This is a posting by Hermione way, from Techfluff.TV one of Sun's Startup Essentials Partners

Find Hermione on Twitter at @hermioneway or presenting http://techfluff.tv/

A comprehensive networking list for any startup, that can help determine where to focus your networking time and energy.

Organizations:

Microsoft Bizpark: A program that provides Software, Support and Visibility for Software Startups. In the UK, Bindi Karia is the woman you want to speak to.

Sun Microsystems: Get discounted servers, open source and discounted software free technical expertise and more, free to join and the man you’re after, the man with the most colorful shirts in London is Stewart Townsend.

SeedCamp:  At Seedcamp, they believe Europe has the talent, the role models, and the capital founders needed to succeed.  Reshma Sohoni is  CEO and here is the Seedcamp twitter account.

NACUE: The National Consortium of University Entrepreneurs is a national organization that supports and represents university enterprise societies and student entrepreneurs to drive the growth of entrepreneurship across the UK. They also run a funding process. Victoria Lennox is at the helm. NACUE Twitter account and here is Victoria’s

CmyPitch: cmypitch.com offers free online services for small to mid-sized firms / entrepreneurs. Get supplier quotes, pitch for funding, watch videos. cmypitch Twitter account.

Smarta: Smarta founded by entrepreneur Shaa Wasmund is a new support platform for business owners and entrepreneurs. Our aim is to provide a one-stop-shop where business owners can connect, learn and actually *do* business. Here’s the Smarta Twitter account.

Angel’s Den: Angels Den offers a service for two types of people: those who are trying to obtain business funding and small business finance – and those private investors (the business angels) looking for exciting business ideas to invest in. Startups pay a fee to join. Angel’s Den Twitter and the man behind it all is Bill Morrow

MakeYourMark: The campaign is run by Enterprise Insight, which was founded by the four leading UK business membership organizations – the British Chambers of Commerce, the CBI, the Federation of Small Businesses and the Institute of Directors. Their Director Generals sit on Enterprise Insight’s board, which is chaired by entrepreneur Peter Jones. Enterprise Insight is supported by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and is endorsed by the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown.Alongside the Make Your Mark campaign, Enterprise Insight runs:Global Entrepreneurship Week.

Make your mark Twitter

Entrepreneur’s World: is a membership-only organization offering a unique environment where entrepreneurs have stimulating interactions with like-minded business leaders and investors; share experiences; exchange advice; are inspired and collaborate in relaxed, informal environments. with an application criteria of a minimum company annual turnover of £1 million. Ivor Tucker is the founder, I don’t want to give his email so hed to the site to contact him.

School for Startups: The inspiration of serial entrepreneur and angel investor Doug Richard, School for Startups is the UK’s leading provider of business training for entrepreneurs. We provide expert tuition on the critical issues entrepreneurs need to understand, including how to start a business, finance and investment, product management, managing successful teams and entrepreneurial marketing. Schoolforstartups Twitter

Up North

Entrepreneur’s Forum: Encouraging a culture of enterprise and entrepreneurship within the North East. Was established in 2002 by a group of the North East’s leading entrepreneurs.

Growth Investment Network East Midlands: ‘We’ve got the network of East Midlands people you should know if you want to take your business successfully to the next level’. Toby Ried is behind it all, I don’t want to give out his email so i’ll update when I find out his linkedIn.

Startup 2.0: Founded in 2006 with the help of KPMG, Startup 2.0 (NS20) has taken the bold responsibility to build a sustainable ecosystem for early stage tech companies in Britain. At the core of this initiative is a series of premier monthly events focusing on the needs of Tech StartUps.  Manoj Ranaweera is your man.

Girl Geek Dinners Founded and run by Sarah Blow has been providing girls in tech with dinners and events for a number of years.

Events- There are many more Tweetups and events than the ones below, here are some of my favourites:

Drinktank: Started by one of the UK’s most popular startups Huddle, Drink Tank is one of my favourites with a good crowd and free drink, often held at a snazzy bar just off Regent’s street. Huddle’s Suz is behind it all and also organises a girls networking event called Silicon Stilettos

Minibar Started by Christian (weirdly I don’t know his second name) Minibar is free and is held at The Old Truman Brewery in East London. Free bar if you get there early before it runs out. Minibar usually has a theme where startups can pitch to the crowd and get questioned on their business model/pitch etc. Last time the theme was online publishing.

Tuttle Club Started by Lloyd Davis Tuttle is held at the ICA every Friday morning -Tuttle is ‘Co-creating a Social Media Café for London’ and sometimes has free coffee and cake.

