Living in the future

Mar 26, 2009 | blog

'Milwaukee Art Museum Detail' by Hometown Invasion Tour Several years ago (okay, more than a decade) there was a great keynote speech by James Burke at ACM 97 where he talked about ‘The Next 50 Years of Computing’.  Now, if you’ve seen James Burke’s Connections series, you know what he’s good at.  Describing the intertwining relationships of time, technology, and happenstance.

Here, a decade or so later, I’ve been thinking how true those words are.  At the time, Windows 95 was still new, Microsoft Outlook was in it’s initial ‘1.0’ release, and the browser wars of Netscape vs. Internet Explorer were on, and Google was still a dream to be developed.  Back then, I was waist deep in technology as a Novell NetWare and then Windows NT “expert”, and loving it.  It was all about connecting computers together, and getting businesses connected to the Internet.  Email and ICQ were HOT.

Fast forward a decade, and so much has changed.  Where cell phones were a luxury that businesses could barely afford to sponsor, they’re now the de facto communication device of nearly all of us (who needs a land line).  Why have browser wars when you can have 5 to choose from that all have a spot on your Start Menu?  Where we used to pay upwards of $30/month for 56k dialup access, today most folks pay about that much for about 100 times that speed.  Heck, we have faster connections on our cell phones than we did at home back then.  GPS was a nifty gadget where you could plot waypoints to your favorite fishing hole; today, we have full-on navigation packages built into our vehicles to guide us anywhere.  The list is endless.

The point I’m getting at is the change all these things have made to our culture.  We’ve brought the concepts of democratization to technologies and industries that we used to think impenetrable.  Through citizen journalism and social media, we’ve toppled once powerful institutions.  We’ve squeezed huge entertainment companies to the point that they lash out at their own customers because they can’t find a new business model.  The people of the United States felt they had a real voice that was listened to in the selection of their latest President.

All this is through the incredible advancements in technology that changes our culture.

A decade ago in that keynote by James Burke, he talked about how developed countries were 50 years ahead of underdeveloped countries, and how this pattern would repeat into the future.  I believe we’ve sped up the process and are much farther down that path than we believe.  We are living in a future that our parents could never have dreamt of.  We have the opportunities available to us at the touch of an iPhone that a decade ago weren’t thought possible.

My question then, is what will you do with the advantage of living in the future?

Photo credit: Hometown Invasion Tour

 

rickmahn-hr 

As a note, if you follow the link to the ACM97 slide deck and videos, I just want to point out that it was compiled a long time ago and is not as polished as we see today on YouTube.  Just remember that as you go through it.  It’s still a great presentation, by a master at telling stories of history and technology.  Oh, and I did try to find it elsewhere without luck.

Connections 2007 – Day 4 Wrap-up

Apr 5, 2007 | blog

Windows Connections 2007 Sorry for being a day late, I ran out of time yesterday!

Today was the wrap-up of the main conference, as only the post-con sessions are left. It’s always kind of a let-down because you know that its almost over. Alright, there actually were several good sessions today. Here’s my recap.

Session one was The File Server Is Dead: Implementing Windows SharePoint Services Document Libraries with Dan Holme of Intelliem. Obviously, the main point of Document Libraries is to store documents from the Office Suite since Office 2003/2007 can publish directly to the DL. Other uses are searching documents, wikis, lists, RSS feeds, email notification, email publishing, collaboration, document visioning, the list can seem endless if you want to add 3rd party extensions. Very good session.

Connections 2007 - WDS Session two called Goodbye RIS, Hello WDS presented by Jeremy Moskowitz of Moskowitz, Inc. covered Windows Deployment Services. Jeremy delivered a heck of a session diving into the differences of RIS to WDS, and how to leverage WDS for not only Vista and Longhorn, but also XP and 2003. Topics covered ranged from creating and managing boot images, to images, image groups, post install configuration, answer files, WinPE, BDD, and a smattering of useful tools for the enterprising admin.

Connections 2007 - Volume Activation After the coffee break, I went to Volume Activation 2.0 in Vista and Longhorn Server, hosted by Sean Deuby of Intel. A very interesting and very misunderstood feature of Windows Vista and Windows Longhorn is the activation schemes used by Microsoft. Sean demystified the process and the technology involved. There are several methods used for system activation and a good system architect will need to understand the needs of the business to decide on the best option. One learning from this – Volume Activation will be as important to your infrastructure as DHCP – prepare now. This was one very educational session, whether anyone wanted to hear it or not. Thanks Sean for delivering on a very difficult topic!

