Hello again!
Apologies for the belated nature of this update - the couple of days I had between Glastonbury and going on hols ended up being far more hectic than anticipated, so the promised information about post-seminar updates went by the wayside, despite timely reminders in the comments of the last post from Sylv3r and Anon (thank you for being my surrogate conscience, BTW!). If it's any compensation, the first week of my holiday had rotten weather, so I have received some kind of punishment for my misdemeanours... Hopefully you'll be pleased to hear that I have at last got some information to pass on, albeit after a lot of you have finished for summer, but better late than never, eh?
Firstly, let's catch up on the small matter of the recordings of sessions. As we said at the time, this was a bit of an experiment for us, trying out different ways of enabling you to catch sessions you missed or wanted to revisit. We've managed to get three done, in a couple of different formats. The 'posh' one is James' CC4 migration session - we know there's a lot of interest in this one, so it got the fancy recording and production treatment. Not only was it recorded on decent equipment, but the Knowledge Team here at RM have turned it into a video with the slides for the session properly synchronised with the audio. It's also been split into a number of smaller chunks, and is available in both MP4 and WMV formats. Given the good standard of the recordings, the session has become the 9th Technical Spotlight up on the support website, so for all the links and details please point your browser at article TEC1010827 - the URL is:
http://www.rm.com/Support/TechnicalArticle.asp?cref=TEC1010827&nav=0
We've also got recordings of my two sessions, but at a somewhat reduced quality, given they were recorded with "low hi-tech" (that is to say, via my mobile with the handsfree kit mic!). As a result the audio quality isn't great, but we felt that it was better to provide them than just ditch them. So no slide synchronisation, no neat editing, and (an undocumented 'feature' of the phone I only found out about after the recordings) they stop very suddenly at exactly 1 hour, which is the most the phone will record. Having listened back to them, I also think they've raised the pitch of my voice a little, and you've got a nice "tapdancing' background noise, as they were recorded at Exeter, which is the only venue without carpets in the presentation rooms. Having got this long list of caveats out of the way, here are the two links in question:
The Other End of the Kaleidoscope: http://www.rm.com/_RMVirtual/Media/Downloads/Kaleidoscope.mp3
Infrastructure - Your Network Plunger: http://www.rm.com/_RMVirtual/Media/Downloads/NetworkPlunger.mp3
If you need the slides for the sessions to follow at the same time, remember that these are all available for download here: http://www.rm.com/Support/GeneralDownload.asp?cref=DWN1159961&nav=0. (This document, and the videos of the CC4 session, contain the updates to the slides that James made post-seminars to ensure the information is up-to-date.)
As ever, I'd be very keen to hear any and all feedback about these little experiments of ours - is this something you'd like us to do again in future? If so, what's the most useful format? Are the 'quick and dirty' MP3s sufficient to be helpful, or does it need to have the higher production values of the CC4 session? Fire them back via the comments field on this post and I'll get visibility of them all, and you'll be helping shape what we provide for you at the seminars.
Secondly, although we can't provide a recording of the 'hands on' CC4 sessions, we do have a lot of follow-up information. Mike finished the round with a long list of questions picked up during the round, and having been round RM to find the answers to them, he's posted it all on Communities. Swing your way over and check out the latest information at the following URL - http://communities.rm.com/forums/posts.aspx?postID=58636. (If you don't already have a Communities logon, it's a good opportunity to do so - assuming you already have a standard RM.com logon, it's a matter of seconds to set up your Communities account!).
That pretty much covers the updates for now, but more will be coming over the next couple of months - we're already planning for the Autumn round - so if you have any suggestions (particularly for the type of sessions you'd like to see) then again, please fire away in the comments section below!
Friday 25 July 2008
Wednesday 25 June 2008
What next?
Right, now we've finished the round, there's a few bits and bobs to mention, plus some thoughts about this blog.
Now we're properly back in the office, we're catching up with all the various emails, phone calls and other messages that have accumulated while we were out. If you're waiting on one of these, we are on the case!
Something we've had fed back from a number of people is difficulty in printing the PDFs of the session notes from the CD. This is an odd one - we absolutely do not protect the files to prevent printing, as we know how useful this can be (and we have no reason to stop you!). We've done some initial troubleshooting here in the office, and it appears it may be related to the version of Adobe Acrobat you use to open it. However, the officially approved "James' Path of Least Resistance" solution is: we are posting all of the notes up to the Knowledge Library tomorrow, so you should have no problem printing these versions.
