January 28, 2008
Lotusphere 2008 Speedgeeking - Developer Tips
Posted by Jess in
Lotusphere2008
Here's my Lotusphere 2008 Speedgeeking presentation:
"Developer Tips You (may) Already Know About But Probably Forgot About, But It's Always Good To be Reminded of Every Once in a While".
... presented in five minutes, 12 times in one hour!
Click here to Download
January 25, 2008
Speedgeeking and blogging slides coming soon!
Posted by Jess in
Lotusphere2008
Some of you have emailed me (and one clever person IM'ed me... I LOVE technology!) to ask where the Speedgeeking slides are I promised.
This brings me to two great points.
1. You WERE paying attention. I had five minutes to do everything, and you had already been to 11 other speedgeeking stations before this. Nicely done, everyone!
2. You were able to find my contact info OK. This is also huge. I tend to get kind of frustrated when there is nary an email address to be found anywhere for someone. Again, nicely done!
That said, I am at the airport now, and wanted to spend some time "doctoring" the slides a bit. Not changing any content really, just adding more to it. I was speaking a lot in detail about each slide, and I want to put some of that information in the slides, because, well, it was important! That's the trouble with slides. You really need to HEAR sometimes.
I will also have the handouts for my Blogging Best Practices sheet. In fact, enough people have asked to send me questions about blogging, that I am starting a whole "blogging basics" featurette. You are all pro's at the technical stuff. Writing, communication, marketing, that is MY bread and butter. So expect that soon!
Anyway, for those that were wondering why this blog has been quiet all week, it's because I've been blogging and posting podcast interviews at the LotusUserGroup.org group blog.
Ready to board the plane... can't wait to get home and see my doggie. Plenty of pics to post, I think they are all of Zoë!
January 24, 2008
Cut off at the Kareoke bar
Posted by Matt in
Picture this, it was a dark and stormy night… well sort of. Tuesday night we went to Kimono’s in the Swan at Lotusphere. We arrived from a private party where I had already put down about 3-4 beers. Once at Kimono’s, I proceeded to drink at least 6 more drinks but graduated from beer to Captain and Coke. Jess had to present at 7AM on Wednesday so she retired early and I remained to sing Ice Ice Baby, The Humpty Dance, and Rappers Delight.
As the night went on, my singing skills degraded. Ice Ice Baby was delivered pretty well, Humpty Dance could have had some improvement and though people say it was the Karaoke monitor displaying the words too quickly, I was way off on Rappers Delight. The Captain was not good to me Tuesday night (he was kind Wednesday morning tho so no worries there) but this is NOT when I got cut off!! It should have been by the way I bobbed and weaved back to my room but when you’re not driving, who cares! :-P
Both Tuesday and Wednesday night, my parents were staying in our room to watch the Zoëster. Wednesday, we went to Universal Islands of Adventure, rode the usual roller coasters and when we got back to the hotel around 11, we hit Kimonos again. With last nights debauchery, I swore off drinking and singing. That didn’t last long thanks to Grayhawk. No more then an hour at the bar and I had a rum and coke in my hand (with minimal arm twisting). 3 sips and I had my request in.
Prior to submitting my song, Jess had submitted Bring Me To Life by Evanesence. By far, THE BEST performance I have ever seen and I am not just saying that because she is my wife. I have never heard a karaoke crowd cheer as loud as they did for her. She had people catching her on the way out saying “we want an encore”. I was supposed to follow up behind her (hmmmm…) and I had my introduction planned. This is where things turned around.
The karaoke host had said I was on deck after Jess but she forgot. Someone else went on before me but no biggie. I didn’t want to follow Jess’s performance anyway (If I did, however, I was going to say “that was my wife and she blew me… away with the way she sang that song.”). I guess I have Peter from Omni Multimedia to thank me for introducing me to how not to pause when speaking. As a quick aside, when Jess and I had an internship together in 1999, there was this guy, Peter, who headed up the flight sim portion of marketing. He LOVED flight simulator games and one day at lunch, the team was talking about airplane graveyards. Peter chimed in with “Oh, if I were in an airplane graveyard, I would go into one of the cock pits and whack off… one of the steering columns and bring it home and hook it up to my game". Well, thanks to him, I had what I thought was a funny statement. Sorry if it is offensive, read my last post and move along.
So, with that quick tangent aside, I finally got up on stage. For those of you that haven’t seen my karaoke of Rappers Delight, I don’t need the screen and it is a 7-8 minute song that is non-stop. Ya, sometimes I get winded like I did Wednesday night, but the not looking at the screen tends to take the audiences mind off that. So, after being skipped, I got up on stage. The host tells me “this song is a long song and if you need help, just look back to me and I will sing for ya.” I was polite, smiled and said, “O.K. thanks”. So the song began and I looked out at the crowd with the occasional glance back to the screen. I did not want to be “off” like the night before.
I was on target, every word spot on. I got to the last part with the return of Master “G” and with 20 seconds to go in the song, she cut me off. NEVER did I think I would be cut off from a song at a karaoke bar, the “bar”, yes… but we saw that that did not happen either! So, for those of you who did not get to hear the end, I believe I was cut off at:
”…And your friend says ‘Mama, he’s just being polite, he ain’t finished uh uh that’s bull!’
So your heart starts pumpin’ and you think of a lie and you say that you already ate
And your friend says ‘Man there’s plenty of food’, and he piles some more on your plate.
And while the sticky food’s steamin’ your mind starts ah dreamin’ of the moment its time to leave
And you look at your plate, and your chickens slowly rottin’ into something that looks like cheese.
