An Explanation and an Update

I haven't posted to this blog for the last four years because I have focused my time and energy into writing and producing FOR Ayrstone Productivity (primarily through the Ayrstone Blog, Facebook page, and YouTube channel) instead of writing ABOUT the company, which is what this blog is for.

But my purpose in creating THIS blog was to talk to other entrepreneurs and managers of young companies, especially AgTech companies, And the truth is that I have, between AutoFarm and Ayrstone, been in the AgTech business for over 10 years now. So I think I have some things to share, if I can come up with the time to share them.

I have posted articles about our problems with the companies we depend on (material suppliers and service providers), tools (particularly smartphones), and technology issues (IPv6), which are issues that still concern me, so I want to give a quick update on those issues.

Our suppliers for the radios we use for AyrMesh products continue, all these years later, to be a source of concern. They still run out of stock from time to time (about 6 weeks ago, for instance) and I have to go buy radios on the open market, which is expensive both in terms of time and money. However, it keeps us from having to stop shipping and keep customers waiting.

Our websites are still hosted on a GoDaddy VPS and on the MediaTemple Grid service (MediaTemple is now part of GoDaddy, though). The Grid server has continued to be very solid - Ayrstone.com doesn't go down much, but we continue to have interesting occasional problems with the GoDaddy VPS. However, the disruption to our customers over the last five years has been minimal, so I haven't felt the need to make a big change. We re-architected the AyrMesh.com codebase in 2013; it's about time to re-architect it again (essentially into a set of public APIs so other web-based "Dashboards" can include AyrMesh equipment in their systems), and I may move it to a more reliable platform then. However, we did move the codebase to a new VPS from Turnkey Internet, which is a fraction of the price of the GoDaddy server - we made this move so the original Hubs could check into a site without a SHA-2 signed certificate. But... the only way I know to determine what's reliable is to move the code onto a server and see what happens. If it doesn't go well, of course, it's a disaster that needs to be managed. The Turnkey Internet server did fail over a holiday weekend recently, but it was easy to get it back up and running, and it reminded me to add some checks to let me know if things weren't working.

I'm still very interested in optimizing the tools I use to run Ayrstone. My primary tools are still my smartphone, which currently is a Lenovo Moto Z Force (Android), and my laptop, which is an Acer Chromebook running "Crouton" so it can run a full Ubuntu installation under ChromeOS. I really love this little laptop, because it is very "stealth" - it's a $149 laptop that hides a dual-core computer with 10 GB of memory, capable of doing almost anything I need. And I still use the refurbished 4-core, 8-GB PC I got soon after we started the company, although, after it became unstable under Windows 10 I installed a dual-boot copy of Mint Linux, which has been better (albeit not perfect - I may be facing some hardware age problems).

Of course, if you have dealt with Ayrstone, you have probably come into contact with Suzanne and/or Trish, our long-suffering support folks. They, of course, really keep the company going while I am trying to get new products out the door, promote the company, and work with partners and potential partners. I am incredibly lucky to have them.

We are entering a new era now - we last introduced a new Hub in 2013, and we're working very hard to bring out AT LEAST one new Hub (as well as some other improved products) in the near future.

So, hopefully, I'll have more to say ABOUT Ayrstone (as well as more to say AS Ayrstone) in the near future.