Philly area business networking events

Below is a compiled list/calendar of all the business networking events in the Greater Philadelphia area, that I deemed worth pointing out.

Using the ASP.Net GridView with ObjectDataSource and IQueryable objects

Top 5 Reasons your business should provide online giftcards.

#1. When a customer buys a gift card for your product/service, they are not only generating a sale, but they are also generating a GUARANTEED referral.

#2. Gift card sales on a yearly basis have topped at around $100 billion. That's a lot of potential revenue missed if you are not offering your own gift cards online. Source: http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1005802

#3. A gift card sale is equivalent to up-front financing from your OWN customers. Think about it, you can pay for business costs from services\products that have not even been rendered yet. As a business owner, you understand the value of staying ahead of your bills.

#4. Gift cards contain something in the industry called "breakage". Which is the amount of unused or remaining balance left on the gift cards. This has been estimated at around 10-15% percent of all gift card sales. Therefore, you can automatically consider an additional 10-15% profit from gift card sales.

#5. Online gift cards give you a reason to talk about your website. Social media is big business these days and is getting bigger by the second. It's great to show your customers you are going above and beyond to reach out to them. The way we do business is changing real fast...and those that don't catch on will get left in the dust.

Why not sign up for your FREE online gift card account @ www.W3GiftCards.com

Uprising lyrics...a libertarian anthem??

Here are the lyrics to Muse - Uprising. Thoughts?
For one, I think they are totally relevant with what’s going on right now in the U.S.
Bottom line, no matter how you interpret these lyrics, a large amount of people in this country are fed up. Maybe MUSE is the modern day Thomas Paine…? Well, maybe not, but when foreigners start to point out massive problems going on in your back yard, you better listen up.

Paranoia is in bloom,
The PR transmissions will resume,
They’ll try to push drugs that keep us all dumbed down,
And hope that we will never see the truth around
(So come on)
Another promise, another scene,
Another packaged lie to keep us trapped in greed,
And all the green belts wrapped around our minds,
And endless red tape to keep the truth confined
(So come on)

They will not force us,
They will stop degrading us,
They will not control us,
We will be victorious
(So come on)

Interchanging mind control,
Come let the revolution take it’s toll,
If you could flick a switch and open your third eye,
You’d see that
We should never be afraid to die
(So come on)

Rise up and take the power back,
It’s time the fat cats had a heart attack,
You know that their time’s coming to an end,
We have to unify and watch our flag ascend

They will not force us,
They will stop degrading us,
They will not control us,
We will be victorious

Music Video:

Social Media \ E-Marketing Platform...and it won't cost you a dime

The diagram below gives a high level concept of one way to integrate many of the free tools you need to start building your brand and\or launching a e-marketing campaign.
It's pretty simple, you just need a blackberry\iphone and a PC\Mac to get things going.
The hard part is being able to create content within your blog that people will actually be interested in reading. But if you have a passion, then I'm sure you will have readers. "If you build, they will come" - Shoeless Joe in Field of Dreams


The 2 key tools you will use are;
1. Your blog - which you will use to create articles about your interests. Your blog can then be syndicated to your website(s), myspace, and facebook via RSS.
2. Your Twitter account - which will help you build a network of followers and also keep in touch with your fans\followers. Your tweets (status updates) can then be syndicated to myspace\facebook via myspace\facebook apps and of course many of social networks in the near future.

Cash for clunkers?? Are you kidding?

Ok, by now , most of you know about the "Cash for clunkers" federal program.
The intention of the genius U.S. Congress and noble leaders is to take fuel inefficient cars off the road and give car owners a $4500 rebate in order to buy a new and more fuel efficient car.

This sounds very altruistic, but did anyone actually think about what we are actually persuading people to do? So, it's now a good idea to destroy a debt-free asset(clunker), in exchange for a car-loan(debt) that someone did not need in the first place?? Seriously? How can this really be a good thing? I don't get it.

