Tag Archives: blogging

This blog is not dead yet!

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montyThis post goes out exactly 1 year since my last post, and on this anniversary I want to make the statement that this blog is not dead yet, it’s just been in hibernation.  Writing has always been a struggle for me, dating back to my child hood.  I took great pride in what I had accomplished on this blog, not just in giving back to the community, but in being able to put together a regular cadence based on an activity I find challenging at times.

You’ve been gone for a year, what has happened?

So yes, over the course of a year a lot can happen and I’ll try and cover it at a high level.  Shortly after my last post, we underwent some changes on the team I worked on..  I inherited the responsibilities of the EMC Elect program from the departure of my close friend Matt Brender.  With the continued help and investment from Mark Browne, we kept the momentum going and finished judging and announced the elect class of 2014.  The program has continued to expand in size year over year.  With the addition of Dennis Smith to the team, we plan to continue this growth next year and beyond!  Nominations are currently open for EMC Elect 2015!

I found that these added responsibilities combined with my increased travel schedule and my existing initiatives did not leave me a lot of time for blogging, so unfortunately it fell by the wayside.  I know that some may say that is just an excuse, but while some people may be able to blog quickly, I end up staring at a computer screen for a long time struggling to get the words down.  The time just wasn’t there when I could be using it for other things (like moving to a new home).

Why are you back and what can we expect?

That is another good question.  I’ve been seeing all sorts of inspiring things going on around me that get me wanting to blog again.  Recently,  I’ve seen friends participating in a 30 blog posts in 30 days initiative.  I’m no wear near ready for that, but I do want to be able to do that someday.  I also am turning my life around personally.  I’m going to be setting up a new home office / workspace and expanding / revamping my home lab.  I think those will inspire some great blog posts.  My current role within EMC affords me a wealth of information.  Since I’ve taken over the responsibilities of EMCs blogging program (at a high level), I should lead by example and write about what we’ve been disseminating to our blogging corps.  I appreciate the 100 or so people that visit this site each day, and I hope to increase that number with new content.  I hope you are all looking forward to this as much as I am.

My 2012 in review (and a look towards 2013)

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2012I find myself on this new years eve (after digging out from 10 inches of snow) reflecting back on all that has happened this year.  Checking in with the old Google analytics website, this year I ranked in over 18,000 visits to my website.  That might not seem like much, but that’s a 3x growth over last year and I want to thank all of my readers for being a part of it!

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I think I’ve really started to find my voice for Thulin’ Around and have started to make it my own.  I’ve been leveraging the blog as I can in my role in EMC’s VNX support lab.  This would probably explain why my #1 post is still my LDAP post from 2011 (which was revisited in 2012 with a new post for the latest VNX software).

 

My employer also recognized what I do for the VNX community with my blog and listed me as part of their social media blogging core and I am honored to be in such great company as Chad Sakac and Jeramiah Dooley.

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Towards the end of the year, EMC launched a brand advocacy rewards program called EMC Elect and I was very happy to be nominated by my readers.  Having a great friend like Matthew Brender, I was able to see all that goes in to building out a project of this magnitude and I have a new found respect for the effort that is required behind the scenes.  The founding members that were selected are a great group of individuals and I believe they represent the principles and values that should be recognized as part of EMC Elect.

 

2012 was also a great year for shows and user groups for me.  I was able to travel to EMC World 2012 as part of the Ask the Expert program.  At these events, I was able to demonstrate another passion of mine, Photography.  I published 170 photos from EMC World 2012 and as more events rolled through, I continued to refine my technique and you can see a real difference in my photos from the EMC Forum Boston 2012.

 

Looking forward to 2013

So what does 2013 have in store for me?  Well I’m starting the year off with a long trip to Seattle, Washington.  There I will be assisting the Isilon support team transition over to the EMC Support tools and processes.  If you are in the Seattle area, lets meet up!  Just check my twitter feed to reach out to me.

 

I also expect to use social media more and more in my job role.  Without going into to much detail, I want to say that there is plenty going on behind the scenes to help develop and flesh out a proactive support model as well as a reactive support model.  Stay tuned to the @EMCSupport twitter account for more information and feel free to reach out with any questions or concerns about EMC products or your support experience.

