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November 26, 2008 - Happy Thanksgiving! >>

What's New at Experts Exchange
Share It, Geniuses and Kudos

2,506% Return on Investment - Corporate Accounts
Battle the woeful economy with strong returns

Found On Craigslist
Yahoo starts looking for a CEO

Ten Tips For Working EE
You won't find these on the Help page

More News and Notes
The China Syndrome redux

Nata's Corner
Helping your favorite charity

New Certificates
New certificate holders, through November 23

Tips From The Moderators
Thanks for helping us out

What's New at Experts Exchange

New Geniuses: TechSoEasy has become the eleventh member of Experts Exchange to pick up three or more Genius certificates, earning his third in Exchange Server. Also earning a Genius certificate in Exchange was tigermatt. sunnycoder has picked up his first Genius certificate in C Programming Language, and batry_boy has picked up his first 1,000,000 points in Cisco PIX Firewall.

Kudos: PABenjamin asked a question about writing a macro to attach files to emails, which was answered in short order by BlueDevilFan, but there was a problem: his client reported that forwarding the mail automatically forwarded the attachment. matthewspatrick stepped up, and earned this comment from PABenjamin: "You made me look like a star. I told the user I'd have the solution next week. Instead I have it the same day the problem was discovered! Way to go Patrick!"

Cleanup Volunteers: Below is a table of the CVs who have helped us close questions recently, with their cumulative total of questions closed along with their production through November 22.

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2,506% Return on Investment - Corporate Accounts

So you've already told your manager that an Experts Exchange Corporate Account gives you access 2.3 million existing solutions. You've told your manager that you and your team of any size will be able to work smarter and faster with access to the world's most knowledgeable and helpful technology Experts. But, hard as you might try, he or she doesn't yet share your enthusiasm for the investment in your productivity.

Fortunately, Experts Exchange has created a tool that translates your idea of a great investment into something that your manager will appreciate. We call it the Corporate Accounts ROI Calculator.

Simply enter the number of people on your team and their average hourly wage, and the tool calculates your return on investing in a Corporate Account. For example, a team of 5 people earning an average of $15 per hour and saving 3 hours per week would save $11,700 over the course of a year, representing an ROI of 2,506%!

Calculate your ROI and start speaking the same language as your manager. Log in to email them your quote!

>> Calculate Your ROI

Tips From the Moderators

We have been on a bit of a roll lately, sending out lots of email to people who haven't been as diligent as they could be about taking care of their old questions. Most people have been pretty good about responding positively, but we have had a few emails that haven been somewhat unkind.

That's to be expected, but it won't help you resolve your issue. After all, part of being a member at Experts Exchange is that you will close your questions; the Experts have taken the time to help you, so the least you can do it reward them; and even if they have not been able to help, it is your responsibility to use the systems EE has built to close them.

For those of you have responded to our requests, we do appreciate you taking care of your questions. You have not only made our lives easier; you have also made it possible for the Cleanup Volunteers to spend more time answering questions.

2,506% Return on Investment - Corporate Accounts

So you've already told your manager that an Experts Exchange Corporate Account gives you access 2.3 million existing solutions. You've told your manager that you and your team of any size will be able to work smarter and faster with access to the world's most knowledgeable and helpful technology Experts. But, hard as you might try, he or she doesn't yet share your enthusiasm for the investment in your productivity.

Fortunately, Experts Exchange has created a tool that translates your idea of a great investment into something that your manager will appreciate. We call it the Corporate Accounts ROI Calculator.

Simply enter the number of people on your team and their average hourly wage, and the tool calculates your return on investing in a Corporate Account. For example, a team of 5 people earning an average of $15 per hour and saving 3 hours per week would save $11,700 over the course of a year, representing an ROI of 2,506%!

Calculate your ROI and start speaking the same language as your manager. Log in to email them your quote!

Calculate Your ROI

The latest organizations benefitting from recession-resistant return on investment:

Central Alabama Electric Cooperative
Getronics Pinkroccade
U.S. Embassy in Niamey
European Law Enforcement Cooperation Organization
Intergraph Services Company
EUC Nord
University of Central Missouri
Massachusetts Port Authority
ERIN Engineering
Central West TAFE
Illinois National Bank

WorkCover
Service Repair Solutions Inc
University of Texas Medicine San Antonio
Esquisse Design Studio
Bingham McCutchen LLP
Flotek
Saint Mary's University
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Adtech Computer Systems
University of Alberta

Calculate Your ROI

Found on Craigslist

An editor by trade, a writer by avocation and an Expert by happenstance, ericpete puts together the newsletter for Experts Exchange.

HELP WANTED: Chief executive offer for website corporation. Requires ability to lead the company into deciding what, exactly, it wants to be, as long as you don't mind being a distant second in an industry you essentially invented. Must have the ability to actually cause the stock price to increase without doing so by entering inconclusive "discussions" with other big web companies. Must be able to navigate the Shift key on a computer keyboard. Ability to generate a profit a plus.