Connections 2007 - Windows VistaAfter the lunch break it was on to session four of the day. Cracking the DaVista Code: The Best Things You’re Not Using in Vista with Mark Minasi. This session delved into the hidden (or little-known) features of Windows Vista. Mark talked about things like the take ownership tool, elevated explorer, use of ALT in explorer, backup tools, using WinPE to backup systems to a network, tags & indexing, new built-in tools like RoboCopy, restoring missing UI features, new Windows Logo key shortcuts, resizing partitions, WAIK. All that and much, much more. If you ever get a chance to attend a Mark Minasi session – do it, he’s entertaining and educational. A hard combination to find in many seminars.

Finally, after another break, this time for ice cream :), it was the final session of the day (and main conference), the Q&A Closing Session. Here, all the speakers were available for any question (and many debates!) on attendee questions. As usual, there was several lively discussions on many topics, with much input from the presenters as well as the attendees because of so many ways business use technology, and simply perceive certain issues. Very fun!

Tomorrow is the post-conference session Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 (MOSS) Web Content Management with Bob Mixon.

Update: Bob Mixon had broken his ankle earlier in the day and the session had to be canceled. I transferred in to a different session on IT Provisioning with Dan Holme – more tomorrow.

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Connections 2007 – Day 3 Wrap-up

Apr 3, 2007 | blog

Windows Office Exchange Connections 2007 Probably the longest day of the conference, the middle day starts early and ends late!  The main party is still going on outside, and I just got back from a pretty good walk around the Grand Cypress resort.  Lets see, what was today…

Starting with a nice continental breakfast, with Florida’s excellent fresh Orange juice, it got me ready for the keynote of the day – Attacker Trends and Techniques: An Update with presenter Steve Riley of Microsoft.  Steve’s reputation on security & Microsoft is well deserved.

The first session (there were 5 today!), was New Features in PKI and Certificates for Longhorn and Vista by Brian Komar of IdentIT.  I’ve been to many sessions presented by Brian, and he never fails to bring the complexities of PKI, Certificates, and Security into sharp focus that’s easy to understand.  Vista/Longhorn has significant improvements in the handling of certificates that address many user requests.

Session two was Reimaging the File Share: Automating and Provisioning Secure Business Data Shares with Dan Holme of Intelliem.  Both Jon and I got a lot of ideas that we want to bring back and have worked into the project plan for next year (if we can’t squeak it in this year).  Mainly to go back and pick up the user/group/permissions provisioning that we left on the table after our Windows Server 2003 upgrade & Active Directory implementation project in 2004.  Lots of ideas for role-based scripted processes and procedures.  One of the best sessions for practical application so far!

Mark Minasi - Windows Connections 2007 After a quick break, session three was lead by the ever-lively Mark Minasi of Minasi Research and Development.  Titled Windows Vista Security: The Hidden Truth, Mark really dove into a number of reasons for Vista’s User Account Control and why it should be left in place.  Also, demonstrated was how to automate legacy software compatibility.

Lunch was a buffet style of Italian classics, with a nice hour afterward to catch up on email and such before getting back into the sessions.

For Session four, attended the Using SharePoint Designer as a Workflow Tool hosted by David Gerhardt of 3Sharp.  A fascinating tool, the usefulness was quickly demonstrated, and I am certain that this tool will be in my solution arsenal in the near future.

Last session (number five) was again with the irrepressible Mark Minasi.  This time the topic was Name Resolution: DNS, WINS, and NetBIOS in Longhorn.  True to his word, the mysteries of WINS and NetBT were unraveled.  Another great entertaining, informative session.  No wonder why Mark gets the rave reviews he does – he earns it.

Finally, the day was wrapped up with a fantastic Western theme (in Florida?) party with grilled steak, beans, and the whole works.  They need a better beer selection (bring on the Sam Adams), but that’s the only thing I could find wrong with it all!  Good music and fun networking with peers from around the US and the world.  Any IT Pro (Windows OR Unix) should plan on attending one of the bi-annual Connections conferences if they can make it.

Two more days – one main conference day tomorrow, and one post-con course on Thursday.  Then back home to the snow!

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