While on the subject, we have had a couple of queries along the lines of "Where are the notes for James' CC4 upgrade session?" There's a few bits of info here:
Now we're properly back in the office, we're catching up with all the various emails, phone calls and other messages that have accumulated while we were out. If you're waiting on one of these, we are on the case!
Something we've had fed back from a number of people is difficulty in printing the PDFs of the session notes from the CD. This is an odd one - we absolutely do not protect the files to prevent printing, as we know how useful this can be (and we have no reason to stop you!). We've done some initial troubleshooting here in the office, and it appears it may be related to the version of Adobe Acrobat you use to open it. However, the officially approved "James' Path of Least Resistance" solution is: we are posting all of the notes up to the Knowledge Library tomorrow, so you should have no problem printing these versions.
While on the subject, we have had a couple of queries along the lines of "Where are the notes for James' CC4 upgrade session?" There's a few bits of info here:
- There never were any notes for this session - at the time we were putting them together, the information was changing daily, so we didn't want to publish something that become out of date quickly.
- The slides for the session are already up on the support website (in this Knowledge Library article: http://www.rm.com/Support/GeneralDownload.asp?cref=DWN1159961&nav=0), and James will be updating them with newer information before going on holiday at the end of next week. I will blog this once they've been updated.
- The session is one of those for which we made an audio recording, and this too will be up on the support site before long (likely in the next couple of days)
As for this blog, well, I intend to continue using it as a means of communicating what's going on in the world of seminars. I'd encourage you to post comments on here, too - one of the main reasons for doing this as a blog is to allow (and hopefully encourage) debate around the subjects raised, so don't be shy!
Right, that's all for now - I'll be posting again next week to inform of updates to the slides/notes/audio situation - and in the meantime, I'm off home to pack for Glastonbury, praying for good weather all the way :)
Exeter - Thursday 19th June
So, we finally made it to the end of the round without any significant casualties along the way, and a brand new venue in Sandy Park, Exeter, replacing the Taunton venue which we'd begun to outgrow over the years. We've had a few seminars at football grounds, but I think this is the first one at venue shared with the egg-chasing variety, which if nothing else seemed to keep Jodie very happy indeed during breaks, as there seemed to be a lot of rubgy players running around training in only their shorts...
Since it was the final seminar for the round, there was something of a "last day of term" feel within the team. Although we weren't allowed to bring in games and work on the grass instead of inside, a couple of us did make the effort to dress up, with me in a dinner suit and Mike "New Boy" Oakes outdoing everyone in a morning suit. Mercifully, we were spared the additional option of Tebs in a birthday suit...
We also managed to get audio recordings of some of our sessions during the day - something attempted at Cambridge, but let down by failures in equipment. Within the next few days you should see these "Exeter Tapes" appearing online on the support website (www.rm.com/support). It's an early experiment, and is unlikely to have any clever synchronisation of slides or anything like that, but we're keen to hear what you think about it. We get lots of feedback that you would like a way to catch up with sessions you were unable to attend (either due to not making the day, or clashes of sessions) and this is our first stab at something that enables you to get a bit more out of the other sessions than just reading the notes and slides. I'd be very keen to hear from you once they're up and you've had a chance to listen - post comments back to the blog, and I'll get to see them...
Since it was the final seminar for the round, there was something of a "last day of term" feel within the team. Although we weren't allowed to bring in games and work on the grass instead of inside, a couple of us did make the effort to dress up, with me in a dinner suit and Mike "New Boy" Oakes outdoing everyone in a morning suit. Mercifully, we were spared the additional option of Tebs in a birthday suit...
We also managed to get audio recordings of some of our sessions during the day - something attempted at Cambridge, but let down by failures in equipment. Within the next few days you should see these "Exeter Tapes" appearing online on the support website (www.rm.com/support). It's an early experiment, and is unlikely to have any clever synchronisation of slides or anything like that, but we're keen to hear what you think about it. We get lots of feedback that you would like a way to catch up with sessions you were unable to attend (either due to not making the day, or clashes of sessions) and this is our first stab at something that enables you to get a bit more out of the other sessions than just reading the notes and slides. I'd be very keen to hear from you once they're up and you've had a chance to listen - post comments back to the blog, and I'll get to see them...
