image courtesy of the Port Huron Museum

The annual March of Dimes Jail and Bail is happening again on Saturday, Feb. 4. We are Streaming it live on marchofdimesph.com the whole day. Nerds On Site also has a Prisoner team for donations. Donations can also be made at the MarchofDimesph.com website.

In partnership with The March of Dimes, Nerds On Site will be conducting a “Fill The Beetle to Feed The People” food drive to benefit the Hunter Hospitality House in Port Huron. Parking their signature Red VW Beetles(NerdMobiles) outside the Super Walmart in Fort Gratiot, Sam’s Club in Port Huron Twp, Super K Mart in Port Huron Twp., and Kroger’s North and South locations, Nerds will be collecting non-perishable food items and donations to help The Hunter Hospitality House stock their shelves.

“Premature birth is the leading cause of newborn death and many lifelong disabilities,” the marchofdimesph.com website explains. “And it happens to more than half a million babies in the U.S. each year. Thank you for helping the March of Dimes find out what causes it and what can be done to prevent it.

One of the March of Dimes favorite events, Jail & Bail brings together community leaders and ordinary citizens for a common cause… fighting birth defects, premature birth and infant mortality. Since its inception in 1957 here in Port Huron, more than 5 million citizens have volunteered their time in the name of fun – and a good cause.

At this event, volunteer “jailbirds” serve time in a “mock jail.” “Prisoners” are arraigned before a volunteer judge on trumped-up, outlandish charges, such as “reckless golf-cart driving.” They are then sentenced to spend an hour in “the slammer” to raise bail in the form of donations to the March of Dimes. Nearly 500 events are held annually across the country.”

Nerds On Site believes in supporting the community in which we live as a way of saying “thank-you” for making us your choice for corporate and residential computer IT services.

When selling our clients hosting services, Nerds On Site strives to keep the process as streamlined and intuitive as possible.  In the web hosting and domain registration world there are a lot of options, and this can get confusing.  One such option is ID Protect, also known as WHOIS Protection.  This valuable service hides your public WHOIS information, such as your name, address and phone number from spammers and Internet thieves.  By hiding this information, you make it much harder for thieves to try to steal your domain name.

Once an add-on service, ID Protect is now included free of charge with every new supported domain registration!  For every new com, net, org, biz, info, name, tv, cc, me, Nerds On Site will automatically turn on ID Protect to keep your domain even safer than before.

Without ID Protect, spammers can obtain your email and contact information and then use it for spamming purposes and redistribution to marketing firms. Your email address can stay on file with various spammers and marketing firms for years. Check out the difference between an unprotected and protected domain registration.

[this post is inspired by Dennis Houseknecht, a Nerd in West Virginia]

Sales is not a 4-letter word (really, count them). What can we call this that won’t make you groan or look like you just ate a lemon?  You tell me.

As Nerds, we love technology, we love solving problems, and we love helping clients solve problems with technology.  ”sales” is just the most effective way of doing what we love to do, though our goal is simply to enable technology to help their business be more successful. That said, we are always looking to improve how we do business as well.

We have hundreds of Nerds in 9 countries, meeting in-person isn’t always possible, so we are grateful for the internet, as it allows us to connect in various ways. We even have countless online training sessions each year, led by our Product Champions, who take the time to teach those who are interested about programs or tools that will allow us to provide better services to meet our clients’ needs. These sessions demand that we put our newly found skills and knowledge into action with the help of the team. As they say, if you don’t use it, you’ll lose it.

The idea of a “sales training session” does not excite most of you. I have been to a few of those.  As much as I like having seasoned sales professionals pass down their wisdom, it always feels a bit like having someone “show” me how to play hockey in a one-day session.

I am not a hockey player, but if I wanted to learn to play hockey, I would get together with a bunch of folks who are a little closer to my skill level, along with a few who are more experienced, and hang out on actual ice with them every week.  I would start by trying to figure out how to do those little things – the things the good players don’t even know they do, much less how they do them.  I would practice those things between sessions, and then come back and share my experience.

I would read books about how the game is played, and then try to put the pieces together over time.  I would do this week after week, because I could never learn to play hockey in an hour, or in a month.  Over time, I would take the little pieces that I initially have to work really hard at, and repeat them until I did not have to think about them so much.  Then, I could focus on the higher level processes, like strategy. I would never become a Gretsky or a Howe, but I am pretty sure I would at least learn to slap a puck.

Why would I approach learning sales (or anything else) differently? It is bound to be awkward, perhaps even clumsy or ugly – much like a bunch of guys who barely know how to skate learning to play hockey. But that’s how we learn in this life, by passionately pursuing our dreams – together, be it personally or professionally, and not letting any obstacle stop us.

A photo of our Lethbridge Team at Fill the Beetle to Feed the People event earlier this year.

Our Nerds On Site Lethbridge Team is holding a Fill the Beetle to Feed the People event in Lethbridge, Alberta today (December 10th).  The Lethbridge SuperStore is once again offering space to host this event, and we hope to see a large number of people turn out!

We are collecting non-perishable food for our Fill the Beetle to Feed the People Campaign, and we invite you to attend and donate! All food collected goes to the Lethbridge Food Bank!

