Green Web Design, Green Hosting, Solar Web Hosting

Terra Green Web Design and Hosting is a women-owned small business providing green web design and green web hosting to small businesses and organizations. We started out in 2003 designing web sites for quilt-related businesses through our Quilt Professionals business and web site (www.quiltprofessionals.com). Over time and experience we realized that the corporate web hosts we were using for our customers' web sites were providing poor services. When we or our customers contacted the web host for technical assistance, we always talked to a different person. Often the support was outsourced. Sometimes the support person knew far less than we did about the web hosts' services. The technical support services were so compartmentalized that sometimes it could take a week before an upper level technical support person would finally resolve a more complex problem. We decided that we could do better than this for both our customers and ourselves.

We searched for a data center that we could work with to provide the kind of web hosting services that our customers deserved. Soon into the search we realized that there were actually some data centers - a very limited number - powering their servers with solar or wind energy. As strong environmentalists, both Paula and Jeanne were thrilled at the possibility of providing web hosting powered with renewable energy. We had used solar panels to power the computers and other office equipment at our web design office from its inception. We entered into an arrangement with the best solar-powered data center we could find, a very responsive and very capable small business located in sunny southern California. Now we could provide both green web design and green web hosting services for our customers.

Our web design office is powered by solar panels located on the roof. We've been all solar since beginning our business in 2003. We use energy efficient equipment. Our computers are Lenovo Energy Star laptops that run on DC electricity. Our printer is an HP Energy Star ink jet. With an all solar-powered office, energy conservation is a way of life, not an afterthought! Our other systems are also green. We collect rainwater from the roof and use an energy efficient low emission woodstove (no fossil fuels) for heat. The office, built into the house, is non-toxic as well, using no plywood or toxic finishes. Green web design is the only kind of web design we've ever done.

The data center we've affiliated with has had a commitment to the environment from its start. Because their green design is not just "tacked on" they are able to use much less energy than a company making the switch later. They have 120 solar panels that power all their servers. They use AMD powered IBM BladeCenter servers which use just 285 watts, less than half the power of the servers (625 watts) used by most companies. Their "power usage effectiveness" (PUE) is 1.14 whereas the EPA reports that most data centers have PUE's of 2.0-3.0. The 120 solar panels eliminate 34,488 lbs of Carbon Dioxide, 50.6 lbs of nitrogen oxide, and 37.4 pounds of sulfate (acid rain).

Jeanne Neath, our programmer, has 35 years of experience with computer programming. When she started out, using 80 column keypunched cards was the only way to communicate with the huge mainframe computer housed at the computing center at the University of Kansas. This was 1974 and she was working on a doctoral degree in social psychology, using the computer to analyze the data collected in research projects. Both the computers and Jeanne have come a long way since then! She worked at the University of Arkansas for many years where she supervised data analysis and programming activities at the National Center on Employment and Disability. She developed a number of nationally distributed software packages. Since the inception of Quilt Professionals and Terra Green Web Design and Hosting, Jeanne has been our web developer. She developed the Terra Content Management System, the software system that allows you to easily manage your own web site without the help of a professional or complicated, expensive software such as Dreamweaver.

Paula Mariedaughter, our web designer, is an accomplished artist who works in a variety of media including quilting, collage, landscaping, interior design and, of course, web design. In 2008 her quilts were featured in a one-woman show of 55 original quilts at the Arts Center of the Ozarks in Springdale, Arkansas. Paula graduated with a degree in political science from Maryville College, a small liberal arts college in Tennessee. For 16 years she worked for TWA as a flight attendant and as a union rep for the Independent Federation of Flight Attendants. She's been creating art since 1990 and designing web sites since 2003. Take a look at some of her web site designs at Helen Squire, Terrell Designs. Sew Unique, Calico Junction, The Quilting Patch, Alice Wilhoit Designs, Thimbles 'N Quilts.

Terra Green Web Design and Hosting and Quilt Professionals are both owned and operated by Programming & Design Associates LLC. The partners are Paula Mariedaughter and Jeanne Neath. Call us at 479-677-2235 for more information or Email Terra.