Monthly Archive for May, 2010

An Open Letter to the Windows Live Spaces Team

Published on May 24, 2010 in Computers and Internet. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Dear Windows Live Spaces Team,

Back in August 2005, I decided to start writing blog posts. When looking for a blog platform at that time, I investigated Live Journal, but decided upon using Windows Live Spaces (or MSN Spaces as it was called back then) as it was very easy to setup a blog, and Spaces seemed to have plenty of features.

Since that time, I estimate I’ve written over 500 blog posts, and have built up a modest but loyal following of readers and contributors – many of whom leave comments – of which I am always flattered to have received. Those readers don’t need to take the time to give me feedback, and so I appreciate them doing so.

Like all modern communication platforms, I’ve been inconvenienced by spam – comments with links to spurious sites with products that no sane individual is interested in buying.

On the whole though, this spam has been manageable, a few comments here and there, easily removed to avoid inconveniencing or inadvertently insulting visitors to my blog.

However, over the past few months I’ve seen a horrible trend where my blog (and others hosted on Live Spaces) have been targeted by wholesale comment spam from a specific company – Batteryfast.

We’re not talking just a few spam comments either, over the past few months I’ve had to clear up one or more spam comments from this same company to almost every blog post I’ve ever written – so we’re talking thousands of spam comments, taking a very long time to clean up. My heart now sinks when I realise my blog has been attacked in this way – it’s a massive inconvenience.

Members of the Windows Live Spaces Team – surely, on a platform as mature of Live Spaces, you could find a way to block such obvious spam from such persistent offenders?

To users of Windows Live Spaces, in your “Blog Options” settings, you give a single setting to control Blog comments. Allow or Don’t Allow.

I can therefore turn blog comments off, but then I lose the whole two way communication channel with my readers.

Surely there is a method to only allow comments from Live ID’s, or to check for such obvious spam from such persistent nuisances?

Even your “Report abuse” button takes you to a complicated form – why not make it easy for your loyal end-users to report a frustrating situation, not make it more frustrating for them with dozens of questions?

Searching the Help function on Live Spaces for advice on fighting spam is no better – a search for “spam” yields zero results.

As for www.batteryfast. (com) (uk) (au) – investigation shows that Batteryfast has web-sites in the UK and Australia, but is (no surprises here) ran by a Chinese company – Shenjun of Guangdong, and run through a German registrar – Key-Systems.net

I’m sure this will fall on deaf ears, but to the people at Batteryfast and Key-Systems.net – whilst you are clearly fraudulent losers for having to *repeatedly* turn to spam for business, have you ever considered just what low-life’s you appear to be by spamming a genuinely personal blog article such as this one?

Getting back to Windows Live Spaces Team. Colleagues and peers keep telling me to dump the Live Spaces platform and head across to WordPress or another blogging platform. This is increasingly looking like the best option for me, but before I make that decision, I wanted to give you the chance to respond, as I’ve been a Live Spaces user for over 5 years, love to the Live Tool Suite as a whole, and as the owner of a business that is a committed Microsoft partner, would love to continue to be a raving fan in this way rather than migrating to another platform from a competing company.

Windows Live Spaces Team – can’t we please do something about the comments spam? Please?

 

I Am Worth It – Helping fight for funding against Kidney Cancer

Published on May 21, 2010 in Personal. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , .

Back in 2008, my company embarked on a series of a Press Releases in the West Midlands area, aimed at raising our profile across the business community. Part of that process was having some photographs taken to use in the various publicity shots – and like most people, everyone in the office (myself included) felt uncomfortable having their photographs taken!

We were fortunate enough then, that our photographer, a lovely chap by the name of Paul Vokes, was patient, witty and ultimately, helped get some great shots of us for use in press releases that were featured heavily in the local press! We have really fond memories of the day that Paul and his daughter, Grace (pictured below) came to visit us to take some photographs, putting everyone at ease and having some fun with us, and I personally am very grateful for the boost he gave my fledgling business.

I was therefore really saddened to hear the terrible news earlier this month, that Paul had been diagnosed with Kidney Cancer, and that he might only have a short time to live.

Paul has been diagnosed with Papillary Kidney Cancer, a rare form of cancer, which has now spread to his lymph nodes and lungs. This is no cure for this form of cancer, but there is a drug available that can delay the spread of the tumours.

The price of the drugs is £3000 every six weeks, which have been deemed not cost effective. In Paul’s words, his local Primary Care Trust have taken the view that Paul is not worth it.

We disagree. We’ve helped Paul to setup a web-site entitled “I Am Worth It” which you can find at www.iamworthit.co.uk, where you can learn more about Paul and his daughter, Grace, donate towards the treatment of Paul’s drugs and help stop the cancer from progressing.

Paul’s aim initially is to raise £9000 which will help Paul see his daughter Grace’s 5th Birthday in October.

