I was pre-disposed to like this book - I really was. I’ve worked with BlackBerry’s, and the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), for quite some time; have written about them, and am a big fan of the devices, technology and platform.

Unfortunately, I was disappointed. Right off the bat, just looking at the book made me blink. It has a list price $44.99, and is currently available on Amazon.com for $41.03, yet it is only 166 pages of content, plus a couple of pages for the index, with an overall print quality – just flicking through the pages will tell you this – that looks like a systems administrator put this together one afternoon and printed it out on the office laser printer. And not a good, current laser printer either. The screenshots show this particularly well (and this is a “fully released” book, not an advance copy, in case you’re wondering).

Look, I know technical books “cost more”, but let’s keep things reasonable and in perspective, shall we?

So, on to actual content. The co-author and reviewer of this book are the same, and his biography is printed twice at the start of the book – sorry, but that’s sloppy reviewing and editing, and doesn’t really inspire me with confidence as to the rest of the book. And sure enough, now I’m at the table of contents, merely at page “ii”, and there’s a spacing error on one of the chapter titles. Petty? Trivial? Sure, on one level. But again – it’s an indication of the level of detail that has (not) been paid to this work.

Alrighty then, on to the real, actual content. No, I’m sorry – one more. Is it “BlackBerry”, or “Blackberry”? Yes, I know the correct answer, but it appears the folks behind this book don’t. At that point of discovery, I was tempted and inclined to stop reading the book, but I did feel obligated to continue.

So, in brief – there’s nothing in the meat of the content that isn’t already in the published RIM documentation, but there’s something to be said for having it bound together. Better quality screenshots would’ve been nice too. The text assumes you know nothing going in to this task – documenting, step-by-step, for instance, the creation of the service account and mailbox. I may have “big-company” fixation here, but I’d expect – or at least prefer – that my BES administrator already had that level of knowledge.

Look, bottom-line – if you’ve absolutely no experience with the BES, and have little to no knowledge with the underlying operating system, this probably would get you up and running – this is an “installation and administration” book, so don’t look too hard for anything in the troubleshooting area, which is a shame, because you definitely need that as well.

I wouldn’t purchase this book, and I don’t and won’t recommend it. Other opinions may vary, but this is mine. Sorry Packt.

Edited to fix typo - thanks Chris.

As it goes, I happen to know that a former colleague of mine is also reviewing this book - we?re not going to compare notes or anything during the process, so it’ll be interesting to see how our opinions of it stack up.

Great drive up and back down the mountains though.

Tags: Travel Utah Wyoming

Airport Life

Originally uploaded by GarySlinger

Tags: Denmark Copenhagen Travel

Spending a month in Copenhagen on assignment.  Currently doing my research on what I want to see, where I want to eat, and so forth.

Tags: Denmark Copenhagen Travel

Subtitle: "What I Did Last Week"

So, last Tuesday I traveled to San Antonio, for the Manager Tools Conference.   If you’re not listening to the (free!) weekly podcasts from Mark Horstman and Mike Auzenne - you don’t know what you’re missing.  In fact, if you’re not - go check out their "Basics" post here to get ready access to their core casts.  Did I mention they were free?

Two days doesn’t sound like much, does it?  And yet, that was quite possibly the most useful, focused and well-presented training - in anything, let alone management - that I have ever been to.  And I’ve attended a lot of presentations, seminars and training over the years.  Here’s the rundown of the conference content:

1. Introductions (2 hours, 100+ attendees, outstanding process & technique)
2. One on One’s
3. Feedback
4. Coaching
5. Delegation
6. Effective Performance Management
7. Time Management
8. "The Effective Manager’s Week"

… and Q&A.  Lots and Lots of Q&A, to the extent that poor Mark had almost lost his voice by the end of Thursday!  Seriously - the benefits that those sessions brought to the conference cannot be understated, and the availability of Mark & Mike (not to mention the able assistance of Mike S, Steve and Kate) until late in the day was very much appreciated.

Mark & Mike have six of these conferences planned for next year - across the US, in Europe, and in Australia.  I cannot encourage you strongly enough to check out their (award-winning) podcast, their website, and their discussion forums for more information.

(I got to play tourist as well…):

Powered by Jott.com - Try it at 1 (866) JOTT123 -

Edit: Well, it was close   Great new feature from Jott though.  A very handy service that I cheerfully recommend.

My version of the ever-present “what’s in your gadget bag?” post… These are staged photos, as I haven’t had a chance to take a “real” picture at work or at client sites recently, but I wanted to take a moment to work through what my current mobile work setup is.  As I’m heading away tomorrow to San Antonio for the Manager Tools Conference, I needed to run through my gear anyway just to make sure everything was present and correct.

