Fastest Growing Private Companies in the Triangle

Inc. Magazine recently released their list of the top 5000 Fastest Growing Companies in America. Below are the companies which are located in the Triangle area.

Rank Name
85 iContact
87 Rockett Interactive
270 Mainline Contracting
283 Canvas On Demand
288 Oak Grove Technologies
322 Media Two Interactive
363 The Select Group
375 USfalcon
448 Bandwidth.com
552 Professional Builders Supply
580 Surety Systems
704 Sageworks
1417 Hosted Solutions
1594 Catalyst Manufacturing Services
1629 Eco Turf
1808 SciQuest
1928 Greene Resources
2281 Matai
2839 WorkSmart
2893 Geomagic
2918 Frankel Staffing Partners
3491 iT People Corporation
3537 Fleet Feet, Incorporated
3706 MetaMetrics
3880 Burt's Bees
4032 Timberline Acquisition
4151 NStar Global Services
4254 Signalscape
4291 Coldwell Banker Commercial TradeMark Properties
4558 FMI
4799 HumanCentric Technologies
4842 Capital Investment Companies
4912 Fowler Contracting

To view the complete list of all the companies along with links to more information about them please visit http://www.inc.com/inc5000/2008/the-full-list.html?sort=rank&order=ASC

Gary Hoke

Today, I heard about a cool new web service on CNBC called Jott. It provides a speech-to-text engine for you to interface with custom lists, reminders, your blog, a user group or a custom application of your own by calling a toll free number. Additionally, the service provides the capability to read any "feeds" that you specify to you via their toll free number.

Try it out for yourself at http://jott.com

Additionally, I highly recommend that developers checkout the developers page. The possibilities seem endless.

http://jott.com/jotters/index.php/developers

Have fun "jotting"!

Gary Hoke

The battle for supremacy in the online brokerage market continues; however, one online broker is setting itself apart for the pack. It's Zecco! They provide access to $0 online stock trades at Zecco Trading. It's not an introductory offer either -- you get up to 10 free trades/month, every month, as long as you have $2,500 minimum balance. Otherwise, it's just $4.50/trade!

I've found Zecco especially useful for purchasing ETFs which usually have a much lower operating expense than mutual funds. Plus with so many new ETFs on the market it allows individuals investors to diversify their portfolios with specific sectors, regions or commodities which most mutual fund families may not provide. The 10 free trades per month is by far the best feature. This could save an semi-active trader $800-$1200 a year based on the commissions charged by brokerages like Scottrade, E*Trade and TD Ameritrade.

To learn more about Zecco and how to setup an account click on the image below.

Enjoy and good luck trading!

Gary

NCSU MBA Program jumps 15 places to 59th in the nation in U.S. News and World Report rankings...

http://mgt.ncsu.edu/news/2008/march/jenkins-mba-us-news-world-rankings-report.php

Gary Hoke

Forbes Magazine ranks Raleigh #1 Best Places For Business And Careers

http://www.forbes.com/2008/03/19/best-business-cities-biz-bestplaces08-cx_kb_0319places_land.html

The Raleigh specific page provides rankings for the individual criteria used to determine the overall ranking.

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2008/1/bestplaces08_Raleigh-NC_100138.html


Gary Hoke

Time for a new version of PMBOK

Drafts of the PMBOK Guide - 4th Edition are available for review online. Members can provide comments back to PMI as well. See the URL below for more details.

http://www.pmi.org/Resources/Pages/Exposure-Drafts.aspx

So now the question becomes how much will the PMP exam change based on the changes that will be finalized in PMBOK this fall?

Gary Hoke

369 Days to the end of analog TV broadcasts

Do you still have a pair of those rabbit ears? Well if you do or you're not currently on cable or satellite then you will need to get a digital converter box or purchase a television with a digital tuner before February 17, 2009.

Coupons for $40 towards the purchase of a digital converter box are available online at http://www.dtv2009.gov/.

Go request your coupon today before the 22.25 million available to U.S. households are all gone.

Gary Hoke

Yahoo reportedly to reject Microsoft bid

Just when you thought this story couldn't get much more interesting it looks like Yahoo is going to reject Microsoft's offer! Considering that there offer was 62% premium it seems pretty arrogant to me, but I imagine that Microsoft will pony up the funds to make the deal happen. Given the market turmoil I wonder who else Microsoft and other cash heavy tech firms have their eyes on.

Anyways, to read more about the rejected offer click on one of the links below.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2008-02-09-microsoft-yahoo_N.htm?csp=34

http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid={E8746163-9161-4D1E-8E9F-1E92249AA2F8}

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080209/bs_nm/yahoo_microsoft_rejection_dc_5

It will be interesting to see what happens next week!

Gary Hoke

Attention Microsoft Developers & DBAs:

Microsoft is offer a free e-learning course from it's selection of courses for a limited time. This includes courses on SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005, SharePoint 2007 and more.

To signup for a free course go to the link below. A promo code will be generated which you use at checkout.

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/elearning/free/default.mspx
Enjoy your free course!

Gary Hoke

Microsoft just announced that they are extending the "free second shot" on certification exams through June 30, 2008. Click on the banner above to signup or to learn more about the program. Good luck on your exam!

Gary Hoke

Microsoft RoundTable

I had an opportunity to see the Microsoft RoundTable in action today. The device is really cool and looks to compete with some devices from Cisco. One cool feature was that it senses when someone at the table is talking and puts their image in the primary frame inside a video conference window. Additionally, a panoramic view of everyone at the table is available to those via the video conference. The software also had sensing to detect bandwidth limitations which adjusted the video refresh rate to optimize voice communication quality. To learn more about the Microsoft RoundTable click on the image to the left.

Gary Hoke

Introducing dimdim...

dimdim is the world´s first free web meeting service based on the open source platform.

I had a chance to experiment with dimdim today and discovered it to be very useful. It has many similar features like Live Meeting or Webex. The document sharing was nice, but you have to get the scaling right for the output to be good for everyone. Initially, the document was a little blurry so I had to zoom in to make it more readable.

If you are interesting in trying it out you can signup for an account at http://www.dimdim.com.

Enjoy!

Gary Hoke

I stumbled onto a cool new web service called Doc Chaser. It allows users to track when others read Word documents that they have distributed. It provides detailed information about who opened it, analytics, email alerts, an RSS feed and even a map of where your document has been opened from.

To give Doc Chaser a try go to http://www.docchaser.com.

Gary Hoke