The Sikh Geek

I’ve just upgraded the blog to Wordpress 2.3.1 and the theme to Blog Pixel 2.0. The new widgets capability is pretty cool and there is an Ajax Calendar on the sidebar. I’ve still got to put back some of the other stuff I had on my previous sidebar.

Well, looks like the saga of whether or when Office Accounting will be released in the UK is finally over and The Register has details of the launch in London. The free Accounting Express edition for the UK can be found here. Also, the site for the Professional version has trial downloads of Office Accounting for the UK. This is a good time to release it because Quickbooks has hiked its prices up for its new versions and taken out multiple currency support unless you get the more expensive versions. I know some Accountants, including my own are looking at this situation closely.

I believe this will be communicated in the Nov/Dec SBSC Newsletters so we’re getting a heads up on this thanks to Jen Brinton.

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My friend and fellow SBSC PAL in Canada, Elisabeth Vanderveldt, sent me the following press release. She’s an amazing woman and does so much in so many different areas especially promoting the role of women in IT but this goes to show she’s a fantastic business person first and foremost.

Well done Liz and Conamex!

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For Release  2 a.m. EST                                                                

November 15, 2007

Triple Crown for Conamex International as they capture Gold at the CEA Awards

Caps wins for Software Asset Management and Small Business Specialist of the Year at the 2007 Microsoft IMPACT Awards

Toronto, Ontario – November 15, 2007 - Montreal based Conamex International announced today that it has won gold in the Best Small Business Solution category at the fifth annual Channel Elite Awards.  This award caps wins for both Software Asset Management Solution of the Year and Small Business Specialist of the Year categories at the 2007 Microsoft Partner Program IMPACT Awards exactly one week ago.

The annual CEA Awards recognize Canadian technology partners’ and their commitment and leadership by the technology publication industry. CDN - Computer Dealer News, Canada’s No. 1 IT channel publication recognizes these individuals and companies and rewards them with the prestigious Channel Elite Award. The Channel Elite Awards has been rewarding solution providers who have distinguished themselves in the IT industry since 2002. CDN awards prizes in seven unique categories to channel partners for delivering innovative and problem solving solutions during the past 12-month period.

The Best Small Business Solution award honors the partner that has created the most innovative and problem solving hardware, networking, online or software-based solution for an organization or department with up to 100 seats using the solution.

Conamex was chosen as the winner for their two fold solution built using Microsoft Groove 2007 to manage IT assets and its ability to synchronize seamlessly with Microsoft Sharepoint Server,  that also addresses several areas of concern for Quality Control departments including collaboration, workflow, document integrity, security and retention. 

“We are extremely honored to receive the CEA award as recognition from the IT publication industry, one that sees unique and exciting technology solutions on a daily basis.  It also recognizes the innovation and team work at Conamex as well as the solid support we receive from our industry partners” said Elisabeth Vanderveldt, VP Business Development.  “These solution can be replicated in so many industries where IT assets or quality control departments exist.  That these solutions can be easily scaled to support other departments and requirements  is a huge cost savings advantage for clients and for Conamex, as we deal with a wide spectrum of industries ”.  

Conamex was last year’s CEA gold winner for Best Small Business Solution. Conamex has accumulated awards for the last 4 years running.  In 2006 they were the winners of the Microsoft World Partner Conference Award for Licensing Technology Solution of the Year.

Conamex, along with other technology partner winners and finalists in each of the award categories, were honored at a gala event in Toronto on November 14, 2007.

About Conamex International:

Conamex International provides strategic consulting, deployment and management of technology services, working in partnership with its clients to define, resolve and execute the required solution for their particular business and technology challenges. Conamex specializes in collaboration, mobility, data management, asset management, infrastructure and security technologies.

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For more information, press only:

Elisabeth Vanderveldt

Conamex International

(514)704-0329

evanderveldt@conamex.com

For information on the CEA Awards, please contact:

Joe Tersigni

416.290.0240 x 280

www.itbusiness.ca/cea

If you’re looking to buy me something for Christmas, then look no further than Front Up supplying some trendy Rugby oriented fashion! Courtesy of Facebook Advertising!

