Last year, I setup a Windows Home Server (WHS) to run as a file and backup server. During the time, I connected with some of the industry leaders in the WHS realm. This was when I met a WHS expert by the name of Alexander Kent. Alex had developed a powerful Add-In for WHS called Grid Junction. Simply put, Grid Junction is a “must-have” Add-In for anyone who powers their WHS with an uninterrupted power supply (battery backup). During a lengthy power outage, Grid Junction can be scheduled to safely power down your Windows Home Server and networked PC’s to prevent data loss or Windows corruption. Through the tweaking of Grid Junction, I got to know Alex via instant messaging and email. I learned that Grid Junction won the Best Windows Home Server Add-in of 2008 Award and that Alex had received Microsoft’s Prestigious MVP Award for his contribution to the Microsoft Home Server. In short, this guy knows his way around Windows Home Server. Recently, Alex held a contest at HomeServerLand.com to give away copies of Windows Home Server and I am happy to report that I am a recipient of one of these! In fact, the above image shows what actually arrived in the mail; a copy of Windows Home Server, a paperback copy of “Mommy, Why is there a Server in the House?”, a paperback copy of “Server Feng Shui”, a WHS Pen with stickers to match! So a big thank you goes out to Alex for not only sending some cool items but for all your help in tweaking my Windows Home Server.

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Throughout the years, I have worked with some really good partners. Whether it is being very responsive, super proactive or just plain easy to work with, every so often, a particular partner would stand out from the rest. Today, I wanted to give a quick shout out to one particular partner that is all of the above… and more! That partner is Doclix’s AdSide Network.

Earlier this year, I had the privilege of participating on an AdTech San Francisco / AdSpace panel with Leora Blumberg, VP of Business Development from Doclix. To make a long story short, Leora and I immediately connected and we are now partnered with AdSide (Doclix’s advertising network) to delivery their ads. Not only was it a pleasure to meet Leora this year, but I also began working with AdSide’s VP of Sales and Marketing, Yael Yekutie. I only need to say that both of these ladies are simply fantastic people! Period.

It was definitely great to have built another good business relationship this year, but the icing on the cake actually came last week. To my surprise and delight, AdSide sent us a holiday care package. Here are the goodies from Harry and David that arrived in the mail a few days ago. There were actually some delicious mint chocolate cookies as well but they did not make it to the photo shoot. I had eaten them already.

It’s nice enough to be able to work with great people in the advertising industry but it gave me extra warm and fuzzies this Christmas when a great business partner cared enough to send a nice gesture. So a giant thank you goes out to the AdSide team. Not just for the yummy goodies but as a partner, you guys & girls completely rock! Know that the goodies will be thoroughly enjoyed over many movies throughout the holidays.

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Yesterday, I had the privilege of listening to John Tsang, Hong Kong’s Financial Secretary, speak about business opportunities for Canadians in Hong Kong. The full day forum took place at the new Vancouver Convention Center. One memorable remark was that in 2008, Mr. Tsang removed the alcohol import tax in Hong Kong. This lead to a 400% increase in Canadian wines being exported to the now alcohol import tax free country. That is definitely great news for businesses, Canadian or otherwise, that export alcohol to this part of Asia. To the right is a photo of John Tsang speaking at the HKCBA (Hong Kong-Canada Business Association) luncheon.

Thanks to Shirley Wong from Invest Hong Kong for the invite! It gave me the chance to meet some very interesting contacts like:

• Jeremy Godfrey – Hong Kong’s Chief Information Officer
• Lee Kane – Canada’s Trade Commissioner, North Asia Commercial Relations
• Tatsuya Nakagawa – President & CEO of Atomica Creative
• Kenneth Wong – BCIT’s Major Gifts Officer

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There comes a time when some websites must decide whether they must charge users to increase revenues or close up shop due to insufficient funds. This is particularly true for many non-profit websites as they just do not bring in enough advertising dollars to sustain the cause. But when a website with 150,000 members, whose reach is 60,000 (daily) and one that boasts 1.8 million targeted photographers on a monthly basis decides to switch to the pay-to-play model, operationally, something does not measure up.

Nikonians.org, one of the largest single online community of photographers, has been around for many years and have garnered a loyal group of users. Unfortunately, many of these users will no longer have access to the content they have contributed or even access to their profile to change an email address. I must say that I am quite irritated at this whole situation.

Nikonians.org Is Now Charging Users

As I needed some new gear, I was actually referring back to a previous post where other users and I had discussed that topic at length. To my surprise, I received a message asking me to pay for a membership when I tried to log in. Having been with the community since 2003, I was granted charter membership when the website underwent membership level changes some time ago so I was shocked to find that a fee was now required to access Nikonians.org. I could not believe that I needed to pay to access content that I had contributed to the forum!

Not being able to log in, I emailed Nikonians.org and received confirmation that yes, it is indeed now a paid-only site. I was provided with this information:

Nikonians is operated as a not-for-profit community. All capital generated through our operations (The Nikonians Community, The Photo Pro Shop and the Nikonians Academy) is reinvested to sustain it and its growth.

