Open Port IT Community

The Website is Down T-Shirt Giveaway on Twitter

michael.j.armstrong@intel.com — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:50:13 GMT

Who wants to win a free t-shirt? Follow these steps to enter the contest:

Between 10:00am and 2:00pm PST every weekday from 11/9 to 11/12, the @IntelOpenPort twitter account will announce the daily t-shirt giveaway in a tweet (UPDATE: Contest will end on 11/12, not 11/20)
Simply retweet the t-shirt giveaway message within an hour of the original tweet to be entered to win (5 winners per day drawn randomly from those who retweet)
Intel will publicly announce the winners weekly on the community site and through Twitter
Intel will contact winners for mailing address
Limit one t-shirt per person
We only have 50 Large t-shirts and they are going to go fast!
And if you haven't seen it, check out Episode 4 of The Website is Down: Sales Demolition.

Official terms:

No Purchase Necessary. A Purchase Or Payment Will Not Increase Your Chances Of Winning.

Eligibility

The "Website is Down" ("Sweepstakes") is open only to legal residents of the fifty (50) United States and the District of Columbia and nine (9) provinces of Canada (Quebec excluded) who have reached the age of majority in their state or province of residence at the time of entry. Employees of Sponsor and its parent companies, affiliates, subsidiaries, distributors, advertising and promotion agencies and members of the immediate family (defined as spouse, parent, sibling, child and respective spouses regardless of where they reside) and/or those living in the same household of such employees are NOT ELIGIBLE to enter.

How to Enter (Twitter "Website is Down" Contest):

During the period from November, 9, 2009, at 12:01 AM PST through November 20, 2009, at 11:59 PM PST (the "Sweepstakes Period") entrants must retweet the IntelOpenPort tweet signaling that the contest has started to be considered an official entry.

Alternative Entry: To prevent limitations, if entrant is unable to enter via Twitter, he or she can submit a postcard version of his/her entry to 1900 Prairie City Rd, MS: FM4-19, Folsom, CA 95630 during the sweepstakes period.

Limit one entry per person per day. All entries must be received during the Sweepstakes Period to be eligible. Sponsor's clock is the official time clock for the Sweepstakes.

Prizes/Retail Value and Odds of Winning

Odds of winning depend on the total number of tweets received during the contest time period.

Five t-shirts will be given away each business day from November 9^th, 2009 to November 20^th, 2009, for a total of 50 t-shirt prizes.

T-shirts will be shipped to winners between November 16th, 2009 and December 31^st, 2009. These dates are dependent on timely responses from the winners with contact information.

Entries

Entries using macro, robotic, script or other forms of automatic entry will be disqualified. Entries become the property of the Sponsor and will not be returned. No mechanically reproduced entries permitted. Proof of submission does not constitute proof of receipt. Sponsor is not responsible for lost, late, mutilated, misdirected, incomplete, inaccurate or postage due entries. If there is a dispute as to the identity of an online entrant, the prize will be awarded to the authorized account holder. The "authorized account holder" is defined as the natural person to whom the email address or Twitter account is assigned by an internet service provider, online service provider or other organization (e.g., business, educational institution, etc.) that is responsible for assigning email addresses or accounts for the domain associated with the submitted entry.

Conditions of Participation

Entrants agree to be bound by the terms of these Official Rules and by the decisions of judges, which are final and binding on all matters pertaining to this Sweepstakes. Winners may be required to sign and return an Affidavit of Eligibility, a Liability Release and, where legally permissible, a Publicity Release within 7 days following the date of first attempted notification. Failure to comply with this deadline may result in forfeiture of the prize and selection of an alternate winner. Acceptance of the prize constitutes permission for Sponsor and its agencies to use winner's name and/or likeness, biographical material and/or entry (including an altered form of the entry) for advertising and promotional purposes in any media without geographic or time limitation, and without additional compensation, unless prohibited by law. By participating in the Sweepstakes, entrants agree to hold Sponsor, its advertising and promotion agencies and their respective parent companies, subsidiaries, affiliates, partners, representative agents, successors, assigns, officers, directors, and employees harmless for any injury or damage caused or claimed to be caused by participation in the Sweepstakes and/or acceptance or use of any prize. Sponsor is not responsible for any printing, typographical, mechanical or other error in the printing of the offer, administration of the Sweepstakes or in the announcement of the prize. Sponsor may be collecting personal information in accordance with its privacy policy. See Sponsor's privacy policy for details regarding Sponsor's information collection practices in connection with a Sweepstakes.

