Keith Shirley

I can write an advance review because I know it’s going to be great. I so thoroughly enjoyed Podcamp and Barcamp last year (especially Pat Phelan’s lunchtime chat) that when talk of organising a Bizcamp came up I knew I had to help out.

(insert name here)Camps are very informal but productive conference type events. They’re referred to as unconferences because you’re not going to be lectured at or given sales pitches in the regular sense. A camp has a general theme to bind it together and everyone is free to give short (15 minute) seminars/chats/presentations about topics they feel are helpful.

Helpful is the magic word – the whole point is to get to know people, get some insight into a topic and be helpful. You can pickup a huge amount of info in small chunks and followup later. I promise – you’ll come home with stacks of notes.

Bizcamp is obviously themed around business. The potential topics could range from funding to how to handle the stress. Unlike a normal conference – the agenda is not fixed. Anyone can decide on the spur of the moment to do a session – you just grab a timeslot on the day. Is there something you wish you knew when you started? Now’s your chance to pass on some pearls of wisdom. You don’t need to do a session at all – just come along for the ride.

I’ll be helping to organise the Dublin Event which is on Sat 7 March 2009. There will be a second bizcamp in Limerick on 21 March 2009.

I’ll be writing about this again but if you need more info then call me ( 087 9112027 ) or Email me K.Shirley@Shercom.com.

Yes – That really is my phone number and mail address.

You can already sign-up to Bizcamp or you can see who is going to Bizcamp.  I’m looking forward to seeing you there.

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The time has arrived for me to reveal one of the best tools for rescuing PC’s that keep blue screening or freezing and rebooting. It’s a weird gooey liquid called Stabilant 22.

Don’t be put off by the rubbish website that has not been updated since 2001. This stuff can work wonders.

What does it do?

I won’t quote their website as they use words like amorphous and polymer. For the rest of us it should be enough to say it’s a contact enhancer. You spread it on electrical contacts where it does not conduct electricity until it comes under pressure. This is important with things like CPU contacts or memory. You would go crazy trying to put something on each individual contact but you need to avoid a short circuit at all costs.

The liquid helps make sure that the rough contacts (at a microscopic level) are smoothed out and the flow of electricity is much better. I’ve used this on a number of machines to fix blue screens  – even where everything else seemed ok.

I’d say the liquid can be used anywhere where good metal contacts are needed – inside PC’s, music equipment etc.

What does it NOT do?

You can’t use it on contacts that are corroded. That makes sense as the signal is failing before it gets as far as the stabilant. It can’t help must if the rest of the signal chain is not in order.

Price

It’s expensive – some will say overpriced. If you need it regularly it’s well worth it. If you just need it for some home equipment then I doubt it’s worth it for you.

The first bottle I bought was 200 Euro for 5ml. That lasted years however. The last one was about 60 Euro and I’m a long way from finished. In the meantime I believe it’s even cheaper. Those prices refer to the “pure” version of Stabilant. There is also one that is diluted with alcohol. This is great for working on pins in connectors – you can put on the diluted liquid and the alcohol evaporates off – leaving you with just what you need. You can also make your own diluted version from the pure version.

If you write a blog for your business then please make sure you complete the IIA Social Media Working Groups survey. It’s really going to help us get some solid numbers for the whitepaper.

Please also have a look at another survey being done by Sinéad Cochrane for postgraduate research. Her survey is targeted at both people that write blogs and those that are just readers. It should only take a few minutes of your time and she’s offering a prize.

I found the link to her survey via Darraghs blog. His bio says he’s a storyteller and I can confirm it. He writes some great posts that are a pleasure to read. Go read some of his posts after you have done the surveys – he won’t be around much longer as I imagine his sister will kill him when she sees what he has posted.

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Time for another little secret of mine that has saved me huge amounts of trouble. If you are regularly fixing PC’s then you must have access to a site like DriverAgent.com.

Put simply – Driveragent runs a small piece of software on the PC that scans it and gives you a report on which drivers are out of date. It then gives you the opportunity to download those drivers from the manufacturer or their own website. That’s it – short and sweet and it just works. A screenshot of the report is below – just click to enlarge it.

I’ve worked on hundreds of PC’s over the past 20 years and I despair at the thought of how much time I’ve lost trying to find drivers for a PC. The pricing for Driveragent is currently just $29.95 for use on upto 10 PC’s. Compared to the time you would spend trying to find drivers on just one manufacturer site it’s a bargain.

If you are having problems with a PC crashing or running slowly – try the free report from DriverAgent to see what state your PC is in.

Next week I’ll put up a post on the blog with one of my absolutely best rescue tools – it will probably surprise you. To get the update automatically sign up for mail updates or add the RSS feed to your reader.

Damien Mulley sent me an email last week with copies of his Online Marketing training notes and his Business Blogging notes. The good news is that he is making them available for everyone. Fair play to him for doing this – it’s a great way of spreading the word. He makes a good point when he says the value in training comes via the trainer and not the documentation. If the notes were the most valuable part we could just read a book.

I’m going to go through them in detail soon to see it there are any points I need to add to my own trainings. Maybe I’ll find something that I disagree with – Damien seems to like a good discussion. I’ll be seeing him at the Blog Awards but I’ll have to be very sure of my facts first.

If you download a copy of the notes from Damien – please make sure to leave him a comment.

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