Priceless

Posted by , Sep 10 2005, 09:58 PM in Night-Life

The captain is now famous, and his legacy will live on forever. Here is the priceless moment -- sure it hurt, but now we can look back and smile

Thursday's DELL Commercial

Posted by , Aug 19 2005, 11:10 AM

The Scalable Enterprise - The Future Innovation of Technology
Jeff Clarke, Senior Vice President. Dell Computer Corporation

Was not sure what to expect in Thursday morning's keynote speech. I guess I should have known that it would end up being a commercial for DELL. If you work daily with computer technology then most of the concepts presented are already familiar to you. It started off with a history of computing horsepower and then continued to explain how by the implementation of standards, you can now get cheap computers. How the consumer market adopts one "standard" over another is still a mystery to me. It seems that the standard that is adopted first and reaches the largest market penetration in the shortest amount of time wins. Oh ya, It also helps if you're DELL.

This keynote plays to the ears of engineers who are forced to use DELL PC's because their own (and their customer's) IT departments have "standardized" on DELL PC's. It really has nothing to do with product quality or innovation. Does this give DELL the carte blanc to sell whatever junk they want as long as you buy the 3year service plan?

Last year, you could buy a 3GHz DELL laptop from dell.com. This year they are all gone. The fastest clock speed you can buy now is around 1.8 GHz. In the keynote, Jeff Clarke summarized the reason for this: heat. I guess they must have gotten too many support calls on those laptops . Now, the future is a multi-core processor model. Do more with less CPU cycles. It's part of a growing marketing campaign to prepare you mentally that higher frequency does not necessarily mean faster computing. have we reached the limit? Like the 56K modem?

In any case, very disappointing was the question and answer session. Right off the top, I lost respect for him when asked "how much does DELL us NI hardware in their testing and production environment". Simple and logical question I would think. You would also think that some preparation would have been done ahead of time by the presenter to address this issue considering the target audience. We need to know, are we on the right track by using NI hardware? If DELL uses it then hey, we must be doing something right. No joy... a very flat "I don't know" was the answer. Another question about how DELL deals with de-facto standards. Shouldn't the best standard be implemented? The answer was: "Well, the de-facto standard will become the new standard". Ok, what a master of the obvious. Someone was wondering if portable computing devices will become the new normal since their cheaper and smaller. That must be sore spot for DELL because the answer was kind'of a brush-off, "yes, their cheap but you pay for it in the services". I guess that's a low margin, low profit product line? Perhaps DELL has no services to provide?

After the keynote, I probed a few people on their reaction to it. The majority agreed that it sucked. One person said that even made them want to go run out and buy a MAC.

Michael Aivaliotis

Things I learned at NIWeek

Posted by , Aug 19 2005, 10:16 AM in General

Open entry for all to add about what they learned at NIWeek 2005.
Click on the comment link below to contribute.

See comments:...

wirelessless

Posted by , Aug 18 2005, 01:06 PM

Yesterday (Wed) the wireless Internet connection at the Austin Convention Center was really flaky. It was a real drag, because there were many people who were unable to check email, access the OpenG source code repository, etc. It's funny how lucky we are to have fast networks all around us. It really sinks in, how important ubiquitous connectivity is, once it is gone. To make matters worse, yesterday the wireless connection at the Hilton was no longer free. Maybe it was a fluke, but for the past four days the Hilton wireless Internet connection was not requiring users to log in (and pay $9.95 per day). -Jim Kring

Photo Gallery: Where ?

Posted by , Aug 16 2005, 08:05 PM

If you wish to see the pictures already posted by the people attending NI week this year, click the NIWeekblog Photo Gallery link on the left inside.

You can also get there directly from: NIWeek Blog Photo Gallery

Do you got $10K ?

Posted by , Aug 15 2005, 09:47 PM

Please, anyone, help that poor homeless LV user !

20% Chance of Rain

Posted by , Aug 15 2005, 12:29 PM

Well, we made it past Sunday evening and now it's time for the conference. The weather forcast says that there will be thunderstorms today and Friday. I hope that it doesn't rain on us at the Alliance Day outing to The Salt Lick. That would be interesting. The good news about the rain is that it is keeping the temperature below 100 degF. Hmmm, I can't seem to find the umbrella in my suitcase. -Jim Kring

Guess where the alliance party is this year?

Posted by , Aug 14 2005, 02:33 AM

Well whataya know? As soon as OpenG or LAVA gets onto a good idea, NI comes along and steals the show. This year, the NI Alliance Partner Appreciation Party is happening at The Salt Lick. This is the same place OpenG-Lava got together the last 2 years.

http://www.lavausergroup.org/niweek2004/index.php?p=89

Sunday evening get together

Posted by , Aug 12 2005, 11:23 PM in Night-Life

Anybody interested in getting together Sunday evening for dinner, chat and possibly a few beverages after?

We'll be downtown by 4:00, so maybe meet around 5:30 somewhere near the Hilton.

