This blog entry has been floating around my head for several weeks. During the SMB Nation conference back in October, I listened to dozens of VARs and managed service providers try to prioritize their social media efforts across Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn and other networks. The more I heard the more I realized MSPs and VARs were focusing on the wrong web problem. Here’s why.

Imagine the following scenario: You’ve got a limited budget for your home. Instead of building a beautiful, engaging home you spend all of your time building roads and driveways that lead to a run-down house that’s the worst piece of real estate in the neighborhood.

Now apply that scenario to VARs and MSPs:

• Internet Roads: FaceBook, LinkedIn and Twitter are roads on the Internet. Those roads should drive traffic and readership back to your Internet home.
• Internet Home: Your Web site is your most important point of presence on the Internet. It’s the home you want everyone to visit.

My key point: A lot of MSPs and VARs have their priorities backwards. They’re building Internet roads before they’ve built or updated their Internet homes. Before you spend a minute on social media sites, call a time out and determine if your company’s own web site is well-designed, informative, fast-loading and meeting visitors’ needs.

Think of it this way:

• Step 1: Get your web site built (or re-built) and running smoothly. Forget everything else (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) until your web site is stellar. Ask your developer 50 times how they plan to search engine optimize the site, and demand examples of sites they’ve developed that are at or near the top of Google search rankings.
• Step 2: Potentially launch a blog (using WordPress, Google or other tools) to promote your press releases, company news and industry observations. Speak with your web site developer to see if you can integrate the blog into your web site. Blogs are greatly search-engine optimized.
• Step 3: Once your web site and/or your blog are in great shape you’re now ready to proceed to a FaceBook, Twitter and LinkedIn social media efforts. Now, speak with your site developer again and ask how your blog entry headlines can automatically flow across FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. Fact is you and your employees don’t have time to continually update your “status” across those social media sites. So automate the process.

Got more questions? I’m happy to answer them. But don’t get caught up in the social media hype until you have a simple, well-designed, informative web site that customers can easily find.

Article by: MSP Mentor

The caption sucked you in didn’t it?  “Drive By Shooting”…it’s a sad commentary on society and the state of art when this kind of story get’s attention but that is the way our MTV, FOX, iPod, Twitter, Facebook, etc. media generated minds work now.  Back to the ‘Drive By’…

The drive south down 99 from Whistler to Vancouver was brilliant.  The sun finally pushed through the five-week canopy of cloud and the curtain opened to five meters of fallen snow in the past 24 days.  Meanwhile, I realised almost immediately that I had fallen into the three most regrettable pitfalls of renting a car. 

Number one: never get into a rental car without you sunglasses.  Granted it is November on the wet coast so a sunny drive on a day forecast for heavy rain wasn’t expected but I own a store that sells three of the coolest brands of sunglasses out there, have shades stashed in back packs, in my glove box (my wife had my truck) and otherwise scatter them in any number of places around my home and office on ledges and window sills where I meant not to forget them…but step into a shiny new Hyundai from Avis…you get the picture.  Note to self, when you get home put a pair of sunglasses in every bag.

Number two: no tunes.  No hook up for my HTC Mp3 phone (no iPod dock…not that I have an iPod), no Bluetooth, no CD’s (although the player is marked clearly ‘MP3′…even Hyundai gets that we burn them)…just the radio.  Mountain FM? God no.  I mean, yes it works, but no.  Enter XM Radio (XM2 actually…do they need 2?).  Leave it to Hyundai to add XM but no jack for auxiliary hook ups…and to add insult to injury they call it a ‘full size’?  They must be made in, well, somewhere with very small people.  XM and I develop an inevitable love hate relationship within minutes.  Every specialty commercial free station you can imagine categorized by music genre, decade, nationality, a million talk stations from comedy to sports to news, even religion (do they still have that?), every station that is except one that is playing a song I want to listen to.  Seek, scan, stop, XM Elvis, 60’s Pop, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s…end of a good song, damn! OFF!!

