A little birdie known as Microsoft Partner Program dropped this package at my door step

In it I have a lovely3×6′ banner proclaiming that I am a Microsoft Small Business Specialist. That’s not as obnoxious as my 4×8′ Vista launch tour banner though.

I also got a DVD named “Windows Foundation Server 2008R2″. I decided to investigate what it is.

After all, I just got some seriously nice hardware (two quad xeon 3.66Ghz IBM x366 servers with a 6-drive SAS array and 8GB RAM) and can finally play with 64-bit applications.

I ran into one interesting road block when I tried to find pricing for this product. It’s not really available in any form except as when purchased from an OEM such as Dell or HP.

I knew it would be cheap, but Dell is selling this for $279.

Let me give you an idea what a tremendous value this product is. It is a full-featured and mostly unrestricted Windows 2008 Server product that can host any Windows Server application.

Most Microsoft products require what are known as CALs (client access licenses). This product, priced at an incredible $279, comes with 15 built-in CALs.

Here is what it costs to get a Windows Server 2008 for 15 users through other means.

Windows Server 2008 Standard (5 CAL) - $726
Windows Server 2008 CALs (10 users) – $300

Grand total for Windows Server 2008 – $1026

Small Business Server 2008 Standard (5 CALs) – $952
Small Business Server 2008 (10 CALs) – $674

Grand total for SBS 2008 Standard – $1626

As you can see, Windows Foundation Server 2008R2 is a tremendous value. It’s about $1026 worth of technology available for less than $300 when you buy a new low-end server.

It has some minor limitations (supports single socket CPU although it will support all cores if you have a quad-core chip, it can’t have more than 15 users, there is the limit of 30 SMB concurrent connections, can’t have children or be a child, and a few other restrictions), but businesses with fewer than 15 users are ideally positioned to use this product.

Personally, I love the SBS product. I have been selling  and supporting it for over a decade now. Microsoft hit the jackpot with the SBS 2003 release. It is a not a very cheap product and many things can go wrong if an unqualified person attempts to make some changes.

Now, however, my advice to microbusinesses is to reduce complexity. Get the Foundation Server so all your workstations start to talk to each other in the domain, and add Exchange and Sharepoint services hosted by Microsoft Online Services. This way the business owner can keep relatively manageable services on-site, but things that require substantial expertise such as Sharepoint and Exchange can be handled by experts.

Microsoft calls it the Business Productivity Online Suite.

While a complete description of what BPOS is deserves its own article, in a nutshell you pay $10/mo/user and Microsoft hosts your Exchange and Outlook services.

Want to try Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite? It’s free for 30 days and no credit card is required.

I loved auditioning for Season 5 in Seattle

My episode featuring Los Angeles and Seattle auditions originally aired on 5/28/09 at 8pm local time.

During the course of filming, I have met some amazing people and witnessed how a major TV show gets produced. I keep secrets well. To the best of my knowledge, no one leaked anything about tonight’s battle.

I would like to thank you for watching the episode featuring me vs. Sex in a dramatic dance-off battle.

I hope you found it as hilarious as I did when the producer suggested it would be fun to shoot.

At the time I initially declined the offer, that was a genuine non-staged answer. It took a little bit of convincing (more…)

Your humble cell phone now has the power to connect you with every one of your business contacts without awkwardness or annoying them, regardless of how long ago you last communicated.

What happens to the business cards we get at networking events?

Admit it, most of us barely stay in touch after we meet at such events. Now that Twitter is fast becoming a mainstream communications tool, it is likely that the person whom you just met already has an account. It may not be an active account and she may be wondering (more…)

On my 1280×1024 screen, Twhirl fits 13 messages at a time. TweetDeck and other tools like it show even fewer messages.

TweetDeck fits only 9 messages per screen, for example

The mobile device clients can handle maybe 7 messages or maybe even fewer. PockeTwit is 4 messages, Twikini is 5 messages.  If you continually fill that space with filler content or (more…)

If you have been following my Twitter stream for a while, you may have noticed I that exclusively use bit.ly for my links

If you were especially paying attention, you also noticed that I sometimes replace the Tinyurl and is.gd links with bit.ly links when I re-tweet someone’s interesting thoughts and links. I also use #hashtags extensively when I either produce or re-tweet content.

In fact, every single link in this article is a bit.ly link.

Click to Re-Tweet about this article to your friends

Why would I go through all this trouble?

Because most URL shortening services do not (more…)

Twitter Hashtags bring you new followers highly interested in your subject

What are hashtags

Hashtags are words on Twitter prefixed with the # character. Just as @ has a special meaning, so does #. I can write “I like to listen to music”. That will show up a Twitter search if I look for music. I can also write “I like to listen to #music”. This will show up only for a search for #music.

