We're anticipating some great weather here in the northeast U.S. this weekend--wherever you are, here's hoping it's a good one for you. For some great reading, take a look at these recent articles, from Channelweb and elsewhere on the 'net:

The 'Rogue' San Francisco Admin

I've written before about Terry Childs, the San Francisco network administrator who locked his superiors out of the municpal network and wound up locked up himself. In August, a judge dismissed most of the charges against Childs, leaving only one. At InfoWorld, Paul Venezia has stayed on the story:

"One charge remains: the charge that Childs violated a California statute regarding illegal denial of service for the San Francisco FiberWAN... But can that statute apply to someone who was hired and paid by the government to build, maintain, and repair that network, especially given that no damage was done, no resources were denied to any employee, and the network suffered no downtime?"

Though the charges were reduced, the $5 million bail was not, leaving Childs in jail, where he's been for over a year.

From the latest CRN

This month's magazine featured typically insightful analysis of the current tech landscape, including:

Bob DeMarzo on the economic recovery, such as it is...

"Credit is becoming less constrained while corporate profits are near historical lows. So perhaps an uptick in IT spending is on the way in a couple of quarters. But don't open the champagne just yet."

Steven Burke on Best Buy:

"From this vantage point, it looks like there is a lot more bad business than best buys at Best Buy. And it's that bad business that is sure to lead more customers from Best Buy to solution providers. "

Robert Faletra on cloud computing:

"Regardless of when cloud computing will be the dominant delivery of computing resources, it is going to reshape much of what we know today."

And Larry Hooper on ways to use Channelweb Connect:

"Say, one of your vendors is causing you some trouble. Maybe the salespeople are pushing a little too hard near the end of a quarter or they are taking bigger clients direct. Is it you? Or is it a pattern? Pose that question on Channelweb Cosnnect and the answer will come..."

Don't forget, subscriptions to CRN are free for solution providers...

Our Most Popular Articles Online In August:

Smartphones, OS upgrades, cyber-crime, and more topped our most visited pages last month:

10 Hottest Smartphones 0f 2009

Side-By-Side: Snow Leopard and Windows 7

The Most Powerful Women of the Channel

Simple: Theft Of 130 Million Credit Card Numbers Didn't Take Much

The Top 30 Channel Contenders of 2009

If you already knew about all that, try our news quiz for August.

Assorted Links:

BusinessWeek has just come out with an optimistic look at The Return of Capital Spending, saying:

"A BusinessWeek analysis of companies in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index found that 45% increased their global capital expenditures in the second quarter from the prior one. Only 19% did so in the first quarter... Companies generally don't shell out money on new equipment, software, and buildings unless they think demand is picking up and profits are sustainable."

Surprise! Multitaskers Not Very Good At Multitasking.

And finally, here's an interesting twist on some summer advice "everyone knows" -- what should you do if you're stuck in a rip-current? It may be best to stay right where you are:

"If you swim parallel to the shore... there's a 50-percent chance you'll end up be swimming into a stronger current. But if you just tread water... there's a 90 percent chance of being returned to shore within about three minutes."

Be careful out there, and have a good weekend!

Some great reads for the weekend:

Palm's Pre arrives in little more than a week. Can you bet more than one company on a product? Our Chad Berndston notes:

"It's a long-awaited arrival for a device to which Palm is staking its hopes of revival and Sprint its ongoing viability as a telecom contender."

Virtualization is hot. Almost as hot as the two leading virtualization vendors are at each other:

"Microsoft's furious response to a recent VMware video that purports to show crashes in Microsoft's virtualization hypervisor, could signal the start of a full-fledged battle between the two companies."

The 'Next Big Thing' from Apple? Maybe a tablet computer. There's  plenty of room between the iPod Touch and the MacBook, you know.

Worst. Continent. Ever. That must be the feeling that some people at Intel and Microsoft have about Europe.

Readers are still actively discussing our feature The House That Comptia Members Built, weighing in on the ethics of compensation, the value of certifications, and what the heck we were thinking. Comptia CEO Todd Thibodeaux's response to the Comptia membership has spawned additional discussion.

Finally, at Information Week, Bob Evans explains how one town is planning to honor its heroes on Memorial Day; and as I've done before, I'll end this fest with a link to the site of the American Battle Monuments Commission, the agency that maintains American military cemeteries overseas. It's a simple site, and it won't take long to survey the photos of the Commission's memorials, and appreciate some of the sacrifices that have been made to keep us free.

Coming soon: the VAR 500. But first, have a great weekend!

Some tips, updated from the old blog, on ways companies can work with Channelweb to tell their stories:

How Can I Reach Solution Providers and VARs?

You're in the right place. Channelweb is the world's premier solution provider community, and provides a variety of such opportunities. Some suggestions:

• To locate individual solution providers, try our free online databases, including the VARBusiness 500 and CRN Fast Growth.

• Offer your own perspective by participating in the Channelweb Connect community or by posting a white paper in our free White Paper Library, or our sponsored Vendor Content Community.

• Attend one our live events for solution providers, retailers and end users, including our award-winning Virtual Trade Shows.

• Use our Lead Generator to send targeted messages, our our PR Toolkit to polish your identity.

• Finally, the sales folks would probably want me to mention that you can always advertise with us, in many different fashions.

How Do I Get My Company Covered?

There's a single editorial staff for Everything Channel, Channelweb and our print publications, CRN and CRNTech. Each of our editors have specific areas of coverage. Whether you're a solution provider with an interesting case study, or a vendor with a new product, the best way to get on our radar is to find the specific editor covering your type of company. Get to know our site, search out articles about companies like yours, and refer to the editorial beats list. Then, e-mail the appropriate editor directly with your news, and be particularly clear on why that news is significant to our solution provider audience. If we're interested, we'll want to talk to your CEO and channel chief, as well as some of your solution provider partners.

More general advice: For the funniest set of PR Tips I've seen, take a look at this post from Barry Ritholtz's Big Picture blog. (But please note, he's not from here.) In addition Fred Paul at bMighty offers some useful recommendations, as does Information Week's Cory Doctorow, on working with bloggers and editors in general.

What awards do Channelweb and CRN give out? How can I apply?
How do I get my executive, (product, company) included in ChannelWeb's listings?

See our Directories and Awards FAQ posting.

Is there a single contact to send press releases to?

No, see above.

Does ChannelWeb publish bylined submissions from vendor executives?

No. From time to time, we do publish viewpoints from solution provider executives. Again, contact the editor whose beat covers appropriately similar companies.

Can I post my press release on ChannelWeb?

No. We do have a feed of press releases online, but those come via our sister company, PRNewswire.

Yes, it has been pointed out to us. A number of participants have noticed that email addresses are being displayed some places in the community. We don't want that, and we have a fix.

Some new accounts, and some accounts that were migrated from our earlier forums, don't have 'Nicknames' chosen by the member. In that case, the community is displaying the member's email address on their comments and profile pages.

To fix that, visit our login page and go ahead and choose a nickname -- the system will update your posts appropriately.

As always, if you encounter any further problems, let us know, here, or via email at editor@channelweb.com.

We've just launched this major upgrade of our discussion forums. In addition to commenting on articles, we've added functionality for any Channelweb participant to share documents, blog, conduct polls, create groups, and maintain a personal home page. Powered by Jive Software's Clearspace, it's a new era in our community capabilities.  Current accounts--and the existing posts--should already be migrated to the new system. Try it out, and let me know if you encounter any problems. Visit http://community.crn.com/ and make yourself at home!