Finally, the third and hardest to swallow of all rental car pitfalls – especially for hardened Whistler locals like myself who drive full size 4×4, 4 door, Chevy Silverado pick-ups with one of the coolest line ups of stickers ever assembled on a vehicle and, by the way, gets better gas mileage than the Hyundai – the rest stop photo op.  It doesn’t matter how core I am or what hoody I have on or what time my meeting with Patagonia at Granville Island to see the 2010/11 winter line up is (yes, already) when I sit down in a rental car I know I will drop my camera ready to shoot in the passenger seat beside me and be resigned to stop at the first rest stop with a view and take a few shots like every other tourist and be humiliatingly recognized and at the same time welcomed as one of them.  I can’t fight it, or bother to explain to the guys in the big truck – like mine at home – loaded with sleds who are obviously local and only stopped for the call of nature that happens whenever there are more empty cans of Monster than passengers.  I give in to the urge and like a bar star who says she only smokes when she drinks, I pull over and suffer the loss of inner discipline that self righteously drives locals everywhere from interrupting their commute by selfishly enjoying magnificent surroundings like ours…dummies!

The tragic irony of the rental car is that, for me anyways, it is the ultimate excuse and licence to not be cool (except of course for the dorks in Hawaii who insist on renting the Mustang convertibles thinking they are cool).  So my pride intact, I pull up on the Tantalus view-point, grab my camera from the seat beside me, fold myself out of the Hyundai (still squinting from the drive south into the sun…no shades), dressed in my city clothes – black shirt, black jacket, black Vans – and lose myself in the grandeur of this place I am so blessed to call home.  Go ahead, I think to myself, “Screw the cool guy standard…Claim it!” (MSP, In Deep 2009)

The rolling summit due north is a scene straight out of Alaska…’click’…every rock and tree and shadow line a canvas of white beneath the pale blue sky of morning, and down the valley the snow line on the pines is churning in the smokey mist and warmth of the sunlight seen so rarely this time of year…’click, click, click’.  I love the pure imagination of it all…even the digital sound of a shutter release embedded on a chip programmed to echo from the little speaker on my camera to add to the nostalgia of my experience every time I snap a shot like I am Ansel Adams in 1930’something 3 months into a cold winter in Yosemite…brilliant.  Another car drives up and snapped back to reality I wonder for a moment what time it is, put the lens cap back in place and fold myself back into the Hyundai and stop.  I look again through the windshield at the smokey trees…and get back out for a few more…one more for the road.  I laugh to myself and think, ‘I love being a tourist’, and head on down the highway listening to Mountain FM.

It’s awakening to find inspiration in my own time…in my own back yard.  What have you passed by lately? or daily? Is there some place you know you’ve always wanted to stop but never have the time?  (ie. When your on your way to wait 10 minutes in the line at Starbucks or Wal-Mart or London Drugs? – sorry, no line ups there.)  It’s right there outside your window, just a step outside the comfort of your shiny metal box, yes, it’s right there.  Stop.  Just stop. 

(Aside: I would love to hear the stories of the people who just sopped after reading this…) 

Back to the ‘Drive By’…need to hit Vancouver, Granville Island by noon.  Bathroom break in Squamish, resist the ridiculously priced CD’s at Chevron even though they have a copy of ACDC’s Dirty Deeds…where will I ever find that on CD again? Answer; right there, forever…and don’t even think about the shades on the shiny spinny chrome rack thingy on the counter.  Three words, ‘Made In China’, and while I’m at it, why not add one word to that oh so familiar phrase stamped across some ridiculously growing double-digit percentage of our economy that might just sway the buying and manufacturing habits of the western world, ‘communist’.  If every second item you purchased was labelled, ‘Made in Communist China’, would you think twice?  Just a thought.  Two Mocha Monsters for $5.00, an old school chocolate puffed wheat square and I am back on the road.

The drive by shooting begins somewhere on the descent to Stanley Park on the Lion’s Gate Bridge.  I look in the rear view and see the perfect reflection of the suspension towers behind me, the city scape in front just above the mirror, wrap the neck cord of my camera around my wrist – just in case – open the window and fire off a round of black and white’s (I pre-programmed a B+W high res mode on my digi) at arms length out the window from the driver’s seat.  The first shot amazingly catches an oncoming car completely obscuring the city view above the mirror but captures a perfect mirror image of the bridge and the traffic behind.  The next two or three catch the view of downtown Vancouver between the cars, through the suspension cabling, above the tree line of Stanley Park.  Here we go.

