Down, maybe, but not completely out.
POTTSTOWN PA – Montgomery County (PA) Community College campuses in Pottstown and Blue Bell had their phone and computer services surprisingly interrupted Wednesday (March 18, 2009), when workers in a courtyard at the Blue Bell main campus accidentally sliced through a fiber optic cable at 10:03 a.m. It took about 90 minutes to get everything back to normal, the college information technology staff reported.
Half the Blue Bell Science Center lost computer network capabilities first. Then the Pottstown campus phone system went down. Soon the network loss spread across all MCCC buildings in Blue Bell. Outside dialing was restored after awhile in Pottstown, but it took more time to bring back 4-digit calling between campuses.
Finally, at 11:25 a.m., everything was functioning again … about 30 minutes sooner than the IT staff originally estimated.
And how did the IT folks keep in touch with their peers, as well as others on both campuses, during this minor crisis? They sent a series of six messages over Twitter, the popular short-message social networking service that works on computers, cell phones and other mobile devices.
Photo from Clipart.com
Editor’s note: This story resulted from tweets received at The Sanatoga Post’s Twitter account. Feel free to follow us on Twitter @jzlomek.
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[...] Social Networking Saves The Day Montgomery County Community College used a popular high-tech service to alert its people when phones and computers went down Wednesday in Pottstown and Blue Bell. [...]
[...] Social Networking Saves The Day Montgomery County Community College used a popular high-tech service to alert its people when phones and computers went down Wednesday in Pottstown and Blue Bell. [...]