Tag: Video

Let the SharePoint webinars begin

As promised, the first of what hopefully will be many webinars provided by the CIAOPS, will commence next Thursday the 12th of November. Here are the details:

091112 – An Introduction to SharePoint
Topics covered:
– What is SharePoint.
– Why use SharePoint.
– Versions of SharePoint.
– Basic operation of a SharePoint site.

Presenter: Robert Crane
Date: Thursday 12th of November 2009
Time : 10.00am (Sydney, Australia time)
Duration: 30 minutes
Cost: Free
Level: 1 (Basic)
Prerequisites: None

Details
This webinar will help you to understand what SharePoint is and how it can be used in a business environment. It will provide you with a basic understanding of SharePoint technologies and the versions that are currently available.

Registration: To register send an email to director@ciaops.com.

I am aiming to present a webinar like this every two weeks or so. Some of them will be free to attend and others will require a small payment (AUD$39 ex GST typically). The aim is to provide a series of webinars that takes attendees through the range of skills they need to not only understand SharePoint but also to be able to successfully install and maintain the product.

So, if you are interested at all in learning more about SharePoint then I urge you to register for the upcoming webinar. If you have any questions or want further information about this or other webinars I have planned please do not hesitate to contact me (director@ciaops.com).

Views on YouTube reach 300,000

image_2_25BEA765

 

Almost exactly 3 years ago, while working at Saturn Alliance, I created a YouTube channel to post a number of technology videos. About 12 months ago I created a new CIAOPS YouTube channel and stopped posting anything to the Saturn Alliance account. Yet as you can see the Saturn Alliance account has now surpassed 300,000 views, which I find truly amazing. Why? Because I honestly believed that very few people would be interested in what I posted, but clearly due to the breadth of the Internet I was wrong. It is sort of like this blog, which I can’t honestly believe anyone except my mother actually reads, but to those who do I say thanks.

 

While recently attending SMB Nation 2009 I was in a session about using social media tools like YouTube inside a technology business. I went along because I felt I really needed to learn more but as it turns out people where still struggling to understand how they could use technologies like YouTube. The experience I shared with them was how I came to creating the Saturn Alliance account.

 

Saturn Alliance had always struggled to provide users with effective information about their systems, to allow them to do more for themselves and therefore save some money rather than calling for support all the time. I had created plenty of documentation including pictures and step by step procedures but users just never seemed to pay attention to anything that was written down. The most common process I found users continually struggled with was rebooting a SBS 2003 server. Normally, I had to talk them through the process which, in reality, is very straight forward. This created a huge amount of frustration on the part of the business and myself as I was always being interrupted over and over to hand hold the same users through the same process.

 

It was clear that most people are far more responsive to video rather than text so I therefore created a simple video about the process of rebooting a SBS 2003 server. This worked a treat, but typically when a user needed to reboot I had to email them the video. Of course they never saved the video in a place for easy reference which meant I had to continually email the video over and over again. This did not make any sense as it was almost like them simply calling up. The solution was to post the video on YouTube.

 

Now all I had to do was email the user a link to the video which they could watch immediately. Problem solved, and I created a few more to help customers, thinking no more about what was possible beyond this. Because the YouTube videos were public I soon found quite a few people not only watching the videos I had created but also commenting and contacting me. That got me thinking, was I missing an opportunity here? So I started experimenting with branding the videos and was amazed at the results.

 

The end result was 47 videos in 2 years with the Saturn Alliance account and a growing number of videos at the newer CIAOPS YouTube channel. I am pleased to say that I still receive lots and lots of feedback on what I have created and continue to welcome any suggestions. So if you haven’t see what’s up there, take a look and let me know what you think.

 

To those businesses who only see YouTube as something that needs to be blocked I’d say think again. I’d say start looking at it as an opportunity you can exploit to actively promote your skills and your business. I know that I do and see it as a very important piece of an overall marketing strategy going forward.