I rattle off a few more down West Georgia; homeless guy in the soft focus silhouette of the moving trees (moving @30km/h past Burrard), big sign on the Vancouver Art Gallery, cool soft cover on the back of a Silverado like mine, the underside of the Granville Street Bridge at False Creek, a painting through a wood framed window where I parked, and think to myself, “Drive By Shooting…Drive By”.  Don’t call the MOT (BC Ministry of Transport) for an opinion on this one, don’t even take mine or think what you think I am suggesting (I accept no liability, blah, blah, blah…).  Just think of the possibilities.  We have all done it (haven’t we?).  Eaten a grape at the grocery store, pocketed some cool meaningless trinket, ridden to the store without our helmet, gone into the back country alone…snapped shots from airplane windows, on the bus or train, taken pics of funny road signs, people, other cars, vistas…this is just the natural progression of the art of every day.  It gives new meaning to ‘Street To Peak’ (ha, ha…just thought of that now!).  What better place to get it started (not that I am starting anything) than Street To Peak. 

Imagine you are a tourist today.  Yes, at home or sitting where ever you might be reading this.  How many photos did you take on your last week or two escape to somewhere else?  How many letters and/or post cards  did you write? (Better question – how many did you send?) Did you get out your journal or a pile of napkins and write? and fill more pages than you have in the past six months of the every day?  Imagine you are a geeky tourist in a rental Hyundai with no iTunes, squinting into the sun, drinking Monster Mocha, eating Fish and Chips from Tony’s (the best on Granville Island)  from a box on the passenger seat, searching for a good song on the local radio, snapping photos of the sky on a dark rainy bridge after a day of stopping at view points and rest stops just because life is good and you don’t know for sure when you will ever be here, right here, right now, again.   Imagine if that today was every day.

Where to start?  Wait a minute…before you dust off your SLR, load it in the car and hit the road, don’t miss the point.  (I can see the type A’s and OCD’s packing their sunglasses and CD’s already.)  In the immortal words of Ferris Bueller, “Life moves pretty fast.  If you don’t stop and look around once in a while you could miss it.”

So a week after I sat the Practitioners exam, I get a call in work, telling me that I passed and that my certificate will arrive in the next 2 weeks – RESULT !

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The Dilemma…“I don’t understand computers, and I don’t know what I.T. even stands for anymore, but without it I can’t get anything done. Please just make my network work.” Historically variations of this statement have been a recipe for disaster for many small business owners. What they are really saying is “I’m good at my core business, and technology is a core part of my day-to-day business operations. Do I really need to become an expert to simply utilize what it has to offer?” Hardware, software, networking, and phone companies alike have jumped at the opportunity to implement their latest solution-of-the-day. Each has their own best interest in mind, with little or no concern to how well the solution even fits that particular business. For years, small businesses have been missing the role that larger companies obtain from the CIO. A top down approach to assure that appropriate technology is implemented across the environment.

Can you really outsource your entire IT operation to a single service provider? I have been heavily involved in developing Kaltec’s Managed Data Division to answer this with a resounding “YES”. Unlike most providers who started out in the break/fix IT support realm, we entered the IT arena as an Independent Software Vendor (ISV). We have been developing custom business applications based on Microsoft technology since 1993, and found the implementation phase to be very challenging. Developers (myself included) found that working with IT departments to create an infrastructure robust enough to support the demands of the custom application could be very difficult and bureaucratic. In addition, any issue that arose in any area of the network was – by default – blamed on the newly implemented software for months after the software was rolled out. To survive custom implementations, our team members had to become very good at taking a holistic approach to network infrastructure. This included honing a skill-set of high level configuration of Microsoft Server aspects such as Exchange, SQL Server, Active Directory & Group Policy. It became obvious that the only way to protect ourselves was to be better than our customers at managing their business network.

Our mission to offer a complete, competent IT solution has been a huge undertaking, and there are many aspects to be considered. A key component was to establish a fully managed suite of IT products and services, including a combination of proprietary, branded, and resold technologies. Kaltec works with their customers to build a custom tailored IT package, which is delivered for a predictable monthly fee. This fixed fee concept includes customer support, monitoring, security and patch management. It also has solutions for hardware, procurement, and licensing.

I am often asked, is Managed Services just another word for Outsourcing? After the technology bust, and all the hype surrounding the dangers of outsourcing, naturally the industry had to come up with another term to put everyone at ease. However the key to managed services really lies in the approach. As a general statement, experience, standards, and proactive monitoring are key to delivering a higher level service than businesses can obtain internally.

