Sunday was the big day, I was leaving for San Francisco for VMworld 2010! I was so excited I didn’t go to sleep Saturday.

Flight experience

My outbound flight was on Delta airline leaving from Logan at 550 in the morning. Going through security was a breeze and was suppose to go through the full body scan; however the guy in front of me was taking forever so I got waived on.

I was in shock to find out there was a $25 charge for my luggage! Seriously?!?! Now to many people that travel on the regular this is no surprise. The last time I flew was at least 7 years ago. (I know I know what do you mean 7 years!) I have 4 kids when we go places we usually drive.

I understand trying to make money in a business but I think it’s taking advantage to a degree as they know people need to bring clothes with them. To advert this people bring carry on bags; the flaw with that is some people bring two carry-ons making the storage crowded on the plane. I understand why travelers do this as and  had I known I would have too.  My flights went nice and smooth and ahead of time! So the trip started out good.

Let the Networking begin

I am big on Twitter many of you all know this, so when I get the chance to meet with people I engage with on there it’s a win!

It started at the airport meeting w/some to ride the BART (San Francisco’s train system). Met up with a few other’s for lunch at 21st Amendment Brewery.

WUPaas

This is a sponsored event and from what I here is getting bigger each year! WUPaas is a great idea as it allows to conference goers a chance to kind of wind down after traveling. The biggest thing for me was the ability to meet alot of great people.

Round up

While there are a ton of great session and content going on the best part of VMworld and me being here is making my virtual connections real. Oh and I’ll be able to attend all the sessions as they are available online after the conference. You will get information overload!!

While the journey to the cloud is great the connections made while on that journey is what will make or break it. You can find my stand point on “virtual friends” here.

How was your “Travel” day?

Many people worry about spam and fake followers on Twitter. Some people to combat this will use a site called TrueTwit to validate their new followers.

Stop wasting time with SPAMMERS on twitter.
We will validate your followers so you don’t have to.

Now this sounds like a great sevice; but on a deeper look it’s just a waist of time.  New real users have to click a link to say hey I’m real to follow you. Oh wait the service doesn’t block people from still following you anyways.

Help!! If someone doesn’t complete the validation request, they won’t be able to follow me!!

Nope. Not at all. TrueTwit doesn’t prevent you from following anyone, nor do we stop anyone from following you. If someone doesn’t complete the validation request, they can still follow you.

In fact, if you follow someone first, and they follow you back, they’re not even sent a validation request.

Then further down there FAQ page

I know after a new follower follows me, they will receive a validation request, but what happens if they don’t respond? Will they be blocked until they are validated or can they still follow me?

If someone doesn’t respond to the validation request, they will show up on the Manage Followers page as not having verified, but they will not be blocked.

Twitter allows anyone to follow anyone else, and there isn’t much TrueTwit can do about it. However what we can do is help you decide whether or not to follow or block someone.

Now they state that no matter what people will still be able to follow you and see your tweets.

Whats the real value?

So this service is suppose to validate users and help block spam but still allows for them to follow anyways.

I don’t see the value in this, it’s just another site to have to visit and credentials to remember. It would be easier to just use a client like Tweetdeck and create a new user column and block the actual spam bots that end up following you.

Conclusion

I don’t listen to the Direct Messages asking me to validate that I am real. If I follow someone it’s because we have some kind of like interest. I was surprised after following a couple people and got the TrueTwit message. What surprised me was not receiving the message but the fact I could still follow the user’s tweet stream. Ending with me doing some research. I personally will never use TrueTwit basic or premium ($20 yr) as it in my opinion gives no added value.

If this service actually blocked users from seeing the stream until approved it would be brought up on my list of sites/services to possibly use.

How do you feel about services like this?

I’m still in shock and grateful that I will be atending VMworld this year in San Francisco. I’ve never been to San Francisco but heard it’s beautiful. The best part and what I’m looking to do is network with more people. I have my virtualization interests and I am bound to learn alot. One of the biggest things I want to gain is a direction for education, find the right stuff to make myself standout as a canidate for job positions. I’ve been extremely fortunate winning both EMC World & now VMworld. Here’s some virtual fun for you all.
Here is a behind the scenes of my reaction to winning.

