Matthew - 4 Days Old

VMworld is over, and my biggest concern was skirted…that Baby Mini-G (who was due just after Labor Day) wouldn’t arrive early while I was in San Francisco at VMworld.  Skirted…but just.  Matthew arrive the day after VMworld to both mine and my wife’s surprise. And after talking to the delivery nurse we’re glad we weren’t the subject of a local news segment for being in labor on Labor Day.  In retrospect, we both were unmotivated to do anything on Thursday…almost like something was preparing us for the long day on Friday…

So, he’s the reason why there hasn’t been any post VMworld posts here on the blog…been focusing on settling into life as a new parent and an official member of the sandwich generation.  Hopefully, once Matthew settles into a better sleep routine and I catch up on sleep there will be a bit more activity here…thought that may wait until I’m officially over my NPTO (New Parent Time-Off).

I happen to find myself in the RTP area this week, the same week as a Raleigh VMUG.  So I’ll be attending this week’s lunch event, any readers plan on being there?  There will be some new interesting stuff to discuss by then…

Over 12,500 people descended on San Francisco’s Moscone Center at the end of August for VMworld 2009.  Out of those masses, twelve took me up on my Portrait Project offer.  This diverse group included VMware vExperts, IT Strategists, and VMware Administrators from around the world.  Below, listed in alphabetic order, is one of the portraits from each of those individuals with a bit of information about them.  Most have an online presence focused on virtualization, so make sure you click through on their photo to visit their site (most provided one).

Thanks to everyone who participated!  What’s amazing, is that if you look at this set of photos you would never guess that they were all take within the same two block area of Moscone Center in San Francisco.  In retrospect, not sure if I would be able to do more than twelve of these during something as hectic VMworld.  We’ll have to see what next year brings…

Jason Boche, Lakeville, Minnesota

Peter van den Bosch, Gouda, the Netherlands

Dave Convery, Philadelphia Area

Jim Jones, St. Marys, Kansas

Ken Jorgensen, Ontario, Canada

Shawn Logan, Alberta, Canada

Vlad Nagornyi, Tucsan, Arizona

Stan Novinsky, Laurel, Maryland

Ron Porter

Bill Morton, Des Moines, Iowa

Seun Solanke, Houston, Texas

Andrew Storrs, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Update: As an added bonus, I even got a portrait of myself thanks to one of the participants!

Your Host: Greg A. Lato, San Francisco Bay Area, Califronia

With the holiday weekend quickly following last week’s VMworld it seems like the show was longer than just a few days ago.  I wanted to thank all 12 of the participants in my VMworld 2009 Portrait Project for their eagerness to participate.  I also want to thank everyone for their patience with the timing of getting their photos.  With the holiday weekend also being my Anniversary I had to dedicate most of the weekend to the Mrs!

Participants can expect an email within the next day or two with a link to their private galleries of photos.

Those who missed the fun, stay tuned for next year and we’ll see if my schedule will allow for this again.

San Francisco From Above

I know this is a bit last minute, but I finally found some time in my schedule to put together a few vPhotwalks for those photographers who are attending VMworld 2009 in San Francisco next week.  The latoga photo walks San Francisco, are photowalks that start at Moscone Center and take you along routes with plenty of San Francisco landmarks to help you practice your photography.

Since my schedule won’t allow me to lead any photowalks prior to or during the show, I turned these into vPhotowalks by providing you a Google Maps file that will allow you to do the photowalk solo or with a small group of visitors.

Enjoy!

Recently I have been wondering if there may be more ways to cross the streams between my day job and my photographic passion. This originally started with me photographing the vSphere launch event back in April.  Recently I come upon a way to extend this to VMworld 2009 while also engaging more directly with my readers.

On Friday I was walking from the San Francisco VMware office to the the garage where I parked my car and ended up walking past the Moscone Center.  As I walked by my mind was in a photography mode and I started noticing how many great locations there are at Moscone for taking portrait photos (something I have been working on lately with my photography, including location lighting techniques).  And guess what, there will be thousands of people coming here for VMworld 2009.  Perhaps there might be a few people who either need or would like to have a new portrait photo taken in this great location?  Like some virtualization  bloggers who haven’t put a photo up on their sites yet to better connect with their readers.  Or some of the social media users who would like to update their online avatar.  Maybe just some attendees who are just looking for a different kind of memorabilia from VMworld.

