SMB Community Podcast

April 15th's episode of Odd Tuesdays, Ted Hulsy, VP of Marketing at eFolder joins Karl to talk about sync and security for MSPs and VARs.

Rayanne Buchianico, from ABC Solutions also features in the episode in our Oddballs segment. Rayanne continues her QuickBooks tips series with today's tips surrounding the variety of preferences you can take advantage of in making QuickBooks much more user friendly with daily entries, particularly for managed service providers.

You can find the April 1 Odd Tuesdays episode here.

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3D Printing – An Interview with Alan Ware

Sacramento has a great organization called Hacker Lab – part hacker space, part maker space, and part co-working space. I joined last year and plan to cover a number of subjects related to the things they do there. This includes programming, Arduino, robotics, 3D printing, and more.

This is an interview with Alan M. Ware, B.S.M.E.

Alan is a 3D design and manufacturing engineer. He teaches the 3D Printing class at Hacker Lab. I took the class and then asked him for a quick interview.

Recorded February 2014

I also recorded some videos.

One is already posted. The other one needs some production. The first video is here:

http://youtu.be/ncLrcYIbOeA

Hacker Lab is open to everyone. It's a great place to learn and to prototype your ideas. Find out more at http://www.hackerlab.org. Hacker Lab is located at 1715 I Street, Sacramento, CA.

Alan also mentioned "The Design Spot" at the Arcade public library – 2443 Marconi Ave., Sacramento, CA. They have computers with PhotoShop, AutoCAD, and other software as well as 3D printers that anyone can use.

Alan's web site – http://www.AMWDesign.net – has a number of great links for anyone interested in finding out more about 3D printing, the software used, and some of the hardware options. (He promised he'd tune it up after the video comes out.)

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Odd Tuesdays was launched this week by Host Karl Palachuk and Producer Monica Caraway. The Podcast is geared for I.T. Consultants and features what's new in tech management and best practices for running an I.T. business. The Podcast airs on the first and third Tuesdays of each month and features a variety of Vendor & MSP consultant interviews and advice segments.

In the first episode, SMB Nation's Harry Brelsford joins the show to discuss all that 2014 has in store for the SMB Nation community. He also mentions their Emerging Technology Tour, of which Karl is participating in. Lars Andersson, from Cloud Nine, joins the show as well to talk about how instrumental SMB Nation has been to his business.

Karl also updates the audience on the many live presentations he will be giving around the country this year. More information can be found at whereintheworldiskarl.com.

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Posted: Karl's State of the Nation Address for IT Consultants

In case you couldn't listen live, we recorded the "State of the Nation" address.

Recorded January 15, 2014

Notes from Karl Palachuk on the year gone by and the year ahead.

Karl Palachuk Announces Odd Tuesdays

Karl's Fifth Annual State of the Nation Address for I.T. Consultants

30 minutes.

Key contents:

– Windows 9 timeline announced

– Announcement of new podcast series: Odd Tuesdays

– The year 2013 in review

– The effects of the recession on the business ahead

– Thoughts on 2014

– Upcoming appearances and events

Links mentioned in this podcast:

• SMB Books: www.SMBBooks.com
• Small Biz Thoughts: www.smallbizthoughts.com
• SMB Tech Fest: www.smbtechfest.com
• SMB Nation Emerging Technology Tour: http://tour.smbnation.com
• Great Little Seminars: www.GreatLittleSeminar.com
• SMB Online Conference: www.SMBOnlineConference.com
• SMB Nation Preday: www.smbpreday.com
• Odd Tuesdays Podcast: www.OddTuesdays.com

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Online or In Person: Partner Training with Third Tier

I ran into Dave Seibert at the recent ChannelPro SMB Forum in New Jersey.

He brought me up to speed on the SMB Tech Fest events he produces. The Sixth SMB Tech Fest will be October 19th in Irvine. Details are online at www.smbtechfest.com.

The October 19th event will be presented by members of Third Tier, including Amy Babinchak herself! See the event schedule at http://smbtechfest.com/events.html.

Presentations include:

• Vision of the Future – Presenter: Amy Babinchak
• Hyper-V Configurations for SMB with Replication – Presenter: Boon Tee
• Hyper-V Configurations for SMB with Clustering – Presenter: Phil Elder
• The state of SMB Security – Presenter: Susan Bradley
• Plus a panel discussion!

