You've probably heard that age-old phrase: "Don't toss out the baby with the bath water." We've all heard it many times. It's amazing how few people really let that sink in. I was thinking about some of the projects I've been involved with over the past few years. The key players. The major issues. The conflicts, challenges and resolutions at every milestone. I also recalled the personalities and alliances and adversaries. Then I remembered how many times a suggestion was discarded simply because it was bundled with a collection of issues, some of which were not ideal. Rather than pick and choose, the entire bucket was sent back to the kitchen. I still see this happen all the time. The next time you're considering some idea for improvement, and maybe it was proposed by someone you don't particularly care for, or respect much, ask yourself if you really don't like the idea because of technical merit or because of who suggested it. And then ask yourself if there are any pieces of it that might be of value, rather than wrapping the whole thing up and stamping it for rejection as a whole.
Saturday, 14 July 2012
Friday, 13 July 2012
I've been working since before I graduated high school. That would be somewhere in the mid/late 1970's. My first paying job was back when Jimmy Carter was president and I'm still a long way from retirement. I've seen a lot of so-called "change" over that time, but I'm still confused by all the talk about how much impact a "new" president has on the American public. I hear a lot of fuss about it. TV ads, radio ads. Coffee room chatter.
Really?
Explain this please?
What impact does a US president really have? Really. I mean: seriously. Ok. So he can nominate a Supreme Court justice on occasion, but that's still not an appointment. The nomination has to be vetted and approved by others.
Then there's the talk about Executive Orders. But when you look over the EO history, it's really not that impressive or impactful. There's really nothing sexy there at all, and Executive Orders can be reversed.
So, I am still confused by the focus on how much impact a "new" president really has.
Can they control the economy? No.
Can they control medical breakthroughs? Not directly.
Can they control gasoline prices? No.
Can they control who wins American Idol? No.
I have to say, in all my years of working, I have never seen, or experienced any meaningful or significant "change" in my job, income, career opportunities, family life or social activities as a direct result of voting in a new president. Never. I didn't see any real change in my life under Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush Jr., or Obama. None. Zero. Zip. Nada. Nil. If you blindfolded me, put me in a time machine back to anywhere from 1976 until now, hid all the calendars, and asked me who the president is, I doubt I would know. Maybe by style and fashion, or tv shows I could guess, but certainly not by any meaningful criteria.
I have seen "change" as a result of overturn in Congress and Senate however. Oh yes. That I have seen. In fact, I have seen more "change" from local city elections than I ever have from a federal election.
Basically, in my humble view, the role of the US president is nothing more than a mouthpiece and figurehead. The news media has done a great job of programming the public into believing that the president can really invoke "change" without others involved. It's like they have some magic wand, or magic crystal ring. Sha-zam! Instant Recession cure. Instant job creation. Instant insurance fix. Instant Gitmo closure. Instant terrorism fix. Ho ho ho. Keep wishing.
It's amazing. It's like we've forgotten everything we learned in elementary school. I shouldn't be surprised.
So. I ask you to do one thing: stop and think about each time you've experienced a change of presidential leadership in America, what exactly did you see "change" in your immediate life as a result? Not in the general public. Not on TV. Not what your friends, neighbors, coworkers, and relatives blabbered about. I mean: in YOUR immediate life. And then, if you can even think of one thing, can you absolutely pin that on the president? Or was it really something that actually came from Congress or the Senate?
Each time I hear an ad that says "what will the first 100 days of a president (dipshit-asswipe) administration be like?" and they start off on listing all the "change" that will happen, I call BULLSHIT. I don't care who that president is. They simply seek to take credit for whatever their cronies in Congress and Senate can push into law. The role has become nothing more than a PR platform.
And in case you're wondering: yes, I have consumed a few beers in the past hour or two. None of which were less than 10% ABV, but it was all for a good cause: Me. ;)
Just another random thought.
Really?
Explain this please?
What impact does a US president really have? Really. I mean: seriously. Ok. So he can nominate a Supreme Court justice on occasion, but that's still not an appointment. The nomination has to be vetted and approved by others.
Then there's the talk about Executive Orders. But when you look over the EO history, it's really not that impressive or impactful. There's really nothing sexy there at all, and Executive Orders can be reversed.
