First of all, let this be your official invitation to come! If you haven’t been to an EMC Forum before they’re epic experiences rivaled only by the likes of your own dream wedding, or one of those lucid dreamlike experiences where you can fly!  Err… Maybe I’m over-selling it a bit, but no seriously. :)   It’s a great time, lots of learning to be had, networking to be experienced, and lots of prizes to be won (and demos to see?!)

Ooh.. and here I’ll put in quotes the … “Marketing Slick” type of things how they perceive it to be.. and of course I’ll give you my honest impression following that as well, just to keep it real! :)

EMC Forum 2011: Cloud Meets Big Data
Chicago – Hyatt Regency O’Hare
Tuesday, July 19, 2011; 8:00AM – 4:30PM

Learn more & register here

Join us at the EMC Forum where you’ll learn how cloud computing is transforming IT and discover new ways to accelerate the journey to your cloud for increased IT efficiency and greater business agility.  You’ll also learn how Big Data is transforming business and changing the world.

 

 

• Learn about the latest trends and developments in information infrastructure including cloud computing and big data.
• Understand the new roles and processes required to drive lasting change in your organization.
• Discover market-leading solutions that combine hardware, software, and services to meet the needs of any size business.
• Connect with leading cloud and big data experts and network with your peers.

Make your plans now to join EMC and our partners along with other IT and business leaders.  Don’t miss this opportunity to learn how you can transform your IT organization, transform your business, and accelerate your career.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Sujal Patel, Founder of Isilon® and President of EMC Isilon Storage Division

In 2001 Patel founded Isilon with the vision that big data would soon necessitate a shift away from traditional storage architectures and toward a new, scale-out paradigm. Today this vision has become a reality as scale-out network-attached storage (NAS) has emerged as the de facto storage platform for big data. Patel continues to lead Isilon’s business in enabling its customers to turn big data challenges into even bigger opportunities.

My Honest Take

I’ve been to these things in the past, and let me tell you they know how to hit it out of the park!  Whether through direct engagement (Conversations with peers, partners, vendors, friends) Attending sessions (expertise, the Q/A, others experiencing your same kind of problems) or just taking it all in; you will walk away from this event with a lot more than you came to it with!   Personally, I would find myself engaged in so many conversations on every topic under the sun (Or Cloud?! … Bad pun! :)) that it’d take me literally hours just to walk a few feet.    I honestly look forward to this level and type of engagement when it comes back around, fun times are had by all, and the raffle prizes? I cannot win them, but they’re pretty sweet! Definitely play the game ;)

I encourage you to attend, and at the very least you can say hi to me! (Whoa! Vanity ploy! giggle :))  I’m always happy to discuss…   frankly any topic :)

Learn more & register here

Sponsored by!

OMG THATS RIGHT! Yea, wow, I’m a tad overzealous! But hey, the SECOND EVER API HACK DAY IS COMING TO CHICAGO! That’s right! Stick it to the man! 

What is API Hack Day though you wonder?!?

API Hack Day brings developers together for an all-day coding fest focused on building apps and mashups with APIs. Developers of all experience levels can share ideas, collaborate on existing projects, start new ventures and find out about great tools and new APIs to play with.

Free admission, food and drink provided!

Hackers will also hear from some of the country’s top API-focused companies on tips, tricks and tools for building the next big app. At the end of the day, teams and/or individuals get a chance to present their work to a panel of judges and win great prizes.

API Hack Day Chicago will be held at the offices of event sponsor Morningstar, home of the Morningstar Tech Talks.

Brought to you by SimpleGeo, Twilio, SendGrid, Apigee & Mashery.

When

Saturday, May 28, 2011 from 8:00 AM – 8:00 PM (CT)

Where

Morningstar – Chicago, IL

22 West Washington Street

Chicago, IL 60602

Tentative Schedule as it stands!

• 8:00 – 9:00 Registration / Breakfast
• 9:00 – 9:15 Intro / Welcome / Kick-off
• 9:30 – 10:00 API Workshops
• 12:30 – 1:30 Lunch
• 6:00 Submission Deadline
• 6:30 – 7:15 Presentations
• 7:15-7:30  Judging
• 7:30 – 7:45  Awards

Sign up here!

http://apihackdaychicago.eventbrite.com/

That’s not all!

