Well Microsoft Canada & High Road Commucations invited me to the Business Launch on the morning of
May 12th to answer that question

So really what does the Edmonton Oilers & Hockey Hall of Fame have to do with the Launch of the Office 2010 Business edition. Well Office 2010 is revolutionizing the scouting process for the Edmonton Oilers, providing a streamlined platform to help track and rank draft picks
and enabling scouts to collaborate from anywhere at any time. Antoine Leblond, Sr. Vice President, Office Productivity Applications Group, Microsoft Corp. will also be on hand to discuss the design and development of Office 2010 and what it means to Canadian businesses.

In attentence 4 this great event were.

• Antoine Leblond, Sr. Vice President, Office Productivity Applications Group, Microsoft Corp
• Jason Brommet, Sr. Product Manager MS Office, Microsoft Canada
• Alfred Ng, Director of IT, Edmonton Oilers Hockey Club
• Sean Draper, director of research, analysts and software development, Edmonton Oilers, Edmonton Oilers Hockey Club
• Rick Martin, Regional Director, Alberta, Habanero Consulting Group
• Marshell Horner, Partner and General Manger, Jacox Harley Davidson

The Business Launch Event was more really about features what we can dazzle you with like a consumer launch event. It was more about Business Case Studies on how businesses like the Edmonton Oilers and Harley Davidson use the Office Tools & products to be more effective and effient  in there day to day tasks the Oilers are doing while Sharepoint 2010 it allows them to track research and collborate & find out info easier and quicker then a new player and recruit. Through there Scout Portal.

But after presentation & round table discussion there was great Q&A from the audience there was a demo pods setup at the back of the room for intrested parties to demo and check out New Features of Excel & Sharepoint of what was just previously discussed.

All & All it was great morning & we came away with some great information of how the companies are using the product & some great Office 2010 Swag

Six cores. That’s how many are in Intel’s ridiculous new Core i7-980x. MaximumPC takes us deep inside the world’s fastest CPU, with full, mind-searing benchmarks.

Meet the world’s fastest CPU. OK, so we just gave away the big reveal to our report before you even flipped one page, and without so much as the common courtesy of a spoiler alert. For that, we do not apologize, because it’s not like you couldn’t have guessed how this one would end up. After all, Intel’s new 3.33GHz Core i7-980X builds on all the goodness of the ass-kicking quad-core 3.33GHz Core i7-975 Extreme Edition, but is smaller, cooler, and has an additional two cores under its heat spreader. With Hyper-Threading enabled, that’s a cool 12 threads at the ready. How could anyone screw that one up?

With Hyper-Threading enabled, that’s a cool 12 threads at the ready. How could anyone screw that one up?

In fact, Intel’s Core i7-980X seems to be one of the most flawless launches we’ve seen from the company in some time. By flawless, we mean there are no contortionist acts, such as explaining to consumers that a new socket (LGA1156) will have the same CPU branding as an incompatible existing socket. Nor is there the head-scratcher of a very novel, yet very limp, integrated graphics chip in a CPU (Clarkdale), which, by the way, won’t work in boards that lack graphics output ports.

With Core i7-980X, you update your BIOS, drop the chip in, and-voilà-you spend hours rocking a six-core high. Put simply, Core i7-980X is 24-ounces of prime-rib red meat for performance enthusiasts who really haven’t had much to gnaw on since the original 3.2GHz Core i7-965 Extreme Edition came out two years ago.

So we’re done, right? You don’t need to read on? Sorry, there’s still more to learn. If you want to know if your motherboard works with the new chip, what applications can really exploit the six cores, and how this bad boy performs, you’ll have to keep reading.

What’s in a Name?
We know that, by now, enthusiasts should be immune to Intel’s confusing model numbers, but there’s one thing that sticks in our craw about the Core i7-980X: Despite it being the world’s first consumer x86 hexa-core, and despite it using the latest 32nm process, it’s label is a mere five notches greater than the quad-core Core i7-975 Extreme Edition part it ostensibly replaces.