Why don't we try to actually sell\export cars that people actually what to buy? Also, since when was is OK for the govt. to act like car salesman and conning people to go sign up for a car loan, and use MY TAX MONEY to fund the marketing campaign? Maybe the sham-wow guy should run for office next year, we need someone to smack those hookers around.

I am willing to bet that this will come back to haunt us in the next 2-3 years when millions of people can't afford to pay for there car that they didn't need.
Does anyone remember when the govt decided (CRA) that they should make getting a mortgage easier for lower income home buyers? That seemed to have worked out superbly. Why is it possible for everyone else to learn from their mistakes, but Congress's only solution is too keep repeating their mistakes. Aarrrgh! Thank God for alcohol.

Six Sigma nomenclature engine

Try this Six Sigma app on your phone or PC. www.6sigmaengine.info

A must have for your next meeting.

Triple leveraged, inverse ETF for Financials: $FAZ

Ok, if you're not familiar, there's a stock\ETF, called Direxion Daily Finan. Bear 3X ($FAZ) that inversely tracks the Russell 1000 Financial Index (RIFIN.X) with triple leverage. 

So, that basically means if the RIFIN drops 1%, then FAZ goes up 3%... got it? 

Well, if you can grasp that idea than here's an interesting scenario that could make you a nice profit while your 401k is getting rocked. Keep in mind, risk\reward, since whenever there's a possibility to for high profit, you also have the same possibility for high loss. 

Anyway, here's a possible (yet simplified) scenario if the banks get slammed again. 

Lets say you buy FAZ @ $5 & RIFIN is @ $600 

-Doomsday 1: RIFIN -10%, closes at $540 & FAZ +30% @ $6.5 

-Doomsday 2: RIFIN -10%, closes at $486 & FAZ +30% @ $8.5 

-Doomsday 3: RIFIN -10%, closes at $437 & FAZ +30% @ $11 

-Doomsday 4: RIFIN -10%, closes at $393 & FAZ +30% @ $14 

-Doomsday 5: RIFIN -10%, closes at $354 & FAZ +30% @ $18 

So, RIFIN is ONLY down 37% & FAZ is up 260% for the week.

The reason this looks interesting to me, is that after day 1 of the crash, you've only missed a relatively small percent of the upside and if you get in on day 2, you still would of had a chance to be up 200% by end of week. This ETF can also be used as a "Cover" if you happen to own a few bank stocks during a downturn.

Warning: This ETF is ONLY for day\swing trading, NOT for buy and hold investing. Leveraged ETFs have a decay effect over long term, so I never hold $FAZ for more than a few days\weeks and always lock in profits by using a tight stop-loss.

Good luck trading.

C# How To: Cascading dropdowns on a Formview for Country\Region selection

This is something most ASP.Net apps deal with regularly, but I couldn't find one solid solution on the interwebs. I needed a user to select a country and then have the "Region" dropdown be populated with the expected list of regions (states, provinces, etc)
I hope this helps. If not, at least I'll remember how it's done.

FYI, I've intentionally left out some details around data access since I am using ObjectDataSources and you can handle data access however u need. I also assume that you have a simple FormView control working that can update a record in your database.

Steps:
1: Make sure 'EnableViewState=true' is on your ASPX page or Masterpage.
2: Make sure you have a field like Country and Region in the DataTable you are editing and make sure you can update these values through an objectdatasource, if you want this example to work.

3: Create an objectdatasource (ie. odsCountries) that returns a list of Countries and bind to ddlCountry.

<asp:ObjectDataSource ID="odsCountries" runat="server" OldValuesParameterFormatString="original_{0}" SelectMethod="GetCountries" TypeName="BLL">
</asp:ObjectDataSource>

4: Create an objectdatasource (ie. odsRegions) that returns a list of Regions with a Country parameter and bind to ddlCountry.