Cambridge - Tuesday 17th June
Hello once again! Apologies for the slight delay - we've spent all the time since returning from the end of the round unloading everything from the lorry, followed by Everyone's Favourite Job (tm) - putting all of the kit back into its boxes and taking it back to the people who kindly supplied it to us. Top of the list for this is reboxing laptops, where serial numbers have to be matched on machine, box, power supply, etc...
But enough of my moaning - let's get back into the entries for the last two seminars of the round, starting with Cambridge.
We've visited here a couple of times now, but it still feels very odd indeed. Cambourne is clearly a newly-built town that's only been in existence for a small number of years, and it still feels strangely "too new". Somewhere between Stepford Wives and Disneyland, is the general conclusion, with the 'oddness' coming from every single building being the same age. Our lorry driver Shaun is very happy though, as he's a big fan of Morrisons and their in-shop cafes, and rates the shiny new Cambourne one among the best :)
The day of the seminar went well, with some nice weather to boot, and Jodie held up remarkably well given she arrived at setup the day before, straight from the Isle of Wight Festival. Clearly, I was distracted by the lovely weather and completely forgot to take the statutory end of day photograph. In its place, I can only offer a slightly unusual roundabout decoration we passed on our way to the venue via Milton Keynes...
And on a personal note, a word of thanks to Paul Mantripp from The Denes High School. He's the only other person I know connected with the seminars in any way who's interested in road cycling as much as me! The rest of the team have to put up with me chuntering on about obscure Belgian Classics or how Mark Cavendish will be the greatest British cyclist of all time, and do so with varying degrees of feigned interest, but it's very nice for me to have someone to actually engage in coversation :) Thanks Paul, you made me happier than Tom Boonen's defence lawyer on fee-paying day!
But enough of my moaning - let's get back into the entries for the last two seminars of the round, starting with Cambridge.
We've visited here a couple of times now, but it still feels very odd indeed. Cambourne is clearly a newly-built town that's only been in existence for a small number of years, and it still feels strangely "too new". Somewhere between Stepford Wives and Disneyland, is the general conclusion, with the 'oddness' coming from every single building being the same age. Our lorry driver Shaun is very happy though, as he's a big fan of Morrisons and their in-shop cafes, and rates the shiny new Cambourne one among the best :)
The day of the seminar went well, with some nice weather to boot, and Jodie held up remarkably well given she arrived at setup the day before, straight from the Isle of Wight Festival. Clearly, I was distracted by the lovely weather and completely forgot to take the statutory end of day photograph. In its place, I can only offer a slightly unusual roundabout decoration we passed on our way to the venue via Milton Keynes...
And on a personal note, a word of thanks to Paul Mantripp from The Denes High School. He's the only other person I know connected with the seminars in any way who's interested in road cycling as much as me! The rest of the team have to put up with me chuntering on about obscure Belgian Classics or how Mark Cavendish will be the greatest British cyclist of all time, and do so with varying degrees of feigned interest, but it's very nice for me to have someone to actually engage in coversation :) Thanks Paul, you made me happier than Tom Boonen's defence lawyer on fee-paying day!
Monday 16 June 2008
Wed 11th and Thu 12th June - London 1 and 2
After the green and leafy surroundings of the Maidstone venue (no, really), it was off into the sweaty, smokey surroundings of Laahndaahn for three days in total and two of the more hectic days on the round. We've been using the Holiday Inn Kensington Forum (read: "bloody great big tower") for a while, and no matter what time we try to arrive in the loading bay to get all our kit into the goods lift, we always seem to coincide exactly with the pickup time for the hotel's laundry service. This means us trying to drag tonnes of flight cases in between hundreds of tonnes of trolleys of bedsheets, and a very large and intimidating-looking gentleman who manages the loading bay. We did manage to get everything up, but not without some scarring...
On the way in we spotted something interesting. As you might expect for a central London hotel, the underground car park tends to be full of very expensive motors (with the exception of our hire cars, of course - can't see wealthy Americans driving round in a VW estate somehow). Tucked away in the corner was a matt black Lamborghini, which we toddled over to gawp at, only to find that the cool matt black was completely ruined with everything (and I mean everything) in the interior being finished in pink leather. Picture below just to prove I'm not making this up...
These two days really were a blur for me, as my body is in something of "Migraine Mode" at the moment, unfortunately hitting on the night between the two seminars, meaning I was more than a little spaced out on Day 2. Despite this, the events went really well, helped by the standard of the cakes etc. in the afternoon tea break!