Bam! My VMworld 2009 Portrait Project was born.

The goal of the project: to provide 15 different VMworld attendees (can also include spouses/significant others) each with two on location portrait photos taken around Moscone Center.

There will be no charge for these portrait shoots, only cost will be your time.  Each participant in the project will be granted fully rights usage to their photographs and will be able to download a high resolution copies of their portraits shortly after VMworld from my photography website.   In exchange, I ask that you give me credit if you use it on a blog and that I retain the right to use these images for an portfolio of portraits (I would like to do a blog post after VMworld with all the portrait taken during this project.

Here is how it will work:

• Working around the show schedule and my VMworld schedule, I have identified a window of availability each day for doing the portrait photo session (see schedule below, I will cross off slots as they are reserved.)
• Each window will be 30 minutes and the actual portrait session shouldn’t take longer than 20 minutes.
• We can meet up at the designated spot each day at the start of your session and do the portrait session at one or two different locations of your choosing on the Moscone Center grounds.
• Reserve you’re spot by posting a comment on this post stating your preferred time slot.  Slots will get assigned in order of comments posted and I will followup with an email confirming you slot.  If you’re a blogger or social media users, please include a link to you site for reference.

Portrait Session Scheduled Start Times

• Meet at Front Entrance of Thirsty Bear, location of the Sunday Night Extravaganza.
  • Sunday, August 30th, 5:30pm
  • Sunday, August 30th, 6:00 pm
  • Sunday, August 30th, 6:30 pm
  • Sunday, August 30th, 7:00 pm
  • Sunday, August 30th, 7:30 pm

  (Update: Since the SNE is so popular and likely to be overbooked, anyone wanting more slots on Sunday let me know…)
  

• Meet at the Moscone Center entrance near the Show Registration booths.
  • Monday, August 31th, 3:00 pm
  • Monday, August 31th, 3:30 pm
  • Monday, August 31th, 4:00 pm
  • Monday, August 31th, 4:30 pm
  • Tuesday, September 1st, 5:30 pm
  • Tuesday, September 1st, 6:00 pm
  • Tuesday, September 1st, 6:30 pm
  • Wednesday, September 2nd, 5:30 pm
  • Wednesday, September 2nd, 6:00 pm
  • Thursday, September 3rd, 2:00pm
  • Thursday, September 3rd, 2:30pm
  • Thursday, September 3rd, 3:00pm
  • Thursday, September 3rd, 3:30pm
    

Yes, there are more than 15 slots listed above to provide some flexibility.

I’m excited about this stream crossing project and look forward to providing those who participate with a unique VMworld 2009 memento.

Please Note:  After the photo shoot, time is required to process the photos to achieve maximum quality.  Due to my VMworld Schedule and commuting needs during the show, I won’t be able to provide photos until after the show.  Most likely this won’t be until after September 8th as Labor Day weekend is my anniversary (you’ll have to be patient or else my wife might prevent you from ever getting your photos!  JK    )

The reservation window is open….please help me meet my project goals by spreading the word about this project!  Even if you don’t participate, I’ll see you around the show…I’ll be the one lugging the orange and tan backpack around with my camera out…

Photo by Stuart Herbert

A bit last minute, but for those in the Bay Area, I’ll be giving a talk tomorrow (Tuesday, 7/28) at SDForum’s Cloud Services SIG on the Convergence of Private Clouds.  If you’re in the area and available, join the event…

I’ll try to post the presentation here after the event.

One of the recurring requests I hear from my clients is for a list or diagram showing the network ports that are used by the various VMware products and components.  Thanks to some of my VMware Professional Service Colleagues for creating and allowing me to share with you the VMware Network Port List.  I’ll keep this under the VMW Launchpad section of the blog and try to update it as time permits.