First up - that’s a flickr link photo, and there are notes on it there.  This would be my gear laid out and ready for work.  “Other stuff” is shown later.  Working clockwise from the left, what you’re looking at is:

• An iPod 5G 60Gb
• Connected to Shure E2c earbuds
• In a Belkin Kickstand Case
• A Batterygeek PPS-118 Portable Power Station
• Samsung Q1 Ultra with a 4Gb MMC card inserted.  It’s connected to the Portable Power Station in this photo, and my
• Jabra BT 5010 Bluetooth headset is hung on it
• Blackberry 7290, propped up with the device stand from the keyboard.  This Blackberry has more than a few miles on it, and has provided sterling service.  It’s still getting traded in for a Curve when T-Mobile gets them later this month though!
• Sync & charge cable for my Blackberry, doubles as a connection cable for my camera.  It can connect to the Q1, or to the Power Station
• Charge cable for the headset - same deal, it can connect to the Q1, or the Power Station
• Stowaway Bluetooth Mouse
• And a Stowaway “Sierra” Bluetooth Keyboard completes the set.

I don’t have a cellular link for the Q1 in this setup, but give me a network cable, or WI-FI, and I’m good to go for 4-12 hours (or more), depending on what I’m actually working on.

That’s the “core kit” out and ready.  Here’s what everything looks like when it comes out of the travel bag:

Same deal with that being a flickr link.  I laid it out like this because it’s (usually!) how the gear is stored inside the bags compartments - the top two rows here, for instance, are usually in a two-by-three pocket arrangement inside the bag.  Key differences between this photo and the previous is that everything is cased up.  In addition, you can see:

• A Linksys WRT54GS travel router (top left)
• A Worldwide power socket adapter (and no, I’m not taking that to San Antonio!  I have, however, put it aside for a probable trip to Denmark later this month)
• A Rotring 4-in-1 pen/pencil/highlighter/stylus that I usually use with the Samsung
• A 4Gb USB Key (which has since been “adopted” by a work colleague, and has been replaced in my bag by an 8Gb one)
• A Surefire A2 Aviator flashlight
• My “Stuff” bag; formerly a Quantas in-flight amenity kit bag, now used to hold my “extras” that vary trip by trip, and which may be in my flight bag, or my checked bag.   It depends.  Here’s a sample load out for it:

Top Row:

• Mini-tripod for my camera (which is, by the way, a Canon Powershot S500 - it’s not in the photos here for very obvious reasons!)
• The charger for that camera, with a spare battery below it
• A mini-USB hub and power adapter for that
• Road-Wired Network Cable.  I have a storage bag for this that includes adapters to change it into a cross-over cable, or a modem cable.  Not used often, but very useful when it is.
• Mini-iPod sync/charge cable.  I have a few of these - this particular one is from BatteryGeek.

Bottom Row:

• The charge “head” for my Blackberry sync cable.  Sometimes just more convenient than using the Q1 or the PowerStation
• “Smart” USB cable with software for copying data from one PC to another.  Came with the Q1.
• Travel-sized 3-socket power cord, from Monster Cable.  There’s NEVER enough sockets to go around!

And that would be, pretty much, my traveling office.  I’ve recently started carrying a 250Gb Passport drive from Western Digital around, but didn’t have that around when I took the photo.  The only “main” thing that I didn’t photograph is the mains cable for the Power Station.  That doesn’t add much bulk or weight to the kit.  My bag would usually have a couple of pens and some notepaper, a book and/or a magazine, sunglasses and my travel documents, and I’d be good to go.

Oh, the bag?  Heh.  Let’s just say I have a small “obsession” with them.  I have over a dozen, and that’s after a recent purge of them.  The one I use will depend on the type, length and “profile” of the trip I’m taking.  My current day-to-day bag, and the one I’m going to go to San Antonio with, is a Brenthaven ProLite III, originally intended for a 17″ Mac.  Has just the right number and distribution of pockets for my current needs, but it hasn’t been really field-tested by me yet, so we’ll see.  Incidentally, my day-to-day load is roundabout 10lbs; fully loaded for San Antonio, with most all of the above, and a reasonably sized book for the flights, it’s still under 20.  I can live with that.

IMG_0951

Originally uploaded by GarySlinger

Amusing myself with a camera on the trip to Georgia and back. Tripping it remotely when I thought I might catch something - not my most successful set of photographs, but it made for a diversion en route.

Back on the road again. Heading out of Tampa in a couple of hours, and up to Georgia for the rest of the week, working with a client up there. Been a while since I’ve been on the road properly, and DAMN I’ve missed it.

Happened to see the pic here on flickr, so all due credit to the photographer - sums up exactly what I have in my minds eye… Of course, the reality is that the roads are going to be a hell of a lot busier than that out there! Ah well…

Onwards!

See you on the other side, mate.

This is a test post from Windows Live Writer.  Sorry if it turns up in your RSS feeds - I’. working on a few things at the moment.

That was my first time dealing with CDW.  It’ll also be my last.  Costco.com got my order.

Here endeth today’s rant…