Reminder: BADNUG Tomorrow, SQL Server Potluck

Just a reminder that the Butler Area Dot Net
User Group
will be meeting from 6-8pm tomorrow (6/22/2006) at the Communifax HQ in Cranberry Township. 
Directions can be found at http://communifax.com/.

The topic will be SQL Server Potluck.  We’ll have 10-15 min presentation
on SQL Delta (one of my favorite tools) by
me, and another short presentation on Fuzzy Matching in SSIS by Communifax’s
Greg Duffie.

What sort of tips are we looking for?  Here’s one–if you’re in Query
Analyzer, you can highlight the name of a table and press Alt-F1 to retrieve the
schema for that table.  Column names, types, etc.  Bring us your
favorite DBCC commands, hotkey combinations, plug-ins and extensions. 
Sorry if I just shorted someone a tip.

One lucky person will walk away with a full license for SQL Delta.

How The Floral Vertical Industry Uses The Internet

The local flower shop is one retail operation which has translated well to the Internet.  From the hundreds and hundreds of local florists (such as www.bloomery.com) to the huge players like FTD and 800–Flowers, websites have made it easier than ever to send flowers to friends and family.  But our business to consumer website is not the only way florists are embracing the Internet.

Before you could get “whatever it is” at eBay, we florists could participate in online Dutch auctions held in Holland, Miami and California.  The end result is better selection and higher quality for the floral consumer.  There are several private forum sites where florists gather to exchange tips and commiserate, and www.floristblogs.com has a growing roster of prominant florists blogging for consumer benefit.

The latest installment ’s , a subscription site for online training of the latest techniques.  J presents his lessons in 10–15 minute videocasts (or webisodes, or blogscasts, or whatever you want to call them).  J is a very talented designer who should be kept far away from caffeine.  Incidentally, J trained at the , and you’ll find their blog at http://floristblogs.com/blogs/avant_gardens/default.aspx.

For a long time, “vertical integration” was one of the big buzzwords surrounding Internet business.  The floral industry is one where, while it’s taken time to get here, is pretty integrated from top to bottom, and left to right.

Local Search Engine Marketing Guide

, of , as assembled a guide for small businesses wanting to replace costly yellow pages ads with local search engine marketing:

Just as many small business owners want to stop spending so much money on the yellow pages and move their marketing dollars to the web, I also believe shoppers and information seekers will choose the web over the yellow pages in greater frequency in coming years. With that in mind, I believe local search offers a great opportunity for small businesses (especially) to reach customers on the web. And those of you who take advantage of this opportunity sooner, rather than later, have the best chance to win in the end.

The purpose of this guide is to introduce small business owners to the different Local Search products and marketing opportunities offered by each of thee main search engines. I’ll do my best to keep the material up-to-date, and I invite you to help me stay informed by emailing matt [at] smallbusinesssem.com with any new discoveries or corrections you find appropriate. You can also use that email for questions you may have!

Full article at http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/local-search-marketing-guide/.

 

Small Mention in Today’s USA Today

We got a small mention in today’s USA Today about marketing with blogs.  We were interviewed a little over a week ago by the reporter who had found our weddings blog (http://www.bloomeryweddings.com/blog/) and our other blog  at http://floristblogs.com/ while researching the article.  We spent about 15 min on the phone discussing various aspects of blogging and business.  The author was enamored with MySpace, and even went out of his way to claim that MySpace is a blog, sort of.  We don’t do anything with MySpace simply because we can’t control what ads might be displayed on our site, and it’s possible that our content on MySpace might have an FTD ad next to it.  Not what we want!  The full story is at http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2006-06-13-web-marketing_x.htm.  A link back to our site would have been nice, but who’s complaining?

has an additional reason not to mix marketing and MySpace:

In general, I’d chalk that up as a bad idea. No one like unsolicited marketing messages, especially not when they’re in an environment where they want to chat and have fun. It’s one thing to score a link on someone’s MySpace page…it’s a WHOLE other thing to send out spam mails to all of your friends and your friends’ friends.

June BADNUG Meeting: SQL Server Potluck

The June BADNUG meeting will be a SQL Server Potluck.  Round up your favorite SQL Server tools, tips and tricks (for 2000 and/or 2005) and prepare to share them!  Rich Dudley will present on SQL Delta, Greg Duffie will present on Fuzzy Matching, and then we’ll have a round-table sharing of tips and tricks.

Don’t sweat it if you don’t have many to share–just bring some paper and be ready to learn!  That’s what this is all about.

As a special bonus, TASC has donated a full license of SQL Delta, which will be given to a lucky attendee (if you’ve never seen SQL Delta, you have no idea how lucky you’ll be).

We’ll meet from 6-8 pm at Communifax HQ in Cranberry Township.  Meeting information at http://badnug.org/, directions at http://communifax.com/.

Judge: Bloggers Entitled to Immunity Under Communications Act

Full article at http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1149152717145

Bloggers cannot be hit with libel suits on the basis of anonymous
postings on their Web sites because federal law grants them immunity by
explicitly stating that they cannot be treated as the “publisher” of such
comments, a federal judge has ruled.

I have to echo the sentiments of the plaintiff:

The judge’s decision is awesome

Rant: setup.exe

One feature I’d love to see removed from all versions of VS is the ability to
name a setup package “setup.exe” or “setup.msi”.  For the most part, the
developer community is really good at naming installers intelligently.  The
problem really stems from Microsoft.  It does not take too many powertoys,
fonts, add-ins, etc. before one accumulates a large number of “setup.exe”
files.  Or worse yet, a new one overwrites an old one you may still
need.

Maybe it’s not an entirely VS thing.  It was the Consolas font pack that
started this rant today, and that may have been another installer. 
Regardless, this is a general plea–when you create an installer, please use a
name that identifies what is going to be installed.  Thanks in
advance.