Together with OpenX, I’m hosting the first OpenX community-led event on Thursday, 13th November in Amsterdam. It’s a free event and everyone is invited.

Judging by the registrations so far, on the day you will meet a really interesting mix of new and experienced OpenX users, along with people evaluating the software.

A quick reminder of the event details:

• When: 9am to 5pm (13th November)
• Where: Hortus Botanicus, Plantage Middenlaan 2a, Amsterdam (click for map)
• Cost: Free!

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Today marks a special day for OpenX, because of the launch of two new offerings: OpenX Hosted and OpenX Market.

OpenX Hosted is a mostly free, hosted version of the well known ad server, available over the web, saving publishers from installing, configuring, maintaining, upgrading and worrying. OpenX Market is a new way for publishers to monetize their web site through an open market place of advertisers and publishers.

Both of these new services have been in the making for some time, and I’ve had the privileges of sneak previews, demos and actual beta testing. It was as far back as September 2007 when Scott Switzer, the founder of OpenX first told me about both ideas when I met him in Amsterdam.

Scott, congratulations on the launch today! This brings OpenX into a new phase, and I’m really excited for you and the OpenX team.

You can read more about OpenX Hosted and OpenX Market on the OpenX website. And of course, you can still download your own copy and install it on your own server, just as usual.

The most common reason people give for not making backups of their computer is: “I forgot”. That’s understandable, but also very unfortunate. Especially when there are free solutions that allow anyone to make regular backups.

One of those products is called Mozy. It’s a piece of software that you install on your computer (did I mention it’s free!), and then you can literally forget about making backups. Mozy will remember for you, and automatically make those precious backups once or twice a day, or just as often as you want. The backups are stored on Mozy’s servers, on the internet. So if your computer or laptop is stolen or breaks, your data is still safe and sound, ready to be restored as soon as you have a working computer again.

I’ve been using Mozy for some months now, and I like it very much. Twice a day the software automatically backups all data in the folders that I’ve said are important, including any new file or sub folder I created since the previous backup. In addition to the software itself being free, you also get 2 Gigabyte of storage space on the Mozy servers free of charge.

But wait, it gets better: if you use this link to sign up, install the software and make your first backup, you even get an additional 256 Megabytes of storage space, completely free. Just click the link, and then click on the big “Get 2 GB for Free” button.

I can really recommend using Mozy for your computer backups. It’s as easy as ’set it and forget it’. Just give it a try, it’s free!

I’m very pleased to announce that the next OpenX community event will take place in Amsterdam, on Thursday, November 13, 2008. You’re all invited for an informative and fun day, to be held in the beautiful Laranjezaal of the Hortus Botanicus in our nation’s capital.

Not only is this the first ever OpenX community event in The Netherlands, it’s also the first time that OpenX and an independent consultant organize an event together. We hope to meet many OpenX users, but also people looking to learn about OpenX and what it could do for their website and business.

Registration is now open! Based on what you tell us you want to learn, we will put together an interesting program with presentations, demos, and Q&A sessions. But there will be plenty of opportunity for informal talks with fellow OpenX users, community consultants and OpenX team members.

I’m looking forward to this event next month! See you in Amsterdam…