Tech On Tap

We are happy to announce the registration is now open for Tech on Tap v1.2: Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010!

Microsoft SharePoint is everywhere, in organizations of all sizes. If it is in yours, or your company is considering implementing it, you won’t want to miss Tech on Tap v1.2 – SharePoint!

Tech on Tap is a unique one-day training event. A diverse group of IT professionals will get together at a brewpub to discuss SharePoint in-depth, have advanced training sessions, and of course, taste some beer!

We are still finalizing some of the session presentation details, but head over here to see who the presenters will be. Also, keep an eye out in the next week or two for updates on the speakers and their presentations.

Event Details:

Event Date: Saturday, June 9th, 2012
Event Time: 10:30am – 4:30pm
Event Location: Stone Cellar Brew Pub

What’s included:

• Four great sessions by SharePoint experts
• Lunch
• Some of the great Stone Cellar Brew Pub beers
• Networking time with fellow technology professionals

We would love to have you at this event!

If you can make it, all you have to do is click the button below and submit a little bit of info. Register soon, there is limited space available for this event. If you have any questions about the event, please drop me me a line. I can be reached at mark@techontap.org.
 

Just a reminder: Since there is beer involved, all Tech on Tap events are 21 and over only. You may be asked to verify your age on the day of the event.

Tech On Tap v 1.2 – SharePoint is almost upon us as June 9th will be here before we (and you) know it. Before we get that far, let us introduce you to the speakers for the upcoming event:

David Peterson

David is the SharePoint Administrator for Trek Bicycles Corporation in Waterloo, WI. With his 8+ years of experience, David focuses on using SharePoint and related technologies, to improve or alleviate organizational pain points. David has also begun concentrating on the Business Intelligence features of SharePoint. Prior to Trek, he was a consultant to State Farm Mutual Insurance Companies in Bloomington, IL.

Rick Fischer

Rick Fischer is a SharePoint Architect/Engineer at Oracular, a WI based IT consulting firm. His attitude towards any technology is, “I don’t know it all, but I will figure it out”. He finds technology fascinating due to its vast ever-changing nature. There is so much to investigate that he likes to say, “Every day I come to work, I find out I know less”. This attitude along with his perfectionist streak has taken him from being an educator with a BS in Education to being a MCITP in Server 2008 and MCTS for SharePoint 2007 and 2010.

Since good isn’t good enough, he has plans to pursue his Masters in Technology — if he gets time away from  work, hunting, fishing, camping, maintaining his 4300sq ft. garden and helping every friend and neighbor that seems to call with computer problems!

Rob Bogue

Robert Bogue, MS MVP Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, MCITP:SharePoint
Administrator, MCTS, MCT, MCSE, MCSA:Security, etc., has contributed to more than
100 book projects and numerous other publishing projects. Robert’s latest book is The
SharePoint Shepherd’s Guide for End Users. You can find out more about the book at
http://www.SharePointShepherd.com. Robert blogs at http://www.thorprojects.com/blog
You can reach Robert at Rob.Bogue@thorprojects.com.

Bios for additional speakers will be added to this post as they come in, but before the event.

What to watch for next?

Look for the sessions and a bit about them to be posted here soon.

We are looking for content for the upcoming Tech On Tap v1.2 covering Microsoft SharePoint that is taking place on June 9th 2012 at the Stone Cellar Brew Pub in Appleton WI. The event will be here before we know it and there was thought that open calls for speakers is a good idea.

Whats the idea?

We are looking for individuals or groups to present SharePoint content at the 300 level. Your presentation should be 75 minutes in length and built for a technical audience. Any SharePoint topic is fair game at this point, but we will need to review your slides and materials ahead of time, just to be sure all is well.

When can I submit presentation ideas/slides?

You can send your ideas/slide decks to derek@techontap.org for consideration. We will do our best to accommodate you, but keep in mind, we are limited on time for the day and will select the best fitting topic ideas or presentations for Tech On Tap 1.2.

We do encourage anyone with SharePoint presentation experience to submit, and if you have a good amount of SharePoint experience and want to get some presentation experience, we might be able to help…. although we cannot make any guarantees.

When is the deadline?

Please have your submission sent in no later than April 30th so we can review it and contact you if all works out as you have been picked.

