Category Archives: Technology

Traveling to Technical Events

Over the past couple of years I have been traveling more, both for work and to attend and/or present at a variety of technical events. While I have yet to earn the esteemed grizzled road veteran merit badge, I have managed to learn a few things along the way. When presenting at a technical event, whether it is a user group meeting, a code camp, or a full blown conference, being prepared is critical to delivering a successful presentation (hey, you aren’t paying for this advice, so don’t expect it to be groundbreaking).

In this post, I would like to share with you a few things that I have found that can make the difference between a good event and a great event, at least as far as your presentation is concerned.

Before You Leave (a.k.a. Pack Lightly, But Carry An Armored Tank Division)

If you pack a multiple outlet power strip, you will make friends. Power outlets are like gold at any technical event and people will covet them to charge up their power hungry devices. If you encounter a full tap and plan to stay for more than a few minutes, pull it out and share the juice with your five new friends. I have a very compact one that turns 2 outlets into 6, as well as a slightly larger unit that provides 3-to-1 expansion along with 2 USB ports for charging iPhone, iPod, or other USB-powered devices.

If you will be driving during any part of the trip, pack a car charger for your devices. Small and compact usually wins, so I prefer something that gives me at least two USB connections from the 12V plug. That is usually enough to charge my phone and headset, and can help charge a friends phone at the same time (since they likely forgot their charger unless you forwarded them a link to this article).

Don’t forget to bring plenty of cables. I always pack at least one 14-foot network cable, two USB-to-mini-USB cables, one USB-to-micro-USB cable, one firewire 800 cable, and a 800/400 adapter. The power supply for your laptop is pretty important too, so bring that long as well.

Bring an additional mobile phone battery or a battery powered top-up charger to get you through the trip. Nothing drains an iPhone like watching a movie during the flight, firing up the GPS to find your way to the hotel, checking your email and flight status, etc. I bought an inexpensive unit from Monoprice (less than $20) that connects to the bottom and tops off an iPhone that is under 20%. It has another dock connector on the bottom and charges from the same cable as the iPhone.

Scope out your network availability and plan accordingly. If you are traveling alone and cannot tether your phone to your laptop, make sure wireless networking is available. If it is not available, be sure to have all the software you need installed and make sure your demo doesn’t require an internet connection. If you are traveling with others and the hotel charges for internet, considering bringing along a wireless router (the Airport Express from Apple is small and easy to setup) to share the connection with your friends!

A quick note about travel gear – carry on only. Do not check a bag, it will only slow you down. If last minute flight changes are needed when travel issues occur, being quick and unencumbered by checked baggage will help you out. Also, the 22” roller bags will not fit in smaller aircraft, so get yourself a smaller 17” one that fits under the seat (and in the overhead on the smaller regional jets). You can easily make a two day trip with a smaller bag, particularly if you avoid different styles of clothes.

En Route (cue Vacation theme music)

First things first — if you don’t have an iPhone (or some other type of reliable smartphone), get one. I have found that having an always available internet connection, full web browser, instant email access, real-time flight tracking, and live Google maps with GPS to be the most important tools when traveling.

Now that you have your iPhone, some great apps that will really help your trip are listed below.

  • AutoPilot from USA TODAY is a great, free application for managing your travel. It’s not the fastest or best, but it is free and includes TripIt integration for loading your flight information.
  • Flight Update Pro is a air travel focused app that is highly accurate in keeping you up-to-date on flight status and arrival/departure times. While expensive ($9.99), it also includes TripIt integration (saving you data entry) and an easy to read status.
  • The FlightCaster web is fairly accurate at predicting delays, and they also have an iPhone application. Again, integration with TripIt eliminates the duplicate entry of information.

By the way, if you aren’t using TripIt to consolidate all of your booking confirmations into a single site yet — do it. TripIt can parse the details from most booking confirmation emails and automatically updates your travel calendar (which you can subscribe to using iCal). I setup a filter in Gmail to forward my confirmation emails to plans@tripit.com, which parses the message and updates your travel calendar.

And hopefully this goes without saying, but when traveling — particularly by air — dress respectable, be courteous, and don’t lose your temper. Things happen during travel — delayed flights, road construction, missed exits, engine fires — most of these are out of your control. The last thing you want to do is be an ass to a person already under pressure. Being polite can mean the difference between getting the last seat on the last flight and sleeping on the airport floor. Oh, and when at all possible, use your phone since there are more agents at the call center who can help get you on the right flight then there are at the airport helping the people in line.