There is alot I look forward to on this trip. I will document my journey here in my blog and maybe ake another video since I had a blast making the one above.

If you see me at VMworld be sure to say hello!!

I’ve heard many times that “online” friends aren’t real friends. Honestly this statement can’t be further from the truth!!

Friend(by definition)
–noun
1. a person who gives assistance; patron; supporter: friends of the Boston Symphony.
2. a person who is on good terms with another; a person who is not hostile: Who goes there? Friend or foe?
3. a member of the same nation, party, etc.
Online (by definition)
–adjective
1. connected by computer to one or more other computers or networks, as through a commercial electronic information service or the Internet.
2. available or operating on a computer or computer network
–adverb
3. with or through a computer, esp. over a network.

So by combining Online and friends the definition could be interpreted as-  Person(s) which share communication mainly through the use of online technology usually have shared intersts, belonging to same group.

People argue that you must meet and know a person in real life. But isn’t the use of technology real life? If I’m interested in mobile gadgets and start conversing regularly with an individual or group would that not classify them as friends.

My journey

I started my “online friends” with Yahoo messenger. Yup I started by chatting with people! I was working 3rd shift and had to spend hours awake, my coworkers did it and seemed like a good idea. Honestly it was one of the best things I did! I became a regular in a few chat rooms and conversed with people all around the world; Germany, Australia, New Zealand, UK, United States. My “friends” were all in different backgrounds but a majority were techies. Now at the time Yahoo Messenger was as high tech as I got. I didn’t even have internet at my house yet! Where I was working they had highspeed internet, I was spoiled. I decided to purchase a home computer (HP w/AMD processor and 512mb of ram!) Looking back I was excited, I even made sure to order the highspeed internet from Cox. I wasn’t going to be on stinking dial up! I had aprx. 200 people I use to talk with on a daily basis and most thought the this is online not real life. We had alot of great laughs and and some solid connections. I am not online with Yahoo messenger much anymore but I know if I found some of the users from the past it’s be like nothings changed except what has happened in our offline lives. There are a couple that I talk to all the time and are considered my closests friends. But I’ve never met them in person, we have built up a mutal respect for one another. Isn’t that what a friend is? Someone you can call and tell anything to without judgement?

Technology breaks barriers

Being online allows for individuals to be comfortable with themselves and find others with same interests. Also it allows us to communicate with people from around the world! I maynot be in chat rooms these days but you find me on Twitter or here on this blog.  My online friends are all great people each having something that makes them 1 of a kind; that in turn reflects who I am as a person.

I know you all know someone with a million friends on facebook or myspace and turns out most are porn stars or celebrties. Whats wrong with them reaching out to that medium of interest to them. People do this as that’s what interests them.

Bottom line

Things are all going virtual and many people connect to others online all the time! I value my online connections as much as my offline connections. You never know when a connection either online or offline will help you in a way that changes your life. My online friend Bob from Germany was just that. I hope each of you find your online “Bob”, as those simple interactions sparked the computer passion and part of the reason I’m here doing what I do.

What are your thoughts?

On Tuesday Aug 17th Veeam released Reporter v4 (this link is my link for the Veeam Blogger contest). To help promote this new feature Veeam is sponsoring a contest for Bloggers. I have had the chance to play around with the product and then promote it. The person with the most downloads from their link wins. But the best part is we are not winning anything for us! The winner gets a donation towards a charity! Talk about the gift of giving. Not only a descent product backed by a great company you get to help out a charity. Details can be found here.

Video Veeam made

Who,what, where, when and how (this is qouted from Veeam’s website)

Reporter captures the “who, what, where, when and how” of every change. With this audit data, you can improve change workflows and investigate problematic changes.

You can also speed problem resolution. When performance declines or a VM is no longer working, the first thing you need to know is “what changed?” Reporter provides instant visibility of changes that have occurred in your environment. So you can easily isolate the root cause of performance slowdowns and availability issues.