Okay, so maybe that is a bit harsh. But there is a job opening at Yahoo, now that erstwhile CEO Jerry Yang has again stepped down as the boss. But it's not that Yang wasn't competent -- he DID manage to keep his board from selling to Microsoft, which shows at least some skills. But there is little doubt that he was more concerned with "his baby" than he was in doing what was right for the owners of the company.

There, of course, is the rub. The downside to taking a company public is that while it gets you a lot of cash to expand, it also means that there are other people who have a legitimate interest in things like whether you're making a profit and what the value of your stock is. Those people tend to get a little nervous when you tell them that, despite all evidence to the contrary, your company's stock that is selling at $20 is worth a lot more than the $31 some big company is offering to pay for it.

Parenthetical note: The day Yahoo announced that Yang -- who as a CEO was a worse disaster than the man he replaced (and don't forget that Yang hired that guy) -- was resigning, Yahoo's stock "soared" by more than 10 per cent, which would be a big deal except that it was still worth less than half of what it was when Yang outfaced Microsoft a few months back. Those who pushed the price up quickly recognized that the company's future is no better than it was, and have now pushed it to a WalMart-like price of under $9. Call Yang cunning if you want to give him that much credit; the price is now so low that at least one analyst has recommended buying it. As my bride says, one man's junk is another man's gold.

Given all the foibles that are the banking, insurance and automobile industries, plus the ripple effect all of those are having on other, more stable businesses (notably in the tech sector), one has to wonder if the whole idea of using other people's money to get big quick is really a good idea. There's not a lot of question that Yang was either unable to communicate to anyone else his vision for what Yahoo should become OR was not able to motivate those to whom he communicated his vision to translate that into a profit-making enterprise. (Actually, Yahoo does make a profit -- just not one that is big enough to compel stockholders to want to hang on to the stock. Further, the company still hasn't figured out what it does.)

We're not going to join in the cacophony about who should be the Yahoo board's choice for CEO, or even speculate about what kind of compensation package it will take to get someone to want to clean up the mess. From our perspective, all of that is just noise.

Yahoo has no focus. Its board of directors doesn't know what it wants Yahoo to do; it just wants the stock price to stop resembling the Titanic. Its employees have been through more reorganizations than Europe in 1848. It's a media company. It's a search engine. It's an advertising company. It's a mess.

We can't think of anyone who might be offered the job who should take it. You have to have nothing to prove, nothing to lose, and be willing to tell the board of directors that they don't know squat about what will get people to pay Yahoo instead of paying Google -- and at the same time have a very clear idea about what will get people to do that. You have to be willing to dump anything that doesn't contribute positively to the bottom line -- ruthlessly, without a second thought, and damn the bad press you'll catch from Good Morning Silicon Valley. You would want a no-cut contract the likes of which Alex Rodriguez can only imagine. And nobody could be considered untouchable.

We would rather be the coach of one of the two worst teams ever.

10 Things To Do Before Logging In

The folks at Tech Republic recently published 10 Things You Should Do When Starting A Job On The Help Desk, and we were inspired to come up with 10 Things You Should Do When Getting Ready To Spend A Few Hours On Experts Exchange. Some are remarkably similar, and most should be taken with the tongue planted firmly in the cheek.

#1: Make yourself comfortable
If you're at home, get out of the suit and into some sweats. Start the coffee pot or, alternatively, make sure you have your ... sodas... in the refrigerator getting cold. If you're at the office, open a spreadsheet or word document you can click on quickly if you hear the boss coming down the hall.

#2: Prepare your tools
Open your email, open that text editor that has all your canned answers, and if you use it, open QuickEE. You want to be ready to give an Asker that perfect answer right off the bat.

#3: Find your resource sites
Open your browser, and make sure you have all of your appropriate tabbed sites open. There is nothing worse than knowing you know where the answer is, only to find that someone else has posted a link to it before you had the chance simply because you're still using IE6.

#4: Know your limits
We have all done it: gotten involved in a question that turns out to be way over our head. While we all want to learn, we must remember that helping someone find the answer himself is not nearly as satisfying as actually answering the question and getting the "Good Answer!" email.

#5: Determine what the question requires
Remember to take a quick look at an asker's question history, because that way you'll be able to tell if the question is worth your time and energy. After all, your certifications say that you can do a lot better than a simple Google search, so if that's all that is required, why do anything more than that?

#6: Know the policies
Okay, so maybe the question isn't very well written. Maybe it's asked in only one zone that really isn't the right one. That's no reason to unload all of your frustrations from work on some poor guy who just wants to know how to format a table or find out about the latest Ubuntu release. Besides, you being a jerk annoys the Moderators, and they're just trying to keep the peace.

#7: Find out about breaks
You don't get them. (Okay, so we're kidding ... a little.) Seriously, one of the things that keeps the Moderators sane (no comments from the peanut gallery, please) is that they know when to simply walk away from the computer. If you're tired, or have had a rotten day, or are frustrated, then maybe it's time to see what's on ESPN.

