October 2007 - Posts

• Detroit Lions's QB John Kitna makes fun of coach in hilarious way

  Most of you who know me, know that I have a very odd sense of humor. Some call it dry. I suppose that's why John Kitna's halloween costume was right up my alley. Supposedly the Detroit Lion's defensive line coach, Joe Cullen, showed up at a Wendy's drive thru naked and wanting to get his grub on. Pretty funny stuff in and of itself. When it gets really funny is that John Kitna shows up at a team party dressed up as Joe in a faux nude outfit, and to top it off, his wife was dressed in a Wendy's drive thru outfit! Now that's good stuff. http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071031/SPORTS01/71031071 Posted Oct 31 2007, 05:56 PM by Randy Walker with no comments Filed under: Misc

• Golden Compass movie - anti Relgion movie?

  I was sent this link about the new Golden Compass movie aimed at kids, featuring Nicole Kidman. I normally like her movies, and remember the preview to be pretty good. However, it definately isn't an idea I want my kids to idealize. http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/compass.asp Posted Oct 30 2007, 05:52 PM by Randy Walker with no comments Filed under: Religion, Movies

• It's official! - INETA Regional Membership Mentor

  NEW INETA Membership Mentor: Randy Walker (randy.walker*@**harvest-it.com), Location: Northwest Arkansas (Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers, Bentonville), USA From INETA User Group: Northwest Arkansas .Net User Group, http://www.nwadnug.org Please send your congratulations and welcome to Randy -- our newest Membership Mentor, who comes highly recommended by those who know and recognize the tremendous work done within our developer community. Please include a quick introduction to you and your volunteer developer community work, to build a closer bond. Please extend every courtesy in working to build a stronger developer community. Randy is now taking over the important INETA volunteer position of Membership Mentor and the duties that have been the responsibility of Keith Nicholson for AR and Scott Spradlin for KS and MO. We thank both of them for the volunteer service to INETA as our Membership Mentors. Keith and Scott continue to be deeply involved in their user group community activities. Scott has taken the position of INETA Sponsorship Director. Membership Mentors act as advisor, counselor, guide, tutor, teacher, and guru of Membership to our member user group leadership and user groups. Membership Mentors recommend membership of new user groups and membership renewal of current user groups. Membership Mentors make themselves available for personal contact and are outgoing in building and maintaining superior relationships with the user group leadership for all user groups within their INETA Membership territory to strengthen our INETA user group community. Membership Mentors are vital to the strength of our community. INETA The Face of .NET embodied in you, our user group community leaders, members, sponsors, and supporters! About Randy Walker In the early Alpha days of .Net, Randy can remember being quite skeptical of all the promises that .Net was to bring to the VB community. Randy has now not only embraced the technology but works to passionately educate our programmer community to its unique use of technology and innovation. Randys community efforts helped to found the Northwest Arkansas .Net User Group, being its first Vice President and second President. He has also helped re-start the University of Arkansas .Net User Group. Randy was instrumental in putting together Tulsas first TechFest in 2006 (www.tulsatechfest.com) as well as helping with the Dallas Code Camps. He has spoken at numerous events including the INETA Birds of a Feather sessions at TechEd in Orlando (2007).Randys personal blog site can be found at www.vonlar.com and his small business help website and blog is at www.mysoftwarestartup.com Posted Oct 30 2007, 04:40 PM by Randy Walker with no comments Filed under: .Net, Northwest Arkansas, Microsoft, Accomplishments, NWA DNUG

• Internet Tax passes House & Senate

  Thankfully the House passed a 4 year bill on the tax moratorium on internet taxes. Looks like it just has to be approved by Bush now. I agree with the fact that our country has taken it for granted. Hopefully we'll be able to keep it around for a while, or at least until congress decides there's too much money being lost on internet sales. http://redmondmag.com/news/article.asp?editorialsid=9199 Posted Oct 30 2007, 04:05 PM by Randy Walker with no comments Filed under: Internet

• Microsoft Press book discount

  There's a 35% discount on specific Microsoft Press books. Some of which are really great books. http://www.microsoft.com/products/info/editorial/22/sustain/vistabooks.mspx Posted Oct 26 2007, 10:26 PM by Randy Walker with no comments Filed under: Books

• Credit cards to run a business

  Steve Strauss answers the question about starting up a businesswith a credit card. http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/resources/expert/strauss101007.mspx Posted Oct 26 2007, 10:22 PM by Randy Walker with no comments Filed under: Business Help

• Microsoft releases Response Point pricing

  Response Point is Microsoft's new VoIP phone system. It touts strong integration with Exchange Server and Outlook and is geared towards Small Businesses. However, with the published pricing, I find it too expensive. Sure, if your business has 30 employees, spending $5 grand isn't that bad. But if you have less than 10, it's way too expensive. There are some IP phone gateways that are available with PBX type of features now. I have looked into possibly purchasing one, but haven't yet decided to try it. It seems as if the market is finally maturing enough that the cost effectiveness for small businesses might be near. http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/oct07/10-02ResponsePointPricingPR.mspx Posted Oct 26 2007, 06:01 PM by Randy Walker with no comments Filed under: Microsoft

