Admin2008 - ND8 Upgrade Seminar - Day 3 and stuff

So like the previous two days of the Admin2008 event, day three flew by quicker then the Boeing 717 that flew us back to Akron Friday night. Friday morning started off pretty slow. Very slow actually. Being out late, (okay, late for me) at the Cactus Bar with others from our community was a hell of a lot of fun. But I was paying for it on Friday. So to finish off my training at the Admin2008, the two morning sessions really rounded it out nicely for me. "Unlocking the Power of Domino 8 Directory and Security Improvements" and "Accelerating Domino Server Upgrades and Installations While Minimizing Downtime" were both sessions that were crammed full of information that is still trickling out of my brain as we speak. Instead of finishing out the day with the last two tracks of the ND8 Upgrade Seminar, I decided to sneak out and attend Mr. Mooney's Admin Blast session and then skip the last session to say goodbyes and get to the airport on time.
I've said it before and I'll say it again about the Admin2008 conference. It's not a conference. Lotusphere is a conference. Admin2008 is training, pure and simple. Okay, it may seem like a conference. There are vendors there and events that would make one think it's a conference, but it is training through and through. The ND8 upgrade seminar that was folded into Admin2008 was a fantastic edition and I hope that next year they are able to take a track of focused information like ND8 and include that to the event. And I also hope that they sell this event as a training event, period. I feel if they do that, they could really see an increase in the numbers there.
But the one thing that is the same as Lotusphere is the community of folks you meet. Most of the bloggers that I know and follow were there and I met up with them on Wednesday and Thursday night. What a great group of people. Not an ego in the bunch. Sure, we all have our views on things but when it comes down to it, we are all pretty much alike. Which made me start to think on the plane flying home Friday night. What is it about our community that you really don't find anywhere else? I mean, do Exchange admins blog and meet up at conferences and go out for a drink? Does a Citrix Admin in.....Wales lets say have a user group meeting and invite people from all over the world to speak at it about Citrix stuff? From my perspective, we are a part of a pretty unique group of folks. And I like it! And I encourage others to become a part of it. If you are a Domino Admin or even, God forbid, a developer, start a blog and join in. Or, if you have a chance to go to an event like Lotusphere or Admin/Dev event, meet up with people and throw in your own bit of uniqueness to the collective. You don't have to blog, just take the opportunity and meet some of these people.
So as the Sunday afternoon sun makes the shadows on the back porch here grow longer, I look back on my week in Boston and know that starting tomorrow morning, I am ready to launch my ND8 upgrade project. Thanks to Andy, Chris and Rob for the fantastic information and training this week!

Admin2008 - ND8 Upgrade Seminar - Day 2

Well, since I forgot about something I had to do back at the office tonight, I figured and I would go ahead and pound out an as long as I am awake. I just got in the door from spending the evening with some of the most intelligent, funny and downright odd folks one could ever meet over at one of the local establishments. If you are wondering who some of these folks are, then you don't spend enough time at PlanetLotus.org, do you?

So another long day has drawn to a close here in Boston and I can safely say that my brain is full. That's right. No more room for anything. At least until tomorrow morning. The day was again spent attending the ND8 Upgrade track and there was really one theme that was repeated through all of the sessions. USE POLICIES. If you are not using them, use them. They allow you to lock down your environment and control how things are done across your domain. But don't think of it as being a control freak. Think of it as a way to keep things under control because it can help you down the road in your upgrades. Again, the amount of knowledge being transfered is worth the cost of this seminar. I just wish I had more time to attend some of the other sessions going on during Admin2008, but, not enough time to hit everything.
So tomorrow finishes off the seminar and then it's a quick trip to Logan and then back home. I'm sure I'll try an do a brain dump of everything that has gone on here over the weekend. For now, it's late, I'm tired and I'm hitting the sack.

G'nite, Boston. Actually, Good Morning.

Admin2008 - ND8 Upgrade Seminar - Day 1

Getting together with several hundred like minded individuals is never a bad idea. And here in Boston, the sentiment is in full force. Today's sessions started off with a keynote address given by Alistair Rennie from IBM. Now if you had been to Lotusphere in the past, you know that the OGS speeches are very well scripted and are practiced far in advanced which sometimes can make them come off as unnatural. Todays keynote was actually quite the opposite. Alister gave a very effective current state of the Notes/Domino family of products and did it in a very natural flowing way. Didn't seem scripted at all and I feel set the tone for a good start of the day. Ron Sebastian was of course along to give demos of the products. The most stunning demo was the Domino Designer 8.5. WOW! I might actually break down and do some design work at some point! I hate to make the comparison, but, it does have the Visual Studio look to it that would assist the development challenged, (Me), in making dynamic applications. So with the keynote out of the way, it was time to jump headfirst to the ND8 Upgrade seminar. Worth the price of admission. Andy Pedisich, Chris Miller and Rob Axelrod are all folks who have been there/done that/are doing it now type. In other words, doing ND8 upgrades is what they do in their day jobs. Todays sessions pretty much gave the view from 1000 feet. These are the clients, here are the new features, these are the things you need to look out for. Tomorrow, gets into the meat and potatoes of how to do the server and client upgrades.
I'm sure my brain will be hurting my lunch.
For now, it's time to do a little social networking.

Airplane, ho!

And so it begins, the trek east to Beantown. I'm sitting at Akron-Canton awaiting my flight to Boston and I have to say, I am really looking forward to the week ahead. As I've stated in the past, I used the ND6 upgrade CD's that The View had made available at the time to plan that upgrade and they really did pay off. Some hopefully seeing the ND8 Upgrade seminar live and in person will make an even stronger impact on my summer plans for an ND8 odyssey. Stay tuned for reports. Hopefully at night I will pound out an entry or two to give my impressions on the deal. As for now, I think I'm going to go find a beverage and chill.

The fun of BlackBerry and other stuff

I've been working with the BlackBerry ECL, (Emergency Contact List), application that is available from RIM for free for a while now and haven't had a lot of luck with. The browser push would work, but after a while the cache would become corrupt and the data could not be displayed. So, I kicked it up a notch and decided to push the ECL application down to the handhelds so the information would be stored locally instead of only being cached. Sounds like a good idea, right? Well, I had to learn the hard way that when you set up a new software configuration in the BlackBerry Manager and you assign that config to a user, it can take up to 4 hours for the application to be installed on the device. I, of course, had expected it to happen instantaneously and when it didn't I called support. They are good people there. After about 2 hours, the new configs started showing up on the BlackBerry's and all was right with the kingdom.

So with being the hero of the day, I decided to use the opportunity to ask for permission to go to Notes/Domino 8 upgrade seminar that is a part of Admin2008 in Boston...and it was approved! Had to remind the boss folks that the ND6 seminar cd's that we purchased from The View a couple of years ago REALLY prepared me for that upgrade. So, I now that that to look forward to.
Just hope that I don't get food poisoning at this event.