December 21, 2006
saw this first in the windows mobile newsletter, of all places. go figure.
mothership’s second small business summit has been announced for the 3rd week of march, with registration opening january 15.
last year’s summit had excellent content for small business owners.
there were some technical snafus, to be sure.
but if you got in, you definitely were rewarded for your efforts.
in fact, if you missed it…
the 2006 webcasts are still available.
since this will be the 2.0 version…i’m expecting them to get the hosting side of it right this time.
so you’ll prolly want to register more sooner than later, once registration opens.
|| posted by chris under business, mothership, thumbs up || comments (1) ||
||
December 18, 2006
earlier today, a certain mvp, in his trademark style, fired a shotgun blast right into the belly of the sbs yahoo newsgroups.
his point?
because there is no one riding herd on these groups, they are, for the most part…a completely & utterly worthless waste of time.
strong words, to be sure. too strong? no way.
your friendly neighborhood happyfunboy’s productivity skyrocketed the day he flipped every single one of the yahoo groups to daily digest mode. now, he reads them only when someones asks if he saw a certain comment or flame. and even then he complains about being pulled back in a la michael corleone.
i’d argue that the managed services group still offers a lot of value.
as it has from its inception, that group has managed to keep an excellent signal-to-noise ratio, which i chalk up to a combination of the members of that group, the topic at hand & the firm but gentle hand of mastermind, one ms. amy luby.
the few times things have threatened to flare up, they’ve been handled, dealt with & everyone’s been professional about it.
even so…
no amount of moderation in the world can change the fact that the value of any group is the quality of its membership.
a couple of posts ago, i alluded to this fact, when talking about the action pack & the registered partner program.
the diva has been kind enough to keep me from pulling a david banner hulk-out about the issue, but the fact remains:
the reason it folks as a general rule get no respect is it folks themselves
for every good, conscientious, talented it professional…
there are at least 20 jackleg morons whose only talent is fubaring systems til the cows come home.
and if you think that mothership’s continued gutting of the action pack is a sign of respect…
i’ve got some beachfront property here in central alabama to sell you.
as walt kelly’s pogo might say…
that’s right folks. nobody to blame for this turn of events but ourselves.
|| posted by chris under community, it pro, opinion, thumbs down || comments (3) ||
||
December 16, 2006
mark it down, kiddos.
you saw it here first!
the 2007 versions of outlook (b2tr), business contact manager (b2tr) & office accounting pro (final) are installed & fully integrated here at the funcave, with the bcm & moa data riding on sbs r2 premium edition.
that’s right.
bcm & moa, living together, using sql 2005 workgroup edition.
your tired neighborhood happyfunboy had to piece together a working document from about 5 different sources.
so yeah, he ran across a few helpful tips & tricks along the way…
including how get a trial key for office accounting professional now, rather than later.
if there’s enough interest, i might be convinced to post up what i found.
|| posted by chris under funlab, migration || comments (8) ||
||
December 16, 2006
so…yeah.
the action pack for january is on-time. look for it to arrive toward the end of that month.
whoops…sorry. wrong action pack.
this one!
here’s the list of what’s coming.
some curious entries on there.
office 2007 enterprise will be in there. that’s right, enterprise.
oh…and uh…
vista business. no ultimate.
altho mothership will graciously let you upgrade to ultimate for 139 smackeroos…
per license.
so no bitlocker…no media features…
unless you feel like ponying.
might want to keep in mind that, if you upgrade all 10 vista business licenses in ap to ultimate…
you’ll be shelling out just a hair under $1400.
add that to the $300 you already dropped for ap…
and you will have paid $100 more than a certified partner or gold certified partner paid for their partner program membership, and without receiving the benefit of…
- a logo
- an msdn subscription
- a technet subscription
- support incidents
all i can say is…
welcome to the funcave, all you damn dirty software pirates…i mean, microsoft registered partners!
|| posted by chris under thumbs down || comments (2) ||
||
December 14, 2006
what a day for a daydreamin’ boy…
wavy lines denoting dream sequence
this first part will involve some audience participation, so here goes:
please raise your hand if you are a registered microsoft partner
ok, great. lots & lots of hands out there.
now, please keep your hand up if you are a subscriber to microsoft’s action pack. if you aren’t…please put your hand down.
wow. lots of folks.
now…for all of you with your hands down…if you are a subscriber to action pack, please raise your hand.
congratulations! all of you have just stated that you are not a registered partner, but do have a subscription to action pack. you are therefore violating the terms of service for the action pack. those deputies coming your way are about to audit all the systems at your business, plus all your clients’ systems, plus your mother’s, plus your brother’s.
ok…while that’s happening, let’s keep going, shall we?
all of you with your hands still in the air…
registered partners who subscribe to the action pack, right? good good. now keep ‘em up there.
those of you who implemented at least 10 servers for clients last year…
go right ahead to the vip reception through those doors on the right. a host or hostess will be around to escort you there in proper fashion.
now those of you who implemented at least 5 servers for clients last year…
time for you to head into the reception. a host or hostess will greet you at the door.
and finally…
those of your who implemented at least 1 server for 1 client…
y’all can go on in. try not to trample anybody.
now…
let’s see who’s left.
wow. wowwee wow wow wow.
look at all…those…hands.
so let me ask you a question…
just what kind of business are you?
more to the point…
what in the name of all that is holy & good in this world are you doing with a subscription to the action pack?
you have implemented exactly zero server solutions for anyone. so what do you do? do you advise anyone who is not a relative of yours on system purchases? do you build systems? do you perhaps clean out roller ball mouses for a living, at least?
or are you a construction company? or an engineering firm? or a cabinetry shop?*
guess what? you are in violation of the terms of service of the license agreement for the action pack.
and due to the flagrant nature of the violation…
in which you basically lied when asked whether your primary line of business was recommending, advising or implementing technology systems for other businesses…
your fines are gonna start at 250K smackeroos per software product per installation on any machine you own, rent, lease, or otherwise use in the course of your business’ operations, including employees’ home machines.
of course, all that equipment, software, data & anything else associated with it, including any & all backups will be immediately seized by agents as evidence.
that’s ok tho. you do have hard copies of all your data records, right?
thank you for your participation in the microsoft action pack program. goodbye.
wavy lines
whoa…what a strange dream i just had.
someone…
me, in fact…
was actually trying to identify & validate whether folks were eligible for the partner program…
more specifically, the action pack.
imagine that.
|| posted by chris under it pro, opinion, thumbs down || comments (2) ||
||