<asp:ObjectDataSource ID="odsRegions" runat="server" OldValuesParameterFormatString="original_{0}" SelectMethod="GetRegions" TypeName="BLL">
<SelectParameters>
<asp:ControlParameter ControlID="editForm$ddlCountry" Name="Country"/>
</SelectParameters>
</asp:ObjectDataSource>


5: Add a Country dropdownlist to the Formview's edit template (ie. ddlCountry)

<asp:DropDownList ID="ddlCountry" runat="server" SelectedValue='<%# Bind("COUNTRY") %>' DataSourceID="odsCountries"
OnDataBound="ddlCountry_DataBound" DataTextField="Country" DataValueField="Country" AutoPostBack="True"></asp:DropDownList>


6: Add a Region dropdownlist to the Formview's edit template (ie. ddlRegion)

<asp:DropDownList ID="ddlRegion" DataSourceID="odsRegions" runat="server" AutoPostBack="True"
DataTextField="REGION" OnDataBound="ddlState_DataBound"/>

7: Create 2 DataBound EventHandlers for each DropDownlist

protected void ddlCountry_DataBound(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
DropDownList ddlCountry = (DropDownList)sender;
ListItem li = new ListItem("Choose a Country", "");
ddlCountry.Items.Insert(0, li);

FormView editForm = (FormView)ddlCountry.NamingContainer;
if (editForm.DataItem != null)
{
string strCountry = ((DataRowView)editForm.DataItem)["COUNTRY"].ToString();
ddlCountry.ClearSelection();
ListItem li2 = ddlCountry.Items.FindByValue(strCountry);
if (li2 != null) li2.Selected = true;
}
}

protected void ddlRegion_DataBound(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
DropDownList ddlRegion = (DropDownList)sender;
ListItem li = new ListItem("Choose a Region", "");
ddlRegion.Items.Insert(0, li);

FormView editForm = (FormView)ddlRegion.NamingContainer;
if (editForm.DataItem != null)
{
string strRegion = ((DataRowView)editForm.DataItem)["REGION"].ToString();
ddlRegion.ClearSelection();

ListItem li2 = ddlRegion.Items.FindByValue(strRegion);
if (li2 != null) li2.Selected = true;
}

}

8: Don't forget to add this to your Update\Insert parameters on the Objectdatasource for your formview. This is needed to properly find the Region ddl within the Formview

<asp:ControlParameter ControlID="editForm$ddlRegion" Name="Region" />

C# How To: Create a simple "module" framework using ASCX UserControls

The concept is pretty basic, I simply want to re-use various ASCX user controls I've created within various ASPX Webforms that also happen to use MasterPages. I also want to handle error messages through a lable on the Webform. Another advantage of this is that you can organize your UI into a bunch of usercontrol files within a folder structure. It's not a groundbreaking design pattern, but works nicely for many small projects.

So, the end goal is to be able to pass a querystring to determine which control to load within the page. The URL would look like this: domain.com/Default.aspx?mod=grid

So, there are 4 items you need to create for my example: (in this order)
- /MasterPage.master (Master Page)
- /default.aspx (Webform)
- /default.aspx.cs (Webform codefile)
- /Modules (folder)
- /Modules/grid.ascx (UserControl)

Here's my default.aspx code:
<%@ Page Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~/MasterPage.master" CodeFile="Default.aspx.cs" Inherits="Default" %><asp:content id="Content1" runat="Server" contentplaceholderid="ContentPlaceHolder1"><asp:label id="ErrMsgLbl" runat="server"></asp:label></asp:content>

My Default.aspx.cs code:
public partial class Default : System.Web.UI.Page
{
string ModuleName = "";
protected void Page_Init(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (Request.QueryString["mod"] != null)
{
ModuleName = Request.QueryString["Mod"].ToString();
ContentPlaceHolder cph = this.Master.FindControl("ContentPlaceHolder1") as ContentPlaceHolder;
try
{
UserControl usercontrol = this.LoadControl("~/Modules/" + ModuleName + ".ascx") as UserControl;
cph.Controls.Add(usercontrol);
}
catch (Exception ex){ErrMsgLbl.Text = ex.Message;}
}
}
My Grid.ascx code:
<%@ Control Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeFile="Grid.ascx.cs" Inherits="Modules_Grid" EnableViewState="False" %>...your controls go here...


Cheers!