It’s funny how a number of related things happen at the same time. Firstly, I received AMITPRO’s group discount from SBSMigration.com, I then saw a post on the SBS2K Yahoo Groups from Jeff Middleton about his 2008 Conference he’s organising and then a post by Dave Overton on SBS 2003 Migration. Spooky or what?

Looks like Jeff is busy updating the products, services and website of SBSMigration.com. I’m seriously tempted by Jeff’s conference and at WPC 07 Anne Stanton showed me her photos of the Caribbean Cruise that Jeff organised earlier this year and it looked fantastic! I also asked Anne how Jeff had acquired such indepth technical knowledge and she said he’d hung out in newsgroups/mailing lists for a couple of years learning from other people. Wow, I’m sure if I hung out like that for the remainder of my life that I couldn’t accumulate that kind of expertise. When I read his posts on the mailing lists then they are just so authoritative that I just feel like saving everyone. In fact one of the most accessed posts on my blog is his mailing list reply as to why you can’t run multiple SBS Servers in the same network which I published on my blog.

The CD resource entitled "How to Sell, Deploy and Build Business with Microsoft Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0 (WSS) and SBS 2003 R2" will be communicated in the December SBSC Special Ed Kit and be up on the Portal around about 7th Dec 2007.

Thanks to Jen Brinton for finding out from Microsoft Corp about this.

This post from Vlad is enough for me and I’m unsubscribing to Vladville. I have to say I find it offensive his attitude towards a nation, India and his references to indianinabucket.com and stories of Monkeys and relating them back to Microsoft Employees there. India is a nation where my parents are from, where I spent a year at school at and where many of my family live and work. I don’t see a point to these posts other than to be controversial for the sake of it. What’s even more surprising is how no one else has challenged him but supported this view. But as Vlad says if you don’t like his content then don’t read it and I’m stopping reading it!

It’s a great shame because his posts used to be very insightful and say things which we all thought but were afraid to say but for sometime it’s just been doing things down from single IT Consultants, SMB Nation and India. Is this what happens when you feel you have a voice to a certain online constituency?

I thank him for inspiring me to be an active part of SBSC and I would urge him to go back to being that inspiring and positive genius that he once was!

Seeing as I’m on a mobile theme at the moment, I thought I would talk about a real mobile event and that is the launch of the iPhone in the UK. Now, I’ve heard people dismiss it because it doesn’t have Activesync support as if this is the height of innovation. You’ll notice that these people are the sort that probably go to watch films and spend hours telling you that a particular event in the film was not possible for the following technical/scientific reasons - the kind that find it impossible to suspend disbelief - reality and the here and now is what matters to them. We know them and love them and we’re probably one of them. But you know what Stephen Fry has it absolutely right that eventhough we could name about a dozen fundamental flaws with the iPhone including that it doesn’t support 3G, it is still an amazing device for its graphical user interface. Yes, it’s called excitement and the thing you look forward to having and possessing and showing off to your friends in the pub. Oh, but wait, it’s not got Activesync! Chuck that crap in the bin! How could I possibly live without responding to email 24 hours of the day. Anyway, who needs a life when I can rest assured that email, calendar and contacts are synchronised with my Exchange Server The iPhone, a device so imperfect, but it still makes people want it way more than a Windows Smartphone.

This is being reported by BBC News Online that India has built a new supercomputer that is fourth in the league of the world’s fastest supercomputers. So while some people think India is just a factory for producing people who do repetitive/basic tasks and are not very good at communicating, then consider the following :-

• Has it’s own Space Programme
• Has it’s own Nuclear Missile Programme
• Within 5 years will overtake the UK for Venture Capital Funding (source Library House)
• Is the third largest inward investor in to the UK

So, where is the UK Space Programme? We have a share in ESA (European Space Agency). Remember the Beagle saga?

So, where is the UK’s Nuclear Missile Programme? We’re buying it from the Americans eventhough we can’t actually afford it!

But, please keep thinking India is full of people who can’t provide quality technical support to you. That’ll do me nicely thank you!