So, I am still confused by the focus on how much impact a "new" president really has.
Can they control the economy? No.
Can they control medical breakthroughs? Not directly.
Can they control gasoline prices? No.
Can they control who wins American Idol? No.
I have to say, in all my years of working, I have never seen, or experienced any meaningful or significant "change" in my job, income, career opportunities, family life or social activities as a direct result of voting in a new president. Never. I didn't see any real change in my life under Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush Jr., or Obama. None. Zero. Zip. Nada. Nil. If you blindfolded me, put me in a time machine back to anywhere from 1976 until now, hid all the calendars, and asked me who the president is, I doubt I would know. Maybe by style and fashion, or tv shows I could guess, but certainly not by any meaningful criteria.
I have seen "change" as a result of overturn in Congress and Senate however. Oh yes. That I have seen. In fact, I have seen more "change" from local city elections than I ever have from a federal election.
Basically, in my humble view, the role of the US president is nothing more than a mouthpiece and figurehead. The news media has done a great job of programming the public into believing that the president can really invoke "change" without others involved. It's like they have some magic wand, or magic crystal ring. Sha-zam! Instant Recession cure. Instant job creation. Instant insurance fix. Instant Gitmo closure. Instant terrorism fix. Ho ho ho. Keep wishing.
It's amazing. It's like we've forgotten everything we learned in elementary school. I shouldn't be surprised.
So. I ask you to do one thing: stop and think about each time you've experienced a change of presidential leadership in America, what exactly did you see "change" in your immediate life as a result? Not in the general public. Not on TV. Not what your friends, neighbors, coworkers, and relatives blabbered about. I mean: in YOUR immediate life. And then, if you can even think of one thing, can you absolutely pin that on the president? Or was it really something that actually came from Congress or the Senate?
Each time I hear an ad that says "what will the first 100 days of a president (dipshit-asswipe) administration be like?" and they start off on listing all the "change" that will happen, I call BULLSHIT. I don't care who that president is. They simply seek to take credit for whatever their cronies in Congress and Senate can push into law. The role has become nothing more than a PR platform.
And in case you're wondering: yes, I have consumed a few beers in the past hour or two. None of which were less than 10% ABV, but it was all for a good cause: Me. ;)
Just another random thought.
Thursday, 28 June 2012
My employer, Endurance IT Services, located in Virginia Beach, Virginia, is hiring. Yes!
(2) Engineer (Tier II) - Windows/VMware/Exchange (Hampton Roads)
Looking for Systems Engineer with a minimum of 7+ years of hands on experience with diverse network environments. This position is for a full time opening on our engineering team. This team is responsible for the design, installation and support of networks for numerous clients in Hampton Roads. The typical environments include Microsoft Windows 2003/2008 Servers, Exchange 2003/2007/2010, Cisco routers/switches/firewalls and other 3rd party applications. Bachelor degree preferred. Ability to assess and formally document client environments a must.
Key Skills include all the items below:
(2) Senior Engineer (Tier III) - Windows/VMware/Exchange (Hampton Roads)
Senior Systems Engineer with a minimum of 15+ years of hands on experience with diverse network environments. This position is for a full time opening on our engineering team. This team is responsible for the design, installation and support of networks for numerous clients in Hampton Roads. The typical environments include Microsoft Windows 2003/2008 Servers, Exchange 2003/2007/2010, VMware Vsphere, SANs, Cisco routers/switches/firewalls and other 3rd party applications. Bachelor degree preferred. Ability to assess and formally document client environments a must.
Key Skills include all the items below:
We are looking for strong candidates with technical support skills and great interpersonal skills.
We are a fast growing company that is strongly focused on customer service and satisfaction. We are building a corporate culture which supports learning, growth and advancement in the Network Services career field. Our focus is solely network services. We offer competitive salaries, a comprehensive benefits package, and a great place to work.
(A LOT of employers say the above mumbo-jumbo, but I will concur 110% that it is indeed a great place to work for.)
If you live within the Hampton Roads area, and are both qualified and interested in one of these available positions - contact me for more information at ds0934 (at) gmail (dot) com.