Internet

Sponsor is not responsible for electronic transmission errors resulting in omission, interruption, deletion, defect, delay in operations or transmission, theft or destruction or unauthorized access to or alterations of entry materials, or for technical, network, telephone equipment, electronic, computer, hardware or software malfunctions or limitations of any kind, or inaccurate transmissions of or failure to receive entry information by Sponsor or presenter on account of technical problems or traffic congestion on the Internet or at any Web site or any combination thereof. If for any reason the Internet portion of the program is not capable of running as planned, including infection by computer virus, bugs, tampering, unauthorized intervention, fraud, technical failures, or any other causes which corrupt or affect the administration, security, fairness, integrity, or proper conduct of this Sweepstakes, Sponsor reserves the right at its sole discretion to cancel, terminate, modify or suspend the Sweepstakes. Sponsor reserves the right to select winners from eligible entries received as of the termination date. Sponsors further reserve the right to disqualify any individual who tampers with the entry process. Sponsor may prohibit an entrant from participating in the Sweepstakes if it determines that said entrant is attempting to undermine the legitimate operation of the Sweepstakes by cheating, hacking, deception or other unfair playing practices or intending to abuse, threaten or harass other entrants.

Caution: Any attempt by a participant to deliberately damage any Web site or undermine the legitimate operation of the Sweepstakes is a violation of criminal and civil laws and should such an attempt be made, Sponsor reserves the right to seek damages from any such participant to the fullest extent of the law.

Disputes/Choice Of Law

Except where prohibited, each entrant agrees that: (1) any and all disputes, claims and causes of action arising out of or connected with this Sweepstakes or any prize awarded shall be resolved individually, without resort to any form of class action, and exclusively by state or federal courts situated in Santa Clara, CA, (2) any and all claims, judgments and awards shall be limited to actual out-of-pocket costs incurred, but in no event attorneys' fees; and (3) no punitive, incidental, special, consequential or other damages, including without limitation lost profits may be awarded (collectively, "Special Damages"), and (4) entrant hereby waives all rights to claim Special Damages and all rights to have such damages multiplied or increased. Delaware law governs the Sweepstakes and all aspects related thereto.

Sponsor

The Sponsor of this Sweepstakes is Intel Corporation.

Winners List

The winners list may be obtained by contacting:
Mike Armstrong
1900 Prairie City Rd

MS: FM4-18

Folsom, CA

95630

Get social with Open Port

michael.j.armstrong@intel.com — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:28:23 GMT

With the popularity of social networking tools becoming more widely used, we've made the decision to expand the Open Port presence in an attempt to not only keep up with what's happening and where people are hanging out but also to connect the members of the Open Port community with each other in new and engaging ways.

That's why we've started a number of social media profiles to connect with interesting people and distribute Open Port content where they are, hopefully prompting them to come back here to Open Port and further engage in the conversation.

To that end you can follow us on Twitter, subscribe to our profile onFriendFeed, see what we find interesting on Delicious and become a fan of Open Port on Facebook.

We hope these profiles will be useful to all of you. Those sites and networks have a ton to offer in the way of two-way conversation, which is why we're using them.

If you're an Open Port community member and are on those networks we'd encourage you to share your profile in the discussion forums so that not only can we connect with you but so that other members of the community can find you there as well.

thanks

Mike (Open Port Community Admin)

Dealing With User Account Control in Windows 7

ibarry@ymail.com — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:30:02 GMT

If there was one thing among many that annoyed Windows Vista users it was the User Account Control. Constant warning messages asking for permission to continue many tasks was no joy to any user trying to even basic tasks on their PC. The tweaking channels were soon inundated with requests for tips on how to stop it nagging you every time you wanted to do something. Fortunately UAC has been improved quite a bit in Windows 7 so that it isn’t quite as annoying as it was in Vista. You can, as ever, tweak it more if you like.

To get started navigate to the Control Panel, User Accounts and Family Safety. Click User Accounts, then Change User Account Control settings. From the next screen move the slider to select the level of protection you want.

Ensure you have a backup or restore Point on your machine before making any changes. If you follow these instructions to the letter you should have no problems, but we can’t be held responsible if things go wrong.

Here are the four levels, and what they mean:

Always notify on every system change. Works like Vista. A nannying prompt pops up whenever you make changes to your system.

Notify me only when programs try to make changes to my computer. This is the default setting Make a change while logged in as an Administrator and it stays quiet. When a program makes a change, a prompt appears to check what’s going on.

Notify me only when programs try to make changes to my computer, without using the Secure Desktop. This setting is identical to the default setting, with one difference: It won’t dim your desktop so that you only see the UAC prompt asking you to take action. This presents a slightly higher security risk over the default settings, as a program could allow another malicious program or code to interfere with the UAC prompt.