The very reasonable price includes breakfast and lunch!

Location:

Brandman University (Irvine Campus) 16355 Laguna Canyon Road Irvine CA 92618

About SMB Tech Fest

SMB TechFest is a combination of business & technical training. Each venue date has a unique combination to offer attendees a breadth of experiences. This means some events will be 60/40 split on content and others will be 100% technical. This is intentional as the SMB community has business & technical focused individuals and the goal is to bring value to each.

SMB TechFest is designed to offer expert topic speakers. The key benefit of SMB TechFest is many topics and solutions in one venue. So it's concentrated deep learning. There are no distractions from waiting for other attendees to "catch up" with the instructor. Just focused learning at the speed of a talented expert.

About Dave Seibert

Dave Seibert is a community leader and an IT industry leader with 30 years experience in the channel. He is a founder and active leader in SMBTN and several IT Pro groups.

Dave is also the principal at IT Innovators, an MSP based in Southern California. IT Innovators provides complete IT solutions to SMB (Small Medium Business) within the Southern California Area. Their services include servers, networking, PC's, software, Cloud Solutions, virtualization, firewalls, social media, websites, managed services and total outsourced IT solutions.

More info on SMB Tech Fest:

• Web Site: www.smbtechfest.com
• Email [email protected]

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SaaS Marketplace Allows MSPs to Find Business Cloud Services to Resell

Today SaaSMAX Corp. announced the official commercial release of their new SaaSMAX marketplace platform.

A few days ago I recorded a short podcast with SaaSMAX Founder and CEO Dina Moskowitz about this announcement and the Saas Marketplace in general.

Basically, SaaSMAX brings together channel resellers and app vendors, increasing revenues for both. It's like a one-stop shop for partners who are looking for services they can sell (resell) to create recurring monthly revenue sources.

The commercial launch kicked off with the unveiling of the new SaaS marketplace at CompTIA's ChannelCon, with WiseSaaS search functionality that now permits site visitors to immediately start searching and discovering trusted business cloud software solutions that match their needs. Moreover, SaaSMAX provides Resellers with permission-only on-demand access to many SaaS Vendors' reseller and affiliate programs and their related incentives.

As you'll hear in this audio, the SaaSMAX marketplace can be both a clearinghouse for finding vendors and a place for those vendors to communicate with you if they don't already have a partner portal.

Joining SaaSMAX is free to Resellers. Resellers in SaaSMAX typically include Managed Service Providers, Value-Added Resellers, IT Solution Providers and IT consultants, but also extend beyond IT to include Marketing & Digital Media consultants, HR consultants, tax & financial advisers and other trusted advisers within various business domains. SaaS Vendors pay a flat monthly or annual licensing fee.

About SaaSMAX Corp.

SaaSMAX Corp. is the ultimate Value-Add SaaS Marketplace for business cloud software vendors ("SaaS Vendors") and resellers to create new revenues and partner opportunities. Resellers can now find and compare SaaS Apps AND manage deal registrations, affiliate tools and commissions, all in one place. SaaS Vendors now have the ultimate neutral venue to showcase their solutions to relevant B2B Resellers and Buyers, plus marketing support and tools to track sales conversions and commissions.

About Dina Moskowitz

Dina Moskowitz is recognized by UBM Tech Channel CRN as one of the 'Top Women in the Channel', the recipient of the SMB 150 Award, the CRN Top 500 Solution Providers Award and San Diego IT Leadership Award, Dina Moskowitz has been leading and/or consulting to cloud-based, SaaS and other technology companies throughout her career. As founder and CEO of SaaSMAX Corp., the ultimate SaaS Marketplace for business cloud software vendors ("SaaS Vendors"), Dina conceived and built a market place allowing resellers to create new revenues and partner opportunities. Prior to SaaSMAX, Moskowitz was CEO and founder of Critical Digital Data Solutions Inc., which developed cloud-based data storage solutions. Dina has presented at various IT Channel events, including Channel Partners, SaaS University, CompTIA Breakaway, RetailNOW (RSPA), ChannelPartners and gSocial 2.0.

More info on SaasMax:

• Web Site: www.SaaSMAX.com
• Twitter: twitter.com/WiseSaaS

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Stacey Powell: Take Your Finances to the Gym!

Stacey Powell owns two businesses to help companies be more successful by managing their finances more effectively. At Creating Answers (http://www.creatinganswers.com/), Stacey works with business owners to stop once a month and take a closer look at their numbers.

