Consultant needed:
WordPress plugin/crossposting/mailchimp/landing page/signup. Integration is key. Make it look good. Charge a reasonable rate. Tell the truth. Be willing to show examples of integration.
Don’t be this person who charges $5,000 for a full rework of your stuff and misses 2 appointments:
Oh good lord. I swear. I can’t keep my head on straight this week in the least. Naturally I messed up the time zone.
Though, I have to be honest with you, I’m struggling right now with so many things on my plate. I want to say yes, yes, yes to everything, because so many opportunities are presenting themselves (and the opportunity to work with fabulous people!), but at the same time, I’m trying to take a hard look at my project schedule and be more realistic – because I’m finding myself pulling half ass stunts a lot lately, like screwing up times and generally not doing as much of a kick ass job as I need to with things.
That in consideration, I think I’m going to ask to hold off on this. If we were to work together, I’d want to give you all of the wonderful attention you deserve, and right now, I’m questioning whether or not I would be able to. And I’d hate for that to happen.
I know you need help now – let me know what specific things you need help with, and I’ll see who I can recommend? Someone from my circle?
Sorry to spring this on you – just trying to be as honest as possible and make sure that I’m continuing to do my best work, no matter what!
And SO sorry about the time mix up, too. Jeez.
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Forget hauling your old crusty computer to your local e-waste dropoff site. Apple now offers free recycling services and will even give you gift cards if the items have any value. While this is not a new practice, as other retailers such as Amazon offer similar services, it’s still convenient.
You won’t get a lot for your stuff as compared to selling it on eBay or Craigslist however you won’t have to deal with random strangers coming to your house to look at the computer.
Go to the site and select what kind of device you need to recycle (any desktop, notebook, iPad, or iPhone), and then fill in a few details.
http://www.apple.com/recycling/
Good move by Apple in my opinion.
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Computer repairman collected hundreds of thousands of photos of unsuspecting women, police say – latimes.com.
I was so outraged when I read about this situation. I can’t for the life of me understand how this happened and went so far without being discovered. I’m sick to my stomach about it. Did they even do a background check? Where did they find this guy? Craigslist?
“While he had physical access to the computers, he would install a spyware-type application that allowed him remote access to the user’s computer and webcam,” Goodrich said.
Another story of a nefarious computer technician: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/security/360124/laptop-repair-pervert-jailed-for-nine-months
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On Tuesday, July 12th at 6pm, I welcome Stephen Rose from Microsoft to Los Angeles for a special PacITpros/TechDays event. Windows Deployment from ACT to ZTI - Free tools to move your users from Windows XP to Windows 7 and Office 2003 to Office 2010 in less than 30 minutes? Paying money for deployment tools is so 2000!
In this session, Stephen will show you how to use the many free tools available to manage and deploy Windows, Office and Internet Explorer while reducing cost and ensuring you never having to manage multiple images again. We will cover MDT, ACT, MAP, WDS, the PoC and other tools that will do network inventory, application compatibility, shimming, image management and automated Windows and application deployment.
Click here to register for this free event or go to www.techdays.org . Seating is very limited so don’t delay. Make sure you register to become a member of PacITpros so you’ll be informed of great events as well as our regular monthly user group meetings on the 4th Tuesday of each month in Los Angeles. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook!
About our Speaker: Stephen Rose is the Worldwide IT Pro Community Manager for Windows Commercial team at the Microsoft Headquarters in Redmond, WA. Before joining Microsoft, Stephen spent 15 years running his own IT consulting company. Stephen has been a MCT and MCSE since NT 4.0. Before joining Microsoft he was a two time Microsoft MVP as well as the Senior Tech Correspondent for Fast Company Magazine.
In his current role, he manages the vehicles that reach 1 in 3 of the 22m Desktop IT pros worldwide every month. This includes the Windows technical content on the Springboard Series on TechNet. He manages the Windows 7 Forums, is the editor for the Springboard Insider Newsletter, writes for Windows Team Blog, acts as the moderator for the Windows Virtual Roundtables and leads the Springboard Series Tours in North America, Europe and Asia.
You can follow the Springboard Series on TechNet via Twitter @MSSpringboard or follow Stephen on his personal feed @stephenlrose
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Mark Cuban to VARs: Go home
http://searchitchannel.techtarget.com/news/2240033089/Mark-Cuban-to-VARs-Go-home
Barbara Darrow, Senior News Director
Published: 04 Mar 2011
Mark Cuban has two words for IT VARs: Go home.