Never notify. UAC is turned off. This is an insecure option and not recommended for most users. However if you have a good firewall and anti-virus, you can turn it off if you like.

After you choose your level, click OK.

You can also disable UAC with a registry hack if you have the skills.

Open the registry editor (regedit) and find;

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System

And find the entry EnableLUA, and modify the value to 0 (zero). The find the ConsentPromptBehaviourAdmin value and change that to 0 (zero) too.

The next time you restart your machine the UAC will be turned off and you will never be bugged by it again.

As always with Windows, there is a downside and that is that you can no longer use Windows Gadgets and MS think that the system is too open to attack with UAC off and gadgets running in the background. I personally never used the gadgets anyway…

[post edited by Intel Admin due to a violation of terms and service]

IT Managers Refuse to Play in the Playground

michael.j.armstrong@intel.com — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 22:12:08 GMT

In the spirit of continuous improvement and site optimization, Intel has decided to begin consolidating communities here within Open Port. The IT Playground was launched about a year and a half ago and was designed to be a fun zone dedicated to games and funny videos and other entertaining content.

There were some really cool rock videos posted for the Hard Rock Soft Rock campaign featuring Christopher Guest of Spinal Tap. I think this was the only time I ever saw people rocking out to value propositions like "hardware based remote manageability" and "even while the OS sleeps you can make your updates". Those songs were really catchy and I found that I couldn't get them out of my head for a couple of weeks.

There were promotions for games like Robobrawl and IT Manager 2 online games. There were funny PEBKAC (problem exists between keyboard and chair) videos showing typical problems that IT managers face on a daily basis and how those could be resolved with Intel technology.

But at the end of the day, there just wasn't any value created for you - our users. What have we done? Well, we still have all that content, but it was merged in with the vPro Expert Center. The message that we got was that the community just wasn't being cared for the way it needed to be, so we consolidated so that we can continue to focus on what matters.

Have you ever seen a trillion dollars?

ibarry@ymail.com — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 15:58:57 GMT

With all these "bailouts" and such, you hear the words bailout, billions, and trillions, and people act like it's no big deal. Have you ever seen a trillion dollars? Well, it IS a big deal...

The full post is much better, it shows you what all different amounts of money looks like from $10,000 to $100 million. Also, if you look closely at the picture you will notice a little red dot at the bottom left corner, it's not a dot though, it's a human being and each square is a full pallet of $100 bills.

You can join the discussion on reddit here and here is the source of this post.

Gmail gives users 'Multiple Inboxes'

ibarry@ymail.com — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 00:10:58 GMT

Google late Thursday unveiled a new Gmail Labs feature that allows users to have more than one inbox in their default Gmail view.

The new feature--called Multiple Inboxes--allows users to have multiple viewing panes open simultaneously without having to open another browser window. The upgrade gives users a quick view at important labels as well as saved searches.

Google software engineer Octavian "Vivi" Costache explained in a company blog post why he used his "20 percent time" to develop the feature:

I'm seriously into filters and labels. All the email I get related to Flash goes under my "flash" label, everything about paragliding goes under "flying," and they all skip my inbox because that's how I like to stay organized. But when new email arrives I have to switch to the "flash" label first, then click on "paragliding," etc. I wanted a way to see it all at once.

For those who use their Gmail accounts for multiple personal e-mail lists, as well as for work, this is a huge step up.

source

Welcome Back.. We Had A Face Lift

robert.p.duffy@intel.com — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:19:54 GMT

If you haven't noticed things look different on this site. The core site has a name change. We are now Intel Communities. Open Port and all the personas and content is still here, we've just expanded the role of community on this site.

So please join and participate with thought leaders in the technology industry. Join discussions and ask questions of our engineers. Even better yet, make your own experience by creating your own groups, blogs and discussions.

I hope you enjoy the site. And please let us know what we can do to improve the experience.

The COD5 PC BETA is out!

ibarry@ymail.com — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 04:59:09 GMT

The COD5 BETA has been released for the PC. It's about time too, I've been waiting for this for like 3 months. I even pre-ordered a copy of COD5 from GameStop because apparantly that was supposed to gaureentee you a spot in the BETA but then after I ordered I found out that all you had to do was signup for an account on the COD website. I ended up doing both and, as luck would have it, I didn't get my gamestop key yet, only my COD key. So good thing I pre-ordered.