Meanwhile, over at The Finance Gym (http://thefinancegym.com/), she works with small groups of business owners in a sort of master mind format. The Finance Gym bootcamps are a great way for small businesses to get feedback in real time from other small business owners. Stacey tells us how these groups help business owners feel more comfortable with their numbers and become more profitable.

Stacey will be one of the featured speakers on the SMB Online Conference next week. Her topic there is Five Magic Tricks to Make Your Numbers Jump Up and Speak to You. Her presentation is on Wednesday, June 26th.

Tune us in!

More info for Stacey Powell:

• Web Site: www.creatinganswers.com
• Web Site: www.thefinancegym.com
• Blog: http://blogs.forbes.com/people/Stacey%20Powell/
• Blog: http://thefinancegym.com/blog/
• View the Press Release about This Appearance

The theme of this year's SMB Online Conference is IT Business Reboot – We'll cover a variety of topics related to re-building your business as if you were starting over today.

Here are the topics for Day Two: June 26, 2013

9:00 AM PST – Karl's Keynote (Karl W. Palachuk)

10:00 AM Richard Tubb – Effective Business Networking: How to Network Online and Offline

11:00 AM Stacey Powell – Five Magic Tricks to Make Your Numbers Jump Up and Speak to You

1:00 PM Mark Moreno – Serving Larger Clients – The Mid-Market: An Opportunity You Do Not Want to Miss

2:00 PM Josh Peterson – Stop Hiring Your First Sales Person Over and Over Again

(all times are Pacific)

For more information on the conference, visit www.SMBOnlineConference.com.

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Need to Manage Amazon Web Services? ElasticTask Gets The Job Done

One of the cool things I noticed about the Autotask Community Live event is that many partners are developing products and services that plug into Autotask. In all cases, these partners solved a problem internally and then turned that program into a product that can be used by others. One of the coolest I saw was ElasticTask.

ElasticTask helps you make sense of your Amazon Web Services billing, converts it automatically into Autotask, QuickBooks, and other programs, and even creates the related products you need for AT invoices.

I talked to Lubbi Ernjakovic about the specifics. If you sell AWS , I think you'll find this very interesting.

This product is worth a look if:

– You sell/resell AWS and have multiple child accounts

– You have several AWS accounts

– You want estimated bills from your AWS service

– You want a centralized dashboard for managing AWS accounts, child accounts

– You need monitoring of AWS services

– You want automatic ticketing and alerts from AWS

No matter what services you buy from Amazon, this product will parse the services and automatically create them in Autotask for use in invoices and configurations.

For more information on ElasticTask, visit www.elastictask.com.

– Download the Interview with Lubbi Ernjakovic from ElasticTask here.

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Spam Soap's "Click Protect" Scans Attachments When they Download

Len Dimiceli from Spam Soap talked to me at Autotask Community Live in Phoenix about the latest and greatest news from Spam Soap.

The latest service from Spam Soap is called Click Protect. Click Protect scans attachments. But more than that, it always scans the attachment before it's opened. So if an attachment's reputation has gone bad, it will not open.

There is no additional charge for this feature. Existing partners will need to turn on the feature. New partners will receive it turned on automatically.

Len gives us some details of the Spam Soap partner program, sign-up costs, etc. He also talks about the nature of partners at the Autotask conference versus some of the other conferences out there.

For more information on Spam Soap, visit www.spamsoap.com.

– Download the Interview with Len Dimiceli from Spam Soap here.

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Continuum Bundles Everything – And Lets You Test Drive at a Low Price With No Obligation

Continuum (formerly Zenith) was the original RMM solution with NOC back end included. Today they have a very large variety of offerings, including Level 1 and Level 2 tech support on the desktop. They have a new Mobile Device Management program, their Vault BDR, and a "Tech Advantage" program that allows you to send project work to their team.

They also have a new "Marketing Advantage" program, which Matt describes in this podcast.

I talked to Matt at the Continuum booth at Autotask Community Live. I asked him about their Starter package. He gives some good details here. Basically, you have a small buy-in with no long term contract, and you get just about every product they offer.

They basic RMM agent includes a variety of add-on software as well, including anti-virus and anti-malware software all for one low price.

For more information on Continuum, visit www.continuum.net.

– Download the Interview with Matt Waters from Continuum here.

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