Posted by Keystone Business Solutions | 0 Comments

Our Airplane is Paper

Don’t be alarmed.  We’ve changed some things around.

Keystone Business Solutions is now just Keystone.  Not “Just Keystone,” because that would be a ridiculous business name.  But merely… “Keystone.”  We’ve dropped the BS.

A couple new themes have emerged around the Keystone office lately: simplicity and personality.

For 7 years Keystone has been shaping into what it is today. And we’ve generally always let our personality shine while working with our clients.  But our website and logo haven’t really reflected what we think is our unique combination of expertise and fun. Maybe we’ve tried a little too hard to be “professional,” but it resulted in our true personalities being hidden online.

Not any longer.

But before we get into that, let’s talk about airplanes for a moment. The airplane was one of the biggest inventions of the twentieth century. Since the Wright brothers took their first flight in 1903, there are now approximately eighty-seven thousand flights in the United States on any given day.  The airplane obliterated the old model of transportation, and completely changed everything.

Now let’s talk about the Internet. Another of the greatest inventions that came out of the twentieth century. Since it rolled out to the public in 1983, we have seen its access and capabilities evolve immensely. Originally, a single computer would take up an entire room and for an individual to own one was simply unheard of. Now, the Internet is everywhere because of new developments like the iPad, smart phones with 3G or 4G service, Wi-Fi at public coffee shops, et cetera.

The Internet is this generation’s airplane.  It has fundamentally changed how people do business and interact with one another.  It was the game changer to end all game changers.

Keystone wants to be your guide through this constantly-changing new online landscape.  We want to help you fly… from one place to another in the blink of an eye.  We want to use technology to help your business grow more profitable and more secure.  We’re like your digital Sherpa—we’ll get you up and down the mountain in one piece.  We know the way because we’ve been there many times before.

Our new logo is a paper airplane because we’ve cut out all unnecessary fluff and are providing the best and simplest solutions for our clients. There is nothing more simple than a paper airplane.  And we want our technology solutions to be just that easy for our clients to use.

There is also something universally fun about a paper airplane, something that crosses language and cultural boundaries.  That runs parallel to the personable and humorous environment at Keystone.  There’s no reason we can’t show some personality or have fun while we’re fixing your server or building your website.  After all… that’s who we really are anyway… experienced, talented, wisecracking geeks.

The new website is an attempt to reflect that a bit more accurately.  Oh, and I should point out to our existing customers that we’ve placed the webmail and Keymail logins at the top right of the home page, as highlighted in the screenshot below:

So, now you know some of the reasons behind the changes with the Keystone website and brand. Don’t be afraid. We didn’t turn into corporate jerks and we’re not going hippie. We’re actually the same company you have known for years… we’re just refocusing a bit on the most important tasks at hand:  clients’ satisfaction and an impressive end result—oh, and being ourselves. We think our new website, name, and logo do a great job of reflecting these core values, and we hope you feel the same.

Our airplane is paper because it represents the simplicity of our solutions as well as our sense of fun. We want to use technology to help your business fly.

Read More

Posted by Keystone Business Solutions | 1 Comment

Cantankerous Poisonous Aardvark Abodes on Mars

What if aarvarks lived on Mars?  And what if they were poisonous aardvarks?  How useful would it be to be poisonous on Mars?  I bet they’d be angry, being all poisonous but having no other Mars citizens on which to inflict their poison. 

I don’t know much about aardvarks, or Mars.  But I want to.  I want to know more.  Where does one go to learn about poisonous animals and what their lives might be like on other planets?

These are the questions that I’m pondering today.  Cantankerous poisonous aardvark abodes on Mars.  What’s on your mind?

Read More

Posted by Keystone Business Solutions | 0 Comments

Keystone Business Solutions Launches Blog

Keystone Business Solutions has launched a new blog.  You should already know this, as you’re reading it right now.  But we thought we’d tell you a little more about why we decided to launch a blog, and what we hope to be able to offer you here. 

For the uninitiated, a “blog” is short for a “weblog”–sort of an online journal.  There are all sorts of uses for blogs, but nearly all of them relate to creating another avenue of communication between you and your customers. 

For some time now, KBS has offered their moderately famous email newsletter, The Keynote, to those clients that wish to receive it.  The Keynote has evolved over time, to be sure, but we’re hopeful that we’ve always managed to consistently offer something interesting or useful to our clients.

The intention is for the Keystone Blog to become an extension of The Keynote, providing technology news that is sometimes fun, sometimes important, and always interesting.  Here are some examples of the kinds of stories we hope to bring you:

-In the near future…your plants will call you.  On the phone.  To tell you they need water. 

A company called Botanicalls is promising to bring gardening into the 21st century by merging technology with plant care.  They use what’s called a “soil moisture sensor” to determine when the water level has dropped too low.  Phase 2 of the project will see the ability for the plants to e-mail or send a text message. 

-You might think the world’s fastest internet connection would belong to some sort of serious video game player or perhaps a basement-dwelling hacker.  But you’d be wrong.  In fact, the world’s fastest internet connection apparently belongs to a 75-year-old Swedish woman. 

She can download full-length movies in less than 2 seconds with her 40 gigabits-per-second fiber-optic connection.  That’s fast; extremely fast. 

Read More