(2) Engineer (Tier II) - Windows/VMware/Exchange (Hampton Roads)
Looking for Systems Engineer with a minimum of 7+ years of hands on experience with diverse network environments. This position is for a full time opening on our engineering team. This team is responsible for the design, installation and support of networks for numerous clients in Hampton Roads. The typical environments include Microsoft Windows 2003/2008 Servers, Exchange 2003/2007/2010, Cisco routers/switches/firewalls and other 3rd party applications. Bachelor degree preferred. Ability to assess and formally document client environments a must.
Key Skills include all the items below:
- Microsoft Exchange 2007 / 2010
- Windows Server 2008 / 2008 R2
- Active Directory
- Networking with various products
(2) Senior Engineer (Tier III) - Windows/VMware/Exchange (Hampton Roads)
Senior Systems Engineer with a minimum of 15+ years of hands on experience with diverse network environments. This position is for a full time opening on our engineering team. This team is responsible for the design, installation and support of networks for numerous clients in Hampton Roads. The typical environments include Microsoft Windows 2003/2008 Servers, Exchange 2003/2007/2010, VMware Vsphere, SANs, Cisco routers/switches/firewalls and other 3rd party applications. Bachelor degree preferred. Ability to assess and formally document client environments a must.
Key Skills include all the items below:
- VMware in HA environments
- Microsoft Exchange 2007 / 2010
- Windows Server 2008 / 2008 R2
- Networking with various products
We are looking for strong candidates with technical support skills and great interpersonal skills.
We are a fast growing company that is strongly focused on customer service and satisfaction. We are building a corporate culture which supports learning, growth and advancement in the Network Services career field. Our focus is solely network services. We offer competitive salaries, a comprehensive benefits package, and a great place to work.
(A LOT of employers say the above mumbo-jumbo, but I will concur 110% that it is indeed a great place to work for.)
If you live within the Hampton Roads area, and are both qualified and interested in one of these available positions - contact me for more information at ds0934 (at) gmail (dot) com.
Tuesday, 26 June 2012
I promised "more to come" yesterday, so here goes... (warning: mindless rambling begins now)
In general terms, within larger organizations (e.g. corporate or government environments), there exists two broad approaches to "software development":
When you start coding within a short time of having an idea. When you are faced with crisis-mode problems that demand your full attention to solve using whatever tools you have at hand. When you don't have an elaborate structured environment to delegate tasks to. When like to create and evolve something, rather than plan it ahead. All of these reasons, and many more, often lead immediately into a "bottom-up" development process. Oftentimes this approach ends up at a crossroads with Top-Down ideals, where the developer(s) stops at 2.0 or 3.0 and decides to refactor, clean-up, and document everything. At this point, it often takes on a new direction that feels more like "top-down", even though it didn't start out that way.
I need sleep. Cheers!
* "Are Agile and CMMI Compatible?" - http://www.ciodashboard.com/it-processes-and-methodologies/agile-cmmi-compatible/
In general terms, within larger organizations (e.g. corporate or government environments), there exists two broad approaches to "software development":
- Top-Down
- Bottom-Up
Top-Down
When you have the luxury of working in a structured team scenario, especially (possibly ONLY) when it consists of talented people that ALSO get along VERY well, you can take the time to plan and proceed in a logical manner. By this, I mean: gather requirements, assess the status quo against the desired outcome, determine gaps, resources, timelines, etc. And you may even have the luxury of dedicated project managers, program managers, developers, architects, test groups, test procedures, CMMI and all that.
This notion of planning ahead, designing everything methodically, testing and more testing, is all part of the "top-down" approach. This is the approach taught in schools, text books, lectures, and so on. It's admirable and difficult to find fault in this concept. But everything has potential drawbacks.
Bottom-Up
When you start coding within a short time of having an idea. When you are faced with crisis-mode problems that demand your full attention to solve using whatever tools you have at hand. When you don't have an elaborate structured environment to delegate tasks to. When like to create and evolve something, rather than plan it ahead. All of these reasons, and many more, often lead immediately into a "bottom-up" development process. Oftentimes this approach ends up at a crossroads with Top-Down ideals, where the developer(s) stops at 2.0 or 3.0 and decides to refactor, clean-up, and document everything. At this point, it often takes on a new direction that feels more like "top-down", even though it didn't start out that way.
