Archive for category Site News

EBSQ Data Center Outage

If you visited EBSQ this afternoon (6 March 2013) you might have noticed things were sluggish, then spotty, then completely down. We’ve discovered the problem isn’t on our end, but rather at our Data Center, where their network is completely down. They’re working to correct the problem now.  Thanks for your patience!

 

10pm EST The good news is that the problem has been diagnosed by the good folks at our data center. The bad news is that the replacement part the data center needs to get their customers (including EBSQ) back online will not be available until tomorrow morning.  It’s been a long frustrating day, and we appreciate that a solution is on its way.

Thanks  for hanging in there, folks. Once we’re back up, we’re looking forward to seeing all of the new art created during our rather unexpected downtime!

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Heads up–anticipate a brief period of site inaccessability

6:25pm EST We expect a brief outage within the hour while we replace a piece of equipment in our server array. We anticipate it being 5-10 minutes total. Thanks in advance for your patience, and sorry for any inconvenience!

7:16pm EST Our new equipment is installed and we’re running tests to make sure everything is working as expected before switching back on. ETA 5-10 minutes

7:46pm EST We are still mid-testing process.  Sorry this is taking longer than expected, but we want to make sure everything is smooth sailing once we’re back up. Thanks for your continued patience!

8:45pm EST All EBSQ services are back online. Truly sorry this took longer than anticipated!

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EBSQ is back online

9:12am EBSQ is currently down. We’re working with our server people to quickly resolve the problem. We’ll be updating this post with further information as it becomes available. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.

10:18am Our current estimated uptime is no later than 11am EST. Thanks for your continued patience!

10:50am The issue has been resolved.

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A special appeal on Cyber Monday

12 years ago, EBSQ began in a small 2-bedroom apartment in Pittsburgh, PA. We’ve now doubled in size (4 total employees instead of just Bill and me), we *finally* own our own servers, and the bulk of the day-to-day work is done via an ancient laptop on my dining room table. In the past dozen years, we’ve seen competitors, many of whom had a lot of capital backing them, go by the wayside. There’s no question, it’s a tough market for artists–and the sites that support them. I suspect it’s our very smallness that has kept us going where others have failed. But we’re ready to grow. And we need your help to do that.

Bill has spent the last 6 months re-writing 100% of the EBSQ site code in another programming language (and let me tell you, this was no easy feat!). This will make the site significantly faster, and it will be easier to maintain–and extend. And over the next 6 weeks, we will be fine-tuning as we prepare to launch what we think is a gorgeous version of the site that WILL include e-commerce. Now, something I have lobbied for time-and-again is for the advertising to go away. It’s ugly, it detracts from the art, and frankly, it slows down page load time. But it’s been a necessary evil since it’s how we’ve kept the lights on. I’m not going to lie; each month when that money comes in is a HUGE relief.

Here’s how you can help: plain and simple, we need more members to make up for the huge deficit that going advertising-free would create. To be exact, we need 150 new monthly members before the end of December.

Today through the end of November, monthly memberships, normally $8.95, will be on sale at the grandfathered rate of just $6.50 a month. That’s less than a month of Netflix. And for this week only, we’re making Permanent Accounts available for the discounted price of $499.

Will you help us grow? We are calling all former members, all of the artists who have been on the fence about joining, and on current members to lobby their artist friends on our behalf. Please, we need you. Each and every one of you. Come grow with us.

>>Click here to grab a great deal!

Thank you for your consideration. And from us, to you, have an artful holiday season!
With gratitude,
-Amie Gillingham
co-founder, EBSQ
http://www.ebsqart.com
Supporting self-representing artists since 2000

PS Don’t let these great deals pass you by! Invest in your artistic future–and ours–by grabbing an awesome deal today!

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Our LAST EVER Annual & Permanent Account Sale is ON!

Tom Had to Think Quickly by EBSQ Artist Nancy Denommee

Tom Had to Think Quickly by EBSQ Artist Nancy Denommee

Yes, the rumours are true. We’re retiring the annual and permanent account billing options for EBSQ on 1 August 2012* and moving to monthly-billing only for new members. If you’d like to grandfather in with either type of account, here’s your chance to do it at a discount! For this week only, we are offering both account-types at last year’s Cyber Monday sales price.

Grab an annual account for just $66/year (a $23 saving over the current rate) or a permanent account for just $349 (that’s half off the $699 list price!)

*It is important to note that people who have annual billing get to keep their rates for as long as they stay a member. We are firm believers in grandfathered rates. And obviously, permanent accounts are permanent. We’re a small family business and we appreciate your support of our services and community. Without you, we don’t exist.

Both deals are open to new and existing members. So click here to grab what is easily our best deal of the year today!

Of course, we’ll always offer monthly memberships!

Huge cheers,

-Amie on behalf of Team EBSQ

PS Don’t let this chance to grab a grandfathered-rate annual or half-price permanent account pass you by. Upgrade your account today!

