Disclaimer: The links in the write-up below are for reference only. I receive no affiliate commission from traffic driven to those sites, nor am I endorsing them personally in any way. Some are vendors or partners of A Small Orange, some are not. Any opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of my employer.

My employer sent me to the Parallels Summit this week. I don't get many opportunities to go to Florida, so I was quite happy to enjoy some 80 degree weather in February.

This was my first time flying that I used the electronic boarding pass option. The electronic boarding pass is an SMS text message sent to your mobile device (iPhone, Blackberry, etc) with a link to a QR code. There is a QR scanner at the security check area, so you pull up the link in your browser, dip your phone into it and it displays your boarding pass info. The TSA agent checks your ID, and waves you through. Brilliant! No more worrying about leaving papers at home. Electronic Boarding Pass on my iPhone, with QR code.

When Delta first implemented the "self serve" ticketing check-in kiosks at the Atlanta-Hartsfield Airport, I jumped on it. It was a great way to bypass the long ticketing lines and the kiosks were never in use. Later, as airlines began directing people to the self-serve kiosks, I found myself stuck in long lines behind people struggling to figure out how to use the touchscreen check-in systems. Shortly afterward, I discovered online check-in and that I could print my boarding pass at home, bypassing almost everything in the airport and go directly to my flight. So this QR boarding pass was new to me, but I used it without hesitation on both the flight to Orlando and the flight back. I'm pretty paranoid about leaving all my papers and documents at home, so the QR code on my phone is pretty handy.

At the summit, I took copious notes during the sessions. Most of it boils down to "use Parallels software to put the word 'cloud' in your advertising". That's okay. It was their summit, so they can tailor the sessions however they want.

Parallels was pretty good about entertainment. There were social events/parties on Tuesday and Wednesday, both with open bars, and on Thursday morning they provided bloody marys and mimosas for the morning keynote (hair of the dog, I suppose). My Wednesday night party attendance was mired by having to work on a client emergency...several rather. Here's some free advice to any sysadmin attending a conference: don't answer your phone, don't look at email on your phone, and for Deity's sake, NEVER take a laptop to a party. You'll just end up working instead.

While the general sessions and presentations were filled with valuable information and not a few buzzwords ("enabling me to leverage my core competencies while partnering with vendors to provide cloud services thereby increasing revenue, reducing churn, and producing profitability in a new economy"), I found equally or more value in networking with other people. The vendor booths were chock-full of people ready to hand me a business card in exchange for mine, eager to sell to me valuable services and perhaps not realizing my ulterior motives were equally present. At some point, I discovered I was naturally gravitating toward booths with attractive sales women, so I had to make a special point to visit as many booths as possible and give them equal representation.

One of the booths staffed with attractive women who were also knowledgeable about their products and how they work, was Spam Experts. I was quite impressed with Brooke and Megan, especially as they are able to throw around terms like SMTP and and actually know what they're talking about. I had several enjoyable conversations with them, but had to eventually pull myself away and stop walking by their booth lest they think I was being overly flirtatious (or more likely, creepy).

My boss asked me to visit one of our vendors (OpenSRS) to say hi to our account rep. I stopped by several times and met everyone but. Apparently, our account rep wasn't working the booth that week. However, all the staff there were very outgoing and friendly, as were the staff at eNom (their competitor and also one of our vendors). The eNom people were pretty aggressive though. I could barely walk by without one of them tackling me and trying to sell me on their domain registration and SSL certificate services. Once they learned that we were already a customer, they were much more conversational.

Of particular note was thesslstore.com vendor. I first encountered this company in the swag bag of literature each attendee receives when registering. Instead of the usual whitepaper or datasheet provided by the other vendors, thesslstore.com had what looked like a direct mail sales letter. Same layout, same copy, same formulaic style of the "make more money with less work by joining our program today!". Instant suspicion. I thought they were a multi-level marketing company based around selling SSL Certificates at first. Later, sitting in the hotel/convention restaurant with my coworker, we saw thesslstore.com crew walk in. Six to eight people, all in high-contrast white button-down shirts and black pants, with a cultish look about them. I was scared to talk to them, for fear that they might gang-pressure me to join their MLM cult. After a while, I relaxed and took a look at their website, their "partner program" and found nothing out of the ordinary. Why did these people worry me so much? They looked really unnatural. The women were attractive, but...plastic. They looked like barbie dolls walking around. It dawned on me that the attractive women working for thesslstore.com weren't really employees. They were hired promo models! That would explain why they didn't make eye contact when passing people in the hallways. Every time I passed one of them in the hallway she would just look at me from the corner of her eyes, as if I were about to sneak up from behind and snatch her purse or possibly even talk about 128-bit SSL encryption.

I was also able to meet Anirban with StopTheHacker.com. They specialize in website malware scanning and reputation management (ie, Google malware warnings in search engines, etc). Since we are a relatively new partner with them, we discussed their billing system module, a possible cPanel module (I gave him some suggestions on how it might work and integrate for web hosts), and lots of general chit-chat.

The climax of the week came on Thursday when the Space Shuttle Discovery launched it's last mission. Cape Canaveral isn't very far from Orlando and hotel guests usually rush to the front parking lot to watch the shuttle launches. Unfortunately, this was all I got to see. Final Discovery Launch, view from Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention Center

I haven't quite decided if it was a letdown or not. I've been a fan of the Space Shuttle since the early launches in the 80's, when I was in elementary school. I remember when the teachers in my school would pause class, roll over the TV and we would watch the launch. It was always very exciting. Later, my fifth grade teacher (Vivian Woods) was an applicant to be part of the Teacher-in-Space program, the ill-fated mission of the Space Shuttle Challenger. We watched the Challenger explode that day on live TV.

The impression I got of the Discovery launch from my vantage point was more like a meteor or shooting star, just going the wrong way. It was pretty neat, but I really wish I had gotten a better view. However, it looks like there will be two more opportunities to schedule another trip to Florida...this time to Cape Canaveral.