Labor Day LinkfestHere's hoping we all get the opportunity for some rest and relaxation, as we reach the unofficial end of summer. But don't take your eye off your labors for too long--here's some top links to enjoy this weekend: Solution Provider Strategies At last week's XChange '08, solution providers discussed creative ways of engaging new customers. On this long weekend, here's one that's particularly appropriate: "Once you have a group of happy references, find creative ways of getting the word out, such as hosting a barbeque that brings existing customers together with potential customers." IT employers are expanding their recruiting efforts in unconventional ways. See our slide show: Looking For IT Talent In All The (Un)Usual Places. Atos Origin, number 10 on this year's VARBusiness 500, was a prime IT contractor for the Bejing Olympics. Information Week holds up a scorecard on Atos' performance. Hardware and Software CRN's Custom Systems magazine says motherboard manufacturers are "on the cusp of a new era of design and engineering—with impressive early results". The Channel Test Center also built a super-quiet high-end PC featuring a new case from Antec, and they compare the lastest graphics processors from AMD and Nvidia. The Test Center also tried out Microsoft's new Small Business Server 2008 and was impressed: "Small Business Server 2008 might just shake up the managed service provider landscape--not only with market muscle but also with many great features all built into one product." Meanwhile over at Dr. Dobbs, they're previewing the upcoming SQL Server 2008. 15 Back-to-School Computing Bargains. If you haven't looked at new laptop and deesktop models in the last few months, you've missed quite a bit. Programming, The Web, and Beyond Our lead developer, Criag Siegelson, was the first to tip me off to Ubiquity, Mozilla's new demonstration project on creating a more dynamic web experience. It's quite a demo. Our Brian Kraemer tried it out as well: "Since I installed Ubiquity this morning, I've sent maps to several friends with the locations of places they'll most likely never go, updated my Twitter account and searched IMDB.com's database for Megan Fox's upcoming projects. What do you do when you need to process petabytes of data over thousands of servers? Information Week's Analytics Blog explores the approaches of companies like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, and how Microsoft's Scope language contrasts with Yahoo's Hadoop and Google's Sawzall approaches. (I love programming language names.) The hurricane season started quietly, but now Tropical Storm Gustav is threatening the gulf coast, three years after Katrina. Let's hope the theat is overblown. Keep up on the latest hurricane updates at the Stormtrack blog. Looking to get better at your job? Then just doing your job is probably not enough. This post, The Ultimate Code Kata, is focused on programmers, but the advice can be easily applied to any domain where you're committed to improving your skills. Have a great weekend! Posted by Joe Caponi at 02:44 PM, August 29, 2008 This is a public forum. United Business Media and its affiliates are not responsible for and do not control what is posted herein. United Business Media makes no warranties or guarantees concerning any advice dispensed by its staff members or readers. Community standards in this comment area do not permit hate language, excessive profanity, or other patently offensive language. Please be aware that all information posted to this comment area becomes the property of United Business Media LLC and may be edited and republished in print or electronic format as outlined in United Business Media's Terms of Service. Important Note: This comment area is NOT intended for commercial messages or solicitations of business. |
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