#8: Learn the hierarchy
Do you know who the Mods are? How about the Zone Advisors? Do you know what to do if you need to get some help in a question? The various members -- there are about 75 of them -- who volunteer to help manage the site can be your strongest allies, so it's a good idea to cooperate with them when they ask you to.

#9: Get to know your colleagues
Experts Exchange works best when Experts work together, and remember that the goal is to help the person asking the question. When you start working against other Experts, or arguing with them over little things, then only bad things can come of it.

#10: Know what the asker needs
Read the question. Then read it again... and never make the assumption that what you have read is exactly what the asker needs. In a perfect world, they would all tell you -- but if they knew, they probably wouldn't be asking in the first place.

More News and Notes

The China Syndrome: There are too many of them, with too much money for companies built in an economy based on consumption to ignore, which is why every high tech corporation does business with Chinese. In the interests of keeping everyone focused:

• Two engineers from China were sentenced for industrial espionage last week. They are neither the first nor the last.
• Disney Co. managed to get copies of its latest DVS release, WALL-E, removed from a Chinese video-sharing site. Disney's venture capital division invested in the site in 2006; currently, there are no Disney films on the site, but there are complete films from other studios still available.
• A Congressional advisory commission has released a report saying that China is increasing its attacks on US government networks.
• And there is always this...

Obama suffers Crackberry withdrawal: After running the most technologically advanced political campaign in history, President-elect Barack Obama has been told that he won't be allowed to keep his Blackberry. The good news is that he won't have to worry about the lack of WiFI on the new Storm; he also won't have to worry about nosy Verizon employees; Verizon is to the Blackberry as AT&T is to Apple's iPhone.

Send this guy a Genius certificate.

Cuban smoked: It's no secret that we're basketball fans, and since we also spend a lot of time dealing with technology-related stuff, the blog written by the current owner of the Dallas Mavericks and founder of Broadcast.com is always an entertaining read. But Mark Cuban's blog has been taken a little more ... muted... tone of late as the SEC revealed it has charged him with insider trading.

First shopping list of the season: The Washington Post has issued the first list of "do not buy" items -- no, there were no financial or automobile companies named -- for the holidays. Among the stuff you don't want to spend money on: Blu-ray players, satellite radios and set-top Internet video boxes. They also list Amazon's Kindle, despite Oprah Winfrey's endorsement.

Another one bites the dust: Fresh off the news that the Christian Science Monitor will be printing only one magazine-like issue a week comes the news that PC Magazine will publish its final paper edition dated January 2009. The site is going completely digital.

Charity begins online: A world-wide chess tournament hopes to set a record and wants to raise money for the Second Harvest food bank in the Silicon Valley. And the folks who put together the Give One, Get One program, which gets computers to children in undeveloped countries, resumed the program with the help of Amazon.com this week.

Thanksgiving comes early: Corporate customers of a number of security companies said that spam took a huge -- if somewhat momentary -- drop last week when a big spamming operation had its plug pulled by its ISPs. We're still waiting to see a story about arrests.

The new labels will say "Windows 7 might work": Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer will be deposed in the class-action lawsuit against Microsoft over machines that were tagged as Vista-compatible but weren't. As an early gift to Microsoft-bashers everywhere, there are all kinds of interesting documents online.

Signs of the Apocalypse: An Internet affair conducted in Second Life has instigated a real life divorce in Great Britain; the soon-to-be-ex-husband is already "virtually engaged" and the soon-to-be-ex-wife is looking for a new ... something ... in World of Warcraft. Also, YouTube is being used in the classroom (of course, schools don't have any money at the moment), and Monty Python has decided to one-up the YouTube thieves.

Nata's Corner

Our friends and family know that we spend a lot of time in Yosemite National Park, and I just came across a site that is especially handy this time of year. About 700 of everyone's favorite sites have signed on with GoodShop.com, so think about using it when doing your holiday shopping over the next few weeks.

When you go to GoodShop.com, you designate your favorite charity from a list of about 63,000 different ones, like the Yosemite Association, and then make your purchases though sites like eBay, Expedia, Amazon, Apple and others. When you do, the site donates a portion of your purchase to the charity, at no extra expense to you. The economy may be in the tank a bit, but this makes it easy for you to donate a little bit to some of those organizations who always need some resources.

Speaking of which, this is Thanksgiving week in the US, which means that Friday is the traditional start to the Christmas shopping season, and for online retailers, it's the day their sites are their busiest -- Black Friday. Given the nature of the Internet, you can already find out the best deals that major retailers are going to offer -- if you know where to look. It also means the start of the scamming season, and security experts are saying that Monday will be the worst day ever for malware threats.

And while we're talking about giving, many people will be donating old computers to schools and such over the next month or so. If you're planning on doing so, we came across a lot of suggestions for how to delete the information on the hard drives.

Finally, it seems as though the bad guys are a petty, vengeful lot. There is a site located in the United Kingdom that tracks email scams that became the target of a DDos attack last week that knocked it offline, and as of Sunday, it was still down. They must have been having an impact; the one of the site's more recent targets was E-Gold, a company charged with money laundering.

New Certificates