue. Due to the overload on the firewall they were unable to connect to the firewall using normal techniques. Datacenter technicians had to enable a different method of access. Once technicians got access they were able to determine the cause of the issue and put measures in place to prevent it. 

Around 11:40am EST the attack was successfully being blocked. We've been monitoring it since then and have seen no further issues. 

We sincerely apologize for the downtime and inconvenience that it caused. We are constantly working on our infrastructure and monitoring it so that if something like this happens we are able to quickly remedy it. 

There was no loss of data or any security breaches made. Only the firewall was targeted in this attack. 

Thank you for your patience and your trust in our services. 

If you have any questions or concenrs please do not hesitate to contact us. 

I'm pleased to announce that after months of hard work the new University of Maine at Farmington website has launched. We have been working closely with their marketing team to build them a new website that is more usable, attractive and relevant to their multi-faceted audience. 

The website features a responsive design that looks beautiful on both desktop and mobile devices. 

You can read some more about the UMF project in our portfolio.