You can help Paul too – please make a donation via www.iamworthit.co.uk , spread the word about Paul’s web-site by posting to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, connect with Paul on LinkedIn, and visit Paul’s web-site regularly to read his dairy.

We don’t often have chance to do something as wonderful as helping to prolong a life. But today, for however long, the greatest gift for Paul is time.

Upgrading Microsoft Office 2010 Beta to Final Release

Published on May 14, 2010 in Computers and Internet. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

I’ve been fortunate enough to work closely with Microsoft as part of the Microsoft Office 2010 Beta program, helping a number of our clients deploy Microsoft Office 2010 very early on so both we and our clients can both understand deployment, troubleshooting and compatibility challenges before the final version of the software is released.

Well, the final version of Microsoft Office 2010 has indeed released recently, and so we’re now looking at upgrading all those Beta copies we deployed, both internally and at client sites, to the final release version.

The good news, Microsoft Office 2010 is pretty cool! It’s got many features that have that a similar “wow” factor as Windows 7 did – and there are plenty of instructional and demonstrative videos across at www.microsoft.com/office that you can use to learn about Office 2010.

The bad news, there doesn’t seem to be an upgrade path from Office 2010 Beta to the Final release. Try to install Office 2010 Final over the top of Beta and you get this error.

Sometimes however (or always in the cases I’ve seen recently) – removing Microsoft Office 2010 Beta and then attempting the 2010 Final install routine again simply doesn’t fix the problem.

So how do you fix it?

Well, firstly make sure that you’ve removed *all* Microsoft Office 2010 applications – not just the main Office 2010 suite. Applications such as Project 2010 Beta and Visio 2010 Beta can cause the error. Final versions of these products are now available, so it makes sense to replace them anyway.

Next, reboot. You wont be prompted to, but we’ve found rebooting after an un-installation can make all the difference in successfully installing Office 2010 Final.

Finally, if all else fails – download the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility and run that to remove any traces of a failed un-install from the PC. Reboot, then try again. In all the cases we’ve tried thus far, this has allowed an Office 2010 Final installation.

I’d be interested to know *why* there wasn’t a clear upgrade path from the Beta to Final version, as I can tell you from experience that it’s a laborious and time consuming process to remove the Beta and prepare the PC for upgrade to the Final release – it’d nice to see early adopters of technology (especially where they’ve been encouraged directly by Microsoft to do so) not inconvenienced in this way.

I’ll go hunting for answers and let you know of my findings!

 

Meet the AMITPRO Group Leads – Guy Gregory & Andy Parkes

Published on May 9, 2010 in News for MSP's. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

I’ve mentioned before the amazing job Guy Gregory and Andy Parkes have done with the AMITPRO group since they took over as co-group leads earlier this year.

If you aren’t familiar with AMITPRO, it’s the Association of Midlands IT Professionals, and started out as a User Group for Microsoft Small Business Specialists where you can meet vendors and share ideas with your Peers.

I had an opportunity to catch-up with Andy and Guy at the Microsoft Regional Partner Briefing in Birmingham this week, and asked them to record some short video footage with me to explain who they are, where they work, and what AMITPRO is.


Andy Parkes of iBIT

Guy Gregory of Peak Support

The next AMITPRO meeting is Tuesday 11th May, 2010 at The Arden Hotel in Solihull. You can find out more at the AMITPRO web-site.

As I said in my presentation at the Microsoft Regional Partner Briefing last week, it’s groups like AMITPRO that have had a direct impact on my own ability to grow my business and find new opportunities. If you’ve never been to a user group meeting before, I strongly encourage you to check it out – at worst you’ll have a few beers with some really friendly peers, but trust me, you’ll more likely come away with some great business ideas that will help you grow your business!

Why it pays to always remember to say “Thank-You!”

Published on May 7, 2010 in Personal Development and Health. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

Thank-You Note for every languageI’m fortunate enough to be in a position where people, many of them strangers or acquaintances who only know me through my blog or Twitter account, e-mail me to ask for my advice on challenges they are facing, or asking for an introduction to someone I know.

I always get a warm fuzzy feeling from these requests, as it’s nice to think that I’m someone that people would think of as helpful and approachable in this way.

I’ve started to become aware though, that after I’ve helped some of these individuals – I don’t hear from them again until the next time they ask me for a favour. No thank-you, no appreciative notes, no acknowledgement.

Contrast that attitude with those people who in return for my help, have not only said thank-you to me by telephone or e-mail, but have also taken the time to send me a hand-written note or thank-you card in the post to express their regards.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m happy to help, and I genuinely wouldn’t think twice about helping any of the people who didn’t say thank-you if they contacted me again.

But consider – which of these two types of people is more likely to be forefront in my thoughts on a daily basis, am I more likely to keep my antennae up looking for opportunities or introductions for – those that I know really appreciate my help and take the time to let me know that, or those that it would seem may be too busy to say thank-you, but not too busy to ask for my help in the first place.

Always remember to say “Thank-You!”

Keep those e-mails coming! :-)