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When Community Software Becomes Community Property
One of the most widely recognized social media applications in the world today is Facebook. People use it for everything from email to event planning to entertainment. You can manipulate your profile to display every detail of your life or nothing. You can build an online profile to represent yourself in any fashion you want to. But being open to the community doesn’t make Facebook property of the community. I do a lot of work with open source software. It’s “community owned” in the sense that the user community defines development directions, feature sets, and release dates. WordPress, for example,…
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XML-RPC
Just to forewarn you, this might come across as a more technical post than I normally throw at you. Still, I did something exciting last night that I wanted to share and perhaps educate you about. I built a custom XML-RPC server. And with that statement I know I’ve already lost most of you. Rather than get too much into the details, XML-RPC stands for XML Remote Procedure Call. It’s a way for one server to send information to another for processing – like posting inter-office mail to another department. XML is just a way to code information. You split…
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Expediency
How quickly do you do your job? I don’t mean shuffle papers, I’m asking how long customers have to wait to receive deliverable product from your office. We live in a world where just about everything is available with the click of a button. You order books online. You order groceries online. You perform in-depth research with a mouse in a few minutes rather than with a pencil and a few hours. The world moves quickly, and in an economy of rock-bottom prices, it’s the quick delivery that more often than not secures the sale. Your expediency is your competitive…
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What Constitutes Expertise?
The other day I was asked a very good question – “what makes someone an expert?” Considering web-based media is moving into newer fields and industries, it’s hard to define expertise along the lines of professional certifications and documented qualifications. An expert accountant will have his CPA. An expert manager will have her MBA. A doctor has an M.D. A professor has a Ph.D. These are certifications of expertise issued by recognized authorities that state quite clearly: this person is an expert. There are newer fields, though, that don’t have these kinds of certifications. How do you become an expert…
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Make a Good First Impression
When building a new business relationship, about 50% of the legwork is done during the first handshake. Your goal should be to make a good first impression, whether you’re the client or the consultant. Taking five minutes to review your objectives for the meeting will help you keep your focus and make sure that first meeting is productive. Most modern “marketing consultants” really know nothing about marketing. Their first suggestion during your meeting will be for you to start a corporate blog and to take your messaging “viral.” If you’re a legitimate marketer and you make these suggestions during your…
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Coffee Shop – Part 1
Marcy It was a bright, sunny, beautiful day outside, and Marcy was just glad to be alive. She woke up, stretched, and poked at the cat through the bed sheets with her feet. He gave her an evil, half asleep glare and curled up again, just out of reach of her toes. Marcy giggled a bit at their daily game, then pulled herself out of bed and threw the curtains open. Yes, today was a fantastic day, and she was looking forward to everything it would bring. After a quick shower, Marcy walked down her apartment stairs in a bathrobe…
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Bread Run
Prompt: Your character goes to the grocery store, and on the way there meets someone/thing unexpected, which requests something that the character cannot give it. Hilarity ensues. Story: Two in the morning and I still couldn’t get to sleep. I sat up slightly and tried plumping my pillow for the hundredth time. It looked so plush, so much like a big, white, Hot Pocket. No wonder I can’t sleep, I thought to myself as I sat all the way up and swung my legs over the side of the bed. I forgot to eat dinner! I slipped on my slippers…
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A Drop in a Bucket
I The Earth trembled as if burdened by a sudden mass too large to be held upon its shoulders. A great trumpeting sounded forth from the forest midst as balls of fire were slung away from the tree line to collide against the city walls, setting them ablaze and blinding the archers who defended them. A mighty flood of clanking armor and ferocious cries was loosed from the underbrush and advanced towards the city gates as if directed by an invisible yet inexorable force. The soldiers poured over the measly front lines and squashed the secondary forces that were guarding…
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Advent of Evil – Part 10 of 10
Richard was furious. Alan had lied to him. The next time he saw Alan, he knew he’d kill him. Wait. Richard stopped and analyzed that last thought. It wasn’t his. IT was roaming more freely now, pulling against ITs weakening chains and trying to assert control. Richard’s momentary lapse into anger gave IT just what IT needed to rear ITs ugly head and plant the murderous thought. Richard was angry, true, but he didn’t want to kill his friend. Alan had been the only one to believe him. The only one who really understood what was going on in Richard’s…
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Advent of Evil – Part 9 of 10
Richard’s mind was in turmoil. He wanted to find Cari to kill her for what she’d done to his wife. John wanted to find her to be reunited with his lover. IT wanted to find ITs master and share the fruits of ITs labor. That was the hardest part for Richard to reconcile. He knew the consuming darkness from which IT was born. Yet to think that IT had a master. That IT had a superior. That IT was not the darkest thing in existence. It scared Richard to his very core. It shook his foundation and threatened to throw…