Microsoft SharePoint is everywhere, in organizations of all sizes. If it is in yours, or your company is considering implementing it, you won’t want to miss Tech on Tap v1.2 – SharePoint!

Tech on Tap is a unique one-day training event. A diverse group of IT professionals will get together at a brewpub to discuss SharePoint in-depth, have advanced training sessions, and of course, taste some beer!

Tech on Tap v1.2 will be held Saturday, June 9, 2012, at Stone Cellar Brewpub in Appleton, WI. Registration will open in mid-April.

Interested in speaking? Please email a session title and abstract to derek@techontap.org no later than March 31, 2012.

Interested in sponsoring? Please review the sponsorship plan and email jes@techontap.org.

We look forward to seeing you in June!

So Tech on Tap v 1.1 Virtualization is in the books and was a huge success, IMHO.  We had about 30 people come out to learn about virtualization and try some beer.  The sessions were excellent and there were a good amount of questions.

The evaluations are still being tabulated, but on first scan, those that came out for the inaugural event had a pretty good time.  The thing that most impressed me was the involvement of the sponsor companies, speakers, and attendees.  Yup.  The Networking.

Overall, the sessions were fantastic, thanks to Grant, Brian, and Bob for putting on an informative day centered around Virtualization.  The Stone Cellar staff did a fantastic job and allowed us to put together a great event.  Who knew that a little idea would have turned out so well.

The Sponsors

Without our sponsors we could not have put together this event.  Thank you again to Red Gate Software and Confio for helping us get this thing off the ground. In addition to sponsoring the event, both companies appeared with a good amount of T-shirts, books, and other goodies for attendees, including an Amazon Kindle to raffle off.

I am collecting the presentations and speaker contact information and we will get each sessions slides and the speaker information posted here very soon.  I encourage you to check them out again, this will allow you to revisit any of the topics if you attended the event or to see what we covered if you were unable to attend.

Next up?  Tech on Tap v 1.2 SharePoint back at the Stone Cellar on June 9 2012.  Until then, Cheers!

Tech On Tap v1.1 will be held Saturday, January 28, 2012, at Stone Cellar Brew Pub in Appleton, WI. The topic of the day is Virtualization. We’ll have three presentations by industry experts. Join us for a day of great information!

Administering Virtual Environments

So you’ve got a virtual environment, and have things running in it. Now what? This session is geared for the medium-sized virtualization admin, and will cover a lot of ground with advanced considerations for virtual environments, from technical subjects like storage layout, and guest OS tuning tricks, to political topics like how you get along with your network & storage admins, and how to institute maintenance windows when you don’t have any. Most questions in IT are properly answered with “it depends on your environment,” and the session will be geared towards providing ideas and provoking thoughts to take home and try.

Presented by: Bob Plankers 

Bob Plankers has been virtualizing servers for 13 years, starting when Connectix gave him a copy of Virtual PC. Bob is a multi-year VMware vExpert, recovering storage admin, networking enthusiast, and system administrator, and outspoken on most virtualization issues, technical to political, on his blog at lonesysadmin.net.

Virtually Monitoring SQL Server

Lots of what you monitor on SQL Server is completely unaffected by whether or not you’re running on a virtual machine, but some of it is. Knowing which is which, and why, is the purpose of this session. We’ll spend time outlining what you can monitor normally in SQL Server, and we’ll show what parts of monitoring require you to do things differently because of the nature of virtual servers. Standard tools such as Performance Monitor, Extended Events and Dynamic Management Views will be demonstrated so the monitoring tips and tricks you learn here will work regardless of the virtualization system you’re currently using.

Presented by: Grant Fritchey & Jes Schultz Borland 

Grant Fritchey is a SQL Server MVP with over 20 years of experience in IT, including time spent in support and development. He has worked with SQL Server since 6.0, back in 1995. He has developed in VB, VB.NET, C# and Java. He has authored books for Apress and Simple-Talk and joined Red Gate Software as a Product Evangelist in January 2011. He blogs at www.scarydba.com.

Jes Schultz Borland is a Technical Consultant at Blue Door Consulting in Oshkosh, WI. She holds an AAS – Programmer/Analyst degree. She has worked with SQL Server since 2007, focusing on Reporting Services and day-to-day administration. She is an active member of PASS, Director of Communication for MADPASS, and Director of Social Media for PASS WIT. She’s a frequent presenter at user groups, SQL Saturdays, and other community events. She is also an avid tweeter, blogger at LessThanDot.com, and runner.

