Large Scale Geek Assault

Moscone Center wasn’t big enough for the whole conference this year. With a record 17,000+ attendees, the halls were crowded and the lines to sessions were quite long — especially the first couple of days. I think a larger venue is in order for years to come. Not sure where they can go, though.

I was unable to get in to a couple of sessions the first day, but managed to fill in some of that time with work in the labs (more no those later). Overall, though, I was able to cram in enough sessions to make it well worth the trip. My main problem was trying to narrow down my focus. This year, I tried to stick to sessions dealing with Troubleshooting and Best Practices.

In all, I took notes in 13 sessions and sat through 8 lab sessions. Not bad for a New-V?

Notes and Power Outlets

I made a good call and picked up a small netbook computer to take with me in lieu of my larger T61 ThinkPad. The longer battery life on the netbook (more info on it later) allowed me to skip the power outlets when racing to my next session. Still, I tried to conserve power by putting it into sleep or hibernate as much as possible during and between sessions. I uploaded my notes to my Dropbox account so I would have a backup.

Why was this a good call? Because there were a lot of people there with larger laptops suckling power from the outlets wherever they could be found. On the third day of the conference I found a small room on the second floor of Moscone West with a sign in front stating “VCP Lounge.” Assuming I would have to prove I held a VCP certification, I quickly pulled up my transcript on my Droid, then walked in. Turns out no one was checking, so I sat down, plugged in and caught up on some work e-mail whcih had accumulated over the first part of the week.

Food

The food provided at the conference was hit or miss. The breakfast area in Moscone West was huge and never seemed full when I was there (maybe it got busy later in the day?). They had croissants, muffins, danishes, bagels, fresh fruit, coffee and juices — everything you needed to fuel up for a morning of work in the lab which was in the same building.

I had a couple of cold boxed lunches. One was called Mediterranean Salad, which consisted of a main dish of mixed greens, veggies and a vinaigrette dressing, an apple and a sort of fruit brownie. I grabbed that box, headed over to the Yerba Buena Gardens to eat outdoors and escape the crowds. The other cold lunch was in a similar box also with a brownie bar, fruit and a sandwich. The only hot lunch I had was not very good, so I avoided the hot lunches from that point on. It consisted of overcooked fried chicken, cole slaw and a biscuit. Next year, I’ll stick to the cold lunches.

One day, I decided to escape the conference food and had a bowl of Seafood Udon at Shiki Japanese Restaurant which is across Third Street from the Moscone South building.

More to Come?

What have I missed in this first article? In the coming days I’m going to write up some articles with more detail on the following:

• My impressions of the lab environment.
• My netbook setup for the conference.
• List of labs I took and any significant notable items.
• List of sessions I attended and some of my notes from each.