An amendment to the 1947 National Security Act, this little beauty (the brainchild of Republican Representative Michael Rogers) is meant to protect America’s online interests (both governmental and corporate) against attack. However, it’s so broad, and the threats it’s supposed to protect against so loosely defined, that it has a huge potential for abuse. CISPA allows any government agency (you read that right: any) to demand (and receive) any and all data collected from you by a private company, without a warrant. There is no oversight, and no recourse, as the act would override current privacy laws (such as the Wiretap Act and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act) as well as the Freedom of Information Act. You aren’t even informed if your information has been passed along and both the government and the private company are immune from prosecution for doing so.

One of the most insidious parts of this bill is the fact that it is receiving support from some of the biggest players in the tech industry (like Facebook and Google) because it will protect them from prosecution for a variety of privacy infractions. It also helps them combat hackers and transfers some of the cost of doing so to the government (i.e.: you).

To read more about CISPA, you can go here, here or here.

To join with thousands of other users in protest, click here to tell your Senator to take a stand against CISPA.

This well-titled video is a Baz Luhrmann-style piece to encourage viewers to get out of ruts, overcome their fears or plain stop procrastinating. Opening with a dose of almost painful honesty, Ze grabs us with his trademark style and, with energy and verve dishes out wisdom and inspiration in equal measure. Such as:

“Perfectionism may look good in his shiny shoes, but he’s a little bit of an a$$hole, and no one invites him to their pool parties.”

Or

“Let me think about the people who I care about the most, and when they fail, or disappoint me, I still love them, I still give them chances, and I still see the best in them. Let me extend that generosity to myself.”

He’s back, ladies and gentlemen. Sit back, enjoy, and then start something.

What is a Cluster Shared Volume (CSV)?

A Cluster Shared Volume is a disk partition that is shared amongst multiple Microsoft Hyper-V VM hosts.  Basically every VM host setup on the Cluster Shared Volume has access to the same disk partition.   It adds redundancy with Virtual Machine failover – if one VM host has problems, another VM host will start the VMs that were running on the problem host.  In order for you to setup a Cluster Shared Volume, you must run an iSCSI SAN.

Active Directory Domain Controllers using Cluster Shared Volumes

For the benefit of redundancy, it seems intuitive to put all VMs on the CSV, including the Active Directory Domain Controllers. However, there is a major issue with doing so.  CSV requires the Active Directory domain authentication to intiate.  If your server facility has a major power failure that causes all of your machines to reboot at once, you will end up in an infinite dependency loop where the CSV cannot start because there is no domain authentication and the Domain Controller VM cannot start because it cannot access the CSV.  At this point, your whole network is down.

What’s the proper setup?

If you plan to run VMs for all of your servers, Microsoft recommends to run at least 1 Active Directory Domain Controller VM off of a physical hard disk on the host machine.  That way, if you run into a major reboot, that one Domain Controller will be able to start up which will allow for the CSV to start up, thus allowing the rest of the VMs to start up thereafter.

Happy Clustering!

Eric

Not only will links from websites in “good neighborhoods” improve your search results, but the new Social Search update means that Google recognizes that an endorsement from a friend or trusted authority is worth more than endorsements from a few thousand people you’ve never heard of. This means that a site can jump from #47 in search results to #4 because a link to it was shared by someone in your Google+ circles. Or say your new blog post gets re-tweeted by Time magazine…it could get boosted to the top spot in search results. Love it or hate it, the search landscape has changed. This article will share some tips to help you navigate it.

Search Equality

Traditional methods of search engine optimization make it very difficult for a new site to successfully rank for popular keywords – existing sites have probably spent years building their position, gathering links, increasing their PageRank, etc. But the new social dimension of SEO make it easier for new players to make their mark. A virally-spread tweet can now be worth as much as a permanent link from a top-ranking site in your field!

Hopefully your business is already using social media (after all, this is where most of your customers are!). Now you can take additional advantage of the accounts you’ve created and relationships you’ve built to help boost your site in the SERPs. Pretty sweet, huh?

How to Use Social Media to Improve Your Search Results

Get on Google+

Like it or not, Google gives preferential treatment to their home-grown social network. Even though it has FAR fewer users than Facebook or Twitter, a share or +1 in Google+ seems to have a greater impact on search results. Thus far, 4 items have the most impact on G+ results: authorship, Circle numbers, shares and +1s. Does this mean that getting added to someone’s Circle can get your new blog post added to the top of that person’s friends’ networks?

Yes.

