Kolz Blog

After a recent speaking engagement I did, a woman appoached me and asked my advice on the dilemma of getting qualified referrals for a “difficult to refer” business. She was passing as many referrals as she could to others, but because her business seemed to revolve around such a niche market, the business referrals she was receiving were slim to none, and she was starting to get discouraged.

I referred her to an article I wrote a few years back that addresses this exact predicament; and since I’m sure some of my blog readers are in businesses that are more difficult to refer than others, I thought I’d shed some light on the subject here. For networkers in businesses that don’t easily generate word of mouth, there is hope for your company because there are still ways you can successfully network and build your company’s reputation.

Years ago, I learned that speaking engagements are a great short-term approach to getting new business while you’re working on the long-term process of word of mouth. You see, when you schedule an appointment with someone you think might be interested in what you’re selling, that time you spend with them–usually an hour–is very important. Well, imagine having that same one-hour appointment with 20 to 50 businesspeople in your community, all at the same time! In effect, that’s what you’re doing when you’re asked to make a presentation at various clubs and organizations.

So, how do you go about getting on the calendars of these business and service groups? It isn’t as hard as you might think. With a little creativity, you can put together a presentation that will be informational, educational and even entertaining. Most important, you can get referrals from people to help you get in front of them. Usually program chairs are scrambling to find someone different, engaging and interesting to come in and present to the group. Your job is to help them find you!

To see a sample of the letter I used to send to program chairs when I owned a consulting firm, click here to go to the article. Getting speaking engagements can make your company easy for anyone to refer and it can also get you a lot of clients while you’re busy building your business.

If you have any comments or thoughts on other techniques that are useful for businesses that are “difficult to refer,” I’d love to hear your feedback.

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Many Windows Home Server users have experienced issues playing media files on their Playstation 3 consoles - this is due to the fact that the PS3 does not support Windows Media Connect, the media serving software embedded in Windows Home Server.

Up until recently, the solution to this was to install Packet Video’s PVConnect/TwonkyMedia DLNA-compliant media serving software, which works well with the PS3. However, a recent software update by Sony changed the UPnP handshake string that it sends out to identify itself to media streamers. This caused the PS3 to once again be unable to play files from Windows Home Server.

WGS Forum user ctewsley posted a fix for this issue over at our forums.

Below are the steps to follow for getting PVConnect / Twonky to recognize your PS3 correctly again:

1) Open a remote desktop connection to your home server.

2) From windows explorer go to the following path: C:\TwonkyMedia\resources

3) Open the file clients.db (use notepad don’t worry its just a text file)

4) You will find an entry marked ID:060 It will look like this

ID:060
NA:PS3
HH:PLAYSTATION3
DB:FIX
XM:DLNA10
XM:DATETIME
DL:MP4DLNA
HP:chunked
MT:mpeg,mpeg2,vdr,spts,tp,ts video/mpeg
MT:m4a audio/mp4
MT:avi,divx video/avi
AV:no-m3u

5) You need to put a space between PLAYSTATION and 3 so it should look like this: PLAYSTATION 3

6) Exit notepad saving your changes.

7) From the windows home server console select PVConnect

Select the Media Receivers Tab

9) Click on reset list

10) From the PS3 scan for media center under any of the Photo / Music / Video search for media centers or whatever it is

After that PVConnect (aka Twonky) will recognize the PS3 as a PS3 and your video problem will be solved.

Let us know how you get on with this fix. 

• HP Respond to Criticism on MediaSmart Server Performance Issues
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• HP MediaSmart Server Update Now Available
• CES 2008: PVConnect Coming to Windows Home Server
• Tranquil PC M one Media Server - Now Available to Pre-Order

So how do you get your movies into MC? Well there are two ways, and I have to start off by saying that ripping a commercial DVD is illegal, so only do this for non commercial DVDs… First of all you can install AnyDVD and this will let you rip and entire DVD folder structure to the hard drive from within MyMovies. This works well, but the resulting ripped DVD will not play on MC extenders as they do not understand a DVD folder. The second method which I use is to rip the actual Movie from the disc using a programme called Smart Ripper. This creates a VOB file which is identical to that on the original disc. I then use VideoRedo to convert the VOB into an MPEG file. As there is no video processing going on the whole process takes about 20 min per disc. You are dealing with several Gbs with DVD’s so it’s never going to be as quick as ripping a CD! As the second method is just creating an Mpeg of the film you don’t get any of the extra features, chapters or indeed any of the menus, but they do work perfectly on the extenders, which is why I do it that way.

There are other ways of displaying a DVD library and Media Centers Built in DVD library is a great way of viewing your collection. I have tried this but it’s a bit of a hack to get going and unless you live in the US you don’t get any of the cover art or access to the extra features like the cast & crew list.

Overall MyMovies is an excellent plug-in and one you should add to your collection. It’s perfect for anyone who has a collection of DVD’s they want quick access to (I myself will use it to store my daughters children’s DVD collection, no more missing or scratched discs!) and having a simple way to view movies trailers is an added bonus. It even got my WAF last night, so everyone is happy!

• How To: Play DVD’s in Windows Media Center Stored On Your Windows Home Server
• WMC Plugin: MediaControl 5.3
• How to: Convert VHS Tapes to a Digital Format
• How To: Play Blu-ray and HD DVD Movies from Vista Media Center
• How to: Protect Bare Hot Swappable Hard Drives