OpenSoho Started by Mr know everyone, entrepreneur and investor Paul Walsh Open Soho is usually on a Thursday night in a funky central London venue (usually Floridita or Kettners)- Free drinks until they run out-get there early!

Shoreditch Twit: East London, normally hosted in the Elbow Rooms, started by aptly named Lewis Webb, I’m not sure if they get sponsors for drinks but you can play a game of pool.

Facebook Developers Garage This is for the more techy specific people (coders and developers) held at Sun Microsystems there is without fail free pizza and beer., every time- win! Started by Joshua March they are run monthly and usually have a theme- the last theme was gaming.

BootLaw Started by our favourite technorati lawyers Danvers and Barry, Bootlaw is a free monthly seminar with the next one coming up in September themed on selling shares. If free pizza and beer wasn’t enough they also dish out iPods to people who have listened and learnt the most!

The Glasshouse/Second Chance Tuesday Founded by Judith Clegg The Glasshouse puts on ticketed events monthly. They always have interesting speakers like founder of Bebo Michael Birch, so it’s definitely worth the money. The next event is coming up soon has the Spotify founders up on stage- check the site for more details.

First Tuesday is a professional networking forum for established technology entrepreneurs and companies seeking venture capital, investors and related service provider, They are usually held at The Hospital Club in Covent Garden- no free bar but successful startup founders speak about their journey on stage. email: info@firsttuesday.org.uk

Big Fish You have to apply to become a BigFish member, but it’s free and once accepted you get to hear people like Luke Johnson speak (He is Chaiman of Channel 4 and turned Pizza Express into a huge success story.) Big Fish run monthly events.

Media- Again loads of media but just naming a few blogs/publications that I surround myself with:

TechCrunch: @mikebutcher ’s your man, everyone knows him, everyone loves him and everyone wants to be him! He has a brilliant job running around Europe reviewing startups for the TechCrunch blog. TechCrunch Europe runs a number of events throughout the year where you can pitch your startup.

The Next Woman: Online business magazine for women, showcasing some of the best women in tech Internet/Tech sector. Simone Brummelhuis is your woman.

The Next Web: Founded by serial entrepreneur Boris. Besides the blog, The Next Web runs a few conferences per year, last year co-hosted by your truly!. @Zee is editor for the blog.

Mashable: With a large American following, but set up by Scottish entrepreneur Pete Cashmore (yes the hot one) Mashable is not only a tech blog but holds events in New York and LA.

People- There are loads, I should write another post entirely for people, I will endeavor, but here are a couple of the best:

Oli Barrett Named by WiredUK as one of the most connected men in Britain, Oli has a high calibre network of entrepreneurs, investors and mentors.

Ian Ellis heads up Technology Business at Morgan Stanley, Irish, very intelligent, you can find him on LinkedIn.

Ryan Carson is the founder of Carsonified and also runs the FOWA events all over the world. You should really attend the FOWA FOWD events if your company is in the design/apps sector. In fact, you should really just attend full stop. The events are fantastic.

Other added by you:

http://www.findnetworkingevents.com

OpenCoffee

http://www.bplans.co.uk – a leading Uk resource for entrepreneurs looking to write a business plan. The site includes links free sample business plans as well as articles, calculators and tools.

The Entrepreneurial Exchange which is Scotland’s leading organisation for ambitious growth oriented entrepreneurs. The Exchange helps inform, motivate, educate, inspire and support entrepreneurs to build their businesses bigger, faster.

http://www.BusinessZone.co.uk – part of B2B publisher Sift Media which has been running community websites since 1996, long before it became known as social media!

We also run http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk – the UK’s most active online forums for small business owners which generates 7,000 posts a week from a audience of 50,000 registered members.

Earlier this summer we held five UK regional heats (watch videos at http://www.businesszone.co.uk/pitch-2009), the winners from which will compete in a grand final during November’s Enterprise Week in central London (one for you Hermoine!). Doug Richard and Tim Campbell are on the judging panel.

Tickets to the event are free and it will include a full day conference with some very inspirational speakers. Keep an eye on BusinessZone.co.uk and http://www.thepitch2009.com

Don’t forget Shell LiveWIRE! We have a forum and social network with nearly 100,000 entrepreneurs! We also have the Grand Ideas Awards – up to 5 monthly prizes of £1000 for innovative ideas, and the £10K ‘Shell LiveWIRE Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award’- entries for these can be found at our website http://www.shell-livewire.org.