So you say that’s good, I’ve got to leave this place, I don’t care what these people think.
I’m just sittin’ here makin’ myself nauseous with this ugly food that stinks.
So you bust out the door while its still closed, still sick from the food you ate,
And you run to the store for quick relief from a bottle of kaopectate.
And you call your friend, 2 weeks later, to see how he has been…
And he says I understand about the food, baby Bubba but we’re still friends”
And to the host… 132.
Peace
January 23, 2008
Disclaimer
Posted by Matt in
Day to Day
Hi All,
It's been a while since I have posted and as you can see below, my return to posting is marked with my Treo. I have purposely left the typos because I think it adds character. :-) Its not easy to post with a Treo in one hand and a baby in the other :-P
I have been asked many times why I no longer post. I guess I just didn't want to offend. Well too bad bitches, your gonna have to suck it up and deal. I have done far more offensive things in text messages and borrowed cameras here at the sphere then I have ever done on the blog. There is of course the post that never made it because it was a rant on religion with tangents and footnotes on tangents (redundancy was intentionally redundant) titled The Church of Me. Joe & Shirley were the only consumers of it but they seemed to like it.
So, why the sudden change in posting? Well, the blogger community here is phenomenal. That alone is inspirational and Jess has mentioned time and time again for me to return. But the real cause for my return was meeting Daniel Soares at JamFest. It was nothing but an introduction and a "I enjoyed reading your posts on the blog" so if I offend any of you, blame him :-P.
Best of all, I will always have a topic. A bunch of you have met my daughter at Lotusphere and have seen how much fun she is. We are very lucky to have such an easy going kid. If all else fails, I will post about the daily droolings of a 5 month old (well, 5 months tomorrow but who is counting :-P)
As a final offence, I leave you with 132. Props to those who figure it out :-)
January 22, 2008
blogger bomb - crisis averted
Posted by Matt in
So, the crisis was averted but the concept remains. Blogger bombing... In the type of community that exists amongst bloggers, espexially at Lotusphere, a situation arose that a "blog bomb" would have solved.
In an effort to be efficient, the restaurant hosting an after party was cleaning up and restoring their place to the norm after the party was over. In typical sphere fassion, we continued to hang. Well... a "bag-o-schwag" handed out to all attendees contained more then just the norm. One person had put their digital camera and an award in their bag.
If the bag was not found, we called for a blogger bomb. Basically, this would be a cry out to, in this case, all the blogging community in lotus to blog about this mishap. It would get the message out amongst the community and, theoretically, find the missing camera.
so... my return to the blog is with my treo. I have been gone for too long but I hope to once again infect your minds with my twisted thoughts. ;-) next time, I will have a keybord and will be able to type much better.
toodles
January 19, 2008
The pole-shaking police
Posted by Jess in
Day to Day
So we're at the airport gate waiting to go to Orlando and people watching.
A little boy ran up to the gate pole, where there is a sign hanging from it. He started shaking it, making the sign clang.
An alarm went off in the not-too far away (one of those golf-cart thingies was coming by).
The little boy stopped and looked at Matt with his mouth wide open. Matt gasped, "It's the pole shaking police! Go hide"
The little boy ran behind the glass wall and peeked out. His mother came to get him, dying with laughter.
Don't shake your pole at the airport. The police will come get you!
January 16, 2008
BOF302: Blogging Best Practices
Posted by Jess in
Lotusphere2008
Here's where I'll be at 7AM on Wednesday at Lotusphere!
BOF302: Blogging Best Practices
Jessica Stratton, Solace
Date: Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Time: 7:00 -8:00 AM
Location: Swan Hotel, Macaw
Whether you already have a blog or are just thinking about getting started, you'lll walk away with info you didn't know! This session will cover why you'd want to blog in the first place, creative uses for blogs, blog software options, corporate blogging, how to build your brand and your readership, and some quick "Writing 101" tips to keep your readers happy and coming back!
Expect a good discussion and some handouts to make it worth your while!
January 11, 2008
The Lotusphere 2008 Blarmy Boat Races (aka Swancross?)
Posted by Jess in
Lotusphere2008
Matt and I just registered as a team for the 3rd Annual Blarmy Boat Races at Lotusphere!
This post over at Warren's sums up the event. Basically, they noticed that in between the Swan and Dolphin was a huge lake. This lake had some nice swan boats for guests. Two years ago, they had an informal race, and last year, they had about 30 people race, which was great fun.
Apparently, this year, the swan boats are not pedal boats anymore, they are Electric. With Water Guns. And Warren is doing a SLALOM.
So unless my eyes deceive me, we are doing an AUTOCROSS (swancross, really) at Lotusphere.
What I want to know is, if I put strut bars on my swanboat, do I run in a different class? Can I put a supercharger in mine? "Open Swan Modified"? "Open Swan Prepared?" "Swan-stock" for unmodified swans?
I'll have to get my team's Pixie Posse Racing stickers there to represent. :-)
However, we will be there on Tuesday at 12:45 against Team OpenNTF, Curt Stone, and Greyhawk and Devin.
Jess and Deb (honorary Pixie, this WAS a race after all)
January 08, 2008
Four and a half months
Posted by Jess in
Zoë
January 01, 2008
From the What Were They Thinking Department
Posted by Jess in
Day to Day
For Christmas this year, many products I bought as gifts came with rebates. Most of them were special rebates when the item was purchased during a small window of time (such as Dec. 20-24).
When gathering my receipts and finally sitting down to do the rebates, I am stunned in disbelief at the amount that require the original UPC code from the box.
What were they thinking, indeed...