Cuban, the billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks, co-founder of HDNet and one-time Dancing With The Stars contestant, got his start as a VAR and made his first millions selling that company—MicroSolutions–to CompuServe in 1990. Cuban’s track record in business is impressive, so his take on what constitutes a hot market bears notice.
Home IT is a hot spot both in terms of traditional PC network integration and home entertainment, two worlds that are converging rapidly.
“What I call the ‘last three rooms’ is a more important aspect of delivering video to the home than the ‘last mile,’” Cuban told SearchITChannel.com via email. The last mile is the wiring or cabling that connects the local building to the Internet and phone system.
Wireless routers are the heart and soul of the home network and yet get the least support and are the most susceptible to interference and other problems, Cuban said. “Bottom line is that few homes have an optimal installation of their wireless routers and connected devices. The result is that more often than not, delivery of streaming video is going to have problems. As the number of devices trying to simultaneously access that video grows, the problems grow faster.”
Meaghan Kelly, Hewlett-Packard Co.’s vice president of SMB channels, said her company is aware of the huge potential market of these home VARs. It would dearly like to tap their potential in its renewed SMB push.
HP channel chief Stephen DiFranco even has a name for this army of technicians: “the Larrys,” Kelly said. “There are many of them out there. They carry their kit in their trunks and go to small businesses, home offices, homes, get what you need, come back and set it up. It’s a massive market, the long tail,” Kelly said. “People pay $70 an hour for peace of mind.”
Kelly may be underestimating what the market will bear. The home VARs interviewed here charge—and get—anywhere from $85 to $150 per hour, excluding product sales.
This prescient cadre of home VARs includes small companies such as UberGeek Girl of Los Angeles, New Age Communication of San Mateo, Calif., and Gould-Sherwood Consulting of Lexington, Mass. They have built practices supporting and maintaining home networks and all the devices that hang off them. Most resell hardware and software if they have to, but it’s not the focal point of their business.
“Dealing with all the sales tax stuff is a hassle,” said Jessica DeVita, founder and CEO of UberGeek Girl.
Beth Gould, CEO of Gould-Sherwood, agrees with Cuban that wireless is king. “Most of my requests are to get the house wireless—for everything. They want the phones, the iPads, on WiFi. They want the wireless to work with everything and then complain about performance. I always say if they want better performance, just plug in the cable, but no one wants cables in their houses,” she noted.
Warren Wong, owner of seven-year-old New Age Communication, also put wireless at the top of the list and said that integrating home theater components with traditional IT devices like PCs, is the main thrust of his business. (Wong, by the way, is DiFranco’s “Larry,” having worked with the HP exec for many years.)
Specialization for home VARs
Gould worked in IT for years at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design and now supports several Harvard professors in their homes. She has several business clients in the architecture or design field for whom she sets up and maintains small servers and advises on cloud services. But the rest are home users who find her via word of mouth. None of the home VARs interviewed spend a dime on marketing or advertising. They get ample work from referrals although they all maintain blogs.
Much of their work is consultative. What hardware to buy? Should I run a server or use cloud services? These are the questions they get.
“I hear a lot about cloud computing, and I have no problem setting up email from another provider. Other VARs want to run your mail for you and charge a monthly fee. I don’t mind being the intermediary and admin for a cloud service—for email, for FTP, for VPN, for file sharing. I do the research and pick the provider,” she said.
DeVita said most of her clients are high-end households in Los Angeles, many with fancy-schmancy home theaters. “They want the integration of different devices. They want their devices synced with hosted Exchange and with other things. A lot of clients have mixed Mac and PC environments that they need integrated.”
She often installs the network that will run the home theater and associated gear. “Home entertainment requires a significant contribution from the IT perspective. You have to create the network so devices can be managed and maintained from the outside.”
She often uses LogMein to remotely manage and monitor home customers. There are only a few who do not want her to do so, citing privacy concerns, she said.
To resell or not to resell, that is the home VAR question
None of the home VARs interviewed put a great premium on reselling hardware or software. They see their value in support and service. Gould will research and spec out what PC a customer should get based on her knowledge of the customer’s needs and get a quote from Dell or other vendor. Then the customer can place the order or she will, with 10% markup.
Part of Gould’s service is realistically assessing customer needs versus selling a ton of new stuff. One customer bought a new $1,000 PC based on a recommendation by Best Buy’s Geek Squad. But the new PC ran Windows 7 which no longer supports Outlook Web Access, and the customer, an elderly woman, didn’t want to relearn a new program. Gould looked at her old PC, added more RAM and instructed the woman to return her new PC for a refund. Which she did.