Just a quick note to let everyone know that I did some back end maintenance on the blog tonight.  If anyone notices anything that doesn’t look right, please let me know.  The maintenance was rather simple, but you know Murphy and his darn law…

Tis the season, for giving and receiving.  And for a limit time, VMware (my employer) is allow me to give a special Friends and Family discount to all my readers.  If you haven’t discovered the joy of virtualization for your personal computer, running multiple operating systems on your home PC or laptop, now is your chance:

For years I have used VMware Workstation to run demos and test environments on my laptop and desktops (the snapshot capability has literally saved me weeks of work over the years).  Now, since I made the switch to the Mac, I use VMware Fusion to do the same.  With this 50% off coupon, you can enjoy the same benefits immediately.   (Remember, this discount ends on 1/15/2009!)

Today I introduced the VMW Launchpad.  A collection of information resources from or related to VMware.  Since starting at VMware as a Solutions Consultant, I have been collecting items that are frequently requested from my customers and others regarding VMware and our products.  I’ll be updating the Lauchpad as a reference source for those common items.  I will also be posting some personal write ups based upon my experiences.

And of course all these items, along with the rest of this blog, reflects my views and not the views of any company, employer, or group associated with me.

(Disclaimer: I am currently employeed at VMware as a Solutions Consultant)

It’s amazing how much time one can spend trying to get their blog to look just right.  Tonight was one of those nights.  I was able to cross a couple of to-dos off my list by migrating this blog to it’s new home as well as upgrading to the latest wordpress.  You should notice a substantial improvement in responsiveness of the site on this new hoster.

I also used this chance to update the theme of the blog.  This is the part that took the most time.  Since the WP 2.6 upgrade, all the themes have to be updated and it’s amazing how few themes are in the official WP theme collection.  So, sticking with my orange color combination, I decided on this one.  I’m not 100% happy with it, but I have to move on to more important items on my not-done-yet list.

Let me know if you like or don’t like the new theme.  I love feedback! 

“The Dawn of a New Era”.  That was the slogan that Intel used 30 years ago when they introduced the x86 processor.  And very fitting today for me as I start out a new era in the x86 virtualization space.  Last week I started working at VMware as a Solutions Consultant on the Global Accounts team.  This means that I will be responsible for selling the VMware virtualization solutions to a hand full of very large companies.

While I was talking to VMware about this position, I was impressed with how far they have taken the virtualization technology.  I was one of the 60,000 people who downloaded Workstation 1.0 during the first two months when it was released back in the Spring of 1999.  It was amazing with regards to what it could do back then.  But the magic wore off for me eventually; for most of last year I was using it to run my “work laptop” as a VM on my personal laptop at my previous job (the reason being that my personal laptop was a hell of a lot more powerful than what my employer gave me).  The magic had turned into rock solid technology, it did what it was supposed to and did it well.

But then I started to learn about the management and automation technologies that VMware has built and aquired over the past few years.  With my recent work within software development organizations at Fortune 100 companies, I immediately knew all the benefits to application development teams.   And when I saw a demonstration of Lab Manager, I was in awe once again with the magic.  Being able to run and test a multi-computer software configuration through a web browser and then saving a state of those machines as a bug…that is amazing.  And that is just one of the management/automation tools.

I feel that virtualization currently is and will continue to be the most transforming technology for enterprise computing for the rest of this decade.  That is the reason I decided to join VMware.  So, expect to see more and more postings here in the labs on virtualization moving forward.  Of course, everything I write here will continue to be my own opinion and not that of VMware.

Now, that doesn’t mean that I’m giving up my focus on some of the other technology areas that I have been focusing on lately (i.e., SaaS, Web2.0, Social Computing).  I will still be keeping an eye on many things in those areas and writing about them as time permits.  There are still experiments in the works at the lab…

“Venkman, don’t cross the streams…”

“Why, what happens if we cross the streams?”

Let’s find out…I finally jumped on the Twitter wagon. But this created a quandary for me. Everyone has multiple interests. For me, there is my day job of technology, business interests, entrepreneurial interests, and my passion of photography. Should I create two twitter accounts and keep these two streams separate? I decided that was too much work. So, I’ll be crossing the streams with my tweets. After all, both streams come from the same source…

You can find my recent tweets on the right hand side. I’m experimenting with TwitterFeed to automatically tweet my blog posts, both technology/business as well as photography.  Technology and business blog postings will start with a latoga labs while photography blog postings will start with latoga photography.

