Category Christopher Kusek

Food, Folks and Tech: A community being socially responsible

What do you get when you bring a bunch of technical people together in a community setting to learn about technology and ask them to bring food for charity? Well, I hope to see more food than we can carry!

In an effort of community interest, good will, and what I rightly see as a good Experiment at this point, this month (March 19th) CWUG will involve not only a brown bag lunch, but also a request to bring unopened items to donate to the Northern Illinois Food Bank.

Honestly, it sounds like an amazing idea, one of which I think every user group, or even “Meet Up” and “Tweet Up” in Chicagoland and beyond should start doing on a regular basis – What better way to bring community together than by helping build out a part of community which is in need.

The agenda for next week’s CWUG is as follows:

Bring an item for the Pot Luck Dinner:

Last name A – F: Loaf of Bread + 1 bag Chips
Last name G – L: 6 pack Bottled Water
Last name M – R: Peanut butter
Last name S – Z: Jelly

5:00 – 5:30 Brown Bag Potluck and Networking
5:30 – 6:00 Room Introductions
6:00 – 6:15 Welcome/Meeting Kickoff
6:15 – 7:30 Microsoft Virtualization Technologies (App-V, MED-V, Hyper-V and Boot to VHD)
7:30 – 7:45 Break
7:45 – 9:00 Hands on labs – Windows 7 boot to VHD

Event URL : http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032407001&Culture=en-US
Event Title : CWUG: March Meeting – Chicago Loop
Event Date: Thursday, March 19th
Event Address : 200 E. Randolph, Suite 200, Chicago, IL 60601

Event URL : http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032407003&Culture=en-US

Event Title : CWUG: March Meeting – Downers Grove
Event Date: Thursday, March 19th
Event Address : 3025 Highland Pkwy. Suite 300, Downers Grove, IL 60515

Also, check out the group online, on Facebook and on Twitter!

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to let me know via email, @cxi on twitter, etc!

Microsoft Elevates America with Social Responsibility

Psst, did you know we’re in a recession?  Yea, can you imagine that? Now is the time to take every dollar we can from every person just to snake on by, right? Err, no.

No, this is a time to band together, and raise the bar together not only as individuals but more importantly as a community.   The Technology community is a particularly strong one, where we reach out and help each other, even in cut-throat situations where we’re against each other, we want to help.

Enter the newest innovation in this from Microsoft.

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This is just one in a series of Community Investment opportunities which will be announced in the market (and by announced, I mean I will search and track them down and tell you about them :))

This is particularly cool as in the “Basics” section, it has just that – the basics to get someone to be digitally literate.  Perfect for those with no current knowledge or minimal knowledge and skill-set in the digital age.  An excellent starting point.

I also particularly like this offer, for those trying to be employed or want to remain more relevant in their current positions:

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I encourage you to check out all of the resources, whether you’re looking for work, currently employed or interested in pursuing a career in technology.

Truly, do yourself a favor and elevate yourself, the free parts certainly hit the right price point!:)

NetApp System Manager – I can almost talk about it!

So seriously, if you haven’t seen this post by Steve or Val, well.. until things are released I cannot say much more than them! But once I can, you’ll get the motherload of it!

What can I say, which has already been said though…

For those of you who manage NetApp filers, you likely are familiar with the Command Line (CLI) or FilerView.   I’d like to say “Welcome to the change to that experience” and that change comes in the form of an MMC snap-in which looks a bit like this!

sysm

Believe me, if I didn’t fear for my own disclosure, I’d say more!

One of my favorite bits of this, is the fact that I can manage multiple filers from this single interface – Add them in and they’re ready to go.  The same can be said for multiple members of a cluster.  What? It knows who its cluster pairs are and can tell you about issues? no that’s far too cool to be true.

There’s so much more… which I look forward to disclosing when this officially launches, but just do know that it is really-cool and will improve your management experience even more-so than you currently have today!

I will say nothing more on this! :)