Clearly services like those might be one reason not a lot of tech companies do a good job courting or serving home VARs. After all, a home VAR’s service means that many tech purchases can be deferred—that’s not a big draw among IT vendors trying to sell stuff.
DeVita said getting a big vendor—like Apple–to pay attention to her is a non-starter. She has, however, formed other important alliances.
She cultivated a contact at both a local Verizon and AT&T store that she can tap in an emergency. “If one of my client’s Blackberry dies, they need a new one that day. I have someone to call and say, ‘I’ll be over in a half hour for that new phone,’” she said.
She also has a tight relationship with a local retailer and a small local distributor from whom she sources her gear.
For many VARs, home is a scary place
There is clearly demand for home IT services and yet many traditional VARs shun them. “They probably want to maximize the dollars, and I understand that, but there is very good money to be made in this and I can sleep at night,” said one long-time home VAR.
“Many VARs look at the home as a landmine. They’re scared of it,” noted DeVita.
For many established VARs it’s just a matter of dollars and cents. Paul Shoberg, director of sales for Works Computing Inc. in Bloomington, Minn., said for a company like his that focuses on enterprise customers, home IT is not a focus. But, home integration services could work really well for the right type of company with the right cost perspective, he said. “It’s a great market and a growing one. …Eventually the cloud will drive these services because customers will be looking to plug right into the Internet for applications or whatever else they need,” Shoberg said.
Still, many home VARs mix in small business clients with their home customers. Some 80% of DeVita’s clients are home customers. Gould is more heavily weighted toward business customers, with just 30% or so home based. Many customers start out with home services, then drag their home VAR into the office as well.
One thing will probably never change. Most IT VARs provide some manner of home support whether they like it or not.
”For my friends, I usually work for drinks. I’m the only person they know who can really program their remotes and get their high-def stuff to work and cable up their home theater,” said Jane Cage, COO of Heartland Technology Solutions. “I’ve joked many times that my next job will be to do tech support for rich people.”
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Sony comes clean: Playstation Network user data was stolen | VentureBeat.
It seems that nearly every week there is a new story about data breaches. From Epsilon’s database being hacked into and now Sony. So what’s the lesson here, do we all pull back and refuse to purchase online content as some clients are saying? I don’t think that is the answer. What about simplifying and putting a few protections in place?
My recommendations:
1. Have a credit or debit card linked to an account with a certain balance limit, say $500. Use this account strictly for online purchases, such as Netflix, Sony, Xbox Live, etc.
2. Setup an email account just for such purchases.
3. When creating online accounts at sites, use the junk email box and your “online” credit card information. Don’t give your real name, address, age or birthdate where possible.
I think these steps should help. Perhaps you have other ideas to share? Give us your comments!
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This is a great article that highlights many of the questions that need to be asked when an employee wants to use a personal device to access corporate data. What do you think? How do you manage this issue at your workplace? Let’s have a policy discussion and perhaps folks can take back some ideas for their situation.
So You Want to Use Your iPhone for Work? Uh-oh. – WSJ.com.
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Dear Twitter,
You are the gift that keeps on giving. With just a little effort on my part to look for interesting folks to follow, my business and personal lives have expanded and flourished.
You deepened a relationship with my favorite vendor @lanlogic and the always hilarious @tedsblog — I’ve connected with @tomeppy and @nmpolanco @msolario -= these people are so great in real life too!
As I tweeted back and forth with these folks, I checked out who they were following and discovered @ehorley who is an absolute network genius and all around good human. Then I followed @jkc137 and discovered another super talented female #sysadmin and we’ve become good friends offline too.
I’m exploring how I can bring the @pacitpros meeting to Los Angeles and was stoked to meet @dougspindler and see 120 warm bodies at the meeting on December 7th. Wow what an amazing group.
How fun was @smbnation ? I met @stevenabanks @eriqneale @sbsfaq and a whole lot more ridiculously smart people.
I’ve found a mentor and a friend in @hobbesoh and enjoy talking mac geek shop with him and continually learning from him as well as learning that I have valuable knowledge to share as well.
There’s one thing I’m sure of – it’s how much I DON’T know and I thank @theshackdaddy & @thirdtier for illuminating deep stupid dark parts of exchange server for me.
I think @randsinger should hire some gals to make his team even better.
@karlpalachuk has enriched my life more than he’ll ever know. I wish I could hang out with him and @bobnitrio but my car refuses to go near Sacramento. It’s probably for the best since I’d make a stop by @dfeh and talk some sense into them regarding childhood autism and defending properly the rights of disabled children.