Rather than techie tools being recommended, I ended up with one practical tip and one interesting question...
London 1 - Tip of the Day
This is from Marek, who suggests using cable ties to properly attach mice and keyboards machines - their problem is not so much with vandalism and theft, just with users swapping them round when the allocated mouse/kbd "isn't right". This way round, they actually get informed when there are hardware failures, rather than a room with 20 working pairs among 24 machines. The 'bonus tip' here is to avoid the tediosity (is that a word?) of the job by getting those in detention to do it...
London 2 - Question of the Day
After the "Kaleidoscope" learning platform session, I had an interesting conversation with Mike Sixsmith from The Oratory School. They are about to roll out the LP portal to all parents, and have yet decide upon an appropriate answer to this question, so I thought this was an ideal one to blog and throw open to you for suggestions: When regular users forget their passwords (seemingly on an hourly basis), it's easy to verify they're who they say they are, since they're standing in front of you, but what do you do when it's a parent on the other end of the phone? What is a relatively convenient but reliably way of authenticating their identity without issuing them all with RSA Tags? Having spoken to some RM staff, I know our LP support line set up a banking style "security question" with parent users, then challenge them with "What's the nth letter of your answer?" whenever they call. That's one possible solution - do those of you out there with parent LP users have an alternative? I'd be very interested to find out!
Here are the end-of-day pics for London 1 and 2, with the latter definitely putting in a massive push for Biggest Wave of the Round - it's up to Cambridge or Exeter to better that one :)
Maidstone - Monday 9th June
Hello again - time to post last week's blog before I hit the road with the rest of the team for setup at Cambridge later today...
Deepest Kent started the week with some phenomenal weather and a good, busy seminar day. The venue there is an odd one, looking something like a condemned hospital building from outside, but actually pretty nice inside and unusually for a venue (and essential on such a hot day) air-conditioning that actually works. This always helps with the post-lunch sessions as less people tend to fall asleep when it's not 28 degrees in the presenting rooms...
Present here was seminar near-legend Jim Buckley. For many years now, he's diligently been sat in sessions making notes on presenters, not just content. We all have little verbal tics, and as presenters we try to minimise them as much as possible - it tends to be an endless battle, since as soon as you spot and eliminate one, another will appear to replace it. Those of us that have been through a few rounds have worked our way through the 'classics' such as "basically", "actually" and so on, but Jim is on hand to help us with the more esoteric ones. While he's in the sessions, he maintains a tally sheet of how many times we've said various tics, and will always appear at the end to inform us of this round's involuntary words. And the winners this time? A quite boring one from James - "um". This is a little disappointing after the heady days of some 70 or 80 repetitions of "If you will", but at least he's becoming more abbreviated, eh? Jim didn't come to any of my sessions this time round, but I can tell you for free that my tics for Spring 2008 are "in terms of" and "broadly speaking". In honour of years of "live editing", here's a pic of Jim in his natural element, grabbing a quick ciggie between sessions:
With it being such a lovely day weather-wise the number of people left for the end-of-day session was quite down, so it's a pretty sparse photo I'm afraid. "Nuff 'spec" to those who stayed the course...
Deepest Kent started the week with some phenomenal weather and a good, busy seminar day. The venue there is an odd one, looking something like a condemned hospital building from outside, but actually pretty nice inside and unusually for a venue (and essential on such a hot day) air-conditioning that actually works. This always helps with the post-lunch sessions as less people tend to fall asleep when it's not 28 degrees in the presenting rooms...
Present here was seminar near-legend Jim Buckley. For many years now, he's diligently been sat in sessions making notes on presenters, not just content. We all have little verbal tics, and as presenters we try to minimise them as much as possible - it tends to be an endless battle, since as soon as you spot and eliminate one, another will appear to replace it. Those of us that have been through a few rounds have worked our way through the 'classics' such as "basically", "actually" and so on, but Jim is on hand to help us with the more esoteric ones. While he's in the sessions, he maintains a tally sheet of how many times we've said various tics, and will always appear at the end to inform us of this round's involuntary words. And the winners this time? A quite boring one from James - "um". This is a little disappointing after the heady days of some 70 or 80 repetitions of "If you will", but at least he's becoming more abbreviated, eh? Jim didn't come to any of my sessions this time round, but I can tell you for free that my tics for Spring 2008 are "in terms of" and "broadly speaking". In honour of years of "live editing", here's a pic of Jim in his natural element, grabbing a quick ciggie between sessions:
With it being such a lovely day weather-wise the number of people left for the end-of-day session was quite down, so it's a pretty sparse photo I'm afraid. "Nuff 'spec" to those who stayed the course...