So what's the best way to go? There is no "best way". There is only the "way" that works for your endeavors. Sure, logically speaking, it's hard to argue that with all the right pieces in place, that a "top-down" process isn't the better option. But a lot (repeat A LOT) of developers do not have such luxuries. And even more of them have personal leanings towards "bottom-up" because it suits their creative process. Is that wrong? Who knows.
I've worked in both camps for quite a bit of time. There are aspects of each I like and dislike. Sometimes I compare them to cooking with gas versus a wood fire. One is simpler to get going, the other has a nicer feel to it.
One subtle, often overlooked, yet serious drawback to the "top-down" approach is the timeline. With a more rigorous application of metric-oriented planning and execution comes a long duration (start to finish). While that may seem like an obvious cost risk, the other side of this (the part I propose as being "overlooked") is the budget window constraint. I've seen plenty of large-scale development projects fall to the cutting room floor because the timeline ran afoul of an ever-scrutinized budget. Many times it happens before any code has been written. Great ideas on paper, in a server shared folder, in SharePoint or some other repository, being hashed and vetted and showing immense promise, only to slide unknowingly under the falling axe of a budget cutback.
On the flip-side is the "bottom-up" approach. Sometimes viewed as "shooting from the hip" or "wild west show' approach. Get the code moving sooner and work out the kinks as they come up. Give and take with the end users. It is exciting to work in that fold. I much prefer meeting users face to face than sifting through survey reports, forum threads, and e-mails.
As Chris Curran states*:
"While Agile and CMMI can coexist, there are limits. Agile practices can normally function with CMMI levels 1 to 3 but are usually incompatible with the higher maturity levels 4 and 5. At CMMI levels 4 and 5, the intrusion of documentation into the development process over-formalizes Agile’s internal discipline and Agile ceases to be agile."Everything has limits obviously. You can't fit either of these approaches to every situation. There are many stories involving Facebook, Twitter and other recent major ideas where the nexus of their success was taking an unorthodox or hybrid approach to their entire inception and debut. Stop and think about every aspect of the way your are currently approaching software projects. Are there things you wish could be improved? Eliminated?
I need sleep. Cheers!
* "Are Agile and CMMI Compatible?" - http://www.ciodashboard.com/it-processes-and-methodologies/agile-cmmi-compatible/
Monday, 25 June 2012
I plan on digressing into this topic more heavily in the near future. Having worked in IT for quite a few years, and much of it in a software development capacity, I've developed some personal and professional perspectives on two diametrically opposed approaches to building applications:
Each of these two has obvious, and not-so-obvious advantages, as well as drawbacks. The weight of each (advantage or drawback) varies by the scale of the environment, and the significance of resources laid upon the providers and the consumers of the application. Terms come into play like Agility, CMMI, SDLC, Test-driven, and so on. When do they help?... and when do they not? How is it that one approach, or the other, becomes inevitable within some organizations?
Stay tuned...
- From the Top - Down
- From the Bottom - Up
Each of these two has obvious, and not-so-obvious advantages, as well as drawbacks. The weight of each (advantage or drawback) varies by the scale of the environment, and the significance of resources laid upon the providers and the consumers of the application. Terms come into play like Agility, CMMI, SDLC, Test-driven, and so on. When do they help?... and when do they not? How is it that one approach, or the other, becomes inevitable within some organizations?
Stay tuned...
Saturday, 16 June 2012
I thought it was funny that I ran across this post from 2010, where I said I was leaving the SMS/SCCM world behind because there "were no opportunities" available to apply my skills in that realm. At the time it was true, there were no such opportunities in my reach. However, since July 2010, when I moved on to a different employer, Configuration Manager is very much back in my life. It was evident from how I pumped up the "AD Web Admin" project, and then dismantled it to use in a real production environment (in pieces. reorganized and reconstituted).
I've been spending a LOT of time weaving together ASP/HTML/CSS/JavaScript with SQL and SWBEM to extend Configuration Manager and integrate it via the web with Active Directory, asset inventory databases, and role-based access control. It's a fun project and I love every minute I get to spend on it. I know what you're thinking: "why not ASP.Net?". Because it's what I originally built the ADWA project with and it was easier to restructure it than start over, and my ASP.Net skills aren't quite up to that task yet. In any case, it works, and does what the customer wants it to do, which is a nice thing.