Microsoft Virtualization Technologies

The industry is buzzing about the cloud in all its forms, including public, private and hybrid deployment models. If you’re eager to explore the cloud and ways of building next-generation of dynamic data centers then this session is for you. We’ll take a technical look what makes a Microsoft Private Cloud and focus in on the Microsoft virtualization technologies and how they can help you harness the cloud – on your own terms.

Presented by: Brian Lewis 

Brian Lewis works as an IT Pro Evangelist for Microsoft Corporation in the Midwest, where he focuses on the IT Pro audience in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. He is very passionate about technology and has over 18 years of enterprise IT experience.

Brian enjoys working with all computer and networking technologies. He enjoys everything from programming and scripting to working with all types of infrastructure. There just isn’t a technology that isn’t interesting to him. Brian enjoys several hobbies outside of computers including rock climbing, trail biking, and swimming.

Brian received his Bachelors degree in Management of Information Systems from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee. One of Brian’s passions is computer security and he holds the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) certification among other computer industry certifications.

The first Tech On Tap event, Virtualization, coming soon (January 28 2012) takes place at the Stone Cellar Brewpub in Appleton. The Stone Cellar is a small brewpub and restaurant in Appleton WI. We at Tech On Tap thought it would be a good idea to introduce you to the facility we have chosen for the first event.

The beers:

• Houdini Honey Wheat
• Marquette Pilsner
• English Six Grain
• Pie Eyed India Pale Ale
• Tilted Kilt Scottish Ale
• Stone Cellar Stout
• Vanishing Vanilla Stout
• Rotating Specialties

The food is also quite good and the Stone Cellar, especially the organic locally raised beef, elk, and bison. Sandwiches, Pizza, and other easy to manage fare is also worth the trip.


So why the Stone Cellar?
Sure we picked it for the beers, somewhat, but the facility is really cool as well.  The cellar is really a cellar, in the basement of an old building right on the water.  In addition to restaurant and brewing operations in the building there is a comedy club on the second floor in case there is need for a few laughs.


A few pictures from the Stone Cellar are included below.

We’re excited to announce our speakers for our inaugural event, Virtualization! Each of these speakers is a well-regarded member of the technical community, and we’re excited to have them on board.

Bob Plankers is a Virtualization & Cloud Architect at UW Madison in Madison, WI. He is also a VMWare vExpert. He blogs at http://lonesysadmin.net/ and tweets as @plankers.

Brian Lewis is an IT Pro Evangelist at Microsoft, based in Wisconsin. He actively supports the technical communities in the region. He blogs at http://mythoughtsonit.com/ and tweets as @BrianLewis_.

Grant Fritchey is a Product Evangelist at Red Gate Software, from the Boston, MA area. He’s a Microsoft MVP and is known as the Scary DBA. He blogs at http://www.scarydba.com/ and tweets as @gfritchey.

We hope you’re interested in getting high-quality training from these speakers! Register for Tech On Tap: Virtualization today!

After much planning.. and beer,  we are happy to announce that registration is now open for the inaugural Tech on Tap event!

What is Tech on Tap?

Tech on Tap is a series of day long technology seminars that will focus on a single topic presented by experts on that topic. The first event will be on Virtualization.

How much will this event cost me? 

That’s a fair question. The events are FREE to attend.

But what does your free admission get me? 

Glad you asked. All attendees will receive:

• Sessions presented by experts on Virtualization
• FREE Lunch
• FREE Beer!
• Networking opportunities

Ok, I’m in! What do I have to do to register?

Great question! All you have to do is click Register below, fill in a few details, click Complete Registration, and show up at the Stone Cellar Brew Pub on January, 28th.

That’s it.

Hope to see you all there.

Cheers!

~Mark

Hey everyone,

Due to some scheduling conflicts, we have had to reschedule the event. Instead of Nov 12th, 2011, the inaugural event will be moved to January 28th, 2012. The topic is still going to be Virtualization.

We will be posting more event details soon, including speakers and event registration information so please check back often!

Thanks
~Mark

Full Event Details:

Date: January 28, 2012
Time: 10:30 AM – 4:30 PM
Topic: Virtualization
Location: Stone Cellar Brew Pub
1004 South Olde Oneida Street
Appleton WI 54915