I've already taken some FRAPS vido of the game, I wanna be one of the first to get a good sniper montage uploaded to youtube. I'll come back and edit this post to include the youtube link once the video is all done. OK, so here's how to get your key BTW:

In order to take part in the BETA you needed to signup at the CallofDuty website with a free account, or pre-order the game from GameStop.

If you haven’t already signed up for your fre account at CallofDuty

forums, you can do it now but I don’t know if that will score you a

BETA key or not. For everyone who had an account at the CallofDuty site

before todays date, you can find the BETA key in your profile.

Here are the official directions and official BETA download links:

Download the PC Beta Installer from the below mirror links.
Install the game using the CD-KEY you received in your email. If
you’ve confirmed your community account, you can also find it in your profile page.
Download the in game instruction manual.

Xbox 360

Receive your Xbox Live™ Marketplace Token and write it down. You will not be able to download the Beta without it
Log into Xbox Live with your gamer profile
Access Xbox Live Marketplace through the Xbox 360™ Dashboard
Click Redeem Code
Enter your Xbox Live Marketplace Token when prompted

Source: Call of Duty

**update**

There are huge problems with the BETA. Everything from DX errors to black screens and sound driver errors. You may want to take a look at this post if you're having any problems and perhaps it will help you. Lucky for me I haven't had any problems what so ever...I like COD5 way more than COD4 too ;D

Google buys a fighter jet...

ibarry@ymail.com — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 18:10:46 GMT

!http://media.nbcbayarea.com/images/300*225/plane1.jpg

Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page have added to their air fleet.

They are nw the proud owners of a fighter jet. They purchased a Dornier Alpha Jet like the one pictured. They are storing it in a hangar at Moffett Field in Mountain View.

Our news helicopter flew over the hangar and found a closed door, but the control tower confirmed the jet was inside. The New York Times says the plane is outfitted with scientific instruments to help out with NASA missions. The Google founders also own several other jets including a Boeing 757.

All of the planes have landing rights at Moffett, which is within a few miles of the Google campus.

Brin and Page are not the only Silicon Valley moguls to buy a military plane. Oracle's Larry Ellison owns several aircraft, including fighter jets. If you click on the video link above you can see raw video of Ellison flying his MiG 29.

source

Oracle OpenWorld08: The Intel WiMAX Car

josh.hilliker@intel.com — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 05:47:34 GMT

David Hammond (Intel) shows us the Intel WiMAX enable smart car and some of the cool features.

Looking for an Internship with Intel?

josh.hilliker@intel.com — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:05:30 GMT

Hi all,

We in the vPro Expert Center are looking for folks that would like to do an internship with Intel over the fall session. We have posted a job @ www.intel.com/jobs Search for requisition # 559370.

Here's the brief description:

The internship is based in Folsom, CA or Hillsboro, OR, and would be focused on social media related to the Intel social media sites on http://communities.intel.com/. In this position, you will primarily focus around the following areas blog radio show, the Emerging Compute Model Forum, the vPro Expert Center, and the Server Room. A successful internship would involve regular participate in the community blog sites, creating content and collateral for the various communities, and deeply engaged with the radio show. We would expect a successful intern to be able to grasp the details of where Intel is going with the technologies covered by the community sites, and communicate the direction to the outside world.

If you have questions email me, blog me, twitter me, etc..

Happy 1st Birthday Open Port!!

kelly.r.feller@intel.com — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:58:47 GMT

Josh thinks we should have cake. But I prefer champagne. Whatever your fancy, this week is Open Port's 1st birthday as a community destination--and we couldn't be happier about that. What a momentous occassion!

The site was born because we folks in marketing (shh, I know...marketing :| ) believed we needed a better way to help you~~Intel customers~~find and understand information about Intel products. However, suprisingly (to us, probably not you) Open Port has evolved into so much more. Although we know it's not yet perfect, the site continues to grow as more folks join our community. And I think it's only going to get better in the years to come.

So how did Open Port come into existence a year ago? Well, the infamous Bob Duffy was doing his usual "looking under the hood" of stuff and realized folks weren't connecting with the technical content that was available on the intel.com website (uh, as in traffic was pretty bad). So he looked around at some other sites, like Slashdot and Ars Technica, and realized many folks were getting their information~~yes, even technical information~~from each other on forums and in discussions. "What if we hosted discussions on Intel technology on our site?" Bob wondered. And the rest, they say, is history.

Open Port first launched with three "communities" or "zones:" the general community, the vPro Expert Center, and the IT@Intel community zone. We've now grown to 7 communities overall with plans to add more and re-organize the content so you, our wonderful users, will have more control over the content you see on the site.