Considering how completely Google dominates the search market, and how much they prefer social sharing from their social network (Google+), it is definitely worth an SEOs time to be on Google+.

Get More Followers

Everything you write and share can appear in your followers’ search results – even if they’re not a member of the social network you put the content on! In other words, every new follower you gain might see your site on their search engine results page in the future…this is basically free remarketing for your brand.

There are plenty of ways to encourage people to follow you: have a contest with a sweet prize (price of admission is to follow you on a particular social network), give exclusive discounts to your followers, offer a free white paper or ebook to your followers, etc.

Post Everything on Social Media Sites

And make sure that it links back to your site. Not only does this create more links, but it also helps Google index your content even faster. There are plenty of tools to push your website content / blog posts directly to your Facebook page, LinkedIn account, Twitter account, etc. USE THEM!

Make Your Content Easy to Share

Shares, like inbound links, act as endorsements – both in the eyes of users and the “eyes” of search engines. “But wait!” As the saying used to go…”That’s not all!” If someone shares your content (whether or not they follow you on any given social media site) their entire network might see your post via a Google (social) search. So if someone like Tim Ferriss shares your content you’ll not only get a SERP ranking boost, but their (large) network will probably read – and share – your content as well.

Add Share Buttons Everywhere. EVERYWHERE.

Google has even added their +1 button to ads. ADS. It’s like a Facebook “Like” button, but for the whole Internet. While you’re at it, take every opportunity you can to get your content shared: make sure you have Facebook Like, Twitter, +1, Pin It (for Pinterest) and Stumbleupon buttons on every page on your site and every post in your blog. You can set these up individually or use an app like ShareThis (our favourite) to take care of it in one fell swoop. Remember: the easier it is for someone to share your content, the more likely they are to do so.

Join Pinterest

Everyone is talking about Pinterest, and with good reason – the site is an SEO’s dream. Not only does it send nearly as much referral traffic to external sites as Twitter (and more than YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn combined) but Google also crawls and indexes “pins” and “boards”. So make sure you optimize your pins and boards for your keywords – and not just for searches on Pinterest itself!

Social Search is Here to Stay

Google’s addition of social signals to their overall search algorithms mean that “social search” must be considered in the overall Search Engine Optimization process. They do not replace or stand above other SEO methods (like link building) but are simply one more factor to consider when working to increase a site’s placement in search results.

Through life, starting from grade school, we are trained to believe that failure is bad.  We are trained to avoid failure.

Successful people embrace and learn from their failures.

Next time you have a chance to talk to someone successful, ask about their failures.

Success is getting up one more time than you’ve fallen.

You know it and I know it: Facebook gets more and more frustrating with every update. More cluttered. More difficult. More aggravating. But the truth of the matter is that it’s become an important communication tool for more and more people. What’s a sociable person like you or me to do? Ever wish you could just click a few buttons and simplify things?

It turns out that you can: all you need to do is download a free browser extension called Social Fixer and, after spending a few minutes to customize your settings, you too can have the social experience that Facebook promises but rarely delivers. So here’s your step-by-step guide to making Facebook a lot easier to use…for free.

Step One: Installation

Go to the Social Fixer website and install it (it’s currently available for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Opera). Now head on over to Facebook and get ready to start optimizing!

Step Two: Simplify

Now that Social Fixer is installed, the next thing you want to do is disable ALL of the features. This may seem strange, but you’ll want to do this because it has a lot (A LOT) of features, and it’s really easy to get overwhelmed at the start. So we’re going to avoid the overwhelm issue entirely by deselecting all of the features in Social Fixer, and then make our way through Facebook’s biggest problems one-by-one, enabling SF’s solutions for each problem as we go. Once you’ve got “the basics” set up, feel free to browse the other available options at your leisure.

Just click on the new wrench icon you’ll see in Facebook’s blue bar and un-check EVERY box, then save your selection. Alternately, if you do see the setup wizard as you install SF, choose the “minimalist” installation option.

Step Three: Select Your Options

Here’s where we get to the juicy part: selecting the options you want. Let’s run down some popular Social Fixer options for cleaning up Facebook, based on the order that they appear in Social Fixer’s options. All you need to do is follow along:

The “Popular” tab

Change font size: Facebook recently made their font size smaller, and if you don’t feel like mucking around with your browser’s magnification / zoom settings, then this feature can help. You can even independently change the font size of comments and posts for added customization.