IT has long been a significant cost to businesses of all sizes. More and more, companies are realizing that; while necessary, IT really plays no role in how profitable your company is. While once a differentiating factor, today the benefits of automation are largely assumed as day to day necessity. To make matters worse, skilled IT employees are notoriously difficult to qualify, train, and retain. (Not to mention expensive!) Compounding this, the intellectual knowledge that IT staff obtains is invaluable – especially when supporting legacy systems is simply a fact-of-life for most businesses. Turning these issues over to a reputable service provider makes a lot of sense when looking at the problem from the top.

One of the most challenging aspects of the Managed IT approach is to avoid commoditizing the service as a whole. To brown-box the service too much means wrapping unique customers into a 1 size fits all container – ignoring the flexibility that is built into today’s systems. I firmly believe that one of the most intriguing aspects of IT is the ability to use common toolkits (known as software) to build custom solutions that make our everyday work experience more productive. Customers love the idea of a fixed fee approach (duh), but we work with them to create a plan that still accommodates enough flexibility to allow us to really improve their IT environment when we see the opportunity. With commodity comes predictability and stability, but the benefits – as well as the value – are typically reduced equally. Walking the line between commodity and cutting-edge is an important aspect, and should not be overlooked whatever role you play in the IT. arena.

Is IT outsourcing via managed services for everyone? The question a business owner needs to ask themselves is “Am I an IT company?” If the answer is no, the money that is spent staffing and supporting your IT department is not an asset. Even if your IT staff is putting in 60 hrs/wk supporting (i.e. breaking and then fixing) your network, they will never become as skilled as someone who is exposed to hundreds of networks in as many industries. In my experience; documentation, procedure, security and data protection derived from tested standards of practice – rather than the latest newbies “great idea” – provide the greatest longevity in a business environment. We are in the state of a paradigm shift on technology, and the days of the IT cowboy are numbered. Looking forward, as industry moves on creating a whole new level of expectations in the technology industry, we as IT providers need to reassess our methods and lead the charge.

Jason Kallevig
Kaltec of Minnesota, Inc.
www.kaltecdatasys.com

DECEMBER

I answered her question in the restaurant that night using a relatively standard method, one which I’ve had cause to use many times in my short life. What I did is I thought, ‘Is there a chance that I’ll regret this?’, and it didn’t take me long, of course, to realise that there was, indeed, a great chance I could have done. So, naturally, I got back with my girlfriend and it almost felt like we’d never been apart. I don’t think I’ve had cause to regret my decision since, and I’m sure that she hasn’t either. In any case, the method I used, of considering things in terms of regret, which I’m quite proud to have thought up, is one I’ve exploited before. It’s the reason, for instance, that I’ve never once smoked a cigarette. I used to tell it to the older boys in school, and they’d be disgusted, and threaten to put it in my mouth and punch me in the stomach and force me to draw breath until I became addicted, or something. Still, I stood firm, and now I’ve nearly finished my dissertation and I’m nearly twenty-one and I still haven’t drawn a single drag of nicotine into my lungs.

Yet, I’ve almost been tempted to take it up, smoking that is, in the last few days, the dying days of this dissertation, just for something to do. It’s not long until the deadline, not long at all, a worryingly short time in fact, yet I still feel like Jack Nicholson putting a terrifying hole in the door (except my hole’s in the ceiling. Maybe all my ideas are falling out through it). Yesterday, when the weather was agreeable, for once, I went outside, carrying a textbook, and nestled the seat of my overcoat into the base of the long wall that runs all around the halls.

I haven’t been outside or seen anyone, except Beth, for days. It felt snug and protected reading there, more snug than I’ve felt for a long time with the wind whistling over the top of the wall, and the change was a welcome one, even though I could be sure I was being watched from the criss-cross of windows running up the building. Eventually it got too cold to read even in the low winter sunlight, and so I stood up and walked along the length of the wall, running my hands along the concrete and feeling its surface’s smooth, comforting shine, new and free of any weathering cracks. I looked out along its slow inward curve, golden in the late afternoon sun, and I was reminded of once, long ago, when I had visited the Whispering Gallery in St. Paul’s Cathedral. With Beth, I had joined the throngs of tourists in standing at opposite sides of the giant, circular marble wall and whispering against it in the vain hope she’d hear on the other side. She’d put her ear theatrically to the marble surface and giggled as I’d reeled off deliberately mundane things like our weekend plans and my shopping list. I’d then made her gasp in genuine shock as I throatily stage-whispered all kinds of dirty things for all the tourists to hear. An American mother had pulled her child from the wall with an angry look and Beth’s eyes had sparkled across the hall at me.

