LOPSA Regional Sysadmin conference announced!
Registration is open! Keynotes announced! Register today!Improving your memory (and Katherine Hepburn)
I have a pretty bad memory, which is why I write it down if I need to remember it. In TM4SA I remind people to write things down in practically every chapter.
Alternatively I have tried to improve my memory. Having improved memory helps all aspects of life. It turns out that memory is like a muscle: exercise it and it gets stronger, don't use it and it gets weaker. The techniques I learned help me in many little ways.
I found Page-a-Minute Memory Book to have very practical advice for improving my memory. The first part explains why we don't remember things so that we are more self-aware of how to fix it. That alone made it worth the price of the book. The second part has a lot of useful techniques for common things: how to remember people's names, remembering short lists, etc. I stopped reading when he started onto tips for remembering things that, well, would put you into the guinness book of world records. However, the remainder of the book was very helpful.
Last night I watched the 1957 Katherine Hepburn film, "Desk Set" (Amazon or Netflix). In this movie she plays the head of research for a major TV network. She has their entire research library practically memorized. When Spensor Tracy arrives to replace her department with a computer (very proto-Google, if I dare say) the hilarity ensues. (The movie is kind of shocking for the way it portrays office life in the 1950s. She's dating her own boss and there's no HR policy to stop it! The depiction of the computer is awesome.)
There's a great scene where Hepburn demonstrates the use of mnemonics as a way of improving ones ability to memorize random facts. She doesn't use the term mnemonics, but she shows show she's related anything she needs to remember to another fact. Since I use mnemonics (thanks to the Page-A-Minute Memory Book), it was great to see it in action and very interesting to see how the script portrays it.
NJ/NY/PA/DE/CT/RI/MA Regional Sysadmin Conference
I've mentioned the Professional IT Community Conference (PICC) before, but now the fun has really started.
Registration is open and the speakers have been announced!
The cost is low, and the benefits are huge. I know from Google Analytics that this site receives hits from over 500 unique users in the region of this conference, every month. We don't have that kind of space at the conference. It's going to sell out at some point, so make sure that you talk to your boss now about attending. We've even drafted a letter to help convince them that it's worth your time and their money.
It isn't often that you get a local conference with internationally known speakers like David Blank-Edelman (O'Reilly's "Automating System Administration with Perl") as well as Eben M Haber from the IBM research lab in Almaden, CA! This conference is going to get you the biggest bang for your buck out there.
(Oh, and I'll be speaking too. I've reworked 2 of my half-day tutorials ("Time Management" and "Help! Everyone hates our IT department!") plus, I've been asked to give the Saturday morning keynote, which I'll be using to premiere material from my yet-unannounced new book! But the book is a secret still, so hush!)
What I'd like you to do is to help me get the word out. Please. Not everyone reading this is in the NJ/NY/PA/CT/DE/RI/MA area. For those of you who aren't, please tell other people. Follow us on twitter at @picconf, email the site (http://www.picconf.org) to anyone you know in the area who might be interested, tell user groups about it, heck, we've even got a facebook page that you can become a fan of.
This is absolutely a grass-roots kind of effort. We have a very small advertising budget, so I want to use that as intelligently as possible. That means getting your help for the initial waves, and to spread it by word of mouth, by email, link, tweet, IM, and whatever else you've got.
A very big thank you to every one of you out there who reads this blog and supports me. I appreciate all of you.
Eye-Fi (something I saw at MacWorld 2010)
I've ordered an Eye-Fi card so my camera can geotag and download pics without a cable: Full line of products or via Picasa Get it "free" with a Picasa paid storage account.
Your camera thinks it is a 2G memory card. However, it has a WiFi thingie built in and your Mac or PC sees it as a computer it can download pictures from. The advanced cards have an "infiniite memory" mode where it is always downloading to your computer, freeing up space for more pictures.
The company's comparison chart defaults to only showing "featured models" but when I clicked on "Show all" I found a page that listed the exact combination of features that I wanted: Free geo tagging for life and basically nothing else. The other features looked good, but I'm too cheap. I find that with electronics I'm happier when I err on the side of cheapness.
As cameras get bigger and bigger memories I download the photos less and less often. I recently found 1+ year old photos that hadn't been copied to my computer. That means if the camera was lost, stolen, or broken I would have lost those photos. Someday a device like this should just notice when it is near a WiFi hotspot and magically start uploading the photos to an online service like Picasa or Flickr without any manual intervention. The most expensive model has all the features to permit that (including a $14.99/year service that gets "free" wifi at major hotel and other hotspots) but at $149.99, + $14.99/year (first year "free"), I'm willing to do it manually.