Only approximately 13% of our costs are covered by paid memberships.

For the past eight and a half years the community’s policy has made it possible to offer free of charge content, enabling members from all countries, all social backgrounds and economical status to interact on the provided platforms at no cost. But, the community must also receive enough funding to be able to sustain itself, meet the demands of a growing membership and create reserves to face contingencies out of our control.

Something Does Not Add Up

Based on the above, I can only draw my own conclusion that Nikonians.org isn’t simply turning to the paid model to try and make more money but instead needed to generate more revenue so that it can continue to keep its doors opened. If this is indeed the case, then something is definitely not right. Hearing that a website is receiving almost 2 million (targeted) visitors a month and not being able to sustain operations through advertising revenue is shocking.

For a not-for-profit online organization to receive that amount of monthly users and not being able to sustain itself just does not add up – at least not in my calculations.

In my opinion, any website (for profit or not) with 2 million users a month should be able to generate enough revenue to hire full-time employees to keep it going without being forced into charging membership fees. Who knows what kinds of administration fees are in place currently to keep the site running but at the end of the day, either revenue is too low or expenses are too high (or both). Again, something just does not add up.

Offer to Help Not Taken Up

At one time, I was a heavy user of Nikonians.org. It was where I learned a lot about photography and contributed content to help other users as well. In fact, I enjoyed the community so much that I started a conversation with one of its principles offering to help Nikonians.org generate more online revenue at no cost to them. Volunteering my time and expertise is one way I contribute back to the communities (online and offline) that I am active in. If memory serves me correctly, I remember a conversation where I learned that Nikonians.org was serving up 9 million pageviews per month and the principal was excited that he was putting in a system to start selling a truck load of ad inventory. A few emails and private messages were traded but he never took me up on my offer.

Nikonians.org is not the Place for Pay-to-Play

There are situations where paid websites make sense but Nikonians.org is not this place. The community grew because it was a useful resource and it was free. With the recent change, it’s no longer useful or free (even previous content is no longer accessible unless you are a paid member). I am guessing that there will be many more ex-Nikonians then paid members from here on. Here is a Flickr conversation about this very issue.

• Nikonians turning into all pay

What’s Next for ex-Nikonians

I am actually sympathetic to the principles of Nikonians.org. It’s never easy running a business let alone a not-for-profit that is not generating enough revenue. It will be interesting to see if the move to paid membership is the right one for one of the largest online photography communities. There are even predictions that Nikonians.org may one day revert back to the free model. Even if they do, it will be too late to regain lost trust from previous users.

In the meantime, if anyone (ex-Nikonians or otherwise) has suggestions, I need to find a high quality (& free) photography forum to connect with other enthusiasts. All recommendations are appreciated. If anyone has taken this as an opportunity to start a free forum for Nikon owners, do share! Now that actually sounds like a good idea!

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In the past month, I personally experienced two instances where used merchandise was sold as new without disclosure. The first time, it was with a brand new Dell Vostro desktop where the hard drive turned out to have been already used for 15,000+ hours! The second time, A-Power.com sold us a used hard drive telling us it was a new unit.

How did I know that these computer retailers sold used hard drives as new? Easy. I used a tool called Seatools by Seagate (a hard drive manufacturer) to read the power-on hours from both hard drives. Most hard drives, when used, will log the number of hours that it has been powered on. This information just requires the right tool to be retrieved.

Dell Sells Used Product as New

The brand new Dell Vostro destop with a hard drive that have been powered on for 15,000+ was a big shocker; 15,000 hours is equivalent to 625 days! After speaking with Dell Canada’s business tech support staff (whom by the way are always very courteous and helpful and were most sympathetic this time), we were directed to Dell’s normal customer care team. Even though we received a used product when we purchased a new one, the first response was that the purchase was more than 30-days old and nothing could be done. Note, the purchase was only 10-days past that mark. To make a long story short, we were finally transferred to a Canadian customer care representative and now have a brand new replacement hard drive in the Vostro machine.

A-Power.com Sells Used Product As New

Not long after the Dell incident, history quickly repeated itself. Being weary of getting a used hard drive again, a call was placed to confirm with a sales rep from A-Power.com that we would receive a new hard drive and not a refurbished one. We received confirmation and purchased the hard drive.

The red flag went up right from the get go. Normally, when you install a new hard drive into a computer, it will not boot up and notify you with a message stating that it cannot find a bootable drive or something to that effect. With the supposedly new A-Power.com purchased drive, it returned a blue screen of death upon boot up instead.

The second red flag came when trying to install Windows XP. Normally when you install XP on a clean drive, it will ask you where you want to install the OS. This time, the installation process found another version of Windows already installed and warned that it might cause problems to install two operating systems on one partition.

Given that A-Power.com has been in business locally since 1999 and that their sales rep had assured us that they only sell new merchandise, we gave them the benefit of the doubt that both the above flags were simply anomalies and probably nothing to worry about.