After Arriving (the night before)

Do not let any friends, co-workers, acquaintances, or otherwise get you drunk because presenting with a hangover is just not cool. And that’s all I’ve got to say about that.

Presenting (drum roll, please)

If you are presenting to a Microsoft-centric audience and you are using a Mac, make sure you have everything you need to peacefully coexist in a Windows world. You will get the inevitable comments about running a Mac, so the last thing you want is to fail due to hardware or software issue. To help you out, here are a few tips:

Almost every projector you come across will use an analog VGA (d-sub) connector, so be sure to keep a Mini DisplayPort to VGA (or DVI to VGA for older Macs) in your backpack. It doesn’t hurt to have a Mini DisplayPort to DVI as well in case you encounter a more modern project (although I’ve seen more HDMI than DVI projectors this past year — all of which also supported VGA). I also pack actual video cables as well in case you end up doing an ad-hoc session in your hotel room.

Many groups like to record or broadcast their sessions so that members unable to participate in person can view the presentation. To make things easy, be sure to have LiveMeeting already setup and tested on your machine. If you are on a Mac, this means converting your presentation from Keynote to either PowerPoint (using the free PowerPoint viewer if necessary) or Quicktime and presenting the slides from Windows. If you are not doing any Windows-based demos (like if you were giving an iPhone development talk), well, the remote folks are out of luck!

If your talk is less about code and more about practices or principles, use the presenter display from Keynote or Powerpoint on your laptop. This helps you keep track of time, review your slide notes, and preview the next slide (which helps you avoid talking ahead of your deck). On the other hand, with code focused sessions stick to a mirrored display in the native resolution of the projector.

When presenting code it is best to use a white background with black text. While the dark themes are great for large screen monitors, they look terrible on projectors with monospaced fonts. Many editors allow you to save and load settings, so build yourself a presentation mode settings file. With a set of high contrast colors (the default Visual Studio colors are a bit too hard to read at 25 feet) and a font size of 12-14 you’ll be all set to show your code to a large room. Font choice is another thing. While Consolas is my favorite, at larger font sizes it looks terrible – particularly in bold. Consider an alternate font for your presentation settings that looks good at a large font size.

When presenting with slides, a remote is a great way to get out from behind the podium. I like to present while standing in front of the screen, so I always pack my Apple remote. I tend to avoid the higher tech solutions such as the Keynote Remote app for the iPhone as they tend to just get in the way. If you need to use the remote to control PowerPoint, there are some utilities that will make that work as well.

Choose Your Own Adventure (n, n, open door, n, e, melt wizard)

Most of the time, your presentation is going to be perfect for the audience. Assuming that your session description was accurate and a level of learning was indicated you should be set. However, your audience might not be prepared for the material being covered. In these situations it is best to have an alternative path that your presentation can take, one that is more appropriate for a general audience. In some cases this might not be possible, but it can really make the difference between an engaged audience and a bunch of people cleaning out their inbox (because there is likely was too much caffeine in their blood to actually sleep).

Wrap It Up (I’ll take it)

I hope the tips I’ve shared with you here will be useful if you decide to step up to the podium. There are many other posts that talk about slide design, demo subject matter, travel tips, and more but the items above are some of the ones I’ve had to learn on my own (and thankfully not always the hard way — well except for one).

Hitachi 7K320 Hard Disk Upgrade in MacBook Pro

Tonight I upgraded the drive in my MacBook Pro from the Fujitsu 160GB that came with it to a new 320GB 7200 RPM Hitachi. I was in desperate need of space (thanks to VMware Fusion and my need for 3-4 virtual machines) and felt with the new 7200 RPM drives now available that it was time to pull the trigger.

The install went smooth and quick, thanks to the guides at iFixit (and others). I used SuperDuper to clone the internal drive to the new drive installed in an external USB enclosure. The process went quickly (maybe 3 hours to copy over 120GB of actual data) and soon after I had the upgrade complete.