So what are some of the highlights of the past year? Well, you'd have to ask those who've been around longer for their unique perspectives. But here are some of the things I know:

Just this year alone site visits, comments on posts, and logins have grown at about 250%*
User registrations for the community have climbed by 500%*
More and more content is coming from you~~our wonderful community~~than from Intel folks...this includes our superstar technical expert Javed Lodhi who keeps answering questions in our Ask An Expert forum. Thanks and keep up the great work, Javed!
We've made some mistakes, heard your comments, and hopefully changed things for the better both here on Open Port and in our technology as well.

Josh goes into greater detail on many of the highlights and lowlights of the past year on his Happy Birthday blog so I won't bore you or steal his thunder.

What I will tell you that you may not yet realize is that Open Port represents a monumental shift in the way Intel talks with our customers and community. I say "with" purposely because in the past Intel's primary way to "get our message out" was to talk at people instead of with them. But inviting you, our community, to share your ideas with us and engage in dialogue, you not only learn from us but from each other--and we learn from you. And that, at a minimum, is enough to inspire me to raise a glass and make a toast.

Oh, and lest I forget...thank you to you and to everyone who makes this community so terrific. We couldn't do it without you!

*On September 2, 2008 I realized that my math skills are still terrible. I had erroneously calculated these stats too low when I posted this originally. These are now correct. Sorry for any inconvenience.

I Think I Have Manageability Envy!

kelly.r.feller@intel.com — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 05:18:31 GMT

Picture this: I'm hard at work in my home office, dilligently pounding away on my laptop as I crank out my latest blog post when I hear these abhorred and frequently uttered words exclaimed in a shrill, grating voice, "That's not fair, he got more than me!" I wince. I choke. I try to ignore it but the din continues as does the decibel level of what has now evolved into a full-fledged altercation.

Freeze.

Imagine now that I do not rise from my comfy office chair to insert myself inbetween these battling six-year olds but instead click a button on my special "remote parental virtual manageability machine" and the children's issues miraculously melt away without the parental interjection I was dreading. How cool would that be?

Yes, you know I am a geek when I fantasize about using features in Intel technology (specifically the new Centrino 2 Technology) to solve my parenting problems. But I couldn't help it! All this talk about "remote isolation" and "managing, diagnosing, and repairing issues from afar" had me daydreaming of the day when technology might really allow me to manage my own problems from the next room or, even better, several states away.

A girl can dream, can't she?

So let me ask you...if you could remotely manage anything~~anything at all~~what would it be? Would you "isolate and repair" that solicitor who is ringing your doorbell right in the middle of Survivor? Or perhaps you'd like to "diagnose and power down" your neighbor's dog when he barks at 3:00 in the morning.

Do You Deserve to Wear the Crown of Ultimate Geek? Join me at IDF to Find Out.

kelly.r.feller@intel.com — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:31:40 GMT

Never being one to shy away from any event brimming with buzz, I was excited to learn I'll be attending the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco August 19-21. This event is exciting for many reasons, the least of which is an opportunity to meet Intel and Open Port community members in person. But this year IDF brings some other exciting and tasty new treats that I'm anxious to check out:

Keynote by visionary Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak
Discussions on the future of mobility and what it means to be "on-the-go"
A look at the digital enterprise and how embedded, dynamic, and visual computing fit in
And last, but not nearly the least is The Ultimate Geek Challenge!

As a self-described social media junkie I am addicted to my Twitter feeds (are you on Twitter? Follow me at KellyRFeller) and anxiously await a better way to consume them than through the tiny browser window on my Blackberry Pearl. It's why all this talk of the Atom processor for mobile internet devices has me fanning myself like a twitterpated schoolgirl. But I digress.

Probably one of the coolest IDF events to look forward to is the Ultimate Geek Challenge. This event has been brought back to IDF by request from the fans and pits geeks of all persuasions against each other to determine who is the geekiest of all. I doubt my geekiness can hold a candle to geekiness expertly cultivated by the uber geeks in the room. I'm just anxious to watch the fun as the Intel geek community (uh, that might be you) answers tech trivia, challenges the "mad gaming skillz" of Team Evil Genius, and tries for the top techie prize by completing a technical build of the most difficult sort. Rumor has it the winner will get a major big-time prize (shh, check back here and I'll try to find out what it is).

So what do you say? Care to join me? There's still time to register. And who doesn't love San Franciso in August?

Talking about the "Great Debate"

josh.hilliker@intel.com — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 20:18:18 GMT

Join Hank & I talking about the Great Debate in a few minutes @ http://www.blogtalkradio.com/openport/2008/06/13/Intel-Great-Debates-Eco-Technology-Post-Debate-Wrap-Up