Archive
User Groups Attract Visitors…and how technology saved my shoulder…
So in past blogs I’ve mentioned the possibilities of creating your own special interest groups, or user groups. I’ve done so with the San Luis Obispo .NET User Group. One of the byproducts of that is an ability to use your group’s contacts for a chance to do some good for the community. I had this opportunity recently when the Code Trip, Microsoft’s bus trip featuring its new technologies, tried to come to town. When a visit to CalPoly fell through due to scheduling issues, Woody Pewitt from Microsoft contacted me seeking help with a place to park the bus. I put him in touch with Randy Scovial and Cuesta College, and the Code Trip stopped in for a successful visit this past Monday, with two sessions for students and a general session that night that attracted over 40 local technology professionals. You can read more about the trip, including its visit to SLO, at its website.
The picture of the bus is from outside the Moscone Center in San Francisco, where I went this week for VSLive, a technology conference. I caught up with the Code Trippers there, and they interviewed me along with a bunch of other technology people, asking if they knew about the Code Trip.
They also asked me about my ultra mobile PC, my new toy that I got for just this reason. I spend a bit of time at conferences, and I am sick to death of carrying around the 40 lb deadweight that is my Laptop and its accompanying bag. So I picked up one of these:
An Ultra Mobile PC. It is hand held, has a 7″ screen, runs Windows XP Tablet, and has built in wireless capabilities. And most importantly, it weights only a couple of lbs. It was heaven! I picked up some accessories so that when I had table space I could set it up almost like a regular PC:
including a folding keyboard like you would use for a PDA. But it works perfectly fine on its own, with a stylus for its touchpad and a fairly easy to use thumb keyboard split on either side of the unit. I got a lot of inquiries about this neat little toy. I even held a meeting in my car, over the phone, using this on my Verizon Broadband connection!
If you do a lot of traveling this is the toy for you.
Robert Hope, founder
San Luis Obispo .NET User Group
Past and Present Events
So as my involvement in the community has grown I get to attend some pretty cool events. The latest was the EVC Venture Capital Event this past Tuesday, March 19th, at the Madonna Expo Center. I’ve got this neat idea that I don’t want to put out there in public too too much, but if you know my background you wouldn’t be surprised to find that it is a new web site idea. But it’s only an idea, so I went with my little placard of mockups, some business cards, and a fact sheet, and crossed my fingers that some angel investor might write me a check.
That went ok. What was interesting, however, was the level of technology that is being developed here on the Central Coast. Aeromech, who will be presenting at the next Softec meeting, builds Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) for both commercial and military applications. They were in the booth on my left. Phoenix is looking to upgrade the Kit airplane to a “sexy” two seater plane that actually kneels so you can get in like a car. They were in the booth on my right. Fleet Management Solutions, who does asset tracking via GPS, a company that is building the next electric car, and New Image Technologies’ Elements, a custom networking website platform, and another company doing specialized wireless video, were all there. And while I was personally outclassed, I was also amazed and proud to be part of the tech industry here in SLO County and beyond. There’s a lot of great stuff going on around here if you know where to look. Hopefully you will all come to the Softec meeting and see Aeromech in person. It’s well worth the visit.
In addition, Microsoft’s CodeTrip will be coming to Cuesta College on March 31st. CodeTrip is basically a bunch of code geeks on a bus, touring the West Coast in support of some new, really cool Microsoft technologies. Through my contacts via the San Luis Obispo .NET User Group, we were able to get them to visit us here in SLO on their way from LA to SF, where they will be stopping by VSLive the first week of April.
They will be giving presentations to student classes and then holding a general session at 6 pm at the school. Another great opportunity to expose yourself to the great technologies available to you.
Hope to see you there,
Robert Hope
Founder, San Luis Obispo .NET User Group
Tom Brokaw at the Microsoft 2008 Launch Event Celebrates Technology Heroes
It’s not often that you hear people who are involved in technology referred to as “heroes”. Most of us are just techno-geeks trying to do the best we can. And while I don’t necessarily drink the kool-aid as far as those of us who are using the newer Microsoft technologies being called heroes, I have to say I was struck by Tom Brokaw’s opinion of what technology has meant to our world and our society.
I went to Microsoft’s Los Angeles Launch Event 2008 this past week in celebration of the release of their three new products, Windows Server 2008, Sql Server 2008, and Visual Studio 2008. Lots of great advances, lots of awesome stuff, and their theme was “Heroes Happen Here”. By that, they mean that the people who are using these new technologies are the heroes of technology.
But Tom’s keynote speech (I was actually surprised when he came out on the stage at the Nokia Theater) revolved around what technology has meant to people in other parts of the world. He admitted to not being very computer savvy…and admitted he would probably never write a line of code with Visual Studio, or manage a Hyper-V Virtual Server Farm…but he did recall the importance of technology in making our world smaller, and hopefully better. He talked about the people who went to Pakistan to help during their last devastating earthquake, and how that when they came down from hiking into the deep mountains they were able to put fingers to keyboard and let the world know what had happened. He talked about how technology was helping to improve farming, and irrigation, and what that meant to the lives of people living in Africa. He talked about surgeries being led remotely by doctors via videoconferencing. I can’t recall all the stories he told, but they all held essentially the same meaning: that the people, the programmers, the administrators, all of us who help make technology what it is, and make it available to the true heroes of the world, we all have a stake and a helping hand in that heroism, and he wanted to thank us.
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO, gave the rest of the keynote address as the event moved from true heroism into our own personal versions of “code heroes”…but what Tom Brokaw said does ring true. Technology helps in ways that sometimes we never know about, and our role in that is crucial, and we shouldn’t take for granted what we do with it. We’re all heroes.
Be welcome and true.
Rob Hope 