Here at the details of the upgrade:

Hitachi HTS723232L9A360:
  Capacity:	298.09 GB
  Model:	Hitachi HTS723232L9A360
  Revision:	FC4OC30F
  Serial Number:	xxxxxxx
  Native Command Queuing:	Yes
  Queue Depth:	32
  Removable Media:	No
  Detachable Drive:	No
  BSD Name:	disk0
  Mac OS 9 Drivers:	No
  Partition Map Type:	GPT (GUID Partition Table)
  S.M.A.R.T. status:	Verified
  Volumes:
Macintosh HD:
  Capacity:	297.77 GB
  Available:	186.59 GB
  Writable:	Yes
  File System:	Journaled HFS+
  BSD Name:	disk0s2
  Mount Point:	/

Hopefully that means all is well (I really have no clue). Everything seems to work so far as it did before so I’m a happy camper!

MacWorld San Francisco 2007 Coming January 14th

MacWorld 2008 is coming next week and as expected, the blogs are alive with the sound of rumors. From new product announcements and existing product refreshes to the discontinued and ignored products, it is always a fun time of year. With Apple’s explosive 2007 that brought us the iPhone, the iPod Touch, a new iMac, and the latest iteration of OS X Leopard, the expectations have been set pretty high.

In 2007, the iPhone was the star of the show. What started as Apple’s entry into the mobile space ended up as a redefinition of customer expectations in the mobile phone market. It’s easy to predict a 3G iPhone in 2008, but that’s almost too easy and fairly minor compared to the software upgrades that could allow the iPhone to further dominate the segment. The only other hardware change I expect to see on the iPhone is larger capacity (16GB or 32GB, flash-based of course).

In 2008, while other manufacturers continue to try and catch up, I expect Apple to continue redefining how consumers use their iPhone. The iTunes Mobile Music Store (something I use way more than the iTunes Music Store experience on the computer) is a great example of how an existing business can leverage the mobile platform. Existing brick-and-mortar players like Starbucks could offer a web front end to their order process, allowing customers to order drinks from the couch without leaving their friends. This would even offer some interesting payment methods, such as allowing PayPal or another form of e-currency to pay for transactions.

Speaking of wireless features, Leopard added support for A2DP/AVRCP over Bluetooth, and it would seem to be an easy feature to add to the iPhone. Forget the simple task of syncing content with iTunes, I want full .Mac synchronization on the iPhone. Sure, it would be great to sync with iTunes, and it’s likely that iTunes would be the pipeline, but .Mac exists, has a synchronization client in Leopard, and should be fairly easy to port to the iPhone. One way or another, I think wireless sync would be a great next step for the iPhone.

In the notebook space, I’m betting on a completely new mobile platform for 2008. The specification upgrades that occurred in 2007 were interim steps to maintain the continuity from the PowerPC platform into the Intel world. Now that everything from Apple is Intel, it is time to refresh the design. From the bottom end MacBook to the top of the line MacBook Pro, I’m betting Apple will revamp the entire lineup. With Apple wanting to go green, it’s likely that we will see a near complete switch to aluminum, titanium, and glass (although the glass doesn’t seem very likely given the demands placed on a notebook system).

There is also a lot of hints that we might see a revolutionary touch pad that would include multi-touch and other iPhone like features. This would seem to make more sense than a touch screen, given a 13.3″ touch screen might be a bit risky this early after the iPhone. Either way Apple wants to continue to lead the industry in touch interfaces, so they may try to jump even further ahead of the competition.

The Mac Mini is either getting a redesign or being discontinued. Lacie has discontinued their Mini Hub (which was a real nice unit that slid right under the Mac Mini) so they either know the form factor is changing or they are no longer available. My guess is that it will go away, the 20″ and 24″ iMac are the desktop kings right now. The only other idea in this segment would be a new headless home server with a hefty 750GB or 1TB drive, support for backing up notebooks running Leopard wirelessly via time machine, and maybe a built-in Airport Extreme style router. Apple has already proven it can build a cheap Mac that runs OS X, so why limit fixed function devices like a router to a custom OS when it can use its bread and butter, rock solid OS X.

The Mac Pro just got upgraded (specifications only) so it’s unlikely to see any time on the MacWorld 2008 stage unless it’s a product lineup slide. It’s so far off my radar anyway, I don’t think it is in any way part of Apple’s consumer product plan. The iMac may see some processor upgrades and maybe a professional 30″ variant, but that’s just guessing since the new aluminum iMac is already a winner, one that can’t be even touched by Gateway or Dell.