Surely, all the goodness of two more cores and a total 12 threads of computing would warrant a Core i9 designation, or at the very least, a much higher model number, right? No, Intel officials told us. The company said that, despite previous reports that it would call its hexa-core Core i9, Intel backed off when retailers and vendors complained of too many blasted brands. And as to why it isn’t a 999X or 9900X, Intel said such gestures are unnecessary. The part is designed for enthusiasts and the folks who buy it will know that it’s not a mere five clicks more than a Core i7-975.

Beneath the Surface
Fortunately, the chip is fairly simple to understand. It uses the new 32nm process that was introduced with the dual-core Core i5/Core i3 Clarkdale CPUs. For code-name junkies, that makes it part of the Westmere family-not part of the original 45nm Nehalem family. All six-cores reside on a single contiguous piece of silicon. Like the original Nehalem CPUs, each core has 2MB of L3 available to it, giving the CPU a total of 12MB of L3 cache. The cache is shared across all the individual cores, which means a single core can have up to 12MB of L3 cache if the other five cores are sleeping.

As is the case with all Extreme processors, the chip is fully unlocked letting you change multipliers as well as Turbo Mode ratios. Turbo Boost is present but not as pedal-to-the-firewall as the LGA1156 parts. The Core i7-980X will give you a Turbo Boost up to 133MHz if more than one core is active. With single-threaded apps, the CPU will Turbo Boost up to 266MHz. That’s boring compared to the Core i7-870, which will boost from 2.93GHz to 3.6GHz, or about 733MHz. We’d be remiss, though, if we didn’t point out that the Core i7-870 starts out at a much lower clock speed.

If You Build It, Will They Come?
If you think it’s all sunshine and lollipops for hexa-core computing, it’s not. As always, the problem is finding applications that will actually use the available threads. That was a problem with the original dual-cores and quad-cores; now with a hexa-core and Hyper-Threading, the situation hasn’t improved much. The apps aren’t nonexistent, but they’re certainly not as prevalent as you would hope. That makes upgrading to the Core i7-980X something you’ll want to think about first. Certainly, if you are a mega-multitasker, more cores don’t hurt. But if your primary applications are single- or dual-threaded, the extra cores will just sit idle, so you’ll need to seriously consider whether paying for a hexa-core makes sense.

A Close-Up Look at the Core i7-980X

All six cores of Intel’s Core i7-980X share 12MB of L3 cache on the die. The 1.17 billion–transistor CPU also has two QPI connections but only one is enabled on consumer CPUs. The second QPI is use for multi-CPU Xeon configurations.

In the final analysis, this is a CPU that turns in performance that is, at its worst, equivalent to the Core i7-975 it replaces. At its best, the i7-980X offers up to 50 percent more performance than its closest competitor. That’s pretty much unprecedented and certainly helps the Core i7-980X earn its crown as the new performance king.

For Full the Article check out Intel’s 6-Core Gulftown Gets Tested, Blows Us Away
for Benmark and More About this6 Core Monster CPU

After some intro & memories flashbacks of Apples past we were presented with the name of this magic creation.

Pretty much everyone i knew & all my twitter peeps were like Huh?? Why such a bad bad name
joking about femine products were top trending on twitter all day lol.

Then is get better as that middle graphic got replaced with what people call an oversized iPod Touch ..

Here is what the New York Times looks like on the iPad

The new email application now with new improved DROP DOWN Menu’s

The new fancy exiciting calender & contacts functionality

For the specs of this bad boy tablet. I think it will have some good uses but it is really just an oversized iPod Touch actually you can get a keyboard to attach to it so we will see hope it does

As you see below it has a NEW battery of 10 hours & Month long standby when I the Locked mode. Also It has incorporated iPhoto instead of the normal iPhone photogallery

The real reason people will want to use the iPad Tablet is for all there Ebook reading & movie watching needs. So here is how the NEW iBooks looks like & full screen movies.

Below is the afore mentioned Keyboard & Dock attachment you can have while being in a coffee shop or at home. Combine that with wifi & 3G you got a pretty powerful machine to semi replace your laptop so give it shot when it comes out in April/ March.

So there is my review of the iPad Launch so hope it was informative and intresting for you
leave me a comment or question below thanks alot

An OLED display, 5-megapixel camera and a release date between May and July appear to be the most likely rumors (and we agree that those all sound like very distinct possibilities). Also ranking high are rumors of a front-facing camera, dual-core processor with more RAM and a touch-sensitive case.

