Archives April 2009

That’s right! If you caught my early announcement post here, it’s available.. a day early!

Free E-Books for April – Early announcements!

So, here we have the following!

Windows Small Business Server 2008 Administrator’s Companion (Pro—Administrator’s Companion) by Charlie Russel and Sharon Crawford

Microsoft Visual Basic 2008 Express Edition: Build a Program Now! by Patrice Pelland

Note: If you run into an issue whereby you don’t get the “save as pdf” visible when using IE (as I ran into) just access the link, and when you get to the button, just right click on it and ‘save as’ the PDF directly to your machine.  

This is a question I get asked often, and I always mean to write a post about it.. so here goes!

Which tools do you use?

That is an excellent question! I use the following tools: TweetDeck on my Mac and my PC (Primarily PC due to that being my primary machine), Tweetie on my iPhone, and the Web interface on my Windows Mobile Treo (Because WM5 does not have any good ceApps) Note: I am trying out Seesmic Desktop at the moment in Beta, though primarily using it for Searches due to the color scheme being almost unbearable for me!

Why do you use those tools?

Let me put it simply by saying: These are the best tools available for Twitter on a regular basis.   I agree there are a lot of other tools out there, but more tools does not mean better!  As an example, Tweetie is a far better client than TwitterFon which is by far the 2nd best client for the iPhone (And it’s free!) If you’re using Twinkle or Twitterific today, Upgrade to TwitterFon for free or Tweetie for the nominal fee, it will change your twitter experience on the whole!

How do you use those tools?

TweetDeck:

• I have a column called “Technology” where friends and others in the Tech field (Direct Technical, Marketing, Analysts, Bloggers, YouTube, Blogosphere, Storage, Virtualization, Cloud Computing, Etc) are all stored.  Basically if you’re in my “Technology” column, among all of the chatter on twitter, I guarantee I’ll read it when I’m in front of this computer :)
• I also have a column called “Chicago” where friends, folks, people I meet, etc from Chicago who are on twitter are ‘stored’.  And yes, some people are in both Technology *AND!* Chicago, which works out well :)
• On a similar note, I do have a column called NetApp, this is where I store NetApp employees, and only NetApp employees – It’s a smaller list with fewer updates, and thus I’m less likely to miss those as well
• One additional column is a “Search” column, searching for “netapp OR netapps OR ntap” whereby when there’s chatter about our company, a typo of our company or our stock, I can see it!  I’ve used this numerous times to help folks who ran into issues with our systems or equally for those inquiring about information.  I like to help, so this is a great vehicle for that helping!

Tweetie:

• Honestly, I use Tweetie almost the same way I use TweetDeck, except without the groups – so when I’m on the go, it is primarily to read @ responses and DM’s, and random chatter in the ‘all friends’ column, because I lack the grouping capabilities of TweetDeck!

Web:

• Web is truly the only way I can work on my WM5 Treo, so I’ll launch it if I need to/want to share something and my iPhone is dead or has no signal!  This is especially useful when we’re out as a family and we’re tweeting to eachother in a museum or something :)

Seesmic Desktop:

• Seesmic Desktop is interesting, it provides a number of features (more or less, the exact same features of TweetDeck) with the exception that Seesmic supports multiple accounts, and can expand beyond 10 columns.   It’s lack of color changing support makes it nearly unbearable for me, because as you can tell from this blog, I read text against a black background, and when it’ falls against a light background, I have a hard time reading it.  But I’m giving it some rigorous testing in its course! (Though, for what it’s worth… Seesmic is a memory hog, akin to the old TweetDeck Pre v0.25days) Oh and it just crashed on me when I noticed it took out my API limit for the hour ;)

So, hopefully this helps explain and helps you use these tools a bit yourself!  I’ll break it down a bit more over time, but this is just a high-level touch of how I do some of these things (and effectively, and enjoyably :))

If you remember that “Get On The Bus” Promotion I spoke about before, they’ve changed the game a bit more now! Now it’s not only easier, but it’s even easier than that!

Now, you have the opportunity to be rewarded like so:

• Free admission to TechEd 2009
• Hotel stay during the conference
• Return airfare from Los Angeles to your nearest major airport
• Your choice of:
• Airfare from your closest major airport to your choice of cities on the Career Express tour route, where you’ll meet the bus and ride the rest of the way to TechEd, or
• Airfare directly from your closest major airport to Los Angeles

That’s right! You can be flown to “get on the bus” *or!* You can get flown directly to TechEd itself! How’s that for amazing! It’s like winning one of those raffle contests we’ve all hoped and dreamed to win as children!

