Swordie Bloggie

On Thursday (24th April 2008), I attended Microsoft’s HEROES HAPPEN HERE { } CONFERENCE at Le Meridien Kota Kinabalu. They presented 2 tracks, Sales Track and Technical Track, from 9.00am to 5.00pm which runs at the same time.

Normally I will attend Technical Track, but this time I choose to attend the Sales Track. It’s not that I want to become a salesman or wanted to start a business… well, maybe one day Two reasons, first I want to taste what is Sales Track about and who knows what the sales people presented to us later are not what Microsoft told them. Secondly, the topics are more interesting in Sales Track like licensing, Visual Studio 2008…

 
Two of the presenters. They one at the right showcases his 9 devices which make work with Microsoft more productive.

 
Other then the usual food, Le Meridien gives Smarties as their trademark I guess, coz every time come here, they give Smarties.

 
Our lunch was at the pool side. Unfortunately, the sun moves faster then we eat…

I was quite lucky this time. I answered a question and got myself a notebook backpack… but the backpack is last year TechEd SEA’s backpack… I have one already… so, I gave it to Darius since he did not attend last year TechEd.

During the morning sessions lucky draw, we did not win any prize.

Afternoon session, I think because of the Yee Sang I ate, I won my self a document bag made of lather hopefully this is the sign I will win the $6 million jackpot

The most wanted prize we want was the Vista Ultimate… a lady actually won it in the lucky draw, but she opted for a cheap backpack which is not part of the lucky draw price. She don’t want a ‘second’ Vista Ultimate since she already got one from answering question… I’m soooo speechless lah…

Since lunch is not provided, for those who are going to attend the MSDN in the afternoon have to look for lunch themselves… fast… because the morning session, TechNet, finished at 12.00pm and the afternoon session, MSDN, will start at 12.30pm… something really wrong with the programming!

Me and colleague, Darius, decided to eat at the hotel since we (and everyone else) have no choice but to eat at the hotel’s restaurant. And the great part… 4 ‘ladies’ piggy-back us to our table… ‘kita ikut saja di blakang si tim, nanti dia bayar…’. Wahh… clever lah u all… Lucky I brought my credit card along… if not you all ‘cuci piring’

 
We all decided to take the set lunch… cheap cheap… only $10.90++
As usual, I will order the most ‘ganjil’… something I never try Ordered the ‘Braised Oyster with Black Moss and rice’.

Then I noticed at the board… wah… got Yee Sang lah… but we are not really sure until the waiter brought the Yee Sang,.. well, according to the waitress, we got the Yee Sang because we are in one table… dono, maybe more than 4 people maybe… did not bother to ask… just take only lah… . . . Continue Reading »

Today was the Microsoft TechNet & MSDN Conference at Berjaya Palace Hotel, Kota Kinabalu. From the beginning I had the feeling that this conference is really trying to cut cost. The place was not really a nice place. Food was not provided like normally Microsoft does… only coffee and tea although the program is from 8.30am to 4.00pm. Talking to the other attendees, they agree Microsoft is going ‘cheap’.

Anyway, the conference contents are not that bad although I’m bit bored and made worse with some of the ‘new’ presenters. I guess, the presenters used this to do their ‘practical presentations training’… again, the other attendees agreed that Microsoft send ‘kids’ this time… They are ‘knowledgeable’ but their presentations gave no impact… too dry.

. . . Continue Reading »

I received an email from Microsoft last Friday… invitation for the coming Microsoft TechEd 2008 SEA conference. Actually I come to know about it earlier when Darius informed me about the coming TechNet early last week.

The Super Early Bird Registration Offer is until end of this month for $649. But if you’ve attended last year Microsoft TechEd 2007 SEA, you can use the $50 coupon voucher so the fee will be $599 only.

This evening, I registered myself… but unfortunately I could not find my coupon voucher… so I paid $649 using my Master Credit Card online.

If you like to attend the coming Microsoft TechEd 2008 SEA at KLCC from 11 to 14 August 2008, you should register by 31st January 2008 so that you will get the Super Early Bird Registration Offer at $649. Two of my friends already registered this evening… Microsft should give another ‘award’ coz I manage to drag another two people with me this year, hopefully more … last year I manage to ‘convince’ 4 others to follow…

My whole week was occupied with assisting other colleagues with the accounting system… on going system development discussions… and setting up 2 servers… what a week…

Last week I said I needed to setup 3 servers but then decided for 1 server only… well, on that week, decided to order a new smaller server… still Xeon but smaller… HP DL140 G3… I don’t want to waste the HP DL380 G5.