Ed

Come meet and chat with the Father of LabVIEW

Posted by , Aug 12 2005, 03:44 AM

Jeff Kodosky, also known as, the Father of LabVIEW will be available to meet with you. Come to the LabVIEW community booth at lunch on Wednesday

Info-LabVIEWer Gives Presentation

Posted by , Aug 12 2005, 03:39 AM

Everyone knows Urs Lauterburg form his witty comments on info-LabVIEW. Here is some information on some LabVIEW demonstrations he will be giving this year at the ROBOLAB conference taking place in parallel to NIWeek.

Abstract Title:
A few selected demonstrations to illustrate Einstein's concepts

Abstract:
A selection of demonstration experiments used to teach Modern Physics at the university level
will be presented and discussed with the emphasis on their practical implementation and the
required instrumentation. The presentation will cover demonstrations about muon detection,
electron-positron annihilation, Compton scattering, beta spectroscopy, the photoelectric effect
etc. Because the LabVIEW™ programming environment for data acquisition is often used for
measurements and data display some associated software will also be shown and explained.

I would be very happy to see you there. My presentations is scheduled Tuesday sometime from
9:15-11:15 at the ROBOLAB Conference. I assume that the presentation will also be open for
attendees of NIWeek, although I am not 100% sure. Please ask around.

See you there. Happy wireworks and all

Urs Lauterburg
Physikalisches Institut
University of Berne

OpenG Evening Session

Posted by , Aug 10 2005, 02:57 AM in Unofficial Schedule

OpenG Evening Session
Time: Wednesday 8/17, 5:00-7:00pm
Place: Meeting Room 10A/B
Food will be provided.
Purpose: OpenG is hosting this evening session in which they will discuss the goals of OpenG, their successes during the last year, and what they are planning for the future. Also, there will be live demonstrations of the latest software development tools such as OpenG Builder, MSI Installer Builder and Package Builder. You will also get a sneak preview of the latest unreleased version of Commander. It will make you say “Wow!”, “Cool!” And, “I got to get me some of that!”

Thank You
Michael Aivaliotis

LabVIEW Coding Challenge LIVE!

Posted by , Aug 10 2005, 02:55 AM in Unofficial Schedule

LabVIEW Coding Challenge LIVE!
Time: Tuesday 8/16 and Wednesday 8/17 during lunch
Place: LabVIEW Community Booth (Be there!)
There has been some discussion lately as to who is a real LV Champion. Well the buck stops here. This year, there will be the very first LabVIEW Coding Challenge at NIWeek. A limited number of people will compete (through brackets) to win the overall challenge. Check back here for the latest information.

Thank You
Michael Aivaliotis

Session Presented by Jim Kring

Posted by , Aug 10 2005, 02:54 AM in Sessions

Open-Source LabVIEW Development through the Web
When LabVIEW developers can read, redistribute, and modify source code for a piece of software, that software evolves. People improve it, people adapt it, people fix bugs. And this can happen at a speed that seems astonishing compared to the slow pace of conventional software development. Learn how LabVIEW users are taking advantage of a variety of Web tools, such as wikis, discussion forums, and blogs, to build productive code faster than ever before. Jim Kring, founder of OpenG.com, an online LabVIEW open-source initiative, introduces you to the growing world of open-source software development.
Presented by Jim Kring
Tuesday, 19B 11:45 - 12:45

Thank You
Michael Aivaliotis

Welcome to the NIWeek 2005 Blog

Posted by , Aug 10 2005, 01:17 AM in General

Well, here we go again.
It seems that every year, I use a new web application to handle the task of blogging NIWeek. Well, why would this year be any different? As you can see, i'm using Invision Community Blog. The really nice thing about this is that it's integrated with the LAVA Forums so everyone that is registered for the Forums can post comments to the Blog posts without having to re-register (nice). Also, since registration is required for commenting, I should never get unsolicited comments with links to porn sites .

Adding New Entries
The only down side to this Blog application is that it doesn't have a few features that I would like, such as, multiple author posting. This means you cannot start a new posting to the Blog. You can only comment existing posts. I will, however, allow a number of people, access to the posting login information. This means if you want to create a new post then I will give you the username and password that will give you that ability. Just ask, send me a personal message here: http://forums.lavausergroup.org/index.php?...sg&CODE=4&MID=2

Posting Images
There are two methods for posting images. It depends if you have blog posting capabilities or not. It also depends on how many images you have to upload.
Method 1 - Create an Album.
This is by far the best method to show everyone your cool NIWeek photos. To create an album, just click on the NIWeek 2005 Category in the Gallery section. From within there you can create as many albums as you like. You can name each album as you wish. Make sure you select the NIWeek 2005 Category when uploading images. This way they are nicely organized in the Gallery view.

There is also a nice feature called Bulk Upload. This gives you multiple upload fields. This is accessible from your control panel.


Method 2 - Attach an image to your Post.
You can only do this if I've given you the login information to create a new post. If you are familiar with adding images to the LAVA Forums posts then you already have all the information you need to get started. Just add images to the body of your Blog post and they will be thumbnailed. I would suggest using the gallery option mentioned earlier for the best results.

Remember to try and get an NI employee in a compromising position. This way you can blackmail them later for the passwords to the locked VI's.

Posting Movies
Yes, you can now post movies taken with your digital camera. The best way to do this is to use the albums feature and upload the *.mov or *.wmv file. A clickable icon will appear in your album display where the image can be played.

Thank You
Michael Aivaliotis