So below is just a collection of rumored images of what the famous tablet will look like tomorrow but recent reports indicate it will be the size of 2 iPhones high & 2 iPhones wide. So enjoy below photos

11 Non-Traditional Uses of WordPress

By Steven Snell | March 1st, 2009 in design

WordPress is probably the most popular blogging platform and it can also be used as a CMS to power other types of websites, such as a portfolio site. However, with some creativity and a growing number of available resources, WordPress’s limits seem to be expanding constantly.

In this article we’ll take a look at a combination of tutorials, plugins and themes that can help you to use WordPress in non-traditional ways. Hopefully you’ll find something that you can use, or at least something that will be a valuable learning resource for extending your knowledge and skills of working with WordPress.

1. Membership Directory

Last year Chris Cagle wrote a tutorial, How to Use WordPress as Membership Directory, at WPDesigner. Chris uses WordPress to power his directory, Pittsburgh Designers. The tutorial uses a few plugins for users and role management, and the end result is a moderated directory that allows members to enter information about themselves.

Update: Chris has posted a follow up to this tutorial since the release of WP 2.7 – The New and Improved Way to Turn WordPress 2.7 into a Membership Community.

2. Business Directory

The Business Directory Plugin for WordPress accomplishes a similar end result as the tutorial above. The plugin will allow you to create a directory on your website or blog where users can submit information about themselves or their business.

3. Ffffound Clone

Assualt Blog has an interesting tutorial where Tim shows how he built a Ffffound clone on WordPress. Ffffound is a great site for inspiration, and a sort of image bookmarking service for those who have access. Tim shows that WordPress can be used to build your own personal version, and he even has a working finished product, VNovember, that you can check out. The tutorial shows you how to set up the theme that Tim developed, which plugins to install, and how to make it all work.

4. Job Board

Niche job boards are now pretty common, especially in the design and development industry. The design job board here on DesignM.ag is using a great premium WordPress plugin called WPJobAds to power the job board. You could, of course, build this type of functionality into WordPress manually if you had the time and desire, but WPJobAds makes the process easier.

RecruitPress is a fee job board option. It is not a plugin, but rather a group of plugins and some core file modification that you install on top of WordPress.

I highly recommend that you do NOT buy the JobPress premium WordPress theme. I bought it, it didn’t work out of the box, and I got no response to my emails for support. The owners seemed to disappear as their site went down for an extended period, but it looks like it’s back now.

BlueFur also has a job board script that can be downloaded and used for your own job board. It’s more labor intensive than WPJobAds, but it is free.

5. Techmeme News Clone

Raj Dash wrote an article for Performancing that covers the process of using WordPress to build a “Techmeme River of News Clone.” This approach will not allow you to duplicate exactly what Techmeme does, but it is a cool idea that could be used in a variety of different scenarios.

In the article, Raj refers to a tutorial on Devlounge for mashing up feeds with Yahoo! Pipes. This is what Raj uses to create the river of news (a stream of headlines from a selection of blogs).

6. Email Newsletter

One of the older articles on NETTUTS is Build a ‘WordBurner’ Email Newsletter Manager Using WordPress and FeedBurner. WordPress and FeedBurner are obviously used together by thousands of bloggers, but in this tutorial you’ll learn how to create an email-only newsletter with content that does not show up on the front page of the blog.  The tutorial shows the manual process for “hiding” the newsletter category on the blog, but you could also achieve the same thing with the Advanced Category Excluder plugin if you don’t want to deal with the code.

7. Forums

While there are a number of options for hosting a forum on your site, it’s also possible to use WordPress. TheDeadOne.net offers the TDO Forum WordPress Theme. The theme will give you forum functionality, although you’ll most likely want to customize the design in some way. (Note: It only claims to be tested through WordPress 2.5).

8. Contact Manager

It’s also possible to use WordPress as your own contact manager. The WP Contact Manager Theme was developed for this purpose. It is a free theme that makes the blog a functional contact manager that can be extended further with some free plugins.

WP-CRM is another theme for turning WordPress into a contact manager. With WP-CRM you can add contacts and notes from the front end of WordPress without being in the admin dashboard.

