With the recent release of the Ping feature in iTunes 10, a new social platform has evolved for music lovers. I love the idea of bringing a social aspect to iTunes, but I’m not yet sold on the interaction with just the store. Why can’t my existing library of CD’s and digital tracks be included in the fun? I think in time the service may expand to include it but it will be interesting to watch initial reactions. Check out this guide for a detailed setup guide.

One thing that I do know for sure is that Apple got the privacy settings right. Recent issues with Buzz and Facebook have been all over the media basically saying that users cannot trust the privacy settings and they are not clear enough. When enabling Ping, users are asked a serious of questions that break it down very clear to users. It’s open, its clear, and its to the point. Kudos to Apple for getting this right where other major players have failed.

The setup for privcacy gives you 2 paths to take and one option. You can ‘Allow people to follow me’ and if so, ‘Require my approval to follow me’. The alternative, nice and clear is ‘Don’t allow people to follow me’. Your required to set these preferences during setup- it doesn’t get much easier or clear cut than that.

TweetDeveloping clean, search friendly domains and URLs is the first thing that you need to look at when developing a site from the ground up. I like to think of the process like it were a geo-specific site. As an example we’ll use Hartford, CT.

I would want my domain to be connecticut.com in this case. This represents our business, our top level domain. In the case you need to abbreviate, you want to make sure you abbreviation is clear and precise (eg: ct.com). Don’t try and come up with something crazy that only you can decipher (eg: cnnect.com). This is a domain not a vanity license plate. Take a look at this article about URL canonicalization (using www. vs not using it)

From there we’ll move to our city. This represents your business channel (if it’s appropriate to break it out and you have the content to populate it). We are looking for hartford.connecticut.com. This makes a clean, clear structure that shows we are looking at data within Hartford, for the State of Connecticut. Some examples may be manfuacturing.ourbusiness.com or research.ourbuisness.com. Only break out these subdomains if your business reflects the same structure and you have enough content to break out into separate entities. It may not make sense for you to do this, and you should take great caution in making this decision. Cross linking between all of your subdomains is also very important to keep your top level domain relevant for each. Search engines will not just pick up on it. More information can be found in this article about SEO and subdomains.

So now we are have our domain structure for a specific channel, hartford.connecticut.com, now it’s time to move on to the rest of the URL. You should be using keywords instead of ID’s or variables being passed. Sticking with the geo reference, now we are looking at http://hartford.connecticut.com/downtown – this is a nice clean structure that is keyword rich. Depending on your sites content, this may be as far as you need to go. For extensive sites, you may have specific content pages that need to be broken down to an even more detailed level. In that case, we’ll do something like this: http://hartford.connecticut.com/downtown/old-main-street

If you can avoid filenames like index.php it results in a much cleaner experience. If developing in PHP, several frameworks can lend a hand in URL re-writing to make clean SEO friendly URLs. My favorite is the Kohana PHP Framework. Keeping a nice clean look for the end user and improve your chances of link backs.

In some cases you may not be able to easily avoid using extra parameters or other application ID’s in your URL, but if you can avoid it the extra time spent may just help improve your search rankings.

Key tips:

• Use a dash (-) instead of an underscore (_)in URLs
• Use keyword rich URLs
• Keep the length to 5 or 6 keywords

Credit: Beverly & Pack @ flickr

A few weeks ago the last combat convoy made its’ way out of Iraq. Our country has been fighting for the last 7 years and I felt it would make for an interesting read to see how technology has evolved and what has popped up in the that time. Below are a few featured items that everyone knows and loves that have come to light in the time our soldiers have been in Iraq. While you’ve certainly used, read, and seen all of the following, it’s a reality check to think about how the world has changed in the last 7 years.

Facebook – 2004
The social networking phenomenon that launched in 2004 has changed the world we live in today. The social network states today it has over 500 million active users. I’m not sure this one needs needs any more elaboration.

Firefox – 2004
While Mozilla existed for a few years, Firefox launched in 2004 as an open source browser available to everyone for free. Firefox changed the way users browsed and developed for the web. It forced web giants like Microsoft to shift more of their focus to the web browser market which led to the advanced web browsers we use today.

YouTube – 2005
Launched in 2005, YouTube is the place for video on the web. It’s difficult to imagine a time when people weren’t watching 2 billion videos a day.

Nintendo Wii – 2006
While our troops were battling for us their children were home playing Call of Duty and Wii Sports. The game console changed the way that kids played video games and opened up a whole new world of fitness strategies.

iPhone – 2007
While iTunes and the iPod are among the biggest changes of our decade, the iPhone has been instrumental in upping the smart phone game. From their innovative touch screen to the simple yet flexible interface the iPhone has been a game changer. At the time the war started, take a look at the phones that were hitting the market.

Google ‘twitter for business use’ and you’ll see pages upon pages of best practices and case studies about business’s who use Twitter. Comcast gets it. I had an issue with a remote that the customer service center would not replace for me in person. I tweeted about it and mentioned @comcast along with it. Within minutes, @comcastbill replied and asked a few questions, followed by a DM that asked for my address to ship the remote I needed next day via UPS.

