BarCampRDU was a resounding success. The turnout exceeded our expectations and it didn't take long to fill up the schedule with sessions. I made some good connections and learned a lot both in sessions I attended and led.

Fred Stutzman showed his knack for leadership and orgainzaton by initiating and driving the conference. He deserves much of the credit, but the conference wouldn't have been possible without the other organizers, sponsors, and volunteers. I'm looking forward to the next one!

Below are some notes I jotted down in some of the sessions I attended.

Refactoring your WetWare by Andy Hunt

- Discussed the Dreyfus model
- Novice and Experts don't work in the same way. Novices need rules, experts use intuition
- Certification programs and SWEEBOK don't work
- Learning by synthesis rather than analysis is much more powerful
- Does design matter? Short answer is yes, that's how toilet brush makers can charge $6 for their highly designed product.
- R-mode vs L-mode processing
- L-mode thinking tends to dominate
- Draw house example - L-mode takes over and shows a standard house
- How to engage R-mode?
- The more senses you use to work on a problem, the more of your brain will being to work on it.
- For a given design: write it down, draw a picture, describe it verbally, engage in open discussion
- Lozanov Séance
- R-mode to L-mode flow
- "You want to write drunk and revise sober"
- Start off with an R-mode approach to learning (multi-sensory) and then move to L-mode
- Rock climbing experience
- Techniques:
Image streaming
Free-form journaling

Working on a keyboard is a L-mode activity
When you run into a problem, step away from the keyboard

A Whack on the Head
Try to see a problem from a completely different viewpoint
Recommends: Mental Whacks

The magic of an "oracle"

Everyone has good ideas. Few people keep track of them. Even fewer act on them. And even fewer act on them successfully.

If you don't keep track of great ideas, you'll stop noticing you have them

Capture good ideas

Keeps Carries Fisher Spacepen and small notepad at all times

Capture isn't enough, you need to process them
Thinks a personal wiki is the best thing for this

Check out: Pragmatic Learning

Context switching: If you constantly interrupt the task you are working on with will drop your effective IQ by 10 points

Get a second monitor: get productivity improvement by 20-30%
He has two 23 inch monitors for 46 inches of space + 6 virtual desktops organized by function (editing, communication, etc.)

Desktop metaphor is really the Crowded airline seat metaphor

Mailing list available on the topic, email Andy

Sex & Death of Advertising by Martin Smith

- Recommends: Attention Economy
- Infomercials have become extremely costly. As more people do something, the most costly it becomes
- Magnetic Poetry
- Word of mouth is the most powerful advertising, but also the most difficult to get

Social Networking by Fred Stutzman

User Experience by Rick Cecil

- You are not your users
- Best practices
Information Scent
Enough! Not too much, but not too little. General (more) <-> Specific (less)
- As you get more specific, ask if the use really want this? Do they care?
Hick's Law
Eliminate Errors - (like Google spell checking)
Always allow undo

Set Defaults
Fitts Law - time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to the size of the target (i.e., if you have a button that is important, make it big -- and vice versa)
Obviousness
If it needs a sign, it is badly designed

I just received my author copies for Windows Server 2003 Networking Recipes. This was my first book with Apress and despite some ups and downs (which every book goes through), they were good to work with. Congrats to my co-authors, Laura and Brad, who did all the heavy lifting.

Table of Contents Book Home Page Buy from Amazon

Windows Server 2003 Networking Recipes is ideal for network managers and Windows Server 2003 system administrators responsible for setting up and running computers and networks. Think of this book as the comprehensive, task-based guide to installing, deploying, and configuring the various networking protocols and services supported by Windows Server 2003--and the only book you'll need. You'll find hundreds of quick reference solutions. And the featured recipes are all based on the first-hand experiences of the authors. You can rest assured that this book is written by a team of leading experts in Windows administration.

My wife and I recently spent two days in Charleston and three days on Kiawah Island. I had been wanting to visit Charleston for some time. The history, the Southern culture, the great climate -- all right up my alley. I was not disappointed! Nor was I disappointed by Kiawah Island, which is easily the nicest resort/golf destination in the Carolinas.

In Charleston, we walked around a bit and went on a nice tour of the historic area. We also stopped by a couple of the old cemeteries. Here is a rather eery cemetery we went in that has tombstones dating back to the 1700s:


Notice the hanging moss. It grows all over Charleston. Charleston also has my two favorite trees growing in abundance: palm trees and crape myrtles. The crape myrtles were in full bloom, which made Charleston's Historic section very colorful.

Kiawah Island is a private resort island set about 30 minutes southeast of Charleston. You need reservations to even get beyond the first gate. We stayed at the lone hotel on the island called The Santuary. It is the nicest hotel I've stayed at on the east coast and rivals many of the nice resort that you'd find in California:


This was the view from our room:


We reserved the basic Garden room, but they upgraded us for free to a premier ocean view. Nice!

Kiawah is known for golf (they want to host a future US Open and will host the PGA Championship in 2012). They have 7 golf courses total. 2 are restricted to members of the "club" while the other 5 are open to anyone staying on the island. I chose to play at the one the concierge told me was the "most wide open" of the 5. It was the Osprey course, so named after the large, rather ugly birds that can be seen all over the course.



I saw signs warning about alligators, but I didn't really believe it. Alligators on a golf course? As we drove to the clubhouse after playng 18, I saw something in the grass right beside the sidewalk:


On closer inspection:


Yikes! Talk about a hazard. My wife and I saw another alligator in a river by the hotel one evening as we drove around. You are definitely close to nature in Kiawah!

All in all, we really enjoyed the trip and plan to go back again (hopefully soon).