Come donate for your chance for a $199 service call!

Here are photos from other Fill the Beetle to Feed the People events we’ve done in the communities we live and work in.

Nerds On Site would like to say thank you to all who have donated generously over the years during our Fill The Beetle to Feed the People events in our local communities. Since our first event in 2002, It is estimated that we have been able to collect and deliver more than 30 tons of food to local food banks around the world as a result of your generous donations. From all of us at Nerds On Site, THANK YOU!

Our Ottawa Team Leader, Wes Schnob, will be playing Santa this Saturday!  Wes will be at the Sippy Cup Cafe on March Road from 10am to 1pm, so come and see him!

Preston is the manager at the Sippy Cup Cafe, and he will be collecting donations for the Kanata Food Bank as well!

Our Ottawa team would love to see you come and visit!  Look for our NerdMobiles.  Find the Sippy Cup Cafe here.

One of our 'Fill the Beetle to Feed the People' events

With the help and feedback of many clients and Nerds, we have now had 3 weeks of Nerd News (our Friday newsletter).  We encourage you to check them out (clients should have them in your mailbox as well, starting with last week’s newsletter:

More options:

If you’d like to subscribe to our weekly newsletter, click here. You can view all past issues here. Subscribe to the RSS feed here.

As always, we would love to have YOUR feedback. Anything you’d like to see us add to our weekly newsletter? Let us know in the comments, via email (socialmedia[at]nerdsonsite.com), or on Facebook and Twitter.

Here are the latest issues: November 11th, November 18th,  November 25th

[This post is from Wendy Smith, a Nerd in Johannesburg, SA.]

[Another local Nerd] brought up a VERY interesting question at our POD Meeting on Friday. It went something like this…

How much did you learn on a ‘not-so-good’ day, as opposed to how much did you learn on a good day when everything went well?

I learned more than I could have ever imagined possible this week during my “not-so-good-week”, which was fraught with crisis on top of each other. I dug deep and made sure I used the towel to soak up the tears instead of throwing it in. I discovered an ability to make the most out of extenuating circumstances, and I persevered beyond the point I normally would not have! I’ve become a better person for it – I have much more peace in my heart – I know I can OVERCOME – I know there are many in the team who helped in my time and need, and their support is MUCH appreciated.

Thank you for easing the bend in my learning curve! In hindsight: I’m thankful for my ‘not-so-good’ week, and look forward to ones to come, because I WILL overcome them!

What would you do if a disaster happened?

When people mention they have backups, we ask them if they have an OFFSITE/Online backup. Most don’t – and once we remind them about Fire/Flood/Theft, and How INEXPENSIVE Nerds Backup ($1.50 per GB) is compared to losing all their files…they’re eager to sign up!

In regards to security concerns, your files are protected using 448 bit Blowfish Encryption before they leave your PC. This extremely secure “bank grade”encryption algorithm has never been cracked. Your files are then stored in this encrypted state at our secure data center. This means that each user also gets a unique encryption key tied to their username and password. This encryption key ensures that while your data is securely stored at our data center, only you have access to your data. In fact, even our most privileged systems administrators do not have the ability to decrypt your data.

Your data is kept in a state-of-the-art data centre alongside the systems of several major banks. This highly secure physical infrastructure includes the latest in biometric authentication, video surveillance and round-the-clock security officers. Your data is stored at one of Acpana’s data centres and only you have access. All data stored at the data centre and any communication with the data centre is two-way encrypted.

More information about our security methods and FAQs can be found on our website.
All clients should have their data backed up! We encourage you to try Nerds Backup for free for 14 days! If you have any questions, feel free to ask via email (backupservice@nerdsonsite.com), phone, Twitter, or Facebook!

We are thrilled to be working with the folks over at London LAWN (@londonlawn) to bring free WiFi to downtown London, Ontario. Local businesses are working together to make downtown London a WiFi enabled area, and here is an article from their perspective.

Here is a page showing real-time usage of the London LAWN WiFi network. In the past week along, 544 clients transferred 68.14 GB!

“Launched in September  2011, LAWN (The London Area Wireless Network) currently covers three blocks of Dundas Street, from Talbot to Wellington Streets,” mentions the article. “It is an open and publicly accessible WiFi network that provides free access to the core’s growing population of smartphone, tablet, and laptop users. Whether you work, live, or shop in the city’s core, or just welcome an extra incentive to make the downtown experience better, LAWN is providing a viable and valuable service.”

We helped with a similar project in Lethbridge, Alberta.

If this sounds like something your city or town would be interested in, please let us know!

Nerds On Site Gift eCertificates are a great way for your associates, friends and family to get to experience the passion eNerds have for technology and what it can do for people.

You can purchase a Gift eCertificate in any amount ranging from $50 up to $250, in increments of $50.

The Gift eCertificate will be sent to you as a link in an email. When you open up that link in a web browser, it will display your Gift eCertificate. You can forward that email to the intended recipient or print it yourself for a physical copy.
Obtaining a Gift eCertificate is fast and easy – simply click on the purchase link above or read our FAQ section for more information!