The DL380 has 8 hard disk slot and 2U thick… the Dl140 has 2 hard disk and 1U thick.

It arrived this week… when I wanted to set it up… things turn ugly… no CD drive… damm… how the heck I’m going to install the Windows 2003 Server?… then it turn uglier… the supplier said it will take… 10 bloody days to get the slim height CD drive!!! Actually, I can use external CD drive to do the installations… but decided not to do it…

I decided to use one of the XP machine as a temporary License Manger for the ESRI GIS apps… which turn OK and work fine but of course not recommended for long run.

Then setting up the server with the real ESRI GIS server apps…. Windows 2003 Server + ESRI… manage to complete the Windows 2003 Server setup by Thursday… then, when installing the ESRI… then only I realized I’ve installed the 32bit Windows 2003 Server instead of 64bit… shooott… It’s like putting a kancil spark-plug into Farrari!… But decide to continue with the ESRI installation anyway… This one also did not work smoothly… got ‘bells’ here and there… but what the heck… I’m going to re-do the whole server again anyway.

Completed the ESRI installation by lunch time…

Microsoft TechNet & MSDN Briefing is coming to town again! I’m glad that Microsoft will be back to KK. Microsoft has been shying KK for the past few years. Maybe it’s because of the cost… or maybe it’s because of the market here.

Personally, I consider Microsoft TechNet & MSDN Briefing as very important to IT professional since it is one of the sources for updating us with the latest news from Microsoft other than giving us some ideas on planning and deploying Microsoft latest technology.

On Tuesday the second day of the course, it jsut like usual. On the first day, I copied the 2 Microsoft Virtual PC hard disk into my notebook, the 2 VPCs are for Windows 2003 Server and Windows XP. Today I use my notebook to do all the tests and exercises. The PC is quite slow, the processor is Intel desktop 4k series I guess and the RAM is only 2GB… and I think the processor don’t support virtualization. That is just nice to run the 2 virtual PCs… but not nice enough. My 2 year old notebook can do it better and I just reinstalled a fresh VISTA after testing the VISTA for about 30 days.

About lunch time, my colleague, Darius, received a call from the office, there is problem with the accounting system… dammmmm… in fact I received a not very happy SMS about something else earlier… and now added with this problem… crappp… So during lunch time at 1pm, we did not go for lunch, instead we headed to our office. Darius and I tried to find the problem… we did found the reason of the problem… but it was not solved since we need to rely on the system developer, Noraini, to fix the bugs.

So, there was no lunch… on the way to the class about 2pm, I bought a can of Winter Melon drinks and 2 packets of roasted banana slice (not sure if that is the name… krepek pisang goreng). That was our lunch, and we ate that during the class… and as usual, we always share our food with the class.

Although it was raining last night, this morning is not and it just cloudy. Yesterday training at HQ was not bad. And yes, I know the lecturer, he is the one taught us in CWNA last September. Like I mentioned before in my CWNA posting, the lecturer is knowledgeable thus making everyone not to fall asleep… This time it’s Active Directory. What is Active Directory or AD? Err… it is a directory service from Microsoft. It runs in Windows 2003 Server.

The only problem when having course or training at your ‘home ground’, the participants tends to break the general rule… they keep going out as they like… from ‘going to the wash room’ to ‘going to the bank’!. I pity at the lecturer because he has to remind them not to go out as they like.

That’s why I prefer the course to be conducted at their training centre at Karamunsing like before. Now we will be stuck here for the next few days until Friday… hopefully everyone will behave and gain knowledge… but it is up to them lah… not others problem… if they already clever, clever lah…

 oppppss…. it’s raining already… but drizzling only.

I still have a few more things about TechEd… on the first day, September 10, after spending our time at the exhibition hall, I attendend my first class… Steve Riley’s class Making the Trade-off: Be Secure or Get Work done @ 4.30pm… I never miss any of his class since TechEd 2003.

TechEd Fest is at 7.30pm.

To be continued…