Ultrabook at home, desktop at work, iPad when my daughter hasn't stolen it to watch Power Rangers on Netflix, iPhone, iPod connected to the hi-fi and running Spotify and Amazon Cloud Player.

@art_of_shred said:

Just date any girl that comes along and is desperate enough to date you.

This was my policy at school. It didn't lead to any other girls though.

Does the old-fashioned process of advertising a vacancy and then having candidates apply no longer exist? Do employers now have to find employees rather than vice versa? I posted a vacancy on one of the UK leading job sites last week and have basically had zero response.

@scottalanmiller said:

For example, we make one "site" for each division: HR, management, general "whole" company, IT, Software Engineering, Client Services, etc. About seven or eight of them. Each has the same basics but with slight variations depending on need. Some are globally visible (IT and CS are available to all staff to see, SE only to the development team to keep things tidy for other people, management only to executives, etc.) People without access to a site literally don't even know that it exists, its tabs in the menus vanish so they don't even know that they are missing anything.

I'm about to create my first sites (gulp).

HR. I don't know whether to have one or two HR sites. Two sites would be a whole company one, where, for example, we'd keep Employee Manuals. And a private, departmental one, where HR would keep confidential internal documents. I don't know if it's better to have one HR site and use permissions to control access.

Project sites. We have a Lean Manufacturing Team - with cross-departmental team members working on various projects related to the company's commitment to becoming a lean organisation. I don't know whether to have one site containing all the projects the team will be working on, or to create multiple project sites - one for each project that the team embarks on. The latter could get out of hand, as there are likely to be multiple projects being worked on simultaneously. But a single site could get confusing and cause the team to lose focus.

You can problem tell from the above that I'm a complete newbie to all this!

Adorkable

Yes, it is now a word:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jun/10/adorkable-collins-english-dictionary-twitter-print

Antidisestablishmentarianism

@scottalanmiller said:

I think you are confusing "having skills" or "having experience" with taking the time to know the competition, taking the time to know the customer, being willing to send them to a completely different solution that you can't meet.

I'm not confusing anything.

If you change the thread title from "Why You Don't Get Advice from Vendors" to "Why you should maintain a healthy scepticism about advice you get from vendors, why you should engage with multiple vendors and why should verify all vendor advice with your own independent research" then I agree with you completely.

Mostly you are just pointing out all the weaknesses and caveats of vendor advice. That's all to the good, but that is not the same thing as saying you should never get advice from a vendor. Getting advice from a vendor is a great way to learn and a great way to help source new products and solutions. I'd advise all IT pros to get as much advice as possible from as many people as possible - and that includes, but is not limited to, vendors.

@scottalanmiller said:

Buying a loaf of bread doesn't have far reaching impact on your business plan and architecture.

It has a far reaching impact on my stomach, which is way more important than any business plan.

@scottalanmiller said:

You wouldn't ask your grocer, baker or doctor for computer, business or architecture advice

No, but I might ask my baker for advice on the best loaf for my needs. He isn't going to tell me that the best loaf is the one that his competitor sells down the road, but apart from that I expect him to give me good advice. He may not actually have baked the bread himself, but he's been working in the baking industry all his life and has learnt a thing or two about bread during that time.

In my company, as I mentioned above, one salesman has been working here for over 50 years. He may just be a salesman in your eyes, but you don't spend 50 years within our industry talking to hundreds of different clients, without reaching a reasonable level of technical competence. Simply dividing people into two piles - one marked "engineer" and one marked "salesman" is just too simplistic to be helpful. A lot of salesmen are technical, and vice versa. A friend of mine worked for years as a brilliant programmer, but now works in sales because he's also great with customers.

@scottalanmiller said:

Probably the most important advice that I give to IT pros. Vendors should never be engaged until decisions are made, sales people are not consultants or advisers, they are directly paid to act against your interests.

http://www.smbitjournal.com/2011/07/never-get-advice-from-a-reseller-or-vendor/

Well, I strongly disagree. Some sales people are like that, but far from all are.

That's exactly what I do with my car mechanic. I know nothing about cars and he's been looking after mine for over ten years and it's never gone wrong and runs as well as when I first got it.

The sales guys for the company I work for have years of experience. One of them has been working in our industry for over 50 years! I think they do an awesome job in helping our customers, and potential customers, get the right products. Yes, they want to sell our product, and they're not going to give advice on our competitors' products, but ultimately "selling" is about developing good, strong long-term relationships within the supply chain. You get that right first, and then worry about how to monetize those relationships.

Ultimately, it depends on the product, the vendor and the salesmen. But we're not box-shifters here and we've no interest in selling product that isn't right for the customer/client. Our strong reputation within our industry depends on good salesmen giving good advice and we'd do nothing to risk tarnishing that reputation.

Not sure how serious the thread title is, but getting advice from vendors is a good thing to do, not a bad thing.

@Gabi said:

we will be moving most to tsohost.com (same as you) which is the same company as vida host. Don't worry about the pricing, they are superb.

Excellent. That's good to know.

It's clearly not in vogue. But calling it "a mark of shame" and "embarrassing for developers" is OTT.

@scottalanmiller said:

This might be true for web designers or marketers but web site quality doesn't demonstrate IT skills. The best Cisco Admin in the world might not know good graphical design, web server administration or how to market himself. Don't judge skill X by skill Y.

I don't mean aesthetically, I'm talking about quality content. It can use Comic Sans and use the blink tag for all I care (not really).

OK. Question 3. What is a Content Delivery Network? (and more importantly, do I need one?)

OK. I just read this article http://www.fiftyfiveandfive.com/sharepoint/onedrive-business-not-onedrive/ and got kinda confused about the differences.

Nearly everyone posts their CV on LinkedIn which I find slightly weird when dealing with colleagues, suppliers and customers. I'll have a business meeting with someone I haven't met before and we've both read each others CV on LinkedIn before the meeting. The more detailed their LinkedIn profile, the keener they are to get another job. Slightly awkward.

Can anyone recommend any good Sharepoint books? I'm currently half way through Sam's Learn Sharepoint in 24 hours and I'll only give it a 3/5. I'm really bored of studying it.

Also, am I right in saying OneDrive for Business is Sharepoint? And that being the case, will Microsoft drop the Sharepoint name in the near future and we'll just have OneDrive? OneDrive implies file management and Sharepoint implies websites, so I'm a little confused about their direction.

I'm heading to the beach tomorrow, for the first time this year. They've issued a severe weather warning so it could be a bit like this: