Lotusphere Wrap Up

I had great hopes of kicking off my blogging career from Lotusphere... then I got there and was too busy learning, networking and having fun to get around to it... so here's my session wrap up for the week. (I'll try to post personal highlights in a later post.)

Best Technical Sessions for My Job

• JMP 102 - An Introduction To All Things IBM Lotus Domino Clustering - Gabriella Davis
• BP 407 - What Your Servers are Trying to Tell You Now: The (Even) Easier Route to IBM Lotus Domino Reporting & Logging - Gabriella Davis
• JMP 101 - Administration for the Developer - Installing and Configuring Your Own IBM Lotus Domino Server Playground! - Jess Straton

Best Managerial Sessions for My Job

• BP 103 Managing the System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) with IBM Lotus Notes and Domino - Chris Byrne & Deb Latter
• ID 401The Boss Loves Microsoft: Where Does That Leave Lotus? - Ed Brill

Most Entertaining Session

• BP 106 - Worst Practices in IBM Lotus Domino - Learning from the Mistakes of Others - Bill Buchan, Paul Mooney

Best Mind Expanding Sessions

• BP 313 - Practical DXL for LotusScript - IBM Lotus Domino Developers Using DXL in the Real World - Rocky Oliver
• AD 216 - AJAX and IBM Lotus Domino - The Cleanest, Slickest Sites in Town - The Turtle
• JMP 204 - The Hitchhikers Guide to Microsoft Office Integration with IBM Lotus Notes and Domino - John Head
• BP 301 - Accessibility for the Visually Impaired - Devin Olson

Best Community Sessions

• BP 105 OpenNTF: Learn How OpenNTF Open Source Solutions Can Save You Time, Money and Your Hair - Bruce Elgort
• BOF 104 OpenNTF - An Open Source Community
• CS 104 Reach Out and Blog! - Panel Discussion - Libby Ingrassia, Jack Dausman, Chris Byrne, Volker Weber, Declan Lynch, Ed Brill, Rocky Oliver
• BOF 105 The IBM Lotus Blogging Community

Neatest Thing in Product Showcase (That relates to my job)

• Idokorro - Mobile Admin / Mobile SSH - Windows Server/Active Directory/Citrix/Oracle/Domino administration from a Hand Held Device

Neatest Giveaway in the Product Showcase (That I got - didn't win anything this year and missed out on a set of Dominos from HADSL)

• The Agilysys/VMWare personal fans that spell out stuff in LCD while running
  
  

Highpoint of Lotusphere 2005

Poking around in my Picasa library and found this. The highlight of last year's conference for me. The plasma looks great over the fireplace. 

New Hardware

This year I'm bringing new hardware to play with at Lotusphere. I've got a new Dell Axim X51v to browse the net and check messages while in session, I've got a Linksys WTR54GS travel router so I can have wireless in my room (this thing is cool, fits in the palm of your hand and has its own little travel case), I've also got a dinky little cheap digital camera that BellSouth was giving away as a promotional item.... I've played around with it but it's really not up to use as a replacement for my digital camera... but it will work as a web cam. I've downloaded software and I'll see if I've got any kind of view from my hotel room window in the Dolphin. I've had a great view 2 out of the past 3 years ... but last year my room looked out on the roof of the lobby. We'll see.

I've also got a mini-cooler that plugs into the cigarette lighter attachment in the car (or the wall) to keep a few beverages cold... it's not very big but it should work for the trip down at least.

Gearing Up for Lotusphere2006

After reading the blogs of other Lotuspherians for the past year. I'm finally making the plunge myself.

I don't know that I've got that much to say or that anyone will be interested in reading it but oh well.

I've spent the day gearing up for this year. I can't say I'm as excited about driving down to Orlando as a usually am. I just got back from a week there with the family the first week in January. I don't see how this year's conference can quite live up to last years standards for me... because last year I won the 42" plasma TV in the showcase prize drawing. So remember folks... get those cards stamped and turn them in because it can happen to you too.