We use #hashtags to tag specific bits of information on Twitter to make it easier to find. For example, I like to post pre-sale password information about upcoming concerts. Others like to talk about #fashion #business and everyone’s favorite (more…)

Readers are more likely to click on creative profile names

Are you more likely to click on someone who is R1Rider, StarDancer, or blonde1985? The first two names tell us something interesting about the account holder. R1Rider very likely enjoys riding her Yamaha R1 bike. StarDancer is unlikely to be a wall-flower. What does a name like Blonde1985 tell us?

It suggests the person linked to this name is likely to be as generic as the name.

I ran a quick search as both genders between 25-30 years old near my zip code.

Men’s names that stood out: bayareahiker510 – defines activity in the name, mrwallstreet007 – self-explanatory, good_bunz – makes you wonder, reapingtheshadow – dark and mysterious, caveman4sale – funny, AndyMBA83 – suggests business as one of his primary interests, MixedArtist80 – likes art.

Let us look at women’s name choices: katsalamode – cats served with ice cream sounds fun, macgirl88 – somewhat generic but tells us she’s passionate about macs, asimplemelody – probably likes music.

That is it out of 30 people of each gender. The rest were generic names.

Take the time and come up with a creative name. I recommend including character description or activity as part of your name. Run searches as if you were searching for yourself and assess your competition.

An online dating username is a window into your world

It is a search term to be fed into the likes of Google, Myspace, and messengers

Coming up with a good name to serve as your online identity is not easy. Chances are that once you decide on a good screenname, you will use it as your social network identity and also your instant messenger identity. If done right, this can let you use an expensive dating website and communicate with people you like using off-site tools. The operators of such sites are not happy with that idea, but really there is nothing they can do about it short of enforcing arbitrary usernames.

You need to be aware what information is published that can be linked to your dating username. For example, I own the .com name of my nickname (wiseleo.com). If anyone wants to find me, she can type that into Google or even into the address bar and she will find too much information about me. I have to be aware of every post I make that can be linked to this username. Moreover, it is also linked to my Amazon identity, eBay identity, and so forth. It is too late for me to separate my identities based on 15 years of footprints all over the Internet, so I had to resort to online brand management techniques to keep my search results clean.

It can be used to segment your online identities

One advice for hackers back in the day was “Never use the same nickname twice”. While this advice was written far before time of omniscient search engines, it is far more important today. Even before Google, the FBI routinely caught hackers who reused their names.

I use a different and completely unrelated name when I am experimenting with various websites online.

A variation on this advice would be to have three identities. One is your private social network identity (Facebook and LinkedIn come to mind), one is your messengers and public social networks (Myspace, Twitter, Yahoo), and the final one is your dating sites identity.

CAUTION: If privacy is a concern to you, you should not use your social network or instant messenger name as your online dating profile name

If you wish to limit cyberstalking, it may be beneficial to create this third identity and to ensure that it in no way relates to your real information until such time as you choose to reveal it.

Be careful about copying your profile text across multiple profiles. If a reader runs a quick text string search, which in my browser is literally one click, the search results can potentially expose your other profiles and their linked identities.

Be careful which data you choose to share. Dating web sites are not private walled gardens. They expose a lot of information that can be used to piece together your identity. Assume that everything you wrote inside your profile can be viewed by your family and friends.

About the author

Leonid S. Knyshov writes for HotProfileTips.com about techniques to increase provide views on various online dating sites. I welcome your comments both via this website and via Twitter.

Should I keep everything connected to one account or should I segment my audience?

This is an interesting question because I see some of my friends who should be separating their Twitter accounts and others who should be combining their accounts.

Most articles I read about Twitter tend to suggest that I should use a single account for everything. I am not sure I entirely agree with that.

You may want to have multiple personalities for several reasons

You are a musician, and your band’s name is known more than you are personally

For example, let us look at @Sevendust – I have not seen them in ages, I have no idea what the lead singer’s name might be, but I know his band’s name and surely enough is has a Twitter account.

You operate or represent a business, and your business name is more well-known than you are personally

One interesting example (more…)

As of this writing, Twitter has about 6 million users

There are several ways to use Twitter to reach your audience

Use it as intended for “microblogging”

Every entry is at most 140 characters long. You can share your thoughts and anyone can read them. If someone likes your comments, she can choose to “follow” your updates.

To make things slightly more confusing, they can subscribe to an XML feed of your updates, but in practice that is rarely done.

Use it as to augment RSS, ATOM, and other XML feeds

Even as major browsers are continually improving the XML feed support (RSS is actually a trademark), most people are still not adopting this feature.

The old way to use the web for me was to bookmark a site, visit it daily or more often, and hope the site posted new information for my enjoyment.

As XML feed support improved in mainstream browsers, particularly with Internet Explorer 7, I added about 50 different websites into my XML feed reader. This allows me to quickly scan my preferred information sources for new updates.

Most people are still not using the XML feed functionality. Some use it with built-in browser features, others with a web-based XML feed reader such as My Yahoo, Google Reader, and so on.

While 140 characters may not sound like much, thanks to services such as TinyURL, it is possible to convey a lot of information in such a limited amount of space. (more…)