Network King Oli Barrett’s list

Julia Hobsbawm’s Editorial Intelligence (blending politics, business and media)

Anything by Steve Moore (everything from Channel 4 education gatherings to Reboot Britain)

Drink Tank organised by Huddle (Andy, Ali and Suz)

Paul Walsh’s Open Soho

Carole Stone’s Salons and Club events

Andrea Zur Strassen’s The Nomads (for people on the move)

Duncan Cheatle’s Supper Club (for entrepreneurs with 1m+ turnover)

Charlie Hoult’s Castaway (’open office’ event for agency folk, with high proportion of owners)

Anything by Coutts (Andrew Haigh hosts some of the best dinners in London)

The Mandrake Club by Ed Hardy

Anything by EO (the Entrepreneurs Organisation)

Christine Hartland’s Mosaic Networking

TED (hosting events in California, UK, India, and now globally thanks to TEDx)

The Tuttle Club by Lloyd Davis

Growing Business events including Young Guns

Jamie Oliver’s PR masterclass series

Chain Reaction (held in November and inspired by the Council on Social Action)

Tom Ball’s Entretain and Summer/Christmas parties

Techcrunch Europe’s signature events (eg The Europas)

Glasshouse Events by Judith Clegg

1) Make sure your press release stands out, but don't overdo it. A clear, concise, and brief press release that gets your message across without a lot of excess verbiage is far more preferable than a long release filled with flowery adjectives and an overabundance of information. It's not necessary to fill a press release with every detail of your company and staff history -- save those for your interview.

2) Make sure your Web site has a press kit and plenty of contact information. Nothing tells a reporter you're serious about media coverage more than giving them easy access to the tools they need to research your company. Here's the place to discuss the history of your company, patents you hold, future goals, and groups you're affiliated with. If you're a technology startup, make sure to include details about about any software licenses you use, especially if you develop software in-house. Feel free to add as much information as you wish, because you never know what information will strike a reporter's fancy.

3) When you land an interview, respect the reporter's time and they'll respect yours. A good journalist won't expect you to drop everything to talk to them, but if you commit to a meeting or conference all, keep the appointment. The reporter is probably working on a deadline and their time is just as valuable as yours. If you're really pressed for time, offer to conduct the interview via email and many reporters will be happy to comply.

4) Offer prep materials ahead of the meeting. Point the journalist to a press kit, create a slide deck to illustrate important points, or offer access to your product so the writer can be as familiar as possible with what your company does. It's fine to offer revocable access to a Web-based service or request a review product be returned -- in fact, an ethical journalist will insist upon it.

5) If you want your PR person to sit in on the meeting or conference call, that's fine -- but don't let them run it. It's only natural for your marketing guru to want to make sure you highlight all the important points of your company, but make sure the reporter has a chance to get the information he needs for his story. Nothing turns a writer off faster than sitting in a rehearsed sales call where there's little chance to glean any unique insight into the company.

6) Relax. It's easy to get nervous when faced with the prospect of seeing every word you say in print for everyone to see. It's also tempting to worry that the journalist will try and dig up dirt or portray your company in an unfavorable light to draw attention to themselves. The reality is, most reporters are very down-to-earth and are typically reporting on industries and niches they find fascinating. A good reporter's job is to educate readers about your company and why they should want to know more about it. That said, don't hesitate to research a reporter ahead of time to get a feel for their tone. If a journalist seems overly negative, or historically paints the companies they cover in a bad light, you may want to consult with your PR person for advice before your interview.

7) If you notice any issues or discrepancies once the story appears, politely contact the writer and point it out. Honest errors can be fixed and, since the reporter's integrity and credibility are also at stake, they will be just as concerned as you are about correcting the situation.

It's not easy to get your startup noticed above the din of all the other companies vying for the media's attention. Handled correctly, though, it's easy to develop an ongoing relationship with the journalists who cover your industry by establishing mutual trust and respect right from the start.

This is a post from Tweetmeme's Blog on Twitter Advertising by Nick Halstead

It always amazes me how things converge onto a point in what seems to be complete coincidence, but when it happens time and again you see that it is just a natural convergence of multiple minds pushing forward ideas towards a natural conclusion.

And so when I arrived at the Techcrunch Crunchup I was not surprised to find that a number of companies (including Twitter themselves ) would be talking about Twitter based advertising.