Force the News Feed to show you Recent Stories first: Facebook is currently set to automatically display only the “top stories” by your friends (as determined by their EdgeRank algorithm). This option will change this default setting if you’d prefer to see everything your friends have been posting, instead of just what Facebook deems “important”.

Remove the Ticker: if, like me, you can’t stand the new ticker, then this option is for you. A cut above the “Hide Ticker” option in Facebook itself, this will remove that entire section of your Facebook page.

The “Layout” tab

Auto-Expand Left Panel Sections: this option will automatically show you all the sub-sections of your Messages, Events, Photos, etc. Very handy for making sure you don’t miss any messages because of Facebook’s infamous “second inbox”.

Friend Tracker: this one is pretty simple – it adds a field to the right sidebar that lets you know if anyone has unfriended you (obviously, it only displays “unfriendings” that have occurred after installing Social Fixer).

The “Posts” tab

Fix the Missing Cursor and Fix Line Wrap: if you have no idea what I’m talking about, then you don’t need to worry about selecting these options. If you have noticed these problems, then check these boxes and Social Fixer will take care of it.

When Clicking a Link in an Application Post, Open in a New Browser Tab / Window: this option makes sure that clicking on a link won’t take you away from Facebook, but will instead open a new tab or browser window (depending on what you have set your browser to do).

Auto-Expand “See More” Links in Posts: I don’t know about you, but I really don’t like how Facebook will automatically “hide” l0ng posts and comments – I find it really disrupts my reading experience. If this bugs you as much as it does me, then select this option.

The “Display” tab

There wasn’t really anything here I felt the urge to play around with, but you might find something useful. As always, it’s worth a look later.

The “Timeline” tab

Sadly, you can’t get rid of Facebook’s new timeline – but the options in this section will at least clean it up for you a bit, giving you a simplified one-column view.

The “Hidden Items” tab

You may have noticed that the main Facebook interface lets you hide some sections by clicking an “x” that shows up in the right-hand corner of those sections. There aren’t many sections you can do this with anymore, but one section Social Fixer will hide are the advertisements. It will also let you see what sections you’ve hidden in the past and make them visible again if you so choose.

The “Chat” tab

Turn Off the Chat Bar: gets rid of that giant chat bar that appears when the page is maximized and brings back the chat popup at the bottom instead.

Show All Online Friends in Chat List: ’nuff said.

Group Friends by Status: this option groups all your friends who are available to chat together at the top of the chat popup – a nice little bit of organization that Facebook should already be doing

Use Compact Chat List: essential if you’re showing all your online friends and don’t want t gigantic chat box.

The “Theme” tab

Lets you add a theme to your Facebook account, allowing some neat customization. Seems to be broken at the moment, but definitely worth a look when it’s up and running again.

The “Filtering” tab

One of Social Fixer’s best features, this section lets you set up filters to automatically block certain posts from your News Feed. Maybe one of your friends is generally interesting, but tends to talk WAY too much about their pug…you don’t want to unsubscribe from them or unfriend them, so it’s time to set up a filter. Just go to this tab and take a look at the five columns that pop up. These let you choose the characteristics of the filter, such as words to filter, what kind of filter to apply (such as “Hide”, which will hide posts with the words you chose), and specific people whose content you want to filter. It’s actually pretty simple to get started, but if you need help with more complicated filters, Social Fixer has help documents online.

The “Advanced” tab

This tab lets you make changes to Social Fixer itself, like turning off warnings and help messages, or how often the software checks for updates. There won’t be much here you need to turn off, but it’s where you’ll want to start checking if things start to go wrong with the program itself.

And so you are off to the races! That’s right – just download this one extension, make a few easy selections, and you too can now use the “Facebook that should have been”.

Do you use Social Fixer? What are your favourite tweaks? Let us know in the comments below!