After Windows was successfully installed, we ran Seatools on the supposedly new hard drive and found that it’s power-on hours show that this was indeed a used hard drive. Not again – two separate instances from two separate computer retailers!

Check Your SMART Info

Most people would never consider or even know how to check power-on hours on their newly purchased computer or hard drive. Because of shady business practices, the customer would have spent hard earned dollars on used merchandise thinking that they had purchase a brand new product. Here is how you can protect yourself.

The power-on hours and even the temperature of your hard drive is stored in the SMART information section (available on most computer hard drives). As I mentioned, Seatools can retrieve and show you this type of information. Another popular program called SpeedFan can also retrieve SMART info as well. For those who just purchased a new computer or hard drive, be sure to check your SMART info!

When is it OK for Computer Retailers To Cheat Customers?

If this sort of sneaky behaviour occurs from the local computer store to an industry leader like Dell, imagine what could be happening at every level in between? To say that I am irritated is an understatement. With large technology retailers like Circuit City and The Source filing for bankruptcy recently, it shows that consumers are not spending in this sector during the financial crisis. But does an economic down turn give computer retailers the go-ahead to cheat their customers? Imagine if pharmaceutical companies decided one day that in order to get through tough economic times, they would sell returned or even expired medications? So when was it OK for computer retailers to start cheating their customers?

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In a world where profitability and return-on-investment often direct business decisions, it was nice to receive an email today from PR Newswire announcing that they will waive all China earthquake relief effort news fees. PR Newswire is showing how a for-profit organization can do its part and try to help the more than 10,000 people who have been killed by a recent powerful earthquake in China. If your company has applicable news release, take advantage of this offer and get in touch with PR Newswire. Hats off to PR Newswire and our hearts go out to the families of the earthquake victims.

Send all of your China Earthquake Relief Effort news and information at no cost through PR Newswire starting today, May 13th – Sunday, May 18th.

The massive earthquake that ravaged China has prompted organizations worldwide to take action.

Between now and May 18, PR Newswire is waiving all fees associated with distribution of news releases concerning aid to the victims of the earthquake.

Your news will be distributed to tens of thousands of journalists and reach our network of 4,200 news Web sites and portals. Journalists are being advised of the availability of this content and that they can tap into the ProfNet service to connect with informed sources who are prepared to participate in news coverage on the crisis.

Your news will be archived in an earthquake-related news section of our Web site, www.prnewswire.com.

Our hearts go out to those who have been affected by this tragedy.

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If you are not providing your customers with on-screen video support you could be wasting money by paying someone to answer unnecessary emails and phone calls.

Videos can make your FAQ come alive. Often times, it is much easier to show someone how to do something rather than try to explain it through email or by phone. In addition, when you provide training videos on your website, they work for you 24/7 so take advantage of this on-going support for your customers.

Save money by decreasing the amount of time needed to reply to common questions. When you do see a particular question come in frequently, create a training video and make it available on your FAQ. This will decrease future questions about this particular issue as some of your customers will have already found your training video and gotten their answer. You will also be able to direct future questions to the training video thus helping to decrease the amount of time spent replying to the customer. It’s truly a win-win situation when you have an online training video system supporting your customers. The best part is… you can now do it all for free with Techsmith’s Camtasia Studio.

Have you ever wondered how the pros make cool training videos by showing users exactly what they are doing on their computer screen? Many users rely on a simple piece of software called Camtasia Studio. Camtasia allows for easy recording, editing and sharing of computer screen videos. You do not have to be professionally trained in video editing or post processing to put out your own training videos. Camtasia makes the process easy. Even better yet, Techsmith is now giving away Camtasia Studio for free.

This free offer does have a time limit so be sure to download your copy of Camtasia Studio 3. Then go and ask Techsmith for a registration key. They will email you one. During the install process, choose “I have a registration key” and copy and paste the code that Techsmith sent you.

I installed the demo version and activated it to a full copy with the registration key provided by Techsmith so I know first hand, it works. You should get your free copy of Camtasia Studio now before the offer expires.

Once installed, you will easily be able to capture a window, the entire screen or just a portion of your computer screen. Here is 5 second example clip of a portion of the Photoshop screen that I turned into an MOV and uploaded to YouTube for broadcasting. This will save bandwidth as YouTube is now serving the actual video.

Note: There seems to be quite a few users experiencing an error for “A suitable compressor cannot be found”. Download Techsmith’s TSCC Codec and install it. This should fix the problem.

Thanks to Citizen Journalist for the heads up on the free Camtasia offer.

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Ever since Advertising Age (AdAge) published the Internet’s Top Media and Marketing Blogs, they have been receiving on-going publicity about the list. Recently, Scott Weisbrod used the AdAge list to rank Canadian blogs and published his own list of Top 30 Canadian Marketing and Advertising Blogs. I am excited to see that ADS-Links.com made it on this top 30 list. With so many well respected blogs on it, I am proud to be a part of it’s true north strong and free.

Here is Scott Weisbrod’s Top 30 Canadian Marketing and Advertising Blogs and AdAge.com’s Top Media and Marketing Blogs.

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