I was also at the Crunchup to announce our own new Twitter advertising model called Adtweets – which is a new ad-platform that allows established ad-networks to leverage the power of the retweet (something we feel we have extensive knowledge within.) by allowing current display adverts to gain a retweetable element. If you want to read the full details we have a separate post.

Retweet Analytics

I wanted to share some fascinating numbers on how content gets disseminated across twitter via Retweets, we recently launched our own Analytics package that allows individual stories to be analysed in great detail.

An interesting fact that has an immense impact for anyone trying to advertise on Twitter is that when I analysed 20 of the top tier Twitter accounts (e.g. with followers of more than 500,000) I found that on average only 35% of the retweets that a link gained were directly originated from their own Twitter account.

So as an example a recent Mashable story with 1598 retweets I found that only 586 were a direct result of their pushing it out to the@mashable Twitter account (which has 1,751,213 followers) and the largest proportion (825 of them) was in fact from originating retweets (e.g. clicking our retweet button).

The second interesting set of numbers is the click data that then results from all those retweets – again from the same story we find that it was clicked 12558 times (split across 5 different shortener services) of that total 8196 were direct (e.g. mostly from Twitter clients such as Seesmic, Tweetdeck) 2896 were from the Twitter.com and the 1539 were from 80+ other Twitter web based clients.

What do I draw from these facts? The first is that any model must be inclusive of external clients. So in the instance of Robert Scoble’s ‘SuperTweets‘ the Twitter clients will need a big incentive to display those adverts – e.g. a revenue share. My gut feeling is that in-tweet advertising is still the only effective route forward – just because it applies to the KISS principle.

My second conclusion is that distribution into the mainstream Twitter user-base is absolutely crucial to getting the message heard by the greatest number of users.

Lastly I would like to show you the kind of advertising that I think is the future – and that works perfectly with a model of retweeting. [disclosure: Sun Microsystems is a partner of TweetMeme]

Tweetmeme is a member of Sun's Startup Essentials programme and was one of the first startups in the UK to join

I am late following up on a question we got during the Webinar last Wednesday on High Availability for Web applications. The question was about whether MySQL Cluster is using disks for persistency.

In previous releases of MySQL, the NDB cluster engine (a.k.a. MySQL Cluster) would log on disk but would store all the data in memory. Eventually asynchronous checkpoints would flush data to disks. Reliability was also ensured through intra-cluster replication on different nodes.

Sun Startup Essentials - How can Sun Microsystems help you ? from stewart townsend on Vimeo.

Learn how Sun Startup Essentials can help you if you are a company less than 6 years old, with 150 employees or less.

Following on from my previous job posting here I'm happy to announce some more startup vacancies:

• Worldeka hiring an intern for community development Click
• Huddle hiring an intern for Commercial experience Click 
• Jess Ratcliffe is looking for a web designer/coder to join her startup Click 
• Fabio has a friend looking for a Facebook coder with Flash skills Click
• Fabio is looking for PHP Developer with front end skills Click 

Let me know @scoobeesnac if you have other startup opportunities 

X4150 Server for Startups - Roll up, Roll up now - Clearance Remanufactured stock for you.

If you are a startup, and a member of Sun's Startup Essentials programme you can get this and X2200 now as well, the price list is being sent to you as I write this, if you are not a member then sign up now at http://sun.com/startups and get these servers whilst stock lasts....

X4150 with E5450 CPU & 4GB RAM   £1,200.00/ €1400

2 Quad Core CPUS (8Cores) 4 Gig memory, 4 Hard Discs

 X4150 with E5345 CPU & 4GB RAM    2xQuad-Core Intel Xeon E5450 CPUs (2x6MB L2, 3.0 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB, 80W), 4GB memory (2x2GB PC2 5300 FB-DIMM), 4x 146GB 10K RPM 2.5 SAS drives, internal SAS RAID PCI Exp. HBA, DVD+/-RW drive, 2x PSU, embedded LOM, 4x Ethernet ports, 5x USB 2.0 ports, 3x 8-lane PCIslots,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

X4150 with E5345 CPU & 4GB RAM  £1,050.00/ €1200

2 Quad Core CPUS (8Cores) 4 Gig memory, 4 Hard Discs

X4150 with E5345 CPU & 4GB RAM    D    2xQuad-Core Intel Xeon E5345 CPUs (2x4MB L2, 2.33 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB, 80W), 4GB mem. (2x2GB PC2 5300 FB-DIMM), 4x146GB 10K RPM 2.5 SAS drives, internal SAS RAID PCI Exp. HBA, DVD+/-RW drive, 2x PSU, embedded LOM, 4x Ethernet ports, 5x USB 2.0 ports, 2x 8-lane PCI slots, no power cord, order Geo-specific x-option. RoHS-5.