Now, absorbed, I lowered my head to the wall and listened carefully, almost expecting to hear again all those tourists’ lives played out in the busy, frenetic free-flow of whispered information. My ears pricked in shock as they made contact with the grey concrete. But of course, there was nothing: only silence. I spoke a few quiet words and they fell dead against the grey stone. The air was cold now, too, so cold, in fact, that after standing paralysed for a moment with my head still pressed against the wall, I was forced to lift myself up, shove my hands back into my deep overcoat pockets and head back for the safety of indoors.

I haven’t made much progress with the work since then but my ideas are much clearer, and I know that with time I can knuckle down and make something out of them.

The temperatures plummeted last night, so I knew that another walk outside was out of the question for today. It was a good day. I really set my affairs in order and I really am quite clear now what I want to write.

There was a little incident this evening which broke up the monotony of work, for a while. I was tapping the chewed-up wet nib of my ink pen onto the base of my desk light; one of those touch-lamps, so as I did it the light became dim, bright, brighter, then clicked off. Then again, dim, bright, brighter, off, dim again, bright, brighter, then darkness, bouncing a strobe effect off the walls that was hypnotizing to watch.

Eventually, this attracted the attention of a small fly. It flew in through the crack of open window that I’d left to air the room: they always find the cracks. It began circling the lamp as I played with my pen, and the whole time I was secretly watching the movements of the circling fly; this fly would occasionally land, on the piles of strewn-up paper, sweet wrappers, dirty tissues, teabags, scratched-off beer labels and chewed-up pens I had gathered around me over the past few weeks, but always jump off again too quickly for me to take action. It was as if it was afraid to land on the pulsating light, instead spiralling closer and closer without ever touching it. I stopped the cycle on the brightest setting and the fly landed. The hundred watt bulb blazed through the shade. I saw red. The feeling was bizarre and unexpected. This was my chance. Slowly, agonisingly, the fly lifted its wings and hopped the short distance onto the very top of the lampshade. There was a muted echo of a buzz. I silently lifted the textbook in my hand high into the air and with grace and style, at last brought it crashing down upon the offender.

With a sudden flash of light and a deafening pop the lampshade crumpled and the bulb exploded, strewing broken glass across my notes and into my washing, interspersing with the piles of junk with which I had learned to surround myself and spraying in glittering shards across my carpet. I was plunged into a darkness that was almost complete, save for the streetlamps that lit the quad casting an orange glow on my ceiling that my eyes gradually adjusted to see. The dust settled, and I saw that the fly was dead. I sat there, and I looked carefully at the mess that I had made, in the half-light, for a few minutes, and then it dawned on me that I had shards of glass on my pyjamas. I went into the communal kitchen to clear myself up, and, sighing, made myself a fresh cup of tea. The old one probably had glass in the bottom.

I feel so helpless. It looks as if I’ll have to work without a desk lamp until the dissertation’s finished. And there’s no time to ask anybody to fix the ceiling hole, either. The nightmares have been getting worse. But I’m pouring myself into my work, at least for now. It seems like the most sensible thing to do under the circumstances. I can only faintly trust a larger hope that seems so hopelessly out of reach: that I’ll finish, and everything will get fixed and work out, and I’ll be home in time for Christmas so I can cook and bake and break bread with my family as if none of this term ever happened. Maybe that’s already true. I feel like I can hardly remember any of it as it is.

By Andrea McCallum

PLANS are underway to lower the Scottish drink-driving limit to make it less than south of the border.

Pub-goers would break the law driving after two pints under new rules which would see the 80mg per 100ml of blood limit dropped to 50mg.

The new rules would restrict drinking motorists to a pint of lager or large glass of wine.

Ministers in London are being urged to change the legal limit by the SNP who have no power to change the road traffic law.

The idea for the change comes after Northern Ireland environment minister Edwin Poots said he wanted the legal limit slashed.

SNP Highlands and Islands MSP David Thompson, who has campaigned on the issue, said: “The UK government has claimed in the past that Scotland’s limit could not be changed because it would be wrong to have different limits in different parts of the UK.

