Well, I'm finally here at the conference. Arrived Saturday afternoon and arrived to rain (not too bad since that's what I left in Chicago). Settled into my room and then went to dinner at Smith and Wollensky. I listen to the Steve Dahl radio show in Chicago on my way home from work every night and he has the head chef (Chef Hans) on for Steak talk (he used to do the Swiss sports report but now they've switched to talking steak). When I saw how close the resturant was to my hotel, I decided that since Steve raved about it, I had to try it out.
The Lobster Bisque was awesome and the gorgonzola encrusted steak was fabulous. It was pricey so I think that will be my one expensive dinner for the trip. Didn't try any desert since I'm on the Body for Life program and have lost 20 lbs so far.
Went back to my room and set things up on my two PC's. I brought my main Dell D620 loaded with our corp. XP SP2 image and I brought a Lenovo (formerly IBM) X41 Thinkpad tablet convertible (using it now to write this blog). I have Vista Beta 2 loaded on it and it's doing fine so far. It nicely found the thinkpad hardware that the install didn't while doing a Windows Update session. Now this morning it is running nicely via wireless. One of the gentlemen sitting near me in the wireless lounge reported that he was seeing ten access points. So, it appears they have improved upon the wireless network of past TechEd conferences.
I took the bus from the hotel and came to registration (which went very smoothly) and got my bag and goodies (as well as my badges). I then proceeded to setup my bag and throw out the marketing materials that didn't pertain to me (I'm not a developer, I'm a security admin so that stuff all went in the garbage).
The bag is nice but I do miss a few things. I miss the cell phone pocket and the water bottle pocket. The compartments inside are nice. The clasps to hold down the front flap are very sturdy but a bit awkward to quickly open. We'll see if it gets better over the week as I get used to it or I get it broken in.
Another nice improvement this year is the fridges for the water and soda. This way they won't be soaking wet when you pick one up. Lastly, the pen you get with your badge is a nice metal pen. It's not a cheapy platic pen and feels decent in your hand. Nice job guys.
Well, more to blog after the pre-conference seminar (fighting malware).
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