Désolé, il ne reste plus de place pour cette matinée dédiée à l'optimisation des performances MySQL.

Date : 24 novembre 2009
Prix : Cette matinée est gratuite !

Session 1 : 9h30-10h45

• Architecture MySQL : Parsing, exécution, optimizer, query cache, binlog…etc
• Architecture Innodb : Clustered index, bufferpool, hash index, insert buffer, locking model, MVCC, recovery log, checkpoint…etc. Comparaison avec les autres moteurs de stockage (PBXT, MySQL Cluster) et bases de données (PostgreSQL, Oracle ..).

Pause/Café : 10h45-11h00.

Session 2 : 11h00-12h30

• Évolutions récentes : Google SMP patches,  XtraDB, Oracle innodb plugin 1.0.4
• Apports de MySQL 5.4
• Améliorations à venir :  Ahead flushing / Adaptive checkpoint,  Purge lag / Purge thread, Splitted locks, etc…Explication technique des améliorations et des gains de performance obtenus.

Nous parlerons aussi de MySQL Enterprise et du MySQL Query analyzer qui vous permet d’optimiser un environnement MySQL.

Cette matinée se veut conviviale et interactive avec Q&A.

GreenBeat 2009 will bring together the nation’s 500 leading entrepreneurs, investors, utilities, technology executives, and policymakers to accelerate the development of a leaner, more efficient electrical grid. GreenBeat 2009 will map out the hottest business and technology opportunities the Smart Grid has to offer. Renovating the power grid requires big ideas from start-ups!

The program will feature participation by Al Gore, former Vice President and Nobel Prize Winner; John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins; Eric Schmitt of Google and Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures.  The program also features executives from Cisco, Tendril, Oracle, and more. Expect lively discussion and power networking. The program also includes an innovation competition that will highlight new technologies and will explore the financial and investment opportunities afforded by the stimulus package.  More details can be found at www.greenbeat2009.com.

Will Smart Grid and smart metering initiatives change consumer behavior, and how? How will the more than $4 billion the Obama Administration has earmarked for Smart Grid make a difference? Which incentives and policies will speed deployment? Where will the most disruption take place in this trillion-dollar business that hasn’t changed for decades? Do startups stand a chance? Where should they focus? What role will cybersecurity and interoperability play in how a new, revamped grid takes shape? GreenBeat will get industry leaders’ answers to these questions and more.

We have made arrangements for 30% off the regular rate and you may use the following link and special code to register. http://greenbeat2009.eventbrite.com/?discount=GBSunVIP

What an evening of discussion and education on Brand, Michael Bayler gave an amazingly energetic hours talk on brand and how important it is to be clear about your brand strategy before you do anything else.  The video of this event will be available in a few weeks time and thus all Sun Startup Essential members who couldn't make the event can watch the material and gain an insight into this wonderful evening.

Michael Bayler has a website here if you wish to know more about him and what he can do for you.

Have you ever had a great idea for a startup but needed the motivation and encouragement to actually make it a reality? Join the Startup Weekend community and find out how easy it is to go from idea to launch in only 54 hours! 

We are also excited to announce Sun Startup Essentials will be supporting Startup Weekend in New York City for Global Entrepreneurship Week November 20-22^nd at our office in Manhattan! Sun Startup Essentials members get 25% off. Send us an email to get the discount code.

Not in NYC? There are 14 events before the end of the year! Find all of the upcoming events at http://startupweekend.org/

What is Startup Weekend?

Startup Weekend is a 54 hour startup event that provides networking, resources and incentives for individuals and teams to go from idea to launch. Get connected with local developers, innovators and entrepreneurs. Build Community. Start Companies. No Talk - All Action. 

When:

November 20-22 (Friday 6pm-11pm, Sat/Sun 8am-10pm)

Where:

Sun Microsystems, 101 Park Ave, NYC. Map.

Website: http://nyc.startupweekend.org/

Who Should Attend:

Startup Weekend is open to anyone who wants to be an entrepreneur!  Developers, Designers, Marketing, Business Development, Social Media, Lawyers, Students, etc… Anyone who considers themselves an entrepreneur.