For some reason, the remote that was shipped did not arrive next day. I hopped back on twitter and shouted over to @comcastbill that the remote had not come in. Instead of back tracking his story, putting me on hold, or making excuses; he simply said I won’t waste time digging up what happened. I’ll ship you another remote- here is the tracking number. The original remote actually ended up coming in about 3 days later. Turns out that UPS delivered it to the wrong address and it had to be re-routed.

Being able to make quick decisions without having to bounce back to a manager or supervisor for approval coupled with a quick and effective response was the key to making this service engagement a success. Congratulations Comcast you guys have gotten customer service by social media right!

I stumbled upon Grooveshark today and I am very impressed. As a long time Pandora user and premium service subscriber I’m always pretty happy with the service. All attempts with different streaming services have just been unpleasant and reassured that my Pandora subscription ($36 annually) was worth it’s weight in gold. The desktop app, mobile app, and web versions are all very clean. I’ve had very few gripes and only published one of them.

Enter Grooveshark. The first thing I noticed was the ability to search for a song and add it to my stream. That is something very unique, and also made me appreciate how easy it is to add songs your ‘craving’ to your stream. It’s also just as easy to remove songs from your stream with no annoying skip limit like Pandora has. It’s also very easy to pinpoint a particular album and listen to it from start to finish. Grooveshark also lists a popular playlist which lets you see what other people are listening too. You also have the ability to connect with the other users of the service and share your likes/playlists/radio stations.

Like Pandora, Grooveshark also offers a radio that will stream music based on genre. It’s different from Pandora’s service because it’s not based off an initial artist or song request, but you do have the ability to add songs you found via search to your radio station. It’s yet to be seen if that helps the service ‘learn’ what type of music within the genre you like. So far it seems that the free version is very feature rich, ad supported, and not limited to any amount of listening. The VIP service offers a desktop app, enhanced web UI, and extra support. At $30 annually it packs more of a punch and comes in at a lower price than Pandora. It also works internationally for now. For that reason, watch out Pandora.

Part one of this interview as posted last week. It received and overwhelming response so I wanted to get part two out quickly. Enjoy!

Can you think of a situation where you were really feeling ‘deflated’ and going to work actually helped change your mood?

It may sound corny, but the time when I notice it the most is during the Friday meetings. When Scott gets up and talks about how we are doing, and what the plans are, it makes me feel proud to work here. During one of the meetings recently we had an in-depth discussion of the privacy policy (which we’ve just updated, by the way) to make sure that everyone understood our position and answer any questions. Things like that are very motivating, so even if I’m tired from working hard all week, it peps me up.

The other way I get jazzed from work is reading a really good answer to a question on the community. Seeing someone help another person through their technical problem, taking time out of their day to help a complete stranger, makes my happy. Being able to facilitate that altruism is what makes me get out of bed every day.

Spiceworks is obviously growing at a fairly quick rate at this point it it’s product cycle, what do you think drives that energized development?

The saying is “nothing succeeds like success” and I think that is part of it. Even though we are growing quickly, there is a lot of focus on making sure we hire the right people. We are actually slightly behind on the hiring plan because of us being careful about it. Because of the success that Spiceworks has had so far, we can attract a lot of good people, fortunately.

In terms of the product development, I think the drive comes from wanting to build a kick-ass product that people love. Part of the challenge is managing that growth, and the complexity of the software. One of the things we are focusing on right now is simplifying things. How do you add new features while preserving the easy of use that got us to where we are?

So many companies claim to have a unique culture. From your point of view, how does Spiceworks step the game up to another level?

I have to give props to our CEO again – one of the things he told me when I interviewed was that after the last company he worked at, he realized that the bottom line on whose values ran the company came down to the CEO. If you aren’t the CEO, you can have influence, but you aren’t the person with the final say. This time around he wanted to have his values be the ones that were the foundation, and I think what has been created in Spiceworks is a testament to the truth of that. He really walks the talk, and is very open about everything we do. Everything we build is designed to create value for everyone involved, not to exploit one group of people so another can gain. We make money, our vendors make money, and our users get free software, a great community and better deals on products.

I think if you look at other companies who are doing really well because of their culture, like Google, Amazon, Zappos, Woot, ThinkGeek, etc., you’ll find that the values of the people who started the company are what put them head and shoulders above the rest. Once you put someone else in charge, that is when things can start to slip.

I don’t think that we necessarily are better than any of the companies I mentioned, but maybe what makes us unique is that we are very aligned with the values of IT professionals, the “hacker code”.

Those of us who get and are fascinated by technology see it as a path to building a better world, built on a meritocracy, with more fairness and equality, and less politics and exploitation.

Spiceworks is the solution for complete network management software, helpdesk, PC inventory tools & IT reporting solution designed to manage everything IT in small & medium businesses. As a user of Spiceworks and an active member of the community, I’ve noticed that the culture that Spiceworks provides to it’s employees is something that really shows. The employees are passionate about what they do and you can see it in their day to day communications within the community.