“That argument has been blown out of the water by Northern Ireland’s decision.

“If the UK government won’t do it, they should pass the powers to Holyrood as soon as possible. Saving lives is too important for parties to play political games.”

The Republic of Ireland Transport Minister Noel Dempsey said the legal limit there would be lowered by the end of this year.

If successful, the UK and Malta would be the only nations in the EU with a higher drink-drive limit.

See more of our pictures at our Flickr site and videos at our dedicated channel,  Deadline TV.

Day 5 and I was so glad to pass yesterday that my head wasn’t quite into doing the homework last night. I did it, but reluctantly. Today had a 2 1/2 hr rather strange multiple choice exam. Multiple choice on steroids u could say. 9 main questions, with multiple sub-questions all leading to some multiple choice answers – hopefully correct ones. I used up the whole time given.

I’ll have to wait 3-4wks to get the results, a 50% pass mark this time, so hopefully I have made it, nice Christmas present hopefully !

I should also find out about the PM outsourcing that is going on in work next week, as well as what Programmes I’ll be working on. As an PM team, we would benefit so much from using MSP, would u beleive that we have PM Centre of Excellence !

More to follow when I get back on Monday, now some family time !

It may come as a surprise to some people, but food is quite the delicacy. This is a fact that my associate David and I take to heart. Every where we go we are looking for the best; whether it is coffee, tea, pasta, meat, or even churros.

With this being said while surfing the web the other day I ran across this online forum post where people gave their vote for best pizza in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area (including the surrounding metro). Upon mentioning this forum to David we decided to take this as a challenge, and thus “The Quest” was conceived.

Throughout the next few months David and I will be traveling around the MSP metro to find the best pizza around. We will be rating in many different categories such as: sauce, ingredients, and overall taste. As well as finding different styles: Neapolitan, Chicago, New York, Thin, etc. Everything we find will be blogged here whether good or bad.

David and I currently believe that nothing can beat Punch Pizza, but we are open to other options. It is also to be stated that if we deem a place to be subpar the night shall be redeemed by making a quick Punch run.

Before you get all uppity and say, “Well that sure is pretentious of you to think that two college students can declare anything ‘the best of.’” Well in that you will be right we are quite the pretentious duo, but we do try to be as subjective as possible. Each of us has had our fair share of the different styles and feel that we have the experience to back up our claims. Everything we post here on the blog will be our opinions, and although our opinions are right we reserve the right to allow you to be wrong.

Come follow us and enjoy “The Quest,” and of course if you have any suggestions of where we should go please do leave us a comment.

Ok, first the good news – I passed the Foundation exam with 80% and I’m well chuffed with myself. Highest score that I’ve had so far, thankfully at the right time. All of the class passed one guy managed 96% -swat !
Practitioners 2.5hr exam tomorrow afternoon, although I won’t get the results until just before Christmas.
I’m hoping that I’ll be given the chance to apply some of what I’ve learnt when I get back to work- whoever I work for ! IBM or Unilever !!

Day 2 finished with me feeling a bit down and anxious with the first exam less than 24hrs away. So never beaten easily, and after a further 4hrs of studying I did another mock exam against the clock and thankfully I passed, giving me a more positive feeling. Sadly that didn’t mean I had a good nights sleep, room was very warm, and my fellow guests extremely noisey, ignorant and selfish, talking at normal levels at 5am !

I spoke to my wife and son last night. While Gill was bathing Cameron last night he asked when Dad was coming home as he was missing me, how sweet, I’m realling looking forward to getting home to them….. and if I don’t pass today’s exam, I’ll be sent home ! I need to pass the exam, to have nothing to show for all of this effort would not be good, I WILL BE POSITIVE ……

Off to breakfast then a quick look at my books/notes.

The next post will be me saying that I’ll still be here tomorrow.

Homework last night was to review a chapter and to read another with then 2 mock exams.
First exam 70% second exam less than 60% so I will not be here on Friday. This seems to be normal, need to focus more somehow !!

Ok so day 1 has finished, not too bad. Got drenched walking from the train station, luckily it was only 5 mins walk. The course started at 9:30 and they had provided coffee and toast – nice touch ! I was very surprised at the large percentage of NHS people on the course, around 8/12 are from the NHS. I did my homework and a mock exam from Thu 68% after day one isn’t too bad, I’ll try to get up early and do some more revision before the 9am start.