What:

On Friday night people pitch their ideas, there can be as few as 25 pitches or as many as 100, we keep on pitching until everyone is done!  We do a simple vote of everyone’s favorite 2 or 3 to narrow down the ideas by about 80%. Individuals then gather around each idea to discuss feasibility, and normally a few more will be dropped.  For a room of one hundred people we generally see teams between 5-10 people and a total of between 10-15 teams working away on 10-15 new startups. People then come in early on Saturday and work work work for the rest of the weekend until giving a demo of the newly created startup on Sunday evening.  We’ve had teams that were generating revenue on Saturday evening in the past!  It’s a great learning experience, great networking, and a lot of fun to roll up your sleeves and get in the trenches launching a new startup!  

Cost:

Only $75 which includes amazing speakers, mentors & assistance from experienced entrepreneurs, prizes, 7 Meals, Drinks, Free Web Hosting, Handouts, Swag, and more.

About Startup Weekend:

Startup Weekend is a nonprofit association supported by companies like Sun Microsystems, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, The Kauffman Foundation, Unleashing Ideas, Cooley Godward Kronish, Media Temple, and many others. Startup Weekend has been covered on the likes of CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, The Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, and more. We are passionate entrepreneurs out to help other entrepreneurs pursue new ideas more efficiently and effectively than ever before.

Contacts:

Ph: +1.206.659.4484

E-Mail

Follow Startup Weekend on Twitter

Looking for rock-solid web hosting at discounted rates? Talk to someone that understand startups

Joyent has a deal for Sun Startup Essentials program members with hosting services 25% off list price. Starting price is $16.59/month. No joke! 

Jez Kay is Owner of NowHouse, a digital video and sound production company based in London. He helps businesses inject personality into their brands through vision, soundtracks and the occasional song and dance.

This is the event Jeremy attended and is discussing below

Greg Dyke's talk early on the 22nd October at Sun Start-Essentials HQ, as a guest
speaker of Federation 100 was engaging, illuminating, mischevious and
all-in-all pretty inspiring.

Unlike some other peers or similar luminaries he doesn't cloud things with
jargon, bizspeak, pomposity or otherwise diverting talk. Instead he gets on
with the agenda, which is, for the most part, "What's on Greg Dyke's mind?".

Over the course of 1 1/2 hours we were treated to his thoughts on the BBC,
including the infamous Sacking as associated with Lord Hutton's enquiry on
weapons of mass destruction, the State of the Union and UK democracy in
general, the Death of Newspapers, realtime reporting, Great Ideas and Berlin
Wall Moments.

Greg Dyke, of course, pulls no punches. We had uncompromising views on the
effects of the expenses row and how he thinks it will open up MPs'
accountability in the future. How democracy, as ruled by party politics, is
crumbling because of its anachronistic crony-istic nature. How Margaret
Thatcher was "better than" Blair on account of her staunch approach and
views (as opposed to Blair's lack of either). How Obama's election approach
was completely revolutionary in its adoption of new media to rally support,
directly. And how this direct engagement with voters could see the death of
newspapers as we know them.

He regrets the lack of insightful journalism in broadcast media. How news is
winning over current affairs and more considered coverage. He's also clearly
saddened, if not appalled, by the state of BBC and how it seems to be in the
hands of the trustees, not the actual management, which he clearly regards
as weak and without a clear mandate. Mind you, he had stronger words to say
about ITV's management, which he found farcical as, according to him, it
didn't seem to be run by anyone!

So - all hot stuff to be sure. More possible controversies than you can
shake a stick at. If it hadn't been an early morning breakfast meeting then
it may well have been more newsworthy. Just as well, as that made it
well-and-truly a thoroughly motivating start to the day.

From embedded to enterprise, learn how to get the best out of Java and what's coming next.

If you have made an investment in Java applications, maybe as an independent software vendor (ISV) or as a member of a corporate development team, this event is for you.

Over the course of this day you will learn how to get the best out of your existing Java applications, be they embedded, standard or enterprise edition, as well as taking a look at Real-Time Java.

Gain a better understanding of what makes Java "tick", get closer to the experts at Sun Microsystems and learn what future developments will bring. 

Agenda

More details and Registration:

When: Tuesday December 1st 2009
Where: Sun Customer Briefing Centre, 45 King William Street, London, EC4R 9AN
Register HERE now

Busy entrepreneurs need to stay on top of all the latest startup information, but who has the time? Here's a look at what went on around blogosphere and in the news this week, in case you missed it.

Seattle-based Frazier Technology Ventures has been going strong for 44 years. Now it looks like it's at the end of a successful ride.