9. Wiki

WordPress Wiki is a premium theme ($30) available at ThemeForest. This theme makes it easy to use WordPress for your own wiki. As expected, it’s not as robust as some other options, but it’s a great way to add a simple wiki to an existing site without a lot of effort or cost.

10. Review Site

WP Review Site is a premium plugin ($97) that will turn WordPress into a review site where visitors can place their own reviews and rate the listings. It also comes with a WordPress theme and some affiliate marketing tools. WP Review Site can be used as part of another site, or it can be used to set up a site dedicated to reviews.

11. E-Commerce

WP e-Commerce is a surprisingly powerful free plugin that will allow you to sell items through your WordPress-powered site or blog. While WordPress is not intended to compete with platforms that have been developed specifically for e-commerce, this plugin is ideal for bloggers and website owners who want to set up a small store without a lot of effort or expense.

20 Best WordPress Themes For Small Business

Small business websites need to clearly reveal what the business is, what it does, who it serves, and where it’s located. They demand clear navigation and a functional layout.

While the best option is probably to hire a designer to create your site for you, that’s not always a practical (or affordable) option.

One extremely inexpensive or free alternative is to download WordPress, choose a theme and customise it with your own logo and content. If you or someone on your staff has a knack for computers and the web, this can be a viable option.

It can also produce very professional-looking results for little or no cash injection. In fact, with the right theme and a deft touch with small customisations, it’s not difficult to create a better result than you’d get from paying for a website from a designer at the cheaper end of the spectrum.

But what are the best WordPress themes for small businesses? That’s the question we’re here to answer. Here are the top 20 themes for creating a small business website (some themes are free; others are ‘premium’, meaning they can be bought for a moderate fee.

Vibrant CMS

Offering a choice of 20 colour schemes, VibrantCMS is an elegant WordPress solution for small business owners wanting to build a modern, attractive website. ($US70)

Thesis

Thesis is an extremely flexible WordPress theme that can be adapted for purposes as widespread as a simple blog through to a full-fledged business site. ($US87)

Revolution Pro Business

A stylish, dark theme designed with small businesses in mind, allowing for a professional-looking static homepage plus a corporate blog. ($US79.95)

WP Remix

WP Remix is an advanced WordPress theme suite offering a range of page designs and colour schemes; it’s very well designed and turns WordPress into more of a complete content management system than just a blog publishing tool. Provides a great deal of flexibility for the small business. ($US75)

Notepad

Notepad is a minimalist, clear WordPress theme designed to host a small business or brochure-ware type website, particularly businesses focused around a single professional, although it could easily be adapted for larger companies; it comes in 13 colour combinations. (Free)

Market

The Market theme allows you to easily run your own WordPress-powered marketplace (i.e. online ecommerce store). It’s easy to set up and run, and comes with numerous configuration options. ($US55)

Ecommerce

Ecommerce is another theme that allows you to set up and manage your own WordPress-powered store online, and comes with a choice of six colour styles. ($US49)

WP CODA

WP CODA is a gorgeous, unique WordPress theme perfect for a product showcase site (especially for computer software). This theme’s fluid navigation is a great way to showcase various aspects of a product or various sides to the services provided by a business. (Free)

Travailler

Travailler is designed with the small business in mind, making it easy to create a smart-looking, custom-branded, professional website with great typography and design. ($US38)

Mimbo Pro

Mimbo Pro is designed to create online magazine websites, however with a little creative customisation it could be used to showcase a company’s products and services instead of magazine stories and images. ($US89.99)

WP-Polaroid

WP-Polaroid is a modern, funky WordPress theme designed to serve as a personal website, however it could just as easily be put to use as a small business homepage, with information about the company at the top of the homepage, and a weblog of the latest news items down below. Choose from blue and pink versions, or customise with your own background image. (Free)

Colourise

Colourise is a beautiful weblog-centric theme with a large header image. If the header image were replaced with a large image detailing key information about a company or its key product, the theme could serve as a good small business homepage. (Free)

Natural Power

Natural Power features rounded corners, a dark background and a crisp, clear design. The large coloured area towards the top of the page could be customised to highlight information about your business, followed by a weblog containing the latest company news and information. You can also choose from a number of colour schemes. (Free)