It just goes to show, to me at least, that you never know what's around the next corner.
I've been spending a LOT of time weaving together ASP/HTML/CSS/JavaScript with SQL and SWBEM to extend Configuration Manager and integrate it via the web with Active Directory, asset inventory databases, and role-based access control. It's a fun project and I love every minute I get to spend on it. I know what you're thinking: "why not ASP.Net?". Because it's what I originally built the ADWA project with and it was easier to restructure it than start over, and my ASP.Net skills aren't quite up to that task yet. In any case, it works, and does what the customer wants it to do, which is a nice thing.
It just goes to show, to me at least, that you never know what's around the next corner.
Friday, 15 June 2012
I'm not a professional writer, well, actually, that's not true. I have written a few (e)books for sale on Amazon, so I guess that makes me a professional, even though I don't earn enough to make a car payment from that, it still helps. However, I did spend a week in Orlando (thank you to my company president for sending me! very much appreciated!), attending the Microsoft TechEd 2012 conference.
Today, my colleagues and I boarded our Southwest flight back home to Norfolk airport and on to Virginia Beach. The picture below is from the Orlando airport food court near gate 102. It's a very nicely designed airport and the birds flying around the inside are a nice touch (none of them bombed us, as far as I could tell).
Key Take-aways for me:
- My skills are getting dated
- The changes coming with the 2012 products are vast and diverse
- Microsoft is changing their direction in some very surprising ways
- My skills are getting dated, but so are everyone else's now
Like many attendees, I flew in on Sunday, got to my hotel and immediately went on a hunt for food and beer. It was HOT and HUMID, as is expected in Florida in June. I walked a mile to meet up with my team mates at their hotel (we were booked in separate places due to timing), and I lost about 10 lbs from sweat along the way.
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| Hotel Room - Day 1 |
Just for the record: The Wyndham Orlando Resort hotel is not a place I'd recommend you stay. The staff is very nice and helpful, but the facilities are falling apart. My door lock was busted and took a few hours to get fixed. Then my phone went out. They have no free breakfast, or Wi-Fi access, so you have to plug into the phones to go wired, and they never worked the entire time I was there. The door didn't shut tight either. At least the air conditioning worked well enough.
I rehydrated at Miller's Ale House on International Drive, where I enjoyed the Ossobuco dinner special, and was left speechless at how damn good it was.
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| (Ossobuco, already half-eaten) |
Afterwards, I had to grab a taxi back to my hotel because I didn't feel like walking another mile-and-a-half in 95 F heat and sticky humidity. The $5 fare was worth it.
Day 1 - Registration, Breakfast, Keynote, Sessions, Lunch, Sessions and Beer
First stop was registration. Sign in. Pick up my badge and backpack. Stuff my things into the backpack and head for breakfast. Twenty or so lines were opened up with a cheering staff (I'm not kidding) pointing us to the shortest lines to pile up eggs, bacon, sausage, fruit, pastries, juices, milk and so on. Then we fan out to one of a hundred or so group tables to chow down. Afterwards, it was comparing schedules with colleagues and new friends, coffee and heading over to the keynote session.
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| Registration (not yet full, but would be full soon after) |
The Keynote
It was a lot of emphasis on Azure cloud services, new scalable features in Windows Server 2012, and new capabilities in Visual Studio 2012. Lot's of comparison's of the new Hyper-V features against "the competition" as well.
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| Keynote session |
WCL327 - Maximizing Windows 7 Performance: Troubleshooting Tips - Johan Arwidmark
What can I say? Any session Johan presents is going to be good, and worth attending. It was. I learned a ton and enjoyed quite a few laughs.
Lunch - (chomp chomp, slurp, mumble, burp, repeat...)
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| Lunch (or Breakfast) |
WCL309 - What's New in Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2012 (MDT) - Michael Niehaus
While a lot was said about Windows 8 deployment support, MDT 2012 packs a ton of improvements and features to help with Windows 7 deployments as well. Michael always does a fantastic job of presenting.