Getting audited by the IRS is never any fun, and it's worse when the cold eye of Uncle Sam turns to your startup. Brush up on these five classic triggers of an IRS audit.

We've all heard about bootstrapping a business, but how do you make it work for you? Here are some great ideas to get you started.

Looking for some other great startup blogs to read (besides this one, of course)? Here's a list of some that are definitely worth checking out.

"Freemium" apps are a hot topic in the startup sector these days. Here's one company that's making it work..

Flickr image courtesy of angermann.

In this economic environment larger companies are cutting back to become lean and agile, but startups are looking for investment and to grow.  

Yet another way the Sun Startup Essentials program can help our startups (and the economy) is to provide current opportunities to our large readership & member-base. We are not trying to be recruitment agents, nor will we get involved in any part of that process, but we have a great platform to assist startups. 

I hear of job vacancies mainly through my twitter stream but also at events and during networking sessions, please feel free to let me know if you know other startups hiring.  

Here are a few current opportunities from UK +European SSE members that I know of: (more coming)

• Good Rails/iPhone Developer for a seed-funded stealth startup (send me a tweet)
• MindCandy have a variety of roles - http://mindcandy.com/recruitment
• Spotify also - http://www.spotify.com/en/about/jobs/
• SoundCloud too - http://soundcloud.com/pages/jobs

Subscribe to the startup program and follow me @scoobeesnac or subscribe to our blog post summaries using the textfield to the right-side of the blog, to hear more.

Congrats Sound Cloud and Huddle for the great coverage on the BBC website!!!

Based in Berlin, Germany, SoundCloud provides a web-based platform that is transforming the way music is shared, with over 250,000 customers that currently rely on its services. Realizing that its business depended on IT performance, SoundCloud evaluated its options and found an ideal solution with Sun Startup Essentials to migrate its Web server stack to a solution that includes virtual servers and a hybrid storage pool built with Sun technologies. Hosted and managed by London-based EveryCity (another Sun Startup Essentials customer), the new architecture quickly scales with growth, delivers the raw performance customers expect, and gives SoundCloud employees the ability to focus on expanding the business.

Based in London, UK, Huddle provides hosted project and collaboration tools - basically a "virtual office space" that allows organizations of all sizes to share documents, calendars, virtual white boards, etc. Huddle provides a free ad-supported service, as well as supported online virtual offices ranging from £10 to £125 per month.  Some of Huddle customers include Panasonic, UNICEF, Kia Motors, Nokia, and government organizations.

I ran an experiment that shows that ZFS compression can improve IO perf by 1.35x, save disk space by 1.77x, and reduce power consumption by 1.09x.

Guess what, I now have ZFS compression=on on my laptop.

Sun Startup Essentials - A big hand for your business ideas from stewart townsend on Vimeo.

How can Sun Startup Essentials help you? Watch this and see how Sun can help your small business with its Sun Startup Essentials programme http://sun.com/startups

BTW, this cool video was created by the community for the Sun Startup Essentials contest that Zooppa.com ran earlier this year. 

Do you want to know where I will be on November 17th, Im going to be at the O2 Indigo, not hanging out trying to get signatures of the latest bands but at the #140conf London event, more details below but with Stephen Fry on the bill its going to be a fantastic day and if you want to attend as a Sun Startup Essential member you get 40% discount. Yep 40%....

The 140 Characters Conference: London will be taking place on 17 November at the O2 Indigo.

The schedule for #140conf: London offers 50+ speakers in 27 fast sessions during the course of just one day.

At the #140conf events, we look at twitter as a platform and as a language we speak. In London we will be exploring the effects of the real-time Internet on Business. Overall we will be exploring the systemic effects the worldwide adoption twitter is having on business.

Some of the topics we will cover at #140conf London include: Racism as a Resource; Sky News: Twitter, Reputation and #iranelection; twitter and Brands, twitter and Education, twitter and Media, twitter and Small Business, twitter and Sports, twitter and The Police, twitter and TV, twitter and Music.

Please review the videos from the NYC event to get a feel of the pace of the event and the content shared

It is our intention to provide a platform for as many people as possible to share their thoughts and engage in conversation with the attending delegates. You will find individual talks set to: 10 minutes; “Featured talks” 15 and 20 minutes and the various panel discussions are set for 15 and 20 minutes.

