Thursday, July 29, 2010 Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey   To the President of Syria, Mr. and Mrs. Bashar al-Assad Mr. and Mrs. President Bashar al-Assad: At the tender age of 17 months my severely ill daughter Sofia, an American citizen, was abducted by her mother on Monday, July 26, in Istanbul, Turkey, and taken to Syria. Fox News: ▸ video ▸ story I was informed yesterday by Sofia's mother that she will not be coming back to the United States nor will she allow Sofia to return home. Sofia has been diagnosed with a severe medical condition that requires immediate treatment in the United States. It was scheduled to start on July 27, 2010, in New Jersey, the day after her abduction and was supposed to last until she reaches the age of 3. Any delay in the urgently needed treatment will result in a life-long disability for Sofia and make her dependent for the whole of her a... (more)

Twenty-Thousand Men Pregnant Because of Bad Data

Nearly 20,000 British men were pregnant in 2009 and 2010 - according to the UK's National Health System. 8,000 of them had office appointments with their gynecologists, and a total of 17,000 of them were admitted to hospitals to undergo various obstetric services related to their pregnancies. As a big believer in equality across all genders, faiths and genetic backgrounds - I was initially very enthusiastic about this medical breakthrough. But my excitement was short-lived as I shortly found out that it was simply a matter of bad data introduced as data were manually re-entered from one system into another (because the systems were not integrated), or as data were transcribed from paper to machine, or simply mis-keyed into the original system. I've written quite a bit on bad data, how pervasive the problem is, and how expensive it is - for example "$3 Trillion Prob... (more)

Top 10 Craziest PR & Social Media Requests

As PR professionals we’ve all been there - a client or colleague enthusiastically asks, “Can you get us on Ellen?” or “How can we make this go viral?” While we’d rather explain that the company makes construction equipment lug nuts and that getting on that show doesn’t even hit the target audience, for some reason we always reply “We’ll definitely work on that!” It’s another classic PR or social media shake my head moment. With this in mind and through the assistance of Help A Reporter Out (HARO), I wanted to document some of the craziest, most absurd requests or assignments PR and social media professionals have received. Here are some of the more interesting responses from our colleagues in the field: 1) My kid does karate…get us a reality show “A client in the healthcare industry said to me ‘My kid does karate, my wife does arts and crafts and I am a doctor. I do... (more)

Cloud Expo New York Call for Papers Now Open

Early Bird Savings Cloud Expo Cloud computing is a game changer. The cloud is disrupting traditional software and hardware business models by disrupting how IT service gets delivered. Entrepreneurial opportunities abound as this classic disruptive technology begins to proliferate, so it is no surprise that SYS-CON's industry-leading International Cloud Expo is going from strength to strength. The 5th International Cloud Expo, to be held April 19-21, 2010, at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York, NY, announces that its Call for Papers is fast approaching. Topics on which submission are welcome include all aspects of providing or using massively scalable IT-related capabilities as a service using Internet technologies (see suggested examples below). Help plant your flag in the fast-expanding business opportunity that is The Cloud: submit your speaking propos... (more)

Cloud Expo 2011 East To Attract 10,000 Delegates and 200 Exhibitors

SYS-CON Events announced today that the 8th International Cloud Expo will take place June 6-9, 2011, in New York City. The International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo series is the world's leading Cloud-focused event and is held three times a year, in New York, Silicon Valley and in Europe. Over 600 corporate sponsors and 10,000 industry professionals have participated in Cloud Computing Expo since its inception, more than all other Cloud-related events put together. Cloud Computing Expo 2011 East Call for Papers Deadline November 30, 2010 - SUBMIT YOUR SPEAKING PROPOSAL TODAY! The four-day event will offer a rich array of sessions led by exceptional speakers about the business and technical value of cloud computing with more than 150 sponsors and exhibitors and over 5,000 estimated delegates from well over 48 different countries. Explore Cloud Expo Sponsorship &... (more)

Will Ulitzer Dominate News Content on The Web? -Gartner

Will Ulitzer and SocialYell Dominate News Content on The Web (Eventually)? is the blog title of Gartner's Anthony Bradley. In his blog entry, Bradley writes: "Hype around Ulitzer.com (the social-journalism news magazine site) is climbing. At one point they were offering authors 200% of their Google AdSense revenue... I am convinced that the only way to change the world is through collectively determining how we spend our money and our votes. Will Ulitzer be this vehicle?" Ulitzer content is grouped in 25 distinct subjects from "Aerospace and Defense" to "Travel and Hospitality." Each subject group offers an unlimited number of topics, and each topic may contain thousands of peer-reviewed feature stories, bylined articles, blog posts, news, reviews, commentary, and unique editorial content authored by top experts in their fields. Ulitzer is designed to replace Wikiped... (more)