Those who wish to follow can do so from my Twitter page or from my FriendFeed page (which includes my tweets, blog postings, and photography feeds).

For the next two days I will be at Startup Camp SF and will be sending in tweets for as along as my laptop batteries last…

Update1: Just discovered an interesting twitter platform service called HashTags. You can follow a larger group of tittering via the startupcamp hashtag.

Update2: SC is being held in same space as this coming week’s JavaOne. They have some of the presentation rooms already setup for JavaOne. I find it funny how many of the presentations are running from IBM Thinkpads running Windows. Back during the days of McNealy this would never have been allowed…

Update3, End of Day 1:  Startup Camp Day 1 was a bit of droning on by panelist stating the obvious (but repetition can be the key to ensuring your doing the right thing), with some interesting conversations and networking.  I did find it interesting how a lot of the topics that were being talked about in the Web2.0 space were at the core of things selling.  And yet, that key word was never mentioned.  Nothing happens until you sell something…even if it’s just your idea.

I did find this morning’s Key Note address by Jonathan Schwartz rather interesting.  A good friend of mine is a Director of Sales within Sun.  When He joined Sun a few years back, he talked about how the corporate culture was still hardware based.  Schwartz’s key note showed his view of the company is not just hardware centric.  He talked about how different people have different views of Sun.  But I found it interesting how all these views (including the one he gave) were all product centric.  No talk of solutions.  With all these products, when will Sun realize that they need to start providing solutions around these products?  There are pockets of this within Sun (my friend being one of them), but I find it interesting how the top of the company still views Sun in a product centric way.

It almost slipped my mind (but luckily not my calendar). I’ll be attending the Startup Camp in San Francisco this coming weekend. The un-conference format is always a kick and you never know how things will develop. I’m looking forward to some interesting discussions and networking with those who are building the technologies you will hear about in the next year or two…

If any readers happen to be attending as well, drop me a line and let me. Hopefully we can get together over the course of the camp.

Today latoga’s box view becomes latoga labs.

I have discontinued my old blog address. If you were a subscriber to that blog’s feed you will automatically receive posts from the new blog (you might want to to update the title on your feed reader though).

latoga labs was born out of evolution. Change is constant. After some recent changes and requests by people for my expertise on a consulting basis I decided to launch latoga labs. The blog will continue as my lab notes; focusing on Technology, Business, and the latest trends and activities between the two. But since it is a lab, expect some experiments which may not appear immediately related.

There are also some projects that I have been working on as well as others that I have been approached about; more information about those will appear on that topic over time.

And of course, if there is a project or initiative that my expertise would lend itself to, please contact me.  You can see the about page as well as my LinkedIn profile to get an idea of the areas of my experience and that I focus on.

Welcome to the labs!

Well, after almost 5 months of blogging and searching I finally came up with a better name for this blog. You will notice today’s name change to latoga’s Box View. In both technology and business we hear so much about boxes: Being told to think out side the box; Trying not to be stuck in the same old box; Needing to get on top of (or off) our soapbox; Temping to open Pandora’s box; Moving the boxes around the org chart; Boxes, boxes everywhere.

Welcome to my box view.

And the view will be changing some. As in both business and technology, change is constant. It’s a new year and I am moving into a new position with my current employer, IONA Technologies. I am now working as part of the team at IONA that is responsible for the deployment of our Value Selling Methodology. This is a change that I am rather excited about. Since the bursting of the internet bubble, the technology landscape has changed in many ways…including how you sell technology. I am strong believer that the selling methods of the past are dead. My new role enables me to share my thoughts with the rest of the IONA sales team as well as prove them. Stay tuned for more on this topic in the future.

Also, for those of you who have seen me lately, you will notice that the picture to the right is a bit out of date. Yes, I grew a beard over the past 2 months…much to my wife’s chagrin. Well I finally cracked under the relentless barrage of my wife asking me to shave. The beards gone. Look for a new picture shortly…