If I do start to crave the new features, I can upgrade this model (they have tons of activation codes for sale, but you have to call their customer service people to find out they exist). Or, I can buy the super cool "Pro X2" model that has every feature under the sun, and re-gift my current model.
I had heard of this product before but what convinced me to get one was the demo I saw at MacWorld 2010 2 weeks ago. The company had booth and were doing demos. I was impressed and the woman said, "Do you have your camera with you?" I said yes and soon she had pulled her demo unit out of her camera and put it in my camera. We took a few pictures which were instantly displayed on her computer's big display. Proof positive that my camera was compatible. I nearly bought one right then and there!
Sneak Peak: www.TomOnTime.com
Psst... I'm working on a new site. I'm taking all my time management videos, chopping them into bite-sized, topic-specific, stories, and putting them on a new web site. I only have a few videos up so far, but I'd like to start getting feedback (we have 40+ videos on their way). What do you think?LOPSA New Jersey conference registration is open!
Come one! Come all! Training schedule and speakers are now listed on the web site. Oh, and most importantly... registration!
I have a lot more to write about this but that will come soon. For now, check out the site!
BigFix's 2010 IT Dinosaur Awards Video Contest
"It's open season on enterprise IT evolutionary throwbacks!"
BigFix is having a contest. They're asking system administrators to submit a video of themselves explaining an "IT Dinosaur" that you've experienced. That is, "technologies that have outlived their extinct-by dates--not the companies you work for".
I've been invited to be an official judge for this conference so you better make sure your video is good!
What should I talk about at a conference?
I'm in the middle of writing proposals for Invited Talks and Tutorials at Usenix LISA 2010 and I thought I'd throw this question out to the readers of this blog:
What would you like to hear me talk about?
I speak at LISA a lot. I talk about Time Management, tips for running an IT department, and a few other things. But what would you LIKE to hear me teach or talk about?
Tom @ Macworld 2010, Feb 8-13, San Francisco CA Moscone Center
I'll be teaching during the PG: Mac IT Boot Camp 2-day session.
The session will include fundamentals of administration including basic networking (ever wonder what TCP and UDP are?) as well as time management and customer management tricks. The session will be team-taught by 4 people and lasts 2 days.
Register with the priority code "tlimoncelli" by January 8 and receive a 15% discount! (See advert on left-panel)
To all my New Jersey friends:
Do you work in New Jersey? Let your "IT guy/gal" know how much you appreciate them this Valentines day!
Send this to them, or better yet, open a ticket at your helpdesk with this text!
(And if you really like them, CC: their boss!)
8< ---------- cut here ---------- >8
Happy Valentines Day to my favorite computer system administrator:
You only hear from me
when my computer is blue.
So this Valentine's Day
I'm saying "Thank you!"
I admit my computer problems,
like it's a reality-show confessional.
But you hide your frown,
and act very professional.
I think that you're great!
I know I'm a pest!
But I bring my troubles to you,
because you're the best!
Some roses are red,
some roses are pink.
No candy this year,
but my card's at this link:
http://picconf.org/vday
Thank you for everything you do! Happy Valentine's Day!
Sincerely
(your name here)
8< ---------- cut here ---------- >8
(Please pass this on to all your friends in New Jersey!)
This campaign is brought to you by EverythingSysadmin.com and LOPSA-NJ (picconf.org).
New Jersey Sysadmin conference announced!
New Jersey (and nearby) sysadmins, network engineers, DBAs, and anyone that considers themselves part of the "IT industry" should check out the LOPSA New Jersey Professional IT Community Conference.
The conference will be Fri/Sat, May 7-8, 2010 in sunny New Brunswick, NJ. I'll be speaking both days.
LOPSA-NJ is excited to announce a conference for the IT and system administration community in New Jersey and surrounding area!
Two days of speakers, panels, training, and "unconference". For technical people, by technical people.
LOPSA-New Jersey Professional IT Community Conference (PICC) Fri/Sat May 7-8, 2010, Hyatt Regency, in sunny New Brunswick, NJ.http://www.picconf.org
The long version:
PICC10 is a gathering of professionals from the diverse IT (computer and network administration) community in New Jersey to learn, share ideas, and network. The conference includes invited speakers and keynotes, training by top-notch experts that is relevant, useful, and recession-friendly; plus an "unconference" track where attendees propose and host their own topics during the event. We expect attendance of 100 to 150 IT professionals from mid- to large-sized companies and academia from New Jersey/New York/Pennsylvania. We go by many titles but everyone is invited: system administrators, network administrators, network engineers, Windows, Linux, Unix, DBAs, and so on. YOU are invited!Awesome! Keep me informed!
- Twitters: http://www.twitter.com/picconf
- Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/fb-picc
- Emails: http://lopsanj.org/mailman/listinfo/picc2010-announce