WCL302 - Alphabet Soup Deployment: From AIK to ZTI - Migrating from Windows XP to Windows 7 Using Nothing But Free Tools - Stephen Rose
This was more of a broad overview of the options available to replace legacy deployment tools like Symantec Ghost, with AIK (ADK), MDT, DISM, and WDS. Not really technically deep in any one technology, but just enough to provide a reason to consider dumping your legacy (costly) products to at least try out the free alternatives Microsoft provides.
After the last session ended at 6:00 PM, the expo floor opened up. That means vendor frenzy. Free food, drinks. Swag and goodies to fill up your backpack.
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| Beer! |
Day 2 - Breakfast, Vitamins, Water, Sessions, More Food and Beer
Another Keynote? Nope. I went to the Hands-On Labs area to work with App-V 5.0. Even though it's still "beta" and a little rough, it's a huge improvement over 4.x from what I saw. The customer I work with now is looking to implement App-V and I'm glad they never deployed 4.x since that means no need to co-exist or migrate.
WCL303 - Microsoft Desktop Virtualization: The Right Technology for Your Business Scenario - Karri Alexion-Tiernan and Skand Mittal
This was also more of a high-level scope coverage of App-V, UE-V, MED-V (very little on that however), RemoteApp, and VDI. Most of the demos were on App-V, UE-V and RemoteApp. They also spent quite a bit of time demoing the VDI features in Windows Server 2012, which look really nice (and powerfully simple too).
Lunch - I'm a sloppy eater. I will spare you the details.
WCL382 - Deploying Windows 8 with the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit - Michael Niehaus
The name says it all. It was a very good session. Michael also discussed upcoming changes in "Update 1" for MDT 2012 and future "wishlist" features as well.
SIA312 - What's New in Active Directory in Windows Server 2012 - Dean Wells
Dean reminds me so much of Ricky Gervais, more in speaking, tone, humor and body movement than physical looks, that I had to keep reminding myself it wasn't Ricky doing the presentation. Thankful he was funny, because this was a very deep dive into AD and LDAP, Kerberos, bug fixes, RID services, FSMO management, and much more. The room was packed and it was one of the larger rooms. I put Dean on my list of favorite presenters to follow in the future.
SIA311 - Sysinternals Primer: Gems - Aaron Margosis
Great slice of Sysinternals tools which are often overlooked. Aaron is a funny guy and does a fantastic job in front of a large audience. Bonus: Mark Russinovich dropped in and sat directly in front of me. I still need to pick up the Sysinternals Toolkit book they both co-authored.
Expo Floor. Food. Beer. Vendor Party at Ice Bar. Interesting place made (almost) entirely of ice. The bar, the walls, the seats and decor. Even the drink glasses are ice. One free (tiny) drink. Meh.
I dropped my backpack off at the hotel where my colleagues were staying (because it was closer to the party location). Afterwards, I couldn't find a cab, so I walked the 1.5 mile stretch along International Drive to my hotel. I think I worked off the beer and food.
Day 3 - Breakfast, Sessions, Lunch, Sessions, Expo, Food, Beer again
SIA402 - How to (un)Destroy Your Active Directory - Ralf Wigand
Ralf is surprising. A renown MVP, he has a classic German accent, but he's very soft spoken. That soft-spoken demeanor delivers some seriously powerful information. He's also very funny. If you get a chance to attend one of his presentations, do it. I learned a lot about common errors and some not-so-common errors that can screw up an otherwise functional AD environment. Even better, he focused on 2008 R2 AD, rather than all 2012, so it was information everyone could put to use "now".
SIA316 - Windows Server 2012 Dynamic Access Control Best Practices and Cast Study Deployments in Microsoft IT - Brian Puhl
This was surprising for me for a few reasons:
- Brian was very candidate about the challenges inside of managing Microsoft's internal IT operations
- DAC is not a cure for all security management needs
- DAC is not a replacement for security groups
- DAC is a good enhancement to using security groups by extending a policy-driven approach to implementing template-based access management with delegation.
I really had a weak understanding of DAC before this because I had only read up on the capabilities alone. I had not seen any documented results of actual usage in production environments. This was an eye-opener for sure.
Lunch (you know the rest)
WCL404 - Turn PowerShell Commands into Reusable CLI and GUI Tools - Don Jones
Wow! Don is such a fantastic speaker and presenter. This was only my second time seeing him at TechEd, and I saw him again in a later session (read later). Don covered a lot of aspects of PowerShell, what it is, what it isn't, and provided some great demos of building out a reusable function cmdlet, and then provided a brief overview of creating GUI forms using either WPF or Windows Forms.