• Microsoft in the Black

  I love the following quote from the Redmond Channel Partner Update newsletter: Really, it doesn't matter how unpopular Vista seems to be, how poorly third parties have supported it, how blithely PC makers have tried to avoid it, how weakly Microsoft has promoted it, how strongly enterprises have rejected it. None of that matters because Microsoft is making money. A whole lot of money. For those that didn't know, Microsoft made huge profits last quarter, which was attributed to the Halo 3 launch, Vista, and Office. Thankfully, their stock price went up after being very stagnant for the past several years. (I know this because my teenie stock portfolio, hasn't gone up! Now if only Wal-Mart and Sony would start showing some big gains too!) Posted Oct 26 2007, 04:34 PM by Randy Walker with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Microsoft

• Microsoft buys into Facebook

  Microsoft agreed to pay $240 million dollars for a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook. According to Redmond Magazine, Microsoft invested $306.12 per Facebook user (over 50 million Facebook users). http://redmondmag.com/news/article.asp?editorialsid=9181 Posted Oct 25 2007, 09:02 PM by Randy Walker with no comments

• Now using w.blogger

  I found this wonderful tool to help me publish new blog postings. http://wbloggar.com/download.php The great thing about it, it works with Community Server 2007, which is the website application I am using to host this blog. Microsoft is also working on a new free beta product called Live Writer. You can take a look at it at http://get.live.com/betas/writer_betas. Unfortunately the last time I looked it didn't support Vista x64 (64 bit) so I can't use it on my desktop machine. Otherwise, I'm looking forward to using it soon. Posted Oct 25 2007, 08:39 PM by Randy Walker with no comments Filed under: Internet

• Entrepreneur Radio Show

  I found this wonderful resource for entrepreneurs and businesses. http://www.thebusinessmakers.com/ Posted Oct 25 2007, 08:08 PM by Randy Walker with no comments Filed under: Business Size, Business Help

• Halo 3 Launch a worldwide success

  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21149633/ I had heard that more copies of Halo 3 sold in it's debut, than any game has sold in it's lifetime. I did not previously know that Bungie was wholely owned by Microsoft.  But now that it will be it's own company, I'm looking forward to see what other creations they come up with. Posted Oct 05 2007, 02:33 PM by Randy Walker with no comments Filed under: Microsoft, Gaming

• Roomba Robot - Your next pet?

  I have always been a fan of the Roomba.  I've actually wanted one for years, whenever I first saw the ads.  And while working for the Clorox company, they introduced a wet mop version.  Since then I realized I really really wanted one ... for my wife. It's not a big surprise to me that the article below talks about the affect it's had on it's owner.  And even though I like and prefer wood floors, it's a huge bonus for talking myself into purchasing a Roomba.  So without a doubt, the next home I own, wood floors will be a necessity (we currently have tile).  Not to mention, I'll have to look for a fridge with a higher clearance now. But dressing up your Roomba?  Sorry, that's a bit of a stretch for this tech addict. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21102202/ Posted Oct 03 2007, 03:32 AM by Randy Walker with no comments Filed under: Articles, Gadgets

• Northwest Arkansas User Group Meeting Recap

  There was a good chance I wasn't going to be able to present at the most recent NWA DNUG meeting.  Fortunately my root canal didn't happen today and I was happy to see the full room.  For those that weren't there, I did an Intro to SQL Server Reporting Services presentation and enjoyed talking with people afterwards.  Much of the biggest problem with Reporting Services is that people have a hard time getting started, something I've heard time and time again. Unless you enjoy fussing with learning a new product, I know how most people feel.  After going over some of the basics, I had decided to "wing it" with the rest of the presentation.  But I actually found that going over the basics took quite a bit of time.  I gave quite a few tips that I learned with the tool and hope people can make effective use of them. It was great seeing seeing a couple of people from the UofA DNUG, including Rocky who is their President and this year's Microsoft onsite academic partner. I especially found it interesting that the founder of BentonvilleBase2 showed up to my presentation.  I suppose I should be proud having someone try to emulate my business and professional career.  For those that don't know, Base2 created a competitor to the software I created through my company Harvest I.T. Inc.  I just personally find it dispicable, the methods, used to do so. I'm looking forward to the next two meetings.  Both meetings have some exceptional speakers, the next being Raymond Lewellan.  Hope to see you there! Posted Oct 03 2007, 03:08 AM by Randy Walker with no comments Filed under: Presentations, Northwest Arkansas, Local Events, Accomplishments, NWA DNUG

• UofA Halo 3 Competition

  Although the turnout wasn't as high as expected by some, I thought the event was a resounding success.  Two different Microsoft employees brought presentations, one of which was on the XNA Robotic studio.  XNA being the development environment for the XBox 360. The competition gave away some excellent prizes worth thousands of dollars.  A full copy of Microsoft's new graphics and image design studio was given away, as well as a cool Halo 3 Xbox 360 controller.  I'm looking forward to the next event and a chance to actually frag someone.  Well I did get at least 3 kills during a practice session! Posted Oct 01 2007, 12:02 PM by Randy Walker with no comments Filed under: Local Events, Gaming