Wednesday, October 26, 2005

I'm A Big O'l Geek.

I've just set up my wi-fi card for my iPAQ pocket PC. So naturally I have to go to blogger and tell the whole world about it. Of course, being the geek that I am, I have to write this whole post - including html - using the handwriting recognition area. This fits in well with the two previous posts written longhand on the tablet PC I have through work. ( BTW - I still have the third day of Iforum I need to post. I'll try to do that tomorrow.) I'm out on the internet trying to find the little corners and ghettos where the small screen of the ipaq is welcome. Pocket PC Magazine has a pretty neat list of mobile friendly sites. Blogger's not on it but it seems pretty "mobile" friendly so far. As I find cool sites I'll tell Duncan about them so he can geek out over them when he's on the internet with the ol' Ipaq.

Friday, October 14, 2005

Citrix IForum 2005 Day 2

October 10, 2005 – Monday started with the alarm clock provided with the room. Since Las Vegas is two hours earlier than Okc, by the time the alarm went off, I was ready to get up. I joined Larry for breakfast provided by the conference – sausage, egg and cheese biscuits and various breads, juices, fruits and coffee.

The morning was taken up with the keynote speech of the conference. We got to sit for 3 hours (with one 20 minute break) and listen to how wonderful Citrix is and to hear a 50,000 foot view of the next year’s advances and products. I can’t tell you how exciting it was – I really can’t. Next came lunch and more talking with vendors in the Exhibition Hall. We had fajitas and I got a mini USB hub — yippee. Then another afternoon of Citrix-oriented sessions (I’m writing this during a session on creating isolation environments to run applications that either conflict with other applications that could be installed or that have very specific, usually outdated, requirements for associated applications like MDAC).

After the sessions ended I skipped the networking reception (Larry went and said he was one of about 10 people that showed up). I went in search of some fun. I took a cab down the strip a ways and looked at some of the casinos there. I saw that Circus Circus has $5 blackjack tables. When walking between casinos, I talked with some friendly homeless guys - I even gave one a buck. I’m such a philanthropist. I ended up back at the room fairly early but didn’t feel like paying $12 for another day of high-speed access (the conference has free wireless internet). So I Just read and went to bed.

Monday, October 10, 2005

Citrix iforum 2005 report - day 1

October 9, 2005 – The day actually started Saturday with packing. I was able to get everything into two carry-on bags. I put my tablet computer bag inside my other computer bag so I’d have extra room for stuff I’d get at the conference. So I get picked up at 5:30am to make our 7 am flight. Outside of napping on the plane, the trip was pretty uneventful. Larry, a colleague also going to iforum, checked into the Luxor and I checked into Mandalay Bay. We got some lunch at a very slow burger place in the mall between Mandalay Bay and the conference area. We listened to an afternoon of sessions that would only bore all but the most ardent systems support personnel.

There were a couple of hours between the sessions and the exhibition hall reception. Larry went back to his room to nap and I did the same. Or at least that was the plan. I ended up having so much coffee that I didn’t feel like napping. So I took a walk down our little section of the Las Vegas strip. I saw the outsides of the Mandalay Bay, the Luxor and the Excalibur. In the distance was New York, the Tropicana and the MGM Grand; but I didn’t walk that far down. The Mandalay Bay, the Luxor and the Excalibur were all connected; so I walked back to my room though the 3 casinos.

When Tamara and I went to Reno last year in October, to meet friends, I mainly played blackjack with the others we met there. In Reno there’s a lot of 5 dollars a hand blackjack. But we’re cheap bastards so we were always looking for the 3 dollar blackjack. We started looking for 1 dollar blackjack but quickly found the tables rarely went below 3 dollars a hand. We did eventually find a 1 dollar table but it was very crowded and they were using a 6 deck shoe (this puts your odds very much in favor of the house). I tell you all of this as preface so you’ll understand how dumbstruck I was to see $25, $50 and $200 a hand minimum on all the tables. And all of these tables looked like they were using the 6 deck shoes. Later on I did find a couple of $15 dollar tables and one $10 table. There’s no way I could feel comfortable playing at any of these tables. The bright side of all of this is that the Mandalay Bay hosted a Sumo tournament the weekend the conference started. If I’d known about it earlier I might have come in a couple of days early to see it. As it was, I only got to watch several Sumo wrestlers playing blackjack. And I was able to get a t-shirt from the tournament.

After a couple of hours of wandering around the Exhibition Hall eating tortellini and drinking wine and listening to vendors tell me I really needed their product to make my Citrix experience complete, I went back to the room and fell asleep. Boring, yes, but I was having some allergy trouble and didn’t want it to get worse. So there’s my fist day.

Sunday, October 02, 2005

Conspiracy Theory Rock

This originally appeared on Saturday Night Live. This TV Funhouse cartoon aired only once and was never seen again. There was probably a bit too much truth in it for GE the company who owns NBC.

I came across it looking at random internet videos and thought I'd share it.