Whitespace

Whitespace is a professional-looking weblog theme. Businesses that are comfortable with having their latest news and information front and centre could use this theme, and add their “About Us” details at the top of one of the sidebars. (Free)

The Unstandard

The Unstandard is an image-heavy WordPress theme that could make a high impact small business website. The ‘weblog’ area in the main column could be used to visually promote various products, while providing company information in the right-hand text column. (Free)

Wynton Magazine

Wynton Magazine is another magazine-style WordPress theme that could just as easily be used as a small business website. The key is to publish items promoting your products and services instead of magazine stories. This theme makes good use of thumbnail images on the homepage. (Free)

PocketT

PocketT is a minimalist WordPress theme which could prove attractive to a small business that wants to communicate regularly with its clients. It features a prominent “about us” text area, clear navigation, and a weblog-style news feed. (Free)

WP Contact Manager

Rather than being a WordPress theme to help create a small business website, this is a theme that can help create a more productive workplace, by providing a common area to keep everybody’s business contacts up-to-date. You just install the theme, and then start posting your clients’ contact details to keep them in a central repository. (Free)

Prologue

This is another WordPress theme that can act as a great tool to help small businesspeople run their company. Small teams collaborating on a particular project could use Prologue to effectively communicate about who is doing what and when. (Free)

Launchpad

Launchpad is a fantastic theme for WordPress, which newly formed small businesses can use when they’re in the process of creating their website, or a new product website. It’s a domain parking theme that creates a homepage saying “Welcome to ‘X’ site” and asking visitors to sign up for RSS or email alerts so they know when the site proper launches. Much better than an “Under Construction” symbol. (Free)

Don’t miss our full list of the web’s best WordPress themes, including the cream of the premium theme crop.

Readers who viewed this theme also viewed:

• Cool free and premium WordPress themes
• Mimbo Pro
• Ecommerce
• VibrantCMS
• Notepad

This entry was posted on August 10th, 2008 and is filed under Features. It is tagged business, free, premium, small business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Action Steps

1. Get your name if Available

2. Choose an Attractive close-up picture of you

3. Write your BIO (powerful) (read it Back 10x)

4. Get a Custom Background @tweetpages or tweetbacks.com

5. Ask Open Ended Questions – so people answer back

6. Offer Value to other followers like to other blogs

7. Be yourself! Have fun Find your Twitter Style

8. Retweet other tweets you think are cool

9. Add followers from your mentors & competitors they will    back most times. (50-100 a day to start)

10 Use Twitter search for keywords in your niche.

Unusual Motivator #1 – Go Public

I like the pressure the happens when you tell people, who’s opinion you care about, what you want to get done. For instance, maybe your sister’s opinion of you really matters to you. You’d feel incredibly stupid if you told her something and then you let her down. Perfect. That’s exactly who you want to share your next idea with and make them hold you to the completion. But don’t tell someone who is a negative person – they’ll only try to talk you out of anything you’ve got planned or rain on your parade. I like to do this in a big way.
You’ve already seen this in action if you’ve read the blog at all. You know I made a very public promise on here that by January 2008 I’d have my first Maverick Business Adventures™ experience. I put it out in a very public way and I’d feel silly if I didn’t move forward with the project. I have tens of thousands of readers who would, in some way, hold me to it. [Side note: You may or may not want to reveal everything publicly if you feel like someone will steal your idea.]

Unusual Motivator #2 – Make a bet – Or even better make an embarrassing bet
Every notice how you’ll do more to win a silly bet than you would in other situations? You bet!
Why not make a silly and possibly embarrassing bet (back to #1) with a friend of yours for something you want to get done. Maybe it’s taking off 10 lbs. Both of you agree that you’ll lose 10 lbs within 6 weeks or the person who doesn’t needs to strut around town in the lime-green, thong bathing suit Borat wore (pics below). Get creative and make sure you really don’t want to be the loser of the bet.
Unusual Motivator #3 – Create a Big Enough Reason Why

If you have a big enough reason to get something done there’s almost no way you can fail. It’s the people with the biggest reasons (or the most reasons) who seem to pull through anytime the deck is stacked against them. My friend, Frank McKinney, recently completed the grueling Badwater Ultra Marathon. It’s a 135-mile run in Death Valley where the temperature frequently tops 100 degrees. Frank does it to raise funds for his Caring House Foundation Project and that’s his ‘why’.
For my family and other immigrant families the biggest reason why was simply because there wasn’t really another alternative. My Father came over from Russia with $256 in his pocket for me, my Mom and her Mom. He barely spoke English but he still managed to build a nice 7-figure business. What’s your reason why and it’s got to be bigger than simply “I want to be rich”?