Drupal 8: A View into Performance

This is part 4 in a 5-part series on performance in the upcoming Drupal 8. Check out part 3, on performance in Twig templating, here. Views is one of the most installed Drupal modules with over two thirds of Drupal sites reporting that they have it installed. Soon, though, that number will go up: as of Drupal 8, Views is a core module! This effort started as a community effort and was announced as an official Drupal 8 initiative in a post by Dries explaining why this change is so exciting. One of the reasons that Views is so popular is that it provides an ‘all-in-one' answer without writing a single line of code. But there's a reason that many programmers hate WYSIWYG editors: you see the result, but not the steps taken to produce it, and what you don't know might come back to bite you. While a WYSIWYG editor will get you broken links or weird formatting, WYSIWYG da... (more)

ENKI Founder & CEO Speaking Next Week at SYS-CON's Cloud Computing Expo November 19-21 in Silicon Valley

"These are still the early days of Cloud Computing, where delivery has so far focused primarily on price, as set by the market leader, Amazon," notes Dave Durkee, Founder, CEO & Technical Director of ENKI Consulting. "However, while successful in the Web 2.0 market," he adds, "price-based cloud computing is falling short of the expectations held by the Enterprise." He will be giving a breakout session next week at SYS-CON's 1st International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo (November 19-21, 2008) being held at The Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, CA. To address the Enterprise market, in Durkee's view, cloud offerings will begin to move to address the separate market segments that are focused on price and value. "Value-based cloud offerings will focus on Enterprise requirements, including reliability, performance, deployability, security, and services. This means provi... (more)

Ulitzer’s Amazing First 30 Days in Public Beta

http://twitter.com/fuatkircaali Today marks the 30th day of Ulitzer's public beta. We had an amazing month and perhaps one of the most widely discussed launches of a "new media" site. Gartner recently asked, "Will Ulitzer dominate news content on the Web eventually?" The answer is yes, and I'll explain why. First, I'd like to share some of the 30-day stats with you. We had more than 140,000 visitors who read 197,000 pages of articles, blogs and news stories. The syndicated page views (outside the Ulitzer domain) exceeded 1,369,983 page views. The legendary technology reporter Maureen O'Gara was the most read Ulitzer author with 231,600 rolling page views, and we syndicated more than 3,000 Ulitzer stories. My First Blackberry, Circa 1999 I remember receiving my first Blackberry 10 years ago at the JavaOne conference in San Francisco. It was a small device similar to a ... (more)

Did You Know that PHP Runs on Windows?

Did you know that PHP runs on Windows? Run Drupal, WordPress, SugarCRM, or other PHP-based apps on Windows today with the free Microsoft Web Platform Installer. Microsoft® WebsiteSpark is a specially designed program for PHP Web developers and designers to help you explore running on Windows. This program enables you to get new business leads to grow your business, and receive the software, support and trainingyou may need, at no cost for 3 years. To find out how to start getting new business leads, and leveraging the benefits of WebsiteSpark please enter your information here to download the Program Guide and receive enrollment instructions. For your convenience, information from your member profile has been used to fill out this form as far as possible. Please provide any remaining information requested, then click 'Submit'. ... (more)

A Golden Key To The Cloud - For You!

One of my grand hopes for all of you, and your respective enterprises in 2010, is that you find your way to the Clouds.  The coming years will be both exciting and challenging as we collectively migrate our enterprises to cloud computing.  Speaking of enterprises, I owe all of you an article on preparing your enterprise for the cloud.  I continue to work on it, thought it's not quite ready yet.  Besides, this week, I have the pleasure of meeting with a world class, cloud computing leader, and I hope to glean further insights that will help shed light on the future of the enterprise.  In the meantime, to show my appreciation for your loyal readership, I am including a Special Offer for you.  The key to the cloud is - knowledge - so to help you acquire that knowledge, I am extending a special invitation to attend the 5th International Cloud Expo at the Jacob Javits Conv... (more)