My organized office would not be possible without the non-judgmental help of @alaiawilliams and I hope we get to be friends because she’s just cool!
I’ve laughed at @oatmeal and cried at some of the @takepart tweets. I’ve learned what the hell is happening in LA by following @laist
@flylady you saved me hundreds of dollars by helping me keep my own house just 15 minutes from being ready for company.
I know I missed a lot of people but here’s the deal. Anyone I follow is awesome. You should just follow them and watch your life change and grow. I love you all and thank you for being part of my life.
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By Jennifer Bosavage, CRN11:00 AM EST Tue. Nov. 16, 2010
When Dave Sobel, CEO of Evolve Technologies, came up with a five-minute way to load Windows XP onto an Apple iPad, he didn’t issue a press release or create a piece of collateral for the company’s press kit. Instead, he posted a video on his Facebook page showing just how he did it.
Sobel related the story during “Social Media, Separating Fact From Fiction,” an on-demand session at COMDEXvirtual, noting that the response he received was enormously positive. COMDEXvirtual is hosted by CRN parent company Everything Channel. The show takes place November 16 – 17, and sessions are available on-demand until May 17, 2011.
It wasn’t just the amount of attention the video received (50,000 hits and 2,000 additional visitors), but rather, the quality of the responses it brought in for the Fairfax, Va.-based solution provider. “Our Web site is designed to track visitors, so we know exactly who’s visiting us, and those people became instant leads. We knew specifically what they were interested in: Our ability to deliver this application on the iPad.”
Sobel joined Marvin DeJean, director of marketing at United Data Technologies (UDT), Miami, Fla.; Jessica DeVita, owner of UberGeekGirl, Inc. a technology consultant in Santa Monica, Calif.; and Josh Gibbs, assistant director of marketing and social media at Everything Channel, Framingham, Mass., in a discussion of how technology businesses use social media to showcase their expertise — and to track down business leads.
For DeVita, using social media has helped her build a network of like-minded individuals. Recently, she worked on a pro bono project for a Los Angeles school ad used Twitter to raise awareness of her business and the work it was doing.
“It’s because of the work I’ve done in social media, that when folks need help in Los Angeles for a client, whether it’s a celebrity or a business, I know that they’ll think of me.”
The main thrust for businesses using social media tools, such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, is to create “Return on Engagement.” UDT uses social media technology to create a feed for the communities it hosts on its Web site — which in turn creates traffic for the company’s Web site and awareness of UDT’s offerings.
NEXT: Picking The Right Platform
DeJean’s goal, was to create a feed for the UDT Web site by putting content on Facebook and Twitter, thereby driving people to communities on the site. UDT has created specific community groups through which participants can share information.
“It lets us really listen to the conversation and know what changes are going on in their industry,” said DeJean. “What are they interested in? What are their thoughts on certain products and solutions?” By plugging in that way, UDT has been able to create sales prospects straight from social media.
Platforms such as Twitter and Facebook have offered marketers a powerful means of getting the word out about their products and services. Gibbs coined the term, “cloud marketing,” which refers to the ubiquitous nature of marketing today: “[Taking] everything you have as a marketing resource and putting it out in the cloud.”
Getting employees and customers alike familiar and comfortable with social media is crucial to success, panelists said. “I show them how I use each of these tools, and I give a little demo. What that does is give them a safe way to see how I use these tools … and that really gets them comfortable,” said DeVita. “If they really express an interest, I help them create their own profiles and connect them to people they already know. That gives them a launching pad to see where these tools can take them.”
Finally, a level of commitment is necessary to reap the benefits of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Gibbs advised executives to check in frequently, much as they might look at e-mail. Blog posts and comments need to be shared generally on a regular basis, whether that’s daily or weekly. Also, some campaigns work better on certain platforms.
“Talking to professional organizations, it’s definitely LinkedIn,” said Gibbs. “Twitter is really good for brand recognition. You’re able to push out ideas and establish yourself as an opinion leader. There’s what I call the 80/20 rule on Twitter: 80 percent of the time, you need to push out content that’s interesting. The other 20 percent you can promote yourself … If you want to talk to your customers on a really casual level, use Facebook. You can make a blog, anything you want.”
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Today we were working with a client who has been battling credit card and identity theft.
I felt their frustration as they struggled not only to staunch the bleeding but to regain some sort of control. Additionally they wonder how this could have happened. From an I.T. perspective, I thought of a few things they might do differently. Please note that no one is really safe in my opinion and these are simply a few ideas to make you NOT the easy target. Note that I use almost all of these myself ever since my card was used fraudulently a few months ago.
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