Work Smarter. Not Harder.

At arakÿta, working smarter and not harder is a mantra we live by. With over 60 years of collective experience in computer network integration, we've seen our fair share of business processes - some that work and some that don't. Our goal is to help think through your process and develop a smarter solution around it. Whether it's deploying Microsoft SharePoint to enhance employee collaboration, creating a sound disaster recovery plan, maintaining a healthy network or training a staff to better utilize these tools. We'll have you covered. So Relax. It's just IT - and it's what we do.

Network monitoring with Spiceworks

Submitted by Matt Armstrong on Mon, 04/30/2012 - 11:00

One of the hardest things to get a grasp on in today’s IT world is physical devices. How many laptops do you administer and how many desktops? Are your servers running within hardware specs or are you maxing out on CPU or memory? These are just a few things that server/network administrators need to have an answer to at the drop of a hat. Not to mention applications installed on workstations, serial numbers for purchased software, warranty status etc.. the list goes on and on.

Billing With Stripe

Submitted by Stefan Legg on Sun, 04/08/2012 - 17:51

Processing credit card payments can be a real hassle for developers and open up a whole new ballpark of security concerns -- If you find yourself in this situation, check out Stripe. You won't be disappointed.

Stripe is a payment gateway that is easy to set up, and extremely developer friendly. It only charges small, very reasonable fees, on a per-transaction basis.

Ubuntu 11.10 Can't browse network

Submitted by Dave Mihalik on Thu, 03/01/2012 - 13:54

I was having a problem browsing the network on Ubuntu version 11.10 desktop amd64. I found this post which solved my problem. Here is a summary of the steps I followed to allow network browsing to work properly:

1 - sudo vi /etc/samba/smb.conf

2 - add the following two lines to the [global] section
netbios name myhostname <-- replace myhostname with your host name
name resolve order = bcast, host

3 - Save and exit smb.conf

What Do You Expect?

Submitted by Cortney Schaefer on Wed, 02/15/2012 - 11:30

I play the scene over and over in my head; how the events will play out, what actions will be taken and when. I have very detailed expectations- very colorful, with specific attention paid to the circumstances, the individuals involved and the timeline of events that will occur to reach that place: a perfect point in time. What are expectations? They’re visions of destinations, achievements and goals; a picture of “what [it] will look like when…”

Doer or Teller?

Submitted by Cortney Schaefer on Wed, 02/01/2012 - 13:29

I recently heard a colleague say, “I’m a doer, I’m not a teller”. That statement has been running through my head periodically since. I’m intrigued. A “doer”, meaning one who enjoys tasks, works well with direction, finds accomplishment is producing a deliverable. A “teller”, meaning one who creates the vision, communicates a goal, lays out the plan. It’s true that these two categories of people are all around us in business; and, yes, the line blurs periodically. But when you truly consider the work you are passionate about, are you a “doer” or a “teller”? Where is your strength?

Managing Motivation

Submitted by Cortney Schaefer on Wed, 01/18/2012 - 09:53

When you hire an employee you often compose an employment offer or develop a compensation package. That package may contain a salary, hourly payrate or commission structure. It may offer benefits like health insurance, a retirement package, life insurance and/or vacation. As the potential new hire considers the package, they may also consider “softer benefits” like the work environment, work-site location, and the culture and management philosophy of the organization.

Creating a bootable FreeNAS flash drive on a Mac

Submitted by Stefan Legg on Mon, 09/12/2011 - 21:27

I spent some time this weekend playing with the idea of having a NAS unit set up at my apartment - and there is this little issue I tend to run into a lot with these "experiments". My MacBook Air doesn't have a disk drive. This can be problematic, but luckily many systems support booting of a usb device and in that case you can use the following solution. Of course this uses FreeNAS for the example, but the same concept applies to other situations.