Conférences

When first trying to reserve a room near the downtown Hyatt Center in downtown Chicago, I was shocked to hear that a room could cost me approx $450/night. I first thought it was for the 3 nights, but the hotel desk made it clear that was only ONE night… Ouch! But the same hotel chain…

I’ve flown out of Montreal today at noon to spend the next 3 days locked up in a lab, where with about 20 other WebSphere geeks, I’ll take a first look at WebSphere Application Server V6.1, which was announced last week. This is my first STEW (which stands for Software Technical Enablement Workshop) attendance, although…

After a full week of WebSphere fun in Germany, I’m merely back that I get another full day in Montreal. This is an event where technical professionals such as IT Specialists, IT Architects and Project Managers come to listen to elective sessions, as well as share their experience and pains of dealing with technology. The…

Well, it’s now over and I’m back on the (IBM) saddle, from home (Montreal). Once the conference was over, I had enough time left to enjoy Dusseldorf as a pure tourist. That means walking around with my behemoth (do I sound like I want a new gadget…) Canon G1 camera and taking some snapshots on…

Well, blogging from the sessions was a bad idea, and I never did do it. The reason? I remember better the material with a good o’le pen & paper. So, after having taken the notes, I rewrite these into a Notes journal entry, for safekeeping and action (where there needs to be). But here are…

Well, after the first day’s excitement, I had great plans and expectations for the 2nd day. I was looking at maps and was very (too) ambitious for the distance I’d cover. I initially wanted to visit Belgium, Luxembourg and see a castle – in one day! Well, that never happened. I finally settled for Heidelberg,…

Travelling is fun. I DO like it, although it does have particular demands on the household and the family. This time, quite peculiar was the fact I was picking up my parents at the airport over lunch, as they were returning from a 3-week holiday in ltaly. And I would visit the same airport hours…

In one week (give or take an hour or two), I’ll be on a flight to Dusseldorf, to attend the annual WebSphere Technical Conference. This is a double-whammy as the Rational annual technical conference will be held at the same time. And since to me, appdev tools and websphere runtimes go hand-in-hand, it’s just great…

Yesterday was pretty demanding in terms of brain cycles – I went through numerous labs showing the various facets of WebSphere Integration Developer (WID). Now, I’m no (serious) programmer, so while the SOA concepts aren’t that difficult to understand, the hidden complexity to WID is mesmorizing. There are so many options everywhere… I would not…