Speakers include special guest Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) together with:

Alex Bellinger (@alexbellinger) - Journalist; Founder, SmallBizPod
Andrew Davis (@andrew_davis)
Andrew Keen (@ajkeen) - Author, Cult of The Amateur: How the Internet is Killing our Culture
Babs Rangaiah (@babs26) - Vice President, Global Comms Planning, Unilever
Becky McCray (@BeckyMcCray) - Founder, Small Biz Survival
Boyd Hilton (@boydhilton) - TV Editor for Heat Magazine
Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan) - President, New Marketing Labs
Ciaran Norris (@ciaranj) - Director Invention/SocialMedia8
David White (@daveowhite) - Chair
Dean Landsman (@DeanLand)
Digital Maverick (@digitalmaverick) - Learning technologist, Moodle evangelist
Ebony Rhiney-James (@EbonyRJ) - Digital Marketing Manager at Warner Music Group
Federico Grosso (@federicogrosso)
Gerd Leonhard (@gleonhard) - Media Futurist, Author, Blogger
Heather Gorringe (@wiggled) - Founder, Wiggly Wigglers
James Poulter (@jamespoulter) - Digital Strategist for Ogilvy PR
Jeff Pulver (@jeffpulver), twitter investor, creator of #140conf
Jeffrey Hayzlett (@JeffreyHayzlett) - CMO, Kodak
Jonathan Almond (@jonalmond)
Josie Fraser (@josiefraser) - Social & Educational Technologist
Kathleen Hessert (@kathleenhessert) - CEO, Sports Media Challenge
Kyra Gaunt, Ph.D. (@kyraocity) - Associate Professor of Music and Anthropology, Baruch College-CUNY, writer, blogger
Lauri Stevens (@lawscomm)
Manny Norte (@mannynorte) - Kiss FM
Marsha Collier (@MarshaCollier) - Author, Ebay for Dummies; Radio Host
Maz Nadjm (@Mazi) - Responsible for social networking at Sky Television, sky.com
Nick Halstead (@nickhalstead) - CEO, TweetMeme
Nick Keane (@nickkeane)
Pamela O'Hara (@pmohara) - Co-founder, Batch Blue
Peter Gregson (@petergregson) - Cellist and Co-founder of the Production Company Coffeeloop
Ray Paul (@raypaulbbc) - Executive Producer for Weekend Programs at BBC Radio 1
Roberto Bonanzinga (@Bonanzinga) - Balderton Capital
Saul Klein (@cape) - Index Ventures
Sean Seton-Rogers (@setonrog) - PROfounders Capital
Sherry J. Bitting (@SJBRules) - Co-founder and Marketing Director, Parlour Magazine
Shirley Williams (@shirleyearley)
Stephen Fry (@stephenfry)
Steve Saul (@stephensaul) - Social media/blogger for Simon Cowell's X-Factor
Sue Black (@Dr_Black)
Tal Givoly (@givoly) - Chief Scientist, Amdocs
Tim Bradshaw (@tim) - Digital media correspondent, Financial Times
Vikki Chowney (@vikkichowney) - Editor of Reputation Online, Centau Media

The take aways from this event will provide the attending delegates knowledge, perspectives and insights to the next wave of effects twitter and the real-tme internet will have on business.

As Sun Startup Essentials is a friend of Jeffs we have a lovely discount for you, save 40% on a Delegate Ticket up until 15 November or until tickets last. 

Click here to register:

SmallBizPod is a podcast, blog, news and community site for small businesses, start-ups and entrepreneurs. This is how it all happened.

Back in March 2005, Alex Bellinger became one of only a handful of people in the UK to start podcasting.

Looking around for a subject he realised there were no British-based podcasts on business. Since he had just set up his own business and had spent many years focusing on the small business sector, a podcast on entrepreneurship seemed like a good way to go.

SmallBizPod was born. The podcast, blog and website now attract tens of thousands of listeners and readers a month from all over the world.

Inspire, Inform, Entertain

From the start SmallBizPod has been there to inspire, to inform, and to be fun to listen to and read as well. I think thanks to some wonderful contributors and interviewees, it's achieved just that.

Over time, the site has grown to become one of the most visited sites for SMEs in the UK. It's also developed into a wonderful free audio resource to provide inspiration and advice from business people with real experience and real insight.

Take the time to listen to some inspiring interviews from some renowned people on subjects such as marketing, business advice, funding and many more, the beauty is that these are free and really insighful and great to hear that not just you in that Startup boat alone.

Visit http://www.smallbizpod.co.uk/  now and keep an update on the latest podcasts.

Also if you really love what you hear and see then Vote for them in the European Podcast Awards -