So, what does it take to win given light of the news of “I can go directly to TechEd!”

• Send us an e-mail with your name, MCP ID, and preferred contact info. Include a link to the essay we asked for (“Why I’m Passionate about Microsoft Learning and Certification”) and an optional video URL.
• You have until 9am Pacific time on Monday, April 20th to enter; we’ll select and notify up to 5 winners the next day.
• Full legal rules and restrictions here.

And let me break that down for you a bit if you’re at all misunderstanding:

You are required to:

• BE an MCP – Meaning you have an MCP ID, No ID, No Soup for you
• Provide a link to an essay you wrote about “Why you’re passionate about MS Learning and Certification”
• An essay does not mean, a resume, your webpage when it doesn’t include an Essay, or any other form of situation where in the end it does not equal your essay.  If you want an example of what an essay looks like, read mine here:
• Get on the Bus: You mean I have to write an essay?!
• (Optional) Include a link to a Video, further stating your passion for MS Learning and Certification.  Again, here is another example :)
• Get On The Bus: The Video

Do all of this by April 20th and you’re in business! So, it’s never been so easy!

If you want to find more information about this – Read the source article from the Microsoft Learning Communities Blog Another Chance to Get on the Bus (or Fly Directly to TechEd!)

Whether you fly direct, or get on the bus – This will be an opportunity you’ll never forget!

Extra! Extra! New Post! – Zynga Mafia Wars – How to win a fight, best weapons, armor and vehicles

So, by now some of you may have noticed some cool new features, enhanced gifting, asking mafia members for help, etc.   So here are some of those items broken down a bit!

Helping your family out! This is a cool feature.  From what I can tell – you publish your need to help complete a job, and all they need to do is click on it and wondrous things can happen, both for you and the person clicking on it!

It doesn’t require you to use up any of your energy or anything, you just earn experience and money for clicking on something, effectively helping out your community!

That said, there is a lot of value to be derived both for you in completing the job, the mafia member you’re helping, and Zynga from a viral spread into the community perspective, so a tip of the hat to them for introducing this :)

In the realm of Gifting, I’m sure we’ve all seen this lovely new icon:

Yes, it is the little package, and yes I have a lot of horses :) Though that said, I’ll publish a list of what outstanding items I have that I’m glad to give away if anyone is in need :)

Also, here is a breakdown of the Loot and the bonus you get from them

If you happen to have pictures of the missing bonuses (and the missing bonuses) let me know!  Or if I’m missing anything in general :)

	Collection	Bonus
	Diamond Flush Collection	+1 energy
	Heart Flush Collection	???
	Sculptures Collection	+3 defense
	Poker Chips Collection
	Club Flush Collection	???
	Cigars Collection
	Spade Flush Collection	+2 stamina
	Rings Collection
	Ties Collection	+6 defense
	Paintings Collection
	Cufflinks Collection
	Great Race Horse Collection

And what is the greatest addition to gifting? You can now gift items you win from doing jobs! Items such as Blackmail Photos, Computer Set-Up’s, and the ever elusive Untraceable Cellphone (A day doesn’t go by where I don’t get a request for those, as I use them all up myself too :))

If you’re looking for other information on Mafia wars, check out my other post :)

And as always, feel free to add me on Facebook, Mafia Wars, and on Twitter :)

Extra! Extra! New Post! – Zynga Mafia Wars – How to win a fight, best weapons, armor and vehicles

Thanks MSLearning for the heads up!

Yes indeed, there will  be 2 new books this month, but the links to download them will not work until April 15th! So you’ll need to try the links again then!

Windows Small Business Server 2008 Administrator’s Companion (Pro—Administrator’s Companion) by Charlie Russel and Sharon Crawford

Microsoft Visual Basic 2008 Express Edition: Build a Program Now! by Patrice Pelland

As soon as they’re available, I’ll update this post with pictures to them as I usually do! Which also is a good way to ensure there aren’t any issues downloading them  like past books (Let’s not forget the massive Vista Resource kit from before :))

So keep on the look out and more free books coming soon! :)