In my last post I mentioned the technical difficulties I was facing before the OUGF conference in Helsinki. I managed to get my demos working again and got the laptop fully charged, so I was ready for the conference to start…
I was one of the first speakers up on the Round Table track, so I turned on my laptop and everything was working fine. About 3/4 of the way through my presentation my laptop powered off and I was forced to switch to an alternative one, running everything off my memory stick. I guess this time I was expecting a disaster, so when it came I think I coped quite well.
Next, I went for the first hour of Pete Finnigan’s security masterclass. Pete is a really cool guy and I really enjoyed the session. Unfortunately I had to miss the second hour because I was presenting. I think every DBA should at least see Pete present at a conference, or preferably go to one of his 2 day workshops. Security is an important topic and I guess we all think we know all about it, but occasionally you need a reminder that there is more there than meets the eye. 🙂
So my next presentation was… interesting… I decided not to bother with my own laptop and use the one provided. Unfortunately there was a problem with that, so the start was delayed for a few minutes. When I started things looked OK, but then the projector kinda froze, so the slides were changing on my screen, but not on the big screen. That was fixed then I rushed to the end in what little time was left…
It’s like every technical problem I could have faced over the last 2 years of presenting was crammed into a single week, which happened to be the ORCAN and OUGF conferences. I hope people got something useful out of the talks. If nothing else, it should have provided some comic relief watching me destroy every bit of electronic equipment I touched. 🙂
The conference was held at an amusement park, so when it was over I got to go on a couple of roller coasters. Then it was off to the dinner, where I got to sit next to Milena from BGOUG, which was cool. After that there were a few informal round tables, which degenerated into drinking (not me), eating nuts and rather random conversations about life the universe and everything. Good fun.
The OUGF event is like a whirlwind. It’s only a single day so it seems to shoot straight past. Even with all my technical issues, it was really enjoyable.
The next day I woke up feeling a little under the weather. I had a bit of a sore throat, but figured that was down to the presentations and general socializing. In the morning I met up with Julian Dontcheff who took me to speak to his DBA team at Nokia. It was an interesting meeting because all the guys sat down, plugged in their laptops and continued to work through the meeting. That was a little unusual at first. 🙂 Anyway, we spent about 90 minutes just talking about RAC, performance, operating systems, networking etc. I like this sort of thing. No agenda, just a group of people sharing opinions on technology.
After that I was supposed to be doing some sightseeing, but after about an hour I felt a bit rough so I headed back to the hotel and spent the rest of the day in bed. Tuomas Pystynen from Miracle had invited me to a beer festival and I was meant to be meeting up with some of the people from the OUGF conference there, but unfortunately I stayed in bed and slept through it. Sorry people. 🙁
Next morning it was the flight home. I really don’t like flying when I feel ill, especially when it involves a 5 hour connection. 🙂
So now I’m home. I bought a new power adapter and the laptop is behaving itself.
This whole week emphasizes the difference between backup and recovery and disaster recovery. I had backups of my VMs, slides and even expected output from the demos, but I didn’t have a disaster recovery plan. I think I’m going to start carrying two laptops from now on. 🙂
I have a few photos from the ORCAN and OUGF conferences, but not many.
Cheers
Tim…