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Wed, Jan

Geek Speak

Ever wondered what to do with all those Amazon boxes you receive with consumable product goods (CPG) that nearly (ok all) readers receive. Sure the easy answer is to trot them thar boxes to the green recycling receptacle, flat ‘em and toss ‘em in without a second thought. 

But there is another way and I learned it from the smarty PhD pants in Los Alamos, NM (home to the National Labs). Instead of recycling the cardboard boxes, how about reuse? 

Welcome to the Maker Movement 2.0

It’s very simple and I don’t need 800+ words to lay it out. But seeing that a lot of my audience is in Texas and surrounding southern states, I’m going to go REAL SLOW. 

Just in time for the Christmas and Hanukkah holidays, the SS SMB Nation has arrived at the island of misfit tech toys. Here is the exclusive scoop.

Using the holiday break to reflect, recharge and renew, I gathered up all my misfit tech toys that are consigned to a shelf in my home office LOL. Then I placed them on the SMB Nation sailing vessel for arrival just in time for Santa to distribute to up-and-coming geeks world wide.

A quick peek of the snap show a few highlights.

A common refrain in technology (heck any area) is the need to both stay current and lean forward to remain relevant. Like you, I can remember pivoting from the sad demise of Novell NetWare to Window Server (remember NT?) leading up to the granddaddy of all migrations: the end-of-life (EOL) *and* and of service of Windows Small Business Server (SBS) to whatever (cloud et. al.). Do you realize that all happened in 2014 - ten years ago. This was the same timeframe as the Windows XP (EOL). Another example of voluntary (for some of you it was involuntary) professional evolution from break-fix to the Managed Service Provider (MSP) business model based on monthly recurring revenue (MRR) (invented by the telcos IMHO)

Here We Grow Again - Looking Around the Corner into 2025

I recently attended a keynote at the Mindset Reset conference

I’m not claiming to be Nostrdammus with his legendary forecasting capabilities in the 1500s. But the data doesn’t lie and I saw it with my own eyes. Let’s geek out on this. 

 

Dropping Prices

Let’s start with the end-in-mind as author Stephen Covey said in his book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.”  So the end of the story is about the housing market: buy, sell or short.

Harry Brelsford and David Tulip discuss their professional history and experiences in the IT industry. David shares his journey from joining Newman Business Solutions in 1995 to growing their IT department into a £1.5 million MSP by 2009. He now leads the Network Group, which supports around 100 technology service providers in the UK. They reflect on the IT Nation 2024 conference, highlighting its educational focus and high attendance of 4,500 people. David mentions upcoming events for the Network Group in 2025, including celebrating their 30th anniversary at Wembley Stadium and expanding their reach to 250 organizations over the next three years.

 

GEEK WIN!!!  I cut the cords today! Finally I sat down and reduced Spectrum down to Internet-only and then added YouTube TV. Total bill went from $280 to $140!  Should done this a lot sooner...other thoughts.

Spectrum kept trying to throw in a new mobile phone (boo hiss - I don't need another phone)

For free - Spectrum added a goofy TV service called TV Stream with 90+ Tier 2 channels I either get with YouTube TV or don't care about...

 

In other cable provider/streaming news:

More Articles ...

  1. MIGRATION TIME: Microsoft Action Pack (MAPs) Going Away January 2025 – We have answers (4 pathways)
  2. Geek Humor – Dogs v. Cats
  3. Time to Activate the MSP Navy?

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