School of SharePoint

I have just completed the free SharePoint webinar – ‘An Introduction to SharePoint on SBS 2008’ which I have uploaded to YouTube in three parts, which are linked below.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YR38TPndDI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5aIuuPE8b4

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c482xsaJg_Y

Alternatively, you can download the whole 30 minute presentation in WAV format from my SkyDrive.

 

I’m now working on a webinar schedule from November 2009. My aim to is do a webinar every 2 to 3 weeks. These webinars will be available in both free and paid versions, with the paid versions running longer and going into much greater depth. However, I will continue to also do as many free webinars as I can. Hopefully, all the webinars will also be available for download as well after the fact making them a good source of information.

 

So I’m currently developing a schedule of upcoming webinars that I’ll be publishing soon. If you have suggestions of what you’d like to see, drop me a line (director@ciaops.com). If you’d like to stay up to date with webinar schedule as it becomes available simply keep reading this blog or send me an email (director@ciaops.com) and I’ll add you to the mailing list.

 

As always, I welcome any feedback you may have on what I have created and keep you eyes posted for information on the upcoming webinar schedule.

Seth Godin

Here are three really good short videos from Seth Godin that I recommend you take a look at.

Not just me

So it seems I wasn’t the only one that thought the new ad for Internet Explorer 8 was rank. As the article “Microsoft withdraws offending ‘puke ad’” details Microsoft has stopped promoting the ad.

 

In this day and age it is really hard to be funny without offending or alienating someone or something. Microsoft has not had much luck of late with its Seinfeld ads and now this, whereas Apple has been able to really milk Mac vs PC.

 

I wonder what Microsoft has in the wings for Windows 7? Seeing this kinda worries you a bit doesn’t it?

Sign of the times

Have a look at this “commercial” for Internet Explorer 8.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB9fhjnJcB0&feature=player_embedded

Now tell me that you think it’s an effective way of promoting the features of Microsoft’s latest browser. I understand the concept, but really I gotta say that they have missed their mark in so many ways. For one I can’t say that I like seeing someone repeatedly ‘puke’ on someone else. Secondly, you’re promoting a function of the browser that allows you to view porn at the breakfast table. Maybe I’m missing something here and that feature is in high demand, but not amongst the small population of Internet users I know at least.

 

I don’t know who Microsoft is using for their ad agency but there’s gotta be someone other better! Is the only feature of Internet Explorer that is better than Firefox or Safari is that it allows you to surf porn in private? I can’t see that making people switch, but hey I could way off base here.

New video

I have created another quick video based on the blog post I did about configuring Usage Analysis processing on Windows SharePoint.

 

BotNet video

Here’s an interesting video from the BBC Click program about BotNets. It shows how BotNets are used to send spam emails as well as Distributed Denial Of Server (DDOS) attacks.

 

Also on Click you’ll find “Cyber crime attack from the east” which gives you an idea of the business behind cyber crime.

 

It is interesting to consider that we are building our ‘new world order’ on technologies that were never designed with security in mind. Likewise, there are so many users out there who have no idea their machines are infected and being controlled by someone else. It is amazing to think that many vulnerabilities used by Botnets exploit bugs that have a patch or update available from the vendor. The problem is too many people are using computers connected to the Internet without understanding the basics. Given the world wide reach of the Internet this causes a huge problem when the power of these infected machines is harnessed into a BotNet.

 

Interestingly, the BBC seems to have gotten itself into some trouble about what actions it took while performing the demonstrations in its show as detailed in “BBC cyber crime probe backfires”. This relates to the fact that the BBC used user’s computers without their knowledge and also made modifications to their systems, even if it was to warn the use that their PC was infected. This again illustrates why cyber criminals are always going to win. When someone like the BBC does a expose on BotNets it runs the risk of running foul of authorities, yet users who haven’t maintained or secured their systems and connect them to the Internet face no ramifications! In many cases the only way that some people will know they are infected with a trojan acting as part of BotNet if is they are told. While we debate the ethics of alerting users, cyber criminals simply go about their business and infect more machines.

 

So, watch the video. Make sure you machine is patched and scanned for viruses and spyware. Then make sure you tell other people to do the same, because knowledge is really the only defence we have against BotNets.