Besides the nice grphics and all the information I really liked the What changed part. You can spend hours trying to track down a problem and by that small feature can possibly save time, resulting in saving money.

Free limited version or Paid full version

I would recommend the Paid full version after trying the Free version as it gives you the ability for full audit reporting while Free version is limited to the last 24 hours. Also the Paid version has ability for PowerShell access.

View the comparsion chart here

 Give it a try!! Download Veeam Reporter Free edition here

I’m writing this post in reply to Thomas Jones post over at Niketown588. Under normal circumstances I would’ve just replied via comment but I knew it was going to be a long reply so Thomas here’s my comment:

Medal of Honor series FPS (first person shooter) sparked my interest while reading about it in a magazine. I was excited they were trying to improve on a series that hasn’t done to well in the past. Call of Duty series has dominated the FPS military style games for the past 3 years if not longer. Now I pre-ordered a copy for xbox360 and was able to participate a couple days while they had the multiplayer beta open. I didn’t have the urge to play more.

Same feel

All the game reviewers are saying this is the best game coming out and is a cross of the Battlefied Bad Company 2 and Call of Duty series. What are they thinking? Multiplayer online has the same feel as Battlefield online.

Cons

• No prone position
• Laggy
• Graphics were sub par
• Games take forever
• Annoying sound when the game is coming to an end
• Did I mention no prone yet?
• When shooting long distance there is lack of trajectory; meaning where weapon is pointed bullet hits. ( call of duty you have to adjust higher for long range shots)
• weapon inaccuarcy (I hit person 3x’s w/sniper they still running and end up killing me)
• Mele knife attack is slow
• Did I mention Lag

Pros

• Blow buildings up
• Use of vehicles
• Re-spawn feature where you can choose where to re-spawn based on game and players alive
• Did I mention you can blow buildings up?

Potential

Now Medal of Honor has potential w/DICE and the use of there game engine Frostbite. I also believe they are using the Unreal Game engine (Gears of war). I am not ruling this game out and am hoping like Thomas mentioned it is expected to be a great game. I hope for this. I will give a complete review once I have a copy of the game in hand and give you the real good and bad of it.

While I was in the military I was fortunate to train w/Special forces a couple times and hold those moments and fellow soldiers in high regards!

It is the highest honor in the military to earn a Medal of Honor (Take some time to read how the service members earned theirs!) let’s hope for EA‘s sake this game has a great campaign mode and the online experience improves to make this lack luster series get out of the mediocre spot and into the top rankings.

My wife says I am on the computer to much. Always checking my phone doing this and doing that. So today I was having some family time and did something I very rarely do, I shut my phone off! Now many times we get so engulfed with our interests that we don’t realize how engulfed we are.

OSV

Old Sturbridge Village is where I spent my day. The day was great I spent the day with my 3 younger kids and 2 nieces; walking around and remembering the days when there was no computers let alone iPads and Droids. Heck back then clouds were the things in the sky you would lay and think of all the shapes. Now things have changed a cloud has no real definition. Vendors have there own spin on what the “Cloud” is.

Your head is in the clouds

My Nana use to say this to me all the time. I am constantly wanting to learn and tinker with things. I have a passion for this. Technology allows me to do that passion.  Gestalt IT reminds me of my grandparents, not by the age but how it engages with it’s readers and gives back to the tech community. Always pushing for the best out of it’s contributors. That’s what my grandparents do to all of us kids.

Contest

Gestalt IT held a contest which I previously wrote about. Well the big announcement of the winners was being held today 13th Aug 2010. I had no idea what time, and my phone was off and in the car. Close to 5pm I get back to car and turn my phone on as my messages were coming in I read one “Congrats your going to VMworld!!”, I was taken back for a minute and must of asked Thomas Jones 5 x’s or more in a minute if he was pulling my leg. Thomas is a great guy we just discussed this contest on his podcast yesterday. Him being a Baltimore Pigeon(Ravens) fan made me skeptical until he was like “you really won!! I’m so happy for you!!”. Then my emails synced and I was getting tweet notifications galore. I was one of the lucky winners!!