One More Thing

The Apple TV is a turd that is seriously due for some polish. Recent news seems to indicate that we are certainly going to get iTunes movie rentals. They had better be in HD, and they had better have the same or better terms than the XBOX 360. I can get full HD movies on the 360 for around $5, so that’s the bare minimum. Add something to differentiate the iTunes offering and they’ll likely have a winner. Will it get people to buy the Apple TV? I doubt it, but they need to do something to make this segment work.

So those are my thoughts, take them for what they are worth. I guess we’ll find out on Tuesday what Jobs has in store for us this year!

Affordable PC Gaming – 2007 Edition

With all the new games coming out this fall, some might be inclined to upgrade their present gaming machine to support the new games coming out. The graphically rich environments in games like BioShock need to be seen in high quality DirectX 10 viewing pleasure to be truly enjoyed. Of course, I find the gameplay itself to be enough of an attraction without all the graphical goodies, so I’m likely not going to upgrade just to play that particular game.

Nonetheless, I did the research to see what it would cost to make a machine up to date for gaming action. I came up with the following items:

That’s all you really need to play games. Sure, you could add a Creative X-Fi sound card if you want EAX environmental audio. I would probably continue to run Windows XP, but Vista is an option if you want DirectX 10 compatible gaming. Maybe a dual-boot option would be a good way to split up the hard drive.

You can get into this for just under $1000 if you play your cards right. Reuse some old hardware (case, DVD-drive, I recommend trashing everything else) and you can save $100 or more. With most games being designed for multi-core CPU’s (XBOX 360, PS3) you can expected multithreaded games to scale nicely on the CPU, plus you have extra cores for TeamSpeak, FRAPS, whatever else you want to run at the same time.

Personally, I can’t afford the upgrade for myself. My 6800 Ultra continues to handle the games at lower resolutions and reduced detail levels. But I can’t justify a dedicated gaming box either. The 8600 GT in the MacBook Pro will have to fulfill my graphical needs for the next couple of years…

Exciting Technology Week

This week has been seriously fueled by technology. Things that have seriously elevated my excitement level this week include:

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)
This thing is set to be seriously cool with the introduction of Silverlight. The ability to build applications that run in the sandbox and have the rich WPF UI is enticing, particularly for applications that are very UI intensive. With a solid web service back end and rich communication support in Silverlight, this could seriously rock. Using Expression Blend is a treat as well.

New MacBook Pro
The new release of the MacBook Pro, with Santa Rosa and LED backlighting is a sweet deal. While only the 15.4″ got the best upgrade (LED), the rest of the line got a minor refresh. Of course, no case redesign yet, but maybe that will come with Leopard, along with a 17-inch LED upgrade. The high resolution (1920×1200) 17″ display is a nice add-on for the biggest model.

Parallels 3.0 DirectX Support
While not anyone’s favorite desktop VM company, they have a solid support base in the Mac and continue to add new features. Their support for DirectX is a nice plus, but they say it doesn’t run Aero yet so Vista users have something to wait for for now. Depending up on the UI updates in Leopard, this could see another refresh soon.

VMWare Fusion Unity
Not to be left behind (well, at least in the desktop coherence area), VMware showed a video of Unity. This is some seriously cool tech, including Expose and Dock support. Very cool, VirtualSMP support for those dual-core systems, and basic DirectX 8.1 support (likely 9.0c or 10 by October’s Leopard release). I’m most excited about this due to the history of VMware and how well they work for us at work.

BlackBerry Curve
While not as big as I would have liked, the Curve is a nice upgrade. The camera and video support is slick, but the lack of WiFi (on Cingular) and GPS makes it sort of meh. However, being so close to the iPhone release, this consumer unit is going to get a lackluster reception at best.

iPhone
Okay, this thing is coming and the coolness factor is off the charts. Every day the hype gets higher and higher. And with the widespread availability of WiFi connections, everyone is going to want it. Cingular/AT&T is going to make a killing with this phone, and customers are going to buy them like crazy. I only hope I can resist the urge.

WWDC 07
The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference is always a fun place to get excited. With the expected release of a feature-complete build of Leopard, this should be a big week (or a dud, if your feature didn’t make the list). Expect to see a new UI for the Mac, some great file system improvements (ZFS), and likely a ton of slick overhauls that haven’t gotten any ink yet.

Put all these together and you have one hell of a month of June.