Media and Social Networking

JibJab Media is a premier destination on the Internet for comedy and humor. Petta Technology serves as a vital technology partner to JibJab, providing infrastructure services to help them meet the demands of ever-growing numbers of visitors and page views, and developing new software features for the JibJab site. JibJab's content is viral in nature and Petta Tech has helped JibJab prepare for spikes in traffic caused by the circulation of popular viral videos, tuning their systems for optimal performance under varying load. Petta Technology has also developed JokeBox and other features for JibJab, turning the site into a vibrant social network focused on Internet humor. Additionally, Petta Tech has helped develop content management systems to store and search data and metadata - text and media.

Pay for Performance Search Engines

We have developed and continue to develop pay for performance search engines to client specifications, with two completed from the ground up and two more under development. Like the customer relationship management tool, these search engines are web front ends to large databases. However, they have an additional layer of complexity; the results of database queries are changing constantly based on advertiser bids. To deal with this factor, we use a robust three-tiered architecture, balancing the load between a web server, an application server, and a database server. These three layers communicate with each other through XML and Perl.

Hardware and Network Infrastructure

We help manage a chronic disease management application for Pfizer Health Solutions. Dealing primarily with the back-end infrastructure, we developed a network of over 150 machines in a colocation area and manage wiring, routing, and troubleshooting for multiple local networks in that space. For the entire site, we designed a power subsystem and lights out management system, and did a security audit and design. We also manage some of the software infrastructure for their site, including single sign-on account management for all users on site and an infrastructure management tool called Intrinsic that we developed for managing software on a large number of connected machines.

clickandpark.com Parking Management Tool

We developed the clickandpark.com parking management tool, which includes a number of components. There is an administrative interface for managing events, parking lots, and parking routes; a client interface for purchasing parking and being assigned routes; and an interface to the Microsoft MapPoint system for displaying routes. Again, we used a three-tiered system to balance the load between machines, but in this case to ensure high availability even under peak load we scaled out the three tiers so that there was more than one web server, more than one application server, and more than one database server. Thanks to both hardware and software load balancing, this scaling is invisible to the user.

Customer Relationship Management Application

We developed a web-based tool for interfacing with a database of customers. The software imports data from proprietary formats, including Microsoft Excel, into a MySQL database. Users simply go to a website and log in, and have the information about all of their company's customers available within a few clicks. Recently, we developed a Blackberry interface to this tool as well, allowing mobile users to quickly and efficiently get the data they need.

SMS Search Engine

We produced a cellular phone SMS-based search engine allowing users to perform localized searches on the go. Based either on the area code and local prefix of the phone number or on a user-provided zip code, our search engine system provides localized search results on thousands of different search queries. The search engine is powered by a database of paid advertisements and managed over the web by clients using a pay for performance model. This system is currently a working prototype and will hopefully be deployed nationwide in the near future.

VoIP Communications Software

Petta Technology has developed prototype thru beta versions of software for School Broadcasting Company (The SB) which facilitates communications between schools and their communities. Using the latest web and VoIP technologies, School Broadcasting Company's SchoolCast Messenger allows school administrators and teachers to easily communicate with their constituent groups via voice, SMS and e- mail, helping to keep parents and other community members informed and involved. The School Emergency Alert System (SEAS) is designed for rapid and reliable notification in an emergency situation. The SB is also developing functionality to alert parents regarding their child's homework assignments and attendance. These products were developed using Open Source platforms and tools including: Ruby on Rails, Linux, Asterix and MySQL.