The judges

I have much respect for the Techfield Day delegates, slightly more now. They were tasked with a tough challange and not just the challange of sending someone to VMworld but what could very well be a life changing experience. I also like how the contest was judged. Another reason I never posted or told anyone what my entry was until later in this post.

Voting was handled by the awesome Gestalt IT Field Day delegates. This most-excellent bunch were themselves selected based on their thought leadership in the areas of virtualization, storage, networking, and enterprise systems administration and are well worth watching! They looked for someone like themselves: Committed to giving back to the IT community. If you’re interested in learning more about them, please check out the lists from San Jose, Boston, and Seattle. And watch two weeks after VMworld as our first-everNetworking Field Day is held!

Raison d’etre

In 2003 I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. I underwent chemo treatment and am doing fine. I remember when I was in the hospital a group of people coming in with Dogs for the patients to play with. At the time I didn’t give it much thought; I enjoyed the golden retriever I played with and will always remember him. Since my last chemo session I’ve wanted to do something, every year on my birthday I bring flowers to the nurses of the George Clinic at Rhode Island hospital. However that just doesn’t seem like enough for me.

My idea

One of the greatest things cancer did for me was give me time. I was exhausted, hardly ate, drank only water, slept 20+ hrs a day sometimes. As I felt better I would tinker w/dreamweaver or photoshop. Then it turned into tinkering with my computer. The whole time remembering my poppa saying “Luigi, get into computers” I was dead set on not getting into computers, as I knew nothing about them. Well alot has changed and I’m into computers, now more Data Storage and virtualization side over the graphic/ web design elements.

Goto to the movies you see the ads to donate to the Jimmy fund and you see the kids. I know what I went through but how can these kids do it?!?!?! Heartbreaking really. I’m a father of 4 wonderful kids, truly blessed. What if my kids got cancer or other illness? I worry everyday about that.

So with the desire to want to give back to something worthwhile my plan will need some help and contributions from the people around me:

I am going to plan Circle reading time where a “virtual” guest shall join us in reading to children fighting cancer/other major illness. Now the kids will be able to see you and you will be able to see them.

Also I will provide technical mentoring for the families in person and via tutorials on this site; which will help them to incorporate current technologies to keep the children and themselves connected.

I also will be doing many posts on virtualization for beginners and various tips or tricks I’ve learned along the way. This is to give back to the tech community that I love.

I survived cancer and got into technology, someone out there right now will survive and if my slight influence can lead them to becoming a computer engineer or scientest, attorney, or president then I will do it.

Cancer like technology affects everyone!

I can’t thank these 4 great sponsors Zetta, Veeam, xsigo, symantec enough. I know Allan Ruiz (the other winner) and myself will be forever grateful!

Many know that Gestalt IT is hosting a contest with a chance to go to VMworld 2010. They have 4 great sponsors Zetta, Veeam, xsigo, symantec .Thanks to them Gestalt is able to send 2 winners.

Now the bases of the contest is to Pay it forward. To give back for receiving such a great opportunity is a great idea. Now I submitted my entry and whether or not I win( fingers and toes crossed) I am going to still go ahead with my Pay it forward idea. I will release more details on that soon as my idea will need some help from all of you my friends and readers.

I just wanted to write a quick THANKS to Steve Foskett and the sponsors. I know whoever wins will hopefully make all of us proud and if I’m not one I will help any of the winners with their idea.

So Thanks for giving people the oppurtunity!!

So I was in a creative mood tonight and was playing around on the computer; deciding to change my logo and look of the site some.

Old Logo

Possible #1

Possible #2

Possible #3

Final Possibility

Which one do you like?

This Follow Friday post goes to two special women in the industry. Both work for and are very active on the EMC Proven Professional Community. They keep me focused on achieving my Proven certification.

Michelle Lavoie – Michelle is always willing to help the community members. I find her responsive and polite.

Gina Minks – Not only is Gina is superstar on the Proven community, she is always engaging with the community. Check out Adventures in Corporate Education for her personal blog.