I’m staying at the Park Plaza, another 5 mins walk away thankfully, how come a hotel in a city centre in this day and age doesn’t provide free wi-fi ?

More tomorrow….

I’m travelling by train from home to Leeds to attend a week long Managing Successful Programmes (MSP) course run by Remarc.
I’ve done my pre-reading requested, colour-tabbed the 258 page course book, brought my photo-id to prove that I am who I say I am, so let the learning commence.
A few of my colleagues in work have done this course recently, the biggest issue seems to be forget how you do this Programme Management activities today, (for this week at least !) and go with the book. Also as where I work doesn’t have a defined Programme Management process, some of the examples that I may have to give, may not be in keeping with what Remarc are trying to teach me from an MSP way of delivering.

I’ll update this MSP part of the blog at least once a day, maybe more often this week but it depends on how I get through the alledged 3hrs of homework a night that I hear I can look forward to – yippee !

Mi-a fost oferita posibilitatea de a participa la Sinergija ‘09. Multumesc Carmen.

Asa ca ma voi bucura de aceasta oferta, voi pleca la Beograd intre 17 si 19 noiembrie pentru acest eveniment.
Urmeaza deci, cel putin un articol tehnic.
Totusi, cum nu am mai fost la Beograd pana acum, probabil si altceva, o fotografie interesanta (sau poate chiar o plescavita sarbeasca adevarata ).

Patch exploration with jit.grab, as well as AI behavior, keyframe calling.

Patch 1: Creature Tracker patch: Video screen tracks and follows motion from camera input. (In Gallery below, listed as creature_movement…*.png)

Patch 2: Mood_Movement patch: Combining patches to allow for motion tracking by “creature” with Jeff’s patch allowing for specific key frames to be called based upon volume level of audio input. (In Gallery above, listed as mood_movement…*.png)

Herbs - Citydirt.net

By Jennifer Flett

MSPs showed their support outside Scottish Parliament yesterday as members of the National Institute of Medical Herbalists, concerned constituents and herbal medicine students gathered for a mass lobby.

Under a new EU directive (THMPD) after April, 2011 the public will only be able to buy licensed herbal remedies, which campaigners say, limits the range of medicine people can acquire, at the same time compromising their safety if they then look online for alternatives and possibly poor quality products.

In an attempt to highlight the need for statutory regulation of traditional medicine practitioners, lobbyists wore period Henry VIII costumes.

Their eye-catching costumes were a new ploy to generate more public and media interest, Keren Brynes MacLean from The Kirkcaldy Herbal Clinic who donned one costume said,

“We’re coming at it from a slightly different angle with the Henry theme, you would never expect Henry VIII to turn up at the Scottish Parliament!”

“The 16^th century monarch set up a Herbalists Charter as a starting point of an alternative health care system which is now largely outdated and the period costumes are to put the message across that legislation needs to be modernised”

One herbal medicine student, Alison Baird, from Edinburgh Napier University stated that,

“ At the moment anyone can call themselves herbal medicine practitioners, we need our MSP’s to put more pressure on Government to regulate herbal practitioners and to become integrated into the health care system.

Members of the society believe statutory regulation would allow the public to have the opportunity to access prescription herbs by properly trained practitioners and that without access to a full range of remedies the market will collapse due to a lack of business.

MSPs, came down to speak to campaigners frequently throughout the day to answer constituents’ questions on what government will do for their cause

Shadow Health Secretary, Mary Scanlon explained;

“ I don’t feel that the Save Our Herbs Campaign have communicated effectively with politicians as I don’t know enough about the cause.”

In order to address this problem Scanlon suggested an organised reception with other MSPs.

Campaigner MacLean said of the decision that she thinks they have showed themselves to be,  “a cohesive body of professionals, with a lot of public interest.”

The final consultation ran by the Department of Health will be held on the 16^th November to find out whether people think traditional medicine practitioners should be regulated, or not.

Few weeks ago, when I published the article “The Future of IT”, I was planning to write something about technology.

But, as most bookworms turned practitioners, I know that a white page is tempting.

Most writings about the future are actually the typical side-effect of an attempt to find order within chaos- notably when it is an unknown chaos that you are trying to describe.

This article is published in four parts (no more than 1000 words each).

Of course, I tried to keep it readable- no more than 150 to 250 words per section.