1. Connection: relationships are built when people share and connect on a more person level than standard (brief) business communications. Conversing about a range of subjects (favorite TV shows, books, family, etc.) lets people get to know each other on a deeper level than a professional persona, and that establishes rapport – rapport that can go a long way towards securing you someone’s business – you become a person, not just a name tied to a business card. This works in the other direction as well: it helps remind you that your clients are people, with needs, that you want to help, not just a contact tied to an account.
2. Honesty: our office is set up in an “open office” concept – I sit not 3 feet away from my manager, and slightly more than that from our CEO. There is no privacy to be had unless you go into one of the (upstairs) meeting rooms or leave the office entirely. Many offices are set up the same way, which means that the conversations you have over the phone may lack all the information you could be looking for – details about team dynamics, off-colour stories about a contact’s recent vacation, and so on: little tidbits that give you a lot of context about the firm and the people you are dealing with. Knowing this kind of information can make a big difference in how you pitch someone, or what extra services you might add to a quote, etc. You might be surprised at what people will tell you over lunch or on a walk to your neighboring Starbucks! And as any professional telemarketer can tell you: non-verbal cues make up more than 80% of human communication. Facial expression, vocal tone, eye movements and much more convey even more information than our words do alone – there’s a reason emoticons were invented, after all, but they’re a poor substitute for thousands of years of evolution!
3. Impact: The previous points work both ways – it is much easier to showcase your own uniqueness and personality in person – especially in a relaxed, informal setting – then over electronic media. I probably wouldn’t mention that my manager recently ran for Mayor of Airdrie in an email conversation with “Joe Mightbeaclient”, but it might come out in conversation is Joe is sitting by our desks. Suddenly we find out that Joe was born in Airdrie and they went to the same high school…etc…etc…you get the idea. The more you connect, the more you let your uniqueness “shine through”, the better the rapport. Even if they don’t buy now, they’re much more likely to think of you down the line!
4. Scout: You can learn a lot by visiting clients at their place of business as well: where is their office located? How many staff are there? Are they rushed? Sedate? Happy? Excited? Is there artwork in the office? Fancy ergonomic chairs in the conference room? The office environment can tell you a lot about the company and the people who work there – information that can have a big impact on any proposals you plan to make.

Despite all this information, there is really one key takeaway here: your customers like people they can relate to, not just buy from. So, as always, be the one that stands out!

But whether you’re looking to drum up more business for your company, improve personal (or corporate) branding or land yourself a new job, there’s a lot more to LinkedIn than just uploading your resume.

Here’s your new training regime:

Let’s summarize:

STEP ONE: Complete your profile – referred to as “Conditioning” in Mashable’s inforgraphic (in keeping with their “bootcamp” theme), this is indeed the most basic (and most important) of getting foumd via LinkedIn. Your LinkedIn profile often shows up in the top 5 Google search results for your name, so make sure it’s complete!

STEP TWO: Connect – some users believe you should only connect on LinkedIn with people you already know in real life, but Mashable’s writers suggest connecting with as many people as possible and helping your contacts connect with each other, thus broadening your overall network and increasing opportunities for new business.

STEP THREE: Customize your URL and websites – your public LinkedIn profile has it’s own URL…which you can customize (in the “Edit Profile). Doing so is a very good idea, because it makes you easier to find both on LinkedIn and via search engines. You can also shorten or customize the URL of your blog or website as it appears on LinkedIn to encourage people who view your profile to click through to your site.

STEP FOUR: Improve your image – make your profile more interesting than potential competitors’ by adding video recommendations, stories about your successes (or misadventures), etc. to make yourself stand above the crowd.

STEP FIVE: Recommend others – recommendations can make a big difference on someone’s LinkedIn profile, especially when it comes to getting hired on to a new job or landing a new customer. Make sure you write lots of glowing reviews for deserving contacts and it will encourage people to do the same for you.

STEP SIX: Join Groups – groups put you in touch with others within your industry (or industries that you are interested in). They let you learn, keep up with current developments, broaden your network and can help establish you as an expert in your field. If you have enough to say, why not start your own group as well?

STEP SEVEN: Add your company profile – once you have polished your own profile it’s time to create something for your company. List your products and services, connect with employees, and more. Not only does it create one more venue to market your company (LinkedIn has a very robust advertising platform) it also provides greater visibility for the personal profiles of your employees…and yourself!

STEP EIGHT: Optimize – just like with a website, search for keywords you want to rank highly in, then carefully place them throughout your profile…in your headline, work experience, etc. Jut like in website SEO, remember that you need to make sure your profile reads well to humans, not search engines, first! Use those keywords carefully!

STEP NINE: Apps -  you can add apps to your profile to make it more interesting for viewers to look at – take a look and see what works best for you and your industry.

There you go – a quick summary of the “LinkedIn” bootcamp. Do you agree with the suggestions? Disagree? Have you already done any of this? Let us know in the comments!

The post also examines what the authors believe will be the next wave of technological innovation (and thus, opportunity for entrepreneurs), the “Hypernet”. They discuss why it’s too late to start a meaningful social networking company (I agree), and that even the space for creating social networking apps is quite crowded.

I found it to be an interesting, informative article and highly recommend giving it a read. You can read it here.

(Reprinted with permission from FilesDIRECT)