Silicon Shecky

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TechEd The Arrival

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After months of waiting it is here. TechEd North America officially starts tomorrow June 11, but when you get there a day early, there are some nice things going on.

When I landed in Orlando, I immediately got moving to the hotel. No time to laze about, the conference center was already open and getting people through the check in process. Outside of a little confusion at my hotel things went smooth. Considering I am staying at one of the official hotels, there is a free shuttle-bus that shows up in front every 10-15 minutes. Already a good start as now I won’t have to drive all the time, and incur parking fees.

Once at the convention center, there were plenty of friendly people greeting the attendees and pointing us in the direction for check in. The lines there were rather short, and inside of 10 minutes I had my badge and MsTechEd backpack. Being the first time to this conference, I decided to take a little time to get acquainted with my surroundings (something I do at any conference or convention I attend). Outside of a few pre-conference seminars, the only other area open was where check in was. In there, the TechEd store, hands on lab, and Certification testing areas were open to attendees, including a study hall for those that wish to study for their exams.

I did take the time to sit down at a Windows 8 PC, which interestingly enough did not have an internet connection to it. The layout with the tiles is somewhat slick, but I can see it becoming rather confusing the more apps and items you have, as almost everything is displayed in a tile. There are groupings for items such as games, applications etc, and a scroll bar at the bottom of the screen so one can get to the different groupings. Unfortuantely I can see someone like myself who has a large amount of applications having to do a lot of scrolling just to get to them. I did go into the Explorer mode which gave me a familiar desktop, but with no start button (which has been documented from the early betas). Through the familiar file explorer window, you can easily launch a command prompt (with or without admin rights). To get to the control panel, I had to click on the desktop in the left hand pane. Once in the control panel it was familiar as the applets are the same as Windows 7. I do plan on taking more time with Windows 8 while here, and hope to get my hands on a tablet to see the differences.

Tomorrow will start the fun. Keynote, Exam Crams, Sessions, and much more are lined up. Keep an eye here or on my twitter feed for more updates.

 

Tech-Ed 2012: Wishlist

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Here I am a week away from Tech-Ed. I am going for my first time and I am a little bit nervous. Nerves aside, there are some key things I am looking forward to and things I am hoping for.

This year’s Tech-Ed is shaping up to be fantastic. At least for someone who has spent years convincing his company to send him to the premier tech event for Microsoft Technologies. I’ve used a number of different places such as Twitter and Linked in to get information on how to best manage my time and get into sessions while there. That said there are a few key sessions I am looking forward to. Most of them hit more on the security side of things, but there are also Powershell and Windows 8 sessions and hands on labs that I have marked on my schedule.

As far as the hopeful stuff goes, there is one big thing. That is getting some real time with a Windows 8 tablet. I have an iPad from the office, along with a Blackberry phone. I have a Droid phone as my personal phone (yes, I do believe in separation of work and personal devices). I have touched 2 Windows 7.5 phones, and have thought them alright, but have not had a chance to really learn them. That is mostly due to lack of need to learn them. On the other hand if the Windows 8 tablets on x64 architecture are what they say, it could be the perfect storm for Microsoft. The melding of the tablet into the office in an elegant fashion.

The one thing I hope they did fix, is the signing certificate installs. On Windows 7.5 installing a SBS self signed cert is a pain. Its Microsoft technologies not playing nice with each other, and that needs to be fixed, otherwise Exchange integration is a failure compared to the iPad and Android.

With all the vendors, Sessions and yes, parties (a group called #TheKrew and the Jam Session are the ones I want in on), the chances to not just network, but in this day of connectivity the chance to make friends is amazing. Tech-Ed should be a site to see, and I will be tweeting and Blogging from there, so stay tuned!

Tech-Ed is almost here

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After years of pining to go to Microsoft’s Tech-Ed event, the time has come. In just a couple of weeks I’ll be going to my first one, and I am nervous and excited.

So many things going on, so much to do, and as always so little time. Between the Tech-Ed site, Twitter, and Linked in, I have to say I am impressed the the amount of support, information and tips for new Tech-Ed attendees. Even with all of that, I am still left with some questions which I will get into in a little bit.

When I convinced my office to send me to Tech-Ed I felt like I had just won the lottery. A chance to learn not only current technologies I use, but new technologies coming soon from Microsoft. then I started really looking and watching, especially on Twitter and LinkedIn. I started to panic. Did I have to sign up for sessions or was it first come, first serve? What about other things going on? What was the event hall going to have, or the Hands On Lab area? Luckily questions I posed about my anxiety were answered with good tips and links to blogs (Tech-Ed for Novices) that had guides for new Tech-Ed people.

As we are just over a week out, I still have questions though, the biggest is about the Certification Center. Can we sign up on site or do we have to buy the vouchers in advanced? I personally am planning on 2 exam-crams and 3 tests (the third exam doesn’t have a cram session at tech-ed although the official Tech-Ed twitter account dd point me to the video from last year when it was a session). I’ve been stalled on getting my Microsoft Certs for a while and a chance to knock out three exams and get my MCITP just makes me giddy.

Outside of that, I’m looking at a bunch of Security sessions, an IPV6 Bootcamp, a Crash Course in Powershell and a Session on Group Policy. Yeah its a full schedule, and I wind up flying out Thursday evening which means I’ll miss the closing party, but considering its taken me years to convince my place of business to send me to Tech-Ed, I can wait another year for the closing party.

 

I hope to meet a bunch of you there.