Thursday, October 28, 2010

Any Twin Cities folks out there?

I've got a friend looking for a Linux and VMWare ESX guru if anyone's looking for a job with those skill sets in the Twin Cities area.  You can drop me a line at wmnug at yahoo dot com and I'll try to hook you up.

BrainShare 2011 - Call for Papers

Novell send out the announcement for the call for Session Proposals today.  In case you didn't get such an email, here's what I received:


Dear Mary,
Call for Session Proposals Open Until December 17

The time has come to begin accepting and reviewing session proposals for BrainShare 2011 in Salt Lake City.  The Call for Papers (CFP) will be open from now through December 17, 2010 (5:00 PM MST).  If you have a proposed topic which you believe would be of value to our attendees, please submit it by going to www.novell.com/brainshare and clicking on the “Call for Papers” link.

BrainShare will have a strong emphasis on technical sessions. Preference will be given to the sessions that are more technical in nature and are focused on an intermediate to advance audience.

We are excited to review your session ideas. Year after year, our content continues to improve. We are confident that this upcoming event will be the best ever!

If you have any questions, please contact us at news@novellbrainshare.com.

Thank you,

The BrainShare Team

If you've had a successful project that you'd like to brag about I'd suggest putting in a paper.  A presentation at BrainShare not only looks good on a resume, it gets you some perks no other attendees get.  I'm debating myself, several things are up in the air at the moment and I'm not sure anyone really wants/needs to hear me yakking on.  I'm pretty sure you all got your fill of me at GWAVACon for three years in a row. 

But seriously, if you have a really cool way to do something in Linux, or VM, or ZEN, consider doing a presentation.  And if you'd had a successful migration project that you're willing to share with others give it some consideration, there are those of us out here that would love to hear of your success.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

GWAVACon Early Bird Registration and 2-for-1 deal

GWAVACon is in Torrance, California this year.  In January.  Not a bad place to be when it's bitterly cold in the MidWest.  I won't be making it this year (unless some Fairy Godperson picks up the tab for me), but it's something you don't want to miss if you have GroupWise in your environment.

I've presented there in the past and always learn something new from the people who've attended my sessions, as well as the rest of the folks attending the event. It's a lot like BrainShare, just more focused on GroupWise and third party solutions.

GWAVA's offering a couple of different discount options for the next few days.  I suggest you check it out.  And if you're not from the West Coast, stay an extra day and hit up DisneyLand.  Check out RiverBell Terrace.  I spent many hours in that polyester costume helping pay for college and learning how to make Mickey Mouse Pancakes.

And stay tuned for some news on OneCommunity Norm O'Neal's brainchild as well as OpenHorizons MidWest.

Friday, October 22, 2010

NSM 3.0

I love keeping one foot in the partner space!  It gets me access to all sorts of specialized webinars and extra training options.

I just got off of a webinar with Doug Ouzts (boy I hope I spelled that right!) from Condrey Consulting regarding the new NSM 3.0.  Best thing: feature parity between the AD and eDir versions.  Tough part: those of you who haven't upgraded to 2.5 yet will have a 2-step process to migrate to 3.0.  And yes, it is a migration not an upgrade.

If you are currently running on NetWare, you'll want to wait to go to 3.0 until you've got your OES2-Linux servers in place for storage prior to migrating to 3.0.  Don't be shy about upgrading to 2.5 first though as they'll be supporting this version for the foreseeable future.  And if you're considering the move to all Windows servers rather than Linux you'll really be happy with the collaborative space policies now available for AD.

Of course, my suggestion (should you still be on NetWare) is to take advantage of the planned move off of NetWare and take the opportunity to redesign your file storage architecture at the same time.  Something along the lines of all home drives go on ServerX and all shared space goes on ServerY.  Something that will make it a lot easier to implement an IDM solution if you don't already have on in place.  It's easier to keep track of, the IDM policies can be more streamlined, and the NSM policies will be a piece of cake to put together.

Just a reminder that Novell isn't just about NetWare - unlike Microsoft - their products DO play well with others.

Have a great Fall (or whatever season it may be in your area of the globe) weekend!

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

SmartPhones Project

"My" SmartPhones project at work has finally been approved to move forward.  It was put on hold for a bit due to lack of resources, and now I finally get to put the Data Synchronizer for Mobility into my environment.  Woo-hoo!  Bad news, is that I don't have a phone to test it with.  BlackBerry devices aren't supported and I got mine in order to support our BES users, even though I'm not allowed to attach my personal device to our BES.

I'm still thrilled to have a chance to get my hands on this new product and see what it can really do.  There are Droid and iPhone users around, so I'll have a group that can test it out for me.  If it's a slick as the beta showed it to be, I'm expecting a successful launch and happy users at last.  Okay, so they may not all be happy, but the majority will be happier.

Monday, October 11, 2010

NDAs are actually pretty cool!

Anyone who's been around IT long enough, understands what I mean when I say NDA...at least those from the West/East Coast seem to know off the top of their heads. For those that might be scratching their heads or still fairly new to the game an NDA is a Non-Disclosure Agreement.

I've been involved with plenty of them in my career, but only my current employer has ever given me authorization to sign one myself.  So I did. Today as matter of fact.  But, as I have no paper trail (just an email one), I figured I'd post that I was told "You may sign it." for my own CYA.

And yes, if you should ask me about something that's involved with an NDA, I will simply say "I don't know" or "I haven't heard anything about that" (okay, so I'd probably really say "squat" instead of "anything").  Because I believe in NDAs, I'm happy to sign them. I've even been the one who's asked someone else to sign an NDA before (this was long-long-long-ago and the company's defunct so I figure I can say that now).

Luckily for me, nothing I've "chatted" with execs about lately have anything to do with NDAs.  But I'll still keep the Oreo story between Alan Nugent and myself to a select few; even though I smile every time I think of it.  Although, I'm more than happy to tell people how I first met John Dragoon and badgered him into sending me a Novell USB stick.  BTW, John (in case you ever read this), I have kept the note you wrote (by hand) and am trying to find a suitable frame for it.  It's one of my most favorite "prizes".

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

John Dragoon made me smile today

So it was over an email dialogue, but still he made me smile.  He usually does, even when he's *picking* on me.  He does have a great sense of humor though, it goes well with his gig at Novell.

And he shows his business acumen in a recent Forbes article, that Norm O'Neal of Integrity Networks in Indiana and Open Horizons MidWest kindly linked up on FaceBook earlier today.  I suggest you read it, and I posted it on my LinkedIn profile as well.

What Is Creativity's Value--In Marketing, In Business? - Forbes.com

The other thing that you may/may not have noticed recently is the lack of buzz about the potential sale of Novell - or it's parts.  It's been a nice break for me, not having to answer so many questions.  And I've been invited to apply to be part of an advisory group for the Collaboration team at Novell.  Both of which is good news to my ears, as all I've been hearing around the office lately is SharePoint.

Now perhaps we can get those odd issues we've had with GroupWise of late resolved.  Like when clicking on a message to reply - it changes itself to a Posted Appointment, or the visual one that pops up on Windows 7 for some, but not all users, under the GW 8.01 HP3 and 8.0.2 client where appointments don't scroll but rather repeat. (I can post a jpg if anyone needs to see what I'm trying to describe).  Other than those few odd quirks it's been pretty quiet on the Novell front of late.