Sunday 8 June 2008
Tiptastic round up...
OK, as promised earlier, here are all the outstanding tips and tools we've had passed to us in the round so far in one great big update...
Andrew Piper and Brian Whitty, Woodchurch High School
A useful set of tools for network analysis and monitoring from Fluke Networks (www.flukenetworks.com) - I think they fall in the category of "good but pricey"
Chris Norman
Another tool is Spotlight on Windows, a freeware monitoring tool for a machine, which looks impressively funky in some of the screenshots at http://www.quest.com/spotlight-on-windows/
Nick Walton
...also recommended Spotlight on Windows via email after Coventry, and is spot on when he describes it as 'making you desktop look like the Starship Enterprise'!
Tony Clemson
The beautifully titled "Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder", a freeware app which allows you to extract product keys from existing installations for operating systems and other apps, a useful ability with old applications for which you may have lost the original media. More info here: http://magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder/
Marc Coyles
A suggestion clearly following the 'Network Ninja' idea is Samurize, a freeware app which gives system monitoring and other functionality, and by the look of the screenshots on their website (http://www.samurize.com/modules/news/), lots of people have been skinning the life out of it...
Richard Easton
Another 'Swiss army knife' type of freeware app suggested here, Spiceworks, which does asset reporting, monitoring, troubleshooting and so on. Details here: http://www.spiceworks.com/
Chris Guy
Rather than recommending a tool, Chris passed on some very useful information for those of you who have Virgin Media at home. Apparently, they are gradually rolling out an upgrade from a 10Mbit to 20Mbit service. However, having not noticed a difference, and investigated further, it transpires that if you have a Motorola Surfboard 1800 modem, this only has a 10Mbit port on it! Hence if you get the upgrade, make sure you get an upgraded modem too, otherwise you'll not "feel the benefit", as my mum used to say...
There should probably be a standard disclaimer thingy here like is pasted on the bottom of everyone's emails these days, but that's very dull, so I'll put the more accurate: since we've been on the road, none of us have had a chance to download or try out any of these tools yet. That's not to say they're not useful, just we haven't been able to check yet!
Andrew Piper and Brian Whitty, Woodchurch High School
A useful set of tools for network analysis and monitoring from Fluke Networks (www.flukenetworks.com) - I think they fall in the category of "good but pricey"
Chris Norman
Another tool is Spotlight on Windows, a freeware monitoring tool for a machine, which looks impressively funky in some of the screenshots at http://www.quest.com/spotlight-on-windows/
Nick Walton
...also recommended Spotlight on Windows via email after Coventry, and is spot on when he describes it as 'making you desktop look like the Starship Enterprise'!
Tony Clemson
The beautifully titled "Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder", a freeware app which allows you to extract product keys from existing installations for operating systems and other apps, a useful ability with old applications for which you may have lost the original media. More info here: http://magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder/
Marc Coyles
A suggestion clearly following the 'Network Ninja' idea is Samurize, a freeware app which gives system monitoring and other functionality, and by the look of the screenshots on their website (http://www.samurize.com/modules/news/), lots of people have been skinning the life out of it...
Richard Easton
Another 'Swiss army knife' type of freeware app suggested here, Spiceworks, which does asset reporting, monitoring, troubleshooting and so on. Details here: http://www.spiceworks.com/
Chris Guy
Rather than recommending a tool, Chris passed on some very useful information for those of you who have Virgin Media at home. Apparently, they are gradually rolling out an upgrade from a 10Mbit to 20Mbit service. However, having not noticed a difference, and investigated further, it transpires that if you have a Motorola Surfboard 1800 modem, this only has a 10Mbit port on it! Hence if you get the upgrade, make sure you get an upgraded modem too, otherwise you'll not "feel the benefit", as my mum used to say...
There should probably be a standard disclaimer thingy here like is pasted on the bottom of everyone's emails these days, but that's very dull, so I'll put the more accurate: since we've been on the road, none of us have had a chance to download or try out any of these tools yet. That's not to say they're not useful, just we haven't been able to check yet!
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