Unusual Motivator #4 – Make a must-hit deadline

I like this one a lot. The rule is the more unbreakable the deadline – the greater the chance you’ll get your task done. Ever notice how the day before you leave for your vacation you miraculously get everything completed? That’s right – you’ve got a deadline (and a reason why). I’ve seen this work time and time again. Set your deadline. Sometimes it takes a big leap of faith but events, people, situations conspire will conspire to make sure you get your deadline met once you really make it a permanent deadline.

Quick example is when I sold my very first information product to doctors. I ran an ad and got 10 leads and 1 doc bought on the deadline from the sales letter (lesson in itself about deadlines for customers). So after peeling myself off the ceiling from being so excited someone actually bought – I realized I had no product ready. I wrote the doctor back and told him we would not charge his card since we were “republishing” the material and it would be ready in 30 days. Boom! A deadline! You can bet I worked my butt off til 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning many of those 30 days after my regular job to get this manual out there and done.

Another example, the first year I held my Underground™ Online Seminar – I really had no idea how it would be do. I didn’t know it would sell out weeks in advance – but I did set a deadline. An event is the most solid deadline you could put out there. I stood to lose $100k+ if it didn’t work and I knew the date it had to get filled by. A lot of people don’t want to set deadlines because they simply want everything to be perfect before a product/event/service is ready. News flash: That will never happen! Deadlines are like magic productivity pills. Anytime a project of mine is not progressing – it means I don’t have a real deadline in place with real penalties.

Unusual Motivator #5 – Document it and profit from it

Here’s one you might not hear anywhere else. One of my favorite motivators for getting off my butt is knowing I can document a certain process and others might be interested in it. That can take many different forms – anything from you having to have blogging material to actually turning what you do into some sort of information marketing product for sale.

A few years back when Missy & I moved to Manhattan Beach, CA for the Summer – one of my motivators (aside from the weather, playing beach volleyball, etc) was to document running an online business from a remote location. I turned that into a little bonus report that I previously used as a bonus for one of our products.

Alright there you go – 5 unusual ways to motivate yourself to get moving on any project, idea or business you’ve got cooking. Do you have any other ways you motivate yourself – leave a comment for everyone to benefit from. Or let me know if you use any of these 5 ways and your results.

If you found this Tips help full check out the Maverick Business Insider Tips and Tricks here

From what we can tell, the Skype for iPhone looks great; but it has some
drawbacks. One disappointment is that users won’t be able to place
calls over cellular networks, but only via Wi-Fi. Still, for
international callers especially, Skype’s iPhone app will save callers
money adds the convenience of allowing Skype users to use their
iPhone handset for Skype calls.

Looking more like a traditional iPhone app rather than the desktop Windows
counterpart most of its 400 million users are used to, Skype for iPhone features
five tabs at the bottom of the screen, displaying contacts, chats, a calling panel, call history, and
your profile (with Facebook-style status).

Skype for iPhone will use phone numbers directly from your phone’s address book, so no
more nasty duplicated contact lists. It even displays your contacts’
photos (if they have one set up on Skype). Conference calling is
available, but for the moment you can only take part in one if someone
invites you.

You can also chat with your Skype friends, but unfortunately this is the
only thing (besides seeing who’s online) you can do over a cellular
network. Skype for iPhone places calls only via Wi-Fi, not
differentiating itself much from the other voice apps in the App Store (Skype for Android G1 can place calls over 3G).

Skype for iPhone is still a young app and is short on some of the features its desktop counterpart has.
SMS, video and proper conference calling, file transfer, and voicemail
are missing from this first version, but let’s hope they will make
their way in future versions.

iPod Touch users will also be able to enjoy Skype, but this would require them to purchase a microphone, or headphones with built-in microphones (like the iPhone’s).