I think that within the next few years culture is going to play more and more of a role in up and coming companies. Finally entrepreneurs, small business owners, and even long time executives are starting to see the huge benefits of providing a healthy, fun, and well defined culture in the workplace. Spiceworks was nice enough to offer up an exclusive interview with Community Manager Nic Tolstoshev to answer some of my questions based on the culture at the Spiceworks office based in Austin, Texas.

Enter Nic:

If you had to pick 5 terms to describe the culture at Spiceworks, what would they be?
1) Honest – that is one of the things that drew me here, was hearing the CEO say “lets see how far we can get telling the truth” in this video: http://www.spiceworks.com/tv/?cat=spiceworld&video=Coffee-Talk I actually recommend watching that video if you want to get the best sense of the culture at Spiceworks, from the four guys who started it. Now that I’m here and I see that put into practice, it is very refreshing.  We don’t have to pretend things are going any better than they are, or brush problems under the rug and hope they go away.  Being able to be open and honest with our coworkers, our vendors, and our users, is a breath of fresh air!
2) Relaxed – from the dress code, to the beer fridge, to the way everyone relates to each other, things are very casual.  There isn’t much pretense or trying to make a fake impression.  There are flexible schedules to accommodate how each person works best.  If you aren’t a morning person, work 10am to 7pm, or whatever works for you.
3) Hard-working – everyone here is very self-motivated.  They want to do a good job, and make great software to make IT folks’ lives easier.  Nobody has to be micromanaged or tracked, because they know what they need to do and they get it done.
4) Fun – we have a lot of fun here, whether it is throwing parties for various events, or just having a laugh in any given meeting.  There is a very playful attitude at all times here, where we don’t take things too seriously.
5) Initiative – when someone has a good idea they just run with it.  Nobody has to ask permission, or get approval from a committee.  This means that things can be a bit chaotic, but it works out better than in a more rigidly planned setup.  The unexpected discoveries that come out of this culture more than make up for any of the chaos.  SpiceRex is a good example.  We didn’t have a search committee to select a mascot.  It just happened by chance, and everyone ran with it.

Check out part two of this interview here on synergy! Check out out Spiceworks and watch for the much anticipated 5.0 release.

Spiceworks has started to unveil the new features for their upcoming 5.0 release. What promises to be their biggest release yet, is shaping up to tackle some long time feature requests. The 19th release brings page load speeds to the table that are 30% faster on average.

Here are some highlights on the new release, slated to launch in September 2010:

• A new TFTP server that can save and restore configuration files for network hardware. You can also compare versions of the backup configurations.
• Improved SNMP device support for a more accurate and detailed network map.
• Hyper-V support for deeper management of virtualized devices.
• Associate your help desk users with assets, and opening up the door for user administration like password resets and session unlocking.
• A unified management console for MSP’s who have multiple clients running a helpdesk, meaning you can work on all of your tickets from one place!
• Improved purchase tracking with updated methods of reporting and calculating costs.

The new TFTP server for loading/backing up network hardware configurations

Already a Spiceworks user? Check out the new 5.0 beta and news feed here in the community.

I attended a networking event recently where I was asked the question, “What do you think about India?”. When someone asks me a question I am usually pretty quick to respond with an answer that will at least start some conversation. This one stumped me, and for some reason my answer was “Well, it’s crowded”. Which is true, but not quite what the person asking was looking for.

The reason I was asked that question had to do with outsourcing. When I explained what I do on a full time and consulting basis (web development among other things), the question really meant what I thought about my job being outsourced to India. After the initial shock and a quick laugh I expanded on my original answer. The truth is, and I quickly added “I love India”.

To further expand on that- I actually love outsourcing. Many people may see it as a threat but the truth is that we (as developers and other techies) have no choice but to accept the fact that there is someone across the world who will do our work for half the price. Great. Instead of fighting it, embrace it. Embrace that many of the basic, tedious web development tasks can now be taken care of for a good price. It leaves us to pick up the pieces here on projects that may have been outsourced. You’ll always hear the success stories and how much money people saved. What you can’t forget is that we possess a very strong advantage. That advantage is communication. We have the ability to communicate effectively with the stakeholders in a project far more that someone facing a language barrier across the world.

So the truth is “I love India”. I love it because it puts me in the position to step into projects that have a decent groundwork laid out for me. Projects that I now can spend time on the parts that just didn’t work in an outsourced environment. More often than not I get to focus on the part of projects that I enjoy working on, and that is the chance to learn someones business and industry and put a real taste of technology into it.

Have you started a project that was outsourced and gotten to the point where you need someone to step in and really learn your business? Contact us, we can help.

Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vitorcastillo

The official Blackberry Blog has released some more information on the anticipated release of Blackberry OS 6. Traditionally Blackberry has had such a loyal business following and focus for their products, but this upcoming release looks to harness the power of social media and make the mobile experience more personal. This is an obvious strategic move to align themselves to battle the Droid and iOS which have made huge improvements over the last 6 months.

Another big change is the redesign of the browser which is now powered by the open source project WebKit. As the launch gets closer, we’ll provide you with a more detailed list of changes and features as well as when users can expect the release.

Source: http://blogs.blackberry.com/2010/07/blackberry-6-another-sneak-peek/