We would love to be able to include recipes for various kinds of software and hardware, but we are just normal Joes, doing all this in our spare time. So we'd very much welcome loans or donations of the following items. See our terms below, to understand how we would put these items to use.
- 1-5 small form factor 'business desktop' systems, preferably with included OEM copies of Windows (any version) and MS Office.
- Antivirus/antimalware software and/or hardware, smallbusiness or enterprise version, with centralized administration software.
- Virtualization software, such as VMware, MS Hyper-V, or other comparable. At the moment we are especially interested in virtualization managment and backup software.
- Virtualization-capable server hardware.
- SAN and/or NAS hardware.
- Networking hardware such as routers, switches, wireless gear.
- Business or systems administration software of any type.
- Website hosting and/or 'dedicated server' and/or colocation services.
- Any other hardware/software items you feel might be relevant to the ITcookbook site. Email us!
Terms:
If your products fall within the scope of ITcookbook's mission, we'd likely be happy to include them in one or more of our recipes. But there are a few terms we need to make you aware of first. If after reading these, you're still interested, email us! Either way, thanks for considering us.
Goal: Our goal is mainly to provide 'recipes' (that is, step by step instructions, possibly with video, of how to use the item in a business setting) for the use of various hardware/software. While we are not strictly in the business of reviewing such products, we will provide our candid opinions of the items in our recipe articles and videos.
Your Feedback: If you request it, we can provide advance copies of our articles and videos to item donors/lendors up to one week before we publish them on our site. The purpose of such advance copy would be to clear up any potential misunderstandings on our end, and allow us to create better and more usable recipes to our readers. As an example, suppose our recipe claimed that your widget couldn't peel potatos - you could let us know it can peel potatos, and we'd then gratefully correct our recipe. Any such changes to our written, audio, or video content would be at our sole discretion. However, if you still felt we'd gotten it wrong, you'd be more than welcome to comment on the the content - either here or on your own site.
Full disclosure: We will be very clear in disclosing how we obtained all hardware/software we use in our recipes. We beleive our opinions on all such items are our own, and not for sale - however, our readers are free to judge for themselves. We will be open and public about the arrangements made with any donor/lender. In no case will we guarantee a favorable review or opinion about any product.
Return policy: ITcookbook is a longterm operation - its goal is to simulate, as best we can, the day-to-day situations an IT organization encounters. Because of this we would prefer to have long-term use (months or years) of items sent to us for inclusion in our recipes. And again, we're regular Joes who create ITcookbook in our spare time, so we can't really accommodate rushed schedules. We're open to discussion, but we'd be very hesitant to accept any item we had to return in less than a month's time.
However we will return any item sent to us, whether we include it in a recipe or not, on whatever date mutually agreed to in writing by both parties, as long as full return postage/shipping is paid for by the donor/lender.
Advertising: We would be open to advertising your product on our site, possibly in return for the loan or donation of software or hardware (or cold hard cash, even!). We will always separate advertising from our editorial content. As noted in the 'full disclosure' item above, we'd be clear about any such terms in the body of any written/audio/video content we produce about your product. We're definitely open to any proposal you might have in this area!
Attribution: You're more than welcome to use whatever we say about your product - good or bad - in your own prmomotional campaigns, provided you include attribution and an URL link to the full written/audio/video (on our site) that you are quoting.
Written agreement needed: we'll do our best to live up to any agreement we make with you, provided it doesn't conflict with the principles laid out above. But we do need it understood that any such agreement needs to be in writing, and that we may publish any such agreement, in full or in part, at our discretion.