WinConnections Las Vegas Conference

by | May 8, 2006 | Blog, Miscellaneous

Winconnection

While reading the recent copy of Windows IT Pro magazine I saw an ad for their upcoming conferences and decided to look into them. This coming November Microsoft and Windows IT Pro will be holding several conferences in Las Vegas. The conferences cover a number of topics like Exchange, Windows, SQL Server, Office, ASP.NET, Visual Studio .net and others. We are looking at attending the Exchange and Windows conferences which you can attend both for the same price. Here is just a sample of the sessions to be held:

  • Exchange Sessions:
    • Achieving High Availability without Clustering
    • Getting Rid of PSTs
    • Hit the Road: Maximize Your Exchange 2003 Mobility
    • Protecting Microsoft Exchange Server with ISA 2006
    • Regulatory Compliance and Records Management with Exchange, Outlook, OWA, and SharePoint
    • Troubleshooting Disaster Recovery with Exchange Server 2003
  • Windows Sessions:
    • Common Active Directory Attacks and How to Protect Against Them
    • Distributing Your Data with DFS Namespaces
    • In-Depth Group Policy Troubleshooting
    • Regulatory Compliance and Active Directory
    • VBScript Basic Training
    • Wireless Security – WPA2 with Certificates

    There are also supposed to be a number of hands on workshops that cost extra. The conference looks to be packed with good info, not to mention being held in Las Vegas. The cost for the conference is $1295 if you register before September 18th and $1395 if you register after. The dates for the conference are November 6th-9th and is being held at the Mandalay Bay Resort. Maybe we’ll see ya there!

    Cool WordPress plug-in

    by | May 8, 2006 | Blog, Software

    Hippo

    As i was re-working my about section I wanted to find a WordPress plug-in that would popup a window to display images. I found a plugin called Lightbox JS which works really well. The plug-in uses a javascript overlay to display an image from a link. Check out this link or click the hippo for a sample of what it does.

    All you have to do is download the plug-in, install it, activate it and any links you insert into posts or pages that link to images are opened using the javascript overlay. You can add code to links to disable the overlay if you want to. I tested the plug-in in Firefox, IE and Opera on a Windows XP machine. Firefox and IE acted the same and worked fine. Opera worked, but acted a bit different than the other two. Not sure about any other browsers though.
    Even cooler than looking at a picture of a big lazy hippo which has nothing to do with this post at all, huh?

    Here’s a link to the author’s site where you can download the plugin.

    Must see site: The Radiant Vista

    by | May 6, 2006 | Blog, Websites

    radiantVistaEvery now and then you run across a website and think, wow. I look at a lot of websites. One reason I like StumbleUpon so much is that you get to find sites you wouldn’t normally find in your average internet explorations. The internet is a vast expanse of information and people. An overwhelming majority of that expanse seems to be filled with junk. Either people trying anything they can think of to make money or people spewing all sorts of none-sense like little children running around a playground making up fantasy games and stories.

    If you are lucky you might hit 1 or 2 innovative sites a month that sincerely offer useful information in a well thought out manner. “The Radiant Vista” is one of those types of sites. I was on one of my favorite Photoblogs, Michael Brown’s “Macro Art In Nature” and he mentioned Radiant Vista so I figured I’d check it out.

    Awesome! They have a section called The Daily Critique where they take photos submitted to them and do a 4 to 5 minute dialog about the shot pointing out the good and the bad. I’ve watched a couple of these and they are very good. They also have a section called The Photoshop Workbench which has some 20 minute videos with tips and tricks and other useful info on using Photoshop. As if the first two sections weren’t enough there’s also a video tutorial section covering photoshop and other photography pointers, add to that pdf tutorials and articles and you’ve got enough useful information to keep you busy for some time. It was one of the few times I thought this is something I wouldn’t mind paying some money for!

    Update: I found a place to make donations on Radiant Vista’s website and made a small donation. I encourage you to make a donation also since their content is so valuable and useful. Every little bit helps with the costs of bandwidth and such.

    I’ve started a page to keep track of great websites such as this one.