BOF11-ITP - Windows PowerShell Best Practices - Ed Wilson and Don Jones
This session was packed into a very small room, which was kind of dumb planning on the logistics side. Not the fault of Ed or Don though. This was essentially a free-for-all, stand-up, un-scripted (pardon the pun) session where the speakers interacted with the audience to share ideas, challenges, methods, tips and resources among each other. The session was also broadcast live on Channel 9 (and other outlets?). I was in the back of the room, leaning on the door next to Jeffrey Hicks.
I was going to attend a session at this point but ran over to the HOL area instead, to play with App-V 5.0 some more.
Day 4 - Final Day - Breakfast, Sessions, Lunch, more Sessions, Closing Party
WCL325 - Raiders of the Elevated Token: Understanding User Account Control and Session Isolation - Raymond Comvalius
I really didn't expect to learn a lot from this session because I foolishly believed I already had a firm grasp of how UAC and sessions work in Windows 7. I was wrong. Raymond gave a very good presentation with demos and explanations of how each piece of the process works. It was well worth sitting in on this one. Raymond has a soft voice and a Dutch accent that fools you into thinking he's going to go easy on the crowd.
Lunch
WCL290 - Microsoft Application Virtualization 5.0: Introduction - Andy Cerat
This session covered some gaps from the WCL303, but in all, they each fit together to provide a fairly good picture of App-V 5.0. Andy ran through several demos to show how the new web-based management interface works, how to create and import packages, apply access controls, publish and unpublish packages, and refreshing clients. He also demonstrated Connections and Extensions and how they work to make a more integrated and cohesive experience for users. I'm looking forward to App-V 5.0 projects.
Lunch - More obscene sloppiness and lost fingers
Hands-On Labs
WCL301 - Case of the Unexplained 2012: Windows Troubleshooting with Mark Russinovich
Anyone who's been to TechEd knows Mark's "Case of..." session is the biggest attendee draw of the week. It was packed. They should have booked this in the main keynote hall rather than the regular "large" room they used. I can't do this justice in my own words, so just trust me that if you haven't been to one of his sessions, and you get the chance to go to one in the future, do it.
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| Mark Russinovich at TechEd 2012 |
I was planning on attending WCL402 (App Compat for Nerds, Chris Jackson), but I was so burned out from walking and being squished in the room during Mark's session, that I had to take a breather and get ready for the closing party...
Closing Party: Universal Studios Theme Park
They closed the park to everyone else except TechEd attendees from 7:00 pm until roughly midnight. I started off with pizza, and a Coke, then moved on to beer, and roamed the park. This is a fairly large park and you can wander for a long time. It's an interesting place. I've been to Busch Gardens, Williamsburg, Disney World, and Universal Studios Theme Park in Los Angeles, as well as Elitch Gardens in Denver. This park has some very new attractions which were fantastic: The Harry Potter Adventure and The Hulk. I also ran through the Amazing Spiderman
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| Hogwarts - Harry Potter Adventure |
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| The Hulk (part of it) |
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| Getting on The Hulk |
Leaving the park was a sad moment, but it also meant I was closer to getting back home to my family and my dog Lucky.
Today, my colleagues and I boarded our Southwest flight back home to Norfolk airport and on to Virginia Beach. The picture below is from the Orlando airport food court near gate 102. It's a very nicely designed airport and the birds flying around the inside are a nice touch (none of them bombed us, as far as I could tell).
Conclusion
It was a good year this time. I think the Orange County Convention Center worked out better than the Georgia World Congress Center (Atlanta, 2011) did. It made it much easier getting around from one session to the next, and the single central hall works better for sharing an expo, food and lab space with plenty of room to spare.
The buses all ran on time and I never had a problem getting to or from the event and my hotel or Universal's park. The closing party was fantastic as well. I met some interesting and impressive people throughout the week. In all, if you haven't been to TechEd before, and you work with Microsoft products, services or technologies, or even if you are just curious about them, I highly recommend it. It's just such an overwhelming deluge of useful information, demos and perspectives that your head will hurt after the first few days.
Cheers!
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