This is the third article: starting.

IT systems are obviously not a one-size-fits-all. The current trend is toward standardization, and this chapter will summarize some current trends and issues. The common thread? Tailoring the response to the needs (and budgets), while allowing future expansion.

This is just a summary.

Please read the full article
here

Few weeks ago, when I published the article “The Future of IT”, I was planning to write something about technology.

But, as most bookworms turned practitioners, I know that a white page is tempting.

Most writings about the future are actually the typical side-effect of an attempt to find order within chaos- notably when it is an unknown chaos that you are trying to describe.

This article is published in four parts (no more than 1000 words each).

Of course, I tried to keep it readable- no more than 150 to 250 words per section.

This is the fourth article: itinerary.

You have read about my target future and the present. How do we move from the present to the future? It depends from where you are now. Therefore, I will outline an example, i.e. monitoring online positioning, that could inspire other applications.

This is just a summary.

Please read the full article
here

So my launchpad is not here yet. It seems it’s in store worldwide from 2 Nov, except Italy. Maybe Italy it’s not part of the world, or Novation is not from this world. By the way, I’m so excited about this device that I can’t stop my compulsive need to look around for it and its applications. So, here we go with my favourites!

Nonome, the Monome emulator

With all the protocol under the sun, it was just a matter of days. And infact Peter at Create Digital Music informs us that Piclae made ( and it’s currently updating quite often ) a cool Monome emulator for the Launchpad. It seems most apps run smootly ( the major problem seems to be 7up ), and you can choose your favourite colour too! And if you’re guessing it, yes, you can keep your Ableton modes while using it!

via Create Digital Music

Download Nonome application and updates’ log, monome.org forum

Below a video of Piclae showing us a Launchpad running Flin, and Sunup, a song performed in mlr by Thomas Piper

OSC Wrapper, programming made easy

This is my favourite one! It’s a simple app by Will Crossland which translates the MIDI communication with the Launchpad into OSC. So, the 12 pages of  the protocol are reduced to 2 simple messages, /press and /led! The program lets you use 8 different “layers” to address 8 applications for each Launchpad. And yes, yes… you keep your out-of-the-box Ableton modes too! The application is made in Max/MSP, but only for the communication’s buses. All the code is placed inside a Javascript file, which everyone can modify to his needs. Cool stuff, cool stuff.

via Create Digital Music

Free download Wac.Launchpad handler

The nice part is that Will decided to use the approach of monome’s protocol due to its logical simplicity:

“The Monome OSC protocol is clearly well thought and well suited to addressing a 2D grid so why reinvent the wheel?”

I can’t agree more. And it would be cool to have a unified protocol for every grid controller! It seems like Monome’s users don’t like the Launchpad too much, but I think that both devices ( and think of Livid Instruments’ Block and Ohm64, too ) are simply different forms of the same concept. Monome’s succesful work is about faith in a concept that big names rejected at first. I personally don’t think a grid of back-lit buttons is any kind of invenction you can patent, and that talking about “stolen ideas” is inappropriate in this context. Concepts belong to people who are using that stuff, the wonderful community behind Monome for example. Now the family is extended, and I’ll be happy to see a common language, and people sharing their work, in the name of a common evolution. Will’s choice seems a good start in this direction!

Custom Max controller and Max4Live porting of  Monome’s apps is ispiring

Surfin’ around YouTube brought me to this Max/MSP application which makes the Launchpad a custom controller! I can’t understand exactly the features, I don’t understand the language, but it seems he made pages of presets’ grids mixed with slider controllers, which makes sense in many ways, like if your using it with your favourite synthesizer or for some kind of experimental generative application!

And you know, Max4Live public beta is started and people are having fun! So check out these Max4Live ports of Polygome and StepFilter by Stretta! It will not be difficult to adapt these to the Launchpad, expecially now that we have our OSC wrapper!

via max for live blog by nick rothwell

and

So, what can I say… Maybe it’s better I come back to my wavelet’s book, waiting for the time I can press some buttons!

O Masp inicia mostra do Escultor e Artista francês – Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) até o dia 13.12.09.

Serão expostas 22 esculturas de marmore e de bronze, bem como aprox.200 fotos dos bastidores do estudio do artista, demonstrando sua rotina entre 1880/1910.

Vale a pena conferir, o programa é barato para os níveis de São Paulo, custa só R$ 15,00.