 

I’m also looking forward to the results of EMC Elect nominations to see who was selected for 2013.  Fingers crossed that I am chosen, but if not, I know that those who will be chosen are well deserving of the title.

 

I also hope to be attending more conferences and user group meetings.  I am disappointed that I will miss the NEVMUG Winter Warmer, but there will be plenty more events in 2013 for me to join in on.  I’ve already started planning some ideas EMC World 2013.

 

As always, I like to hear from my readers and followers.  What did you like about 2012?  Was there anything on my blog that you really liked / disliked?  What are you looking forward to in 2013?  Let me know in the comments and have a happy new year!

EMC World in Review … with Pictures!

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Another great EMC World has come and gone.  I’m sorry I didn’t do a daily post like last year, but I was a lot more involved this year and had less time in Las Vegas.  When I landed, I immediately hit the ground running.  I picked up my badge, put out a tweet to my followers, and headed off for the pool party.

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After informing a couple of customers in bathing suites that it wasn’t that kind of pool party, I met up with a lot of my friends who I hadn’t seen in ages.  The opening mixer is a great place to introduce yourself, enjoy some good food and music, and network with colleagues and customers alike.

Day 1

The first day I woke up early (in part because I was still on east coast time).  I grabbed my iPad, my camera bag, and my conference badge as I made my way right to the bloggers lounge.  There I was greeted by EMC’s best in social media.

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After a quick tour around the main areas that were open (the solutions pavilion didn’t open until that evening), it was time for the first keynote by CEO Joe Tucci.  I’m not one to take a seat away from a customer, and luckily EMC TV had me covered.  With a massive TV screen in the main area, I pulled up a private cloud and took in the speech.EMC World 2012 - Day 1 018EMC World 2012 - Day 1 020

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the keynote, it was a great time to take in a hands-on lab.  If you remember from my most recent podcast, my two guests were heavily involved with the creation of the hands-on labs this year.  And let me tell you they did not disappoint this year.  With over 200 stations available, the hands-on labs this year were packed and I’m told customers performed over 3000 labs this year.

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With a couple of labs under my belt, it was just about time to check out the solutions pavilion.  Apparently, a lot of other people had the same idea as the entrance was PACKED!  The food was great, and the booths were even better.  There was a lot of creative themes this year which you can see in my full list of photos.

 

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Day 2

 

The next started with Matt Brender and Tyler Altrup having a Buzz Session about Project R.A.M.P.  Matt spoke to us about Project R.A.M.P in the most recent podcast we did.  The buzz session was great (except when Tyler butchered my last name).  You can watch it below (and yes you’ll see me in the video too).

I had completed the special mission for EMC world and received my extra ramp badges, so I was in good standing.  Actually, I may have cheated a little and got my badge scanned at a required booth that wasn’t open the night before Winking smile

 

The afternoon was spent going to sessions.  One of the better sessions I attended was hosted by J Metz of Cisco.  He presented on the Evolution of Data Center Architecture.  One of the key takeaways for me was when he talked about Cisco’s Unified Ports technology.  What’s great about this is it doesn’t matter what you use the ports for.  You can use it for FCoE, CIFS, NFS, iSCSI and you can still use the same switch.  This speaks to me because of my work with the VNX.  We have all these network protocols on the VNX, and we can just use this one type of switch to handle it all.

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With the day over, it was time for a customer appreciation party for all the members of the EMC Community Network.  We had a great turn out and lots of laughs.  There was even a female magician doing card tricks that even I couldn’t figure out.

 

Day 3

The third and final day started with my Buzz Session.  I joined Mark Browne and the other Legends of ECN (I got to meet dynamox!!!!).  The session was great and we got both the customer and the employee perspective of the support forum.  You can watch the full session bellow:

 

With my session over it was time for me to study for my upcoming proven exam.  Followers of my twitter account will know that I spent weeks studying for my Virtualized Infrastructure Specialist exam (E20-018).  I’m glad to say I passed and once I get a few things cleared up, I can call myself a Cloud Architect!

