Steven C. D'Agostine

I love working with clients to help them get more business.  One of the tools I use is Search Engine Optimization.  Specifically, I start with on-page optimization.  And there is nothing more important to on-page optimization than what I am about to convey.  Let me restate that, there is nothing more important than what I am about to convey.  So, exactly what is it?  It is something that perplexes each and every client I have.  They get title tags.  They understand description.  They know that a proper title plus description is really an advertisement.  They understand how to name images.  They get emphasis.  The know what above the fold is.  They know how to add a contact forms.  I mean, they really understand the basic stuff well.  Inevitably, it's the most important thing, the one that takes some real work, that they don't get.  So, what am I ranting about?  For many presidential elections, 'It's the economy stupid.'  For those with a web site, blog, facebook, whatever, this is the one thing you must learn to do.  You must learn 'It's the ....

Read more: Search Engine Optimization - Lesson #1

In January of 2010, I was given a task, along with 2 others, to create a web site which would meet several goals.  I was asked to join this project to help solve goal number one, which was to create a web server which could handle several thousand registrations in its first few hours of live operation.  I thought this was just a case of tweaking MySQL.  I was wrong.  It was more a case of tuning apache2 and Joomla properly to handle the traffic load.  The other major goal was to have a system which could serve as an event planning, online registration site which would collect more data than was needed in the past.  Prior to this requirement, a simple store site could handle selling tickets and such to the event.

My first concern was to find an open source solution, read FREE, which could handle event planning.  Google was my friend.  I quickly found CiviCRM and was convinced it was the solution we needed.  Having been sold on this, I was to help find a hosting solution which would be able to handle a high load for a few days, then a steady low load for the next several months.  The following will serve as a high level explanation of the process which was accomplished in a 42 day period - 42 days being how long we had until the live site was due.

Read more: CiviCRM and Joomla for Non-Profit-Organizations

I have a client, a non-profit.  I enjoy working with them.  For those who may understand this statement, it's service work.  I am a member, and am on their IT Committee.  Our latest project is an entire upgrade of the office computer systems.  We are installing a Cisco 2960 48 port Gigabit switch, a Dell PowerEdge T610 server with VMWare Embedded, and several new workstations.  One of the virtual server's operating systems is Windows 2008 SBS.  All the workstations are being migrated to Windows 7.  We have a firewall and Eset Small Business Edition.  Now, here's the latest issue - and it is ripe with lessons well learned.

So, we'll call the rest of this article:

How to install and configure Quickbooks Point of Sale 9.0 on Windows 7 Enterprise in a Windows 2008 SBS Active Directory environment.

Read more: Quickbooks Point of Sale 9.0 on Windows 2008 SBS and Windows 7

Way back in the beginning of my computer networking career and education, I had to learn and memorize the OSI reference model.  All People Seem To Need Data Processing was my the way I remembered to 7 layers - Application, Presentation, Session, Transport, Network, Data Link, Physical.  - from top to bottom.  It's very conceptual, and it seemed at the time that that there was no real practical application of the model.  At least, that was my thinking at the time.  Many years later, practical experience has shown me that the model is indeed a wonderful lesson in the methodology of troubleshooting.  In fact, starting from the bottom to top, troubleshooting network or PC issues can really be simplified.  A few  examples from the field will show you how applying the model can help quickly alleviate very lengthy diagnostic problems.

Read more: The OSI Reference Model in practice