But wait… this sounds like a Press Release for an event, not at all the sort of thing I’d expect to find here! That’s damn straight! – You’ve seen what is COMING! Now through the power of the WAYBACK MACHINE… Oh and Context.. I’ll show you what you can begin to expect and what has happened!

They came.  They saw. They hacked!

They ate, they voted and they won?!?!

San Francisco – October 2010

• FIRST PLACE: Mootup by Zain Memon and Sha Hwang. An interface to explore upcoming meetups happening around the city, so users can discover various events without having to sign up for a group first.

• SECOND PLACE: Push’d by Sherman Lee, John Milinovich, Jayant Sai and Parth Shah. Push’d empowers developers and consumers to push important online information to mobile phones in a format that can be accessed from anywhere.

• THIRD PLACE: VeePark by Brennan Novak and Daniel Erickson. Air BnB for driveways. Rent out your driveway to people that need to park. Renters can use sms to find the nearest available driveway.

Yea, that’s right! Their hacking not only was rewarded with food and drink, but there were prizes! Props to the winners, and you too could be that winner!

Now, I know you guys know me from attending other events at one point or another in the past – So if the interest is there – I will not only LiveTweet the event on my beloved @cxi twitter ID, but I’ll also do the best of my ability to live-stream it (uStream?) , live-handle questions, and at request, handle one-off video interviews (in HD goodness) which we can throw on up to YouTube – It really is up to you the community to decide just how FAR I’ll go!

So, get your registration on! Get your hack on! And keep on keeping on!

So, there has been a lot of controversy by people on how do you actually get to vote when trying to vote for people in the RedEye Vibin Bachelor/Bachelorette contests.

Hopefully this little tutorial will give you the basics you need in order to vote! (And if I’m still in this contest at the time you read this, a vote for me ;))

First step is to Find the contest in question – My contest is accessed via this URL  Hello Bachelors! Voting is now open

You’ll see something looking like this: And once you scroll down a little bit, you’ll see this which tells you how to vote, yet obscured by other text on the screen! Leave a vote for your favorite bachelor in the comments…

So, it seems pretty straightforwardish now – I simply need to comment, right?! Well, that requires me to log in via Twitter, Facebook or ChicagoNow!

So, if you want to login via each of the services you’ll get different options

Clicking on Twitter gives you: Enter your credentials and it grants you the ability to comment using Twitter as your auth!

Clicking on Facebook is mostly a wash – comes up fine! but after putting in creds I get FAIL!

Leaving your only other option to be “Create an account”

I’m not opposed to the create an account function (okay, seriously I really am.. At that point, I’d rather you create a twitter acct ;))

So, once you’re finally logged in, scroll down to the “Leave a Comment” box and say something like “I love you christopher!” or whatever ;)

And there you go then! You aren’t the first to hit challenges while trying to vote, and may not be the least! so until then… here are the tools you need to vote!

So get out there, vote early and vote often (Hey, that’s a chicago thing!)  And if you’re looking to vote for me, I appreciate the vote!

Historically I’ve been pretty bad about announcing the CWUG here on PKGuild – Today is no exception!

Tonight is the CWUG in Chicago! 77W Wacker and all that goodness.
We’ll actually be kicking off with a tour of the MTC (Microsoft Technology Center) and all of the goodness which surrounds that. – Here is the information, which is also posted on our Portal

July Meeting
Monday, July 21st Microsoft Office, 77 West Wacker, downtown Chicago
Register Now!

4:30 p.m. MTC (Microsoft Technology Center) Tour!
5:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. Dinner/Networking
Windows Vista Gadget Contest Submission Deadline
5:30 p.m. – 6:15 p.m. Room Introductions/Meeting Kick Off
6:15 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. First sessions
Session 1: Automating Windows Desktop Deployments with OSD360 – presented by CyniOS Technologies
Session 2: Windows Live – production software and a look at some of the betas
7:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. Windows Home Server – PC backup and restore (Live demo!)

Hope to see you folks tonight!