 

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After it was all said and done, it was time for the closing events.  Chad’s World Live 2 rocked!  The customer demos were great as well as those who were on stage.  Chad had no idea that the Gorilla was going to goose him.  Speaking of Chad and his army, the vSpecialists released a new video called “Cloud Freaky”.  You can watch it below (and make sure you watch the ending!):

 

With the evening fast approaching it was time for the final event.  The customer appreciation party with Maroon 5.  Adam Levine did not disappoint and the best quote I’ve heard from him was “I’ve never played a show where there were more men than women, but we’ll make it work”.

 

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All in all it was an amazing show.  There were so many great things to do and great people to meet.  My only regret was that there wasn’t enough time in the day to do it all!  I can’t wait for EMC World 2013.  Be sure to check out my album on Picasa to see all the photos i took (150+ photos)

Come see me at EMC World!

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5729684319_8614b56cd3_bOk, for starters, this is not a desperate cry for attention.  This is a information page for my schedule at EMC World.  I’m going to be all over the place at the show, and I’d love to meet readers of my blog.  So where will I be?  Well to start things off Sunday night, you’ll be able to find me at the Pool party and the Venetian resort.  If you don’t see me by the pool, I may have wondered into the Tao Day club area like last year.

 

During the day, you’ll find me all over the show floor.  I expect to spend a good amount of time hanging out in the bloggers lounge and meeting fellow bloggers.  If I’m not there I’m probably hanging out at the EMC Online booth, walking the show floor, or taking in a break out session or BUZZ Talk.

 

Speaking of Buzz sessions, I’ll be participating in one live on stage on Wednesday Morning @ 10:30 AM PST.  For those of you attending the show, please join me and my fellow support forum legends in the BUZZ area near the entrance to the show.  For those of you playing the home game, do not worry.  A live video  will be available as well as an interactive chat so you can ask us questions.  To add this event to your calendar, click here!

 

If after all this you still can’t find me, try sending me a tweet.  I’ll do my best to keep my phone up and running, but cellular data is spotty at best, so there may be a delay.  I look forward to seeing everyone at the show!

One Year Later…

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A little over a year ago I launched www.thulinaround.com.  I had never had a blog before.  The closest I had come were some very lengthy forum posts and a cardomain page (the original facebook for carguys!).  It was a new experience and I wasn’t quite sure what I’d do with it.  I started off with my first post, a basic “Hello World” piece that introduced myself.  Trying to figure out what direction I wanted to go with, I wrote about what was going on right then and there.  I explained what a #nerdherd was, I did a video game review, and several posts on my involvement with EMC World 2011.

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Over the course of the first 3 months I had a little less than 500 visits.  That is not bad for a site that relied mostly on word of mouth and twitter traffic and no clear follower base.  It was around this time I decided I wanted to write about technology and my interactions with EMC.  As fate would have it, I was in the right place at the right time for one of my most historic posts.  With the new MAC OS LION beta going out to testers, an incompatibility was discovered between that and the VNX.  With the amount of calls I was getting at work, I was trying everything I could to get the word out asking for people to upgrade.  I worked with Drew Schlussel on a post and I’m told I’ve set a speed record for getting something like this approved by marketing.  This post gave my blog the shot in the arm I needed.  My traffic increased 500% and I was finally on the map as a tech blogger.

 

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Fast forward to today and I’m very proud with the number of visitors.  I’ve gathered a little over 10,000 visitors and I’m averaging about 50 a day.  My blog does seem to be a real Monday – Friday reader as I get single digit visits on the weekends.  While I still blog on a variety of subjects, my biggest ones seem to be related to the VNX.  Of the 36 blog posts I’ve made, here are my top 4 blog posts so far:

 

  1. configuring-ldap-authentication-for-unisphere-on-the-vnx (2,500 hits – 25% of my total traffic)
  2. are-you-running-mac-os-x-10-7-and-have-a-celerra-it-may-be-time-for-an-upgrade (15% of my total traffic)
  3. understanding-the-emc-vnxcelerra-antivirus-agent-cava-part-1-server_viruschk
  4. understanding-the-emc-vnxcelerra-antivirus-agent-cava-part-2-common-errors

 

Again I want to thank everyone who comes to visit my blog and look forward to my great posts!