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Help EBSQ qualify for a $250,000 grant from Chase and LivingSocial.

Mission: Small BusinessLast night, we heard about the most amazing opportunity.  One that could change everything.  Chase and Living Social are awarding grants to small businesses across America to help them thrive, and we really want to be one of them.  Our application is in, and we desperately desperately desperately need help getting the 250 necessary votes before the 30 June 2012 deadline.

Help us receive 250 votes on the Mission: Small Business℠ page to get closer to qualifying for a $250,000 Grant. After clicking “Support” on the home page, look for our business and vote for us!
1. Click here: http://missionsmallbusiness.com
2. Then click “Log In & Support”
3. Log in using your Facebook account
4. Search for EBSQ toward the bottom of this page
5. Click on the blue “Vote” button next to our business name to show your support for EBSQ.

Edited to add:  “Search by Business Name” has been hit or miss. If you can’t find us by searching “EBSQ” please look for us manually under Pennsylvania > Greensburg

Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

PLEASE HELP US SPREAD THE WORD! This would literally change everything. We could afford to hire talented people at a living wage. And we can finally bring e-commerce to EBSQ which will help us bring our artists a living wage. It’s a potential win for everyone, but we can’t do it without your help.

Thank you for your consideration and your support.

With much gratitude,

-Amie on behalf of Team EBSQ

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This week, we’re going to party like it’s 2002!

"Tom Had to Act Qucky" by EBSQ Artist Nancy Denommee

"Tom Had to Act Qucky" by EBSQ Artist Nancy Denommee

If you’ve been around EBSQ for a while, you may know that Cyber Monday typically equals our Annual Half-Price Permanent Account Sale. We’d like to think that’s a pretty sweet deal (pay once and you’re done for this kind of professional portfolio space is pretty unheard of). But we know, in this sour economy, and most especially after Black Friday when everyone and their mother is competing for what’s left in your wallet, that a permanent account isn’t always doable. Heck, for some of you, our regular membership dues almost don’t feel doable. 2011 has flat out been a Very. Hard. Year.

What we propose is something rather radical. We keep offering you the same great service as always,but at the rates that were available a decade ago.That’s right: for 4-days only, we’re rolling back EBSQ memberships to 2002 prices!

And the awesome thing is *everyone* is eligible for this special deal, including current EBSQ members who might be paying higher rates. We welcome you to take this opportunity to roll into our lowest grandfathered rate as our holiday gift to you, and as thanks for sticking with EBSQ.

We have gift memberships for as little as $66 (talk about a green gift!)

As always on Cyber Monday, we’re also offering our permanent accounts (normally $699) for just $349 –payment plan options available!

So consider giving the gift of art this holiday season; either for a worthy artist on your list, or for yourself. Watching the nightly news has become very depressing. We think the world needs more art. And artists.

Happy Holidays,

Amie Gillingham on behalf of Team EBSQ

PS Click here to start saving! But remember, the sale ends on 1 December 2011!

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Some updates (of the good variety)

Hello Again by EBSQ Artist Thomas C Fedro

Hello Again by EBSQ Artist Thomas C Fedro

We were so busy getting the site back online and everything working properly after our equipment failure and downtime, we totally forgot to tell you (at least via blog post) that, hey guys, we’re back! It’s been a crazy, but good week. I can’t begin to tell you how wonderful it is seeing the sheer quantity of awesome art that was created while we were down.

Some items of note:

Are you an EBSQ artist that has images missing (showing up as broken jpgs) in your portfolio? If so, please get in touch. We’re still trying to match up image files with their proper owners, and your member id would be of great assistance in getting your portfolio restored to its former glory.

In case you missed previous messages about this, due to the downtime, September’s online art exhibits deadlines were extended through the 15th. That date is coming upon us quickly, so if you still have something on your easel, it’s time to get out your hair dryer and your camera!

Art of the Day via email is back! We’re pleased to have moved our newsletters to MailChimp’s awesome care. Now it’s easier than ever to share, forward, or (God forbid) unsubscribe. Let us know what you think of the slightly tweaked look!

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Update on EBSQ Downtime

I am pleased to announce that the data recovery effort is complete! We’re now working to put everything back together again and making sure everything more or less works, then getting our new server (currently in our office) to our new LOCAL data center.  We anticipate being back online by 9 October 2011 if all goes to plan. I want to thank everyone for their patience during this arduous process. We cannot wait to be back online and seeing what you all were up to creatively during the downtime.

Oh–one more note of interest: EBSQ email is now back online, so I’ve personally been trying to sort through 11 days of mail for the 4 different email addresses I help to manage.  We’ll get responses to those of you who wrote as soon as we can.

Huge cheers!

-Amie

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Not quite there yet…

Our data center let us know that they’ve been having some issues with the data recovery process BUT things are now looking up and they hope to have some good news for us tomorrow. Fingers and toes crossed, folks! Prayers, too, if you’re the praying type.

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