January 29, 2010
The voting in Microsoft’s kickass R2 Haiku contest ends today. My entry about DirectAccess ended up being one of the nine finalists, which means I’m still in the running.
So if you don’t mind, take a second to hop over to the voting page and toss a vote my way.
To vote, just click the VOTE button under my entry (shown above). Login to Twitter when prompted, and then check that it recorded your vote by turning the VOTE button blue. Easy peasy.
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December 4, 2009
Tomorrow at 4p EST in the Georgia Dome (broadcast on CBS), the Crimson Tide and the Florida handbags will crown the SEC champion, and effectively determine the NCAA national champion as well.
To commemorate the occasion, from the home office in Gordo, Alabama, the top 10 reasons the University of Florida picked their colors…
10. Glare completely hides Gainesville from human sight.
9. Who wouldn’t want to look like a walking box of Frosted Flakes?
8. Florida had the last pick in the SEC, right after LSU.
7. Makes UF fans more visible during drive-by shootings.
6. Acts like camoflauge to NCAA refs. Especially when holding, late-hitting, or eye-gouging.
5. Bobbled catches look like completions against that eye-warping background of orange and blue.
4. If they’re good enough for Clorox, they’re good enough for people who choose to live in a swamp.
3. Figured the Oregon Ducks could use some competition for “Lamest Uniform” award.
2. Color-blind friendliness means they care about inclusiveness for their inbred fanbase and alumni.
and finally…
1. Helps Florida players feel right at home in prison orange.
|| posted by chris under game, kma, shoutout || comments (1) ||
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September 11, 2009
|| posted by chris under epiphany, nostalgia, rx, thumbs down || comments (1) ||
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August 27, 2009
Lo and behold, the 20% off MS exam discounts were supposed to have ended as of today.
But they haven’t. At least, not yet. Here’s the reason why…
Basically, the “Gear To Get Your Butt In Gear” giveaway being held at the Funcave drove a whole heaping bunch of interest in the 20% off discounts. So much so that it broke the Vouch-O-Matic that was issuing the discounts AKA the existing stock of 20% discounts that had been loaded were completely exhausted.
MS Learning decided to extend the 20% exam discounts one more day. Once the Vouch-O-Matic gets loaded back up, I’ll be back to issuing vouchers for the areas that still have active, outstanding requests.
If you want to get in on the discounts, this is really, honestly and truly the very last time you’ll have to partake of that sweet 20% discount action. So jump over to the Funcave giveaway page and get the survey filled out ASAP to get your place in line.
|| posted by chris under business, community, freebie, it pro, time || comments (3) ||
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August 26, 2009
Last week, I had the good fortune to attend CMP’s XChange’09 event in Washington, DC. As a vendor-centric show, this kind of event gives solution providers like my company the opportunity to see new offerings from various vendors, give feedback, and forge business relationships that can mutually benefit our companies.
But this year, one of the initiatives taking place during XChange’09 really made me, and a whole lot of others, sit up and take notice.
CMP Media partnered with Microsoft and the Framsyn Initiative to sponsor Channel@Work, a program that sponsored a large group of young people from all over the country who expressed an interest in IT careers to attend XChange. The goal was to give them an opportunity to be mentored by industry veterans, and give them a boost into the IT field.
Activities included team-building, computer-building, direct interaction with executives from IT companies, and the ability to engage with the rest of us delegates. At breakfast one morning, I got a chance to talk with a young man named Che. He told me about his job as a junior network administrator, the kinds of things he’s learned how to do from that job, and his goals for the future. I talked to him about the importance of keeping both his resume and skillset current, of picking and choosing certification exams that give the most options for huim in the future, and the importance of learning not just a given product release, but really understanding the underlying concept about how and why something works.
As part of this program, these young people were working toward completing Microsoft’s 70–653 exam TS: Windows Small Business Server 2008, Configuring, which earns not only an MCTS, but also a Small Business Specialist designation. Both of those achievements will immediately give those young people value to potential solution provider employers like me who focus on the SMB segment.
When the video above was played during the ARC awards dinner on the final evening of XChange’09, I was literally moved to tears. Seeing those kids so eager to learn and hungry for knowledge took me back to when I first started my IT career, and it made me remember how thankful I was and still am to all the people who first believed in me and gave me an opportunity in the industry, within which I’ve thrived for the last 15 years.
I truly believe that if the IT industry is to improve as a whole, it will come from mentoring programs like Channel@Work and others like it convincing young people that an IT career is one that can offer them the kind of fulfilling, rewarding life’s work that we all hope to find, and giving them the initial opportunity to find success.
|| posted by chris under business, freebie, hardware, it pro, media, more cowbell, nostalgia, rx, shoutout, thumbs up, travel, webcast || comments (4) ||
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