Saturday, April 12, 2008

Bahrain Air, SharePoint and E-Gate!

The past few days have been really awesome. I was able to attend the first Microsoft SharePoint Conference in Dubai. (link: http://www.sharepointconferencedubai.com )

I bought my tickets online from Bahrain Air since it was the earliest flight available. Arrival would be 9.20am and the conference starts at 9am. The good news was that it takes place at Al-Bustan Rotana Hotel - just five minutes away from the airport. The booking process was very similar to Jazeera Airways, except that you don’t get to choose your seat on the flight.

This was my first time on Bahrain Air. The plane was small and packed with people. Once we landed, I decided that Jazeera was way better in comparison! First, Dua’a elSafar (travel supplication) was announced on speaker so fast by some attendant’s voice and I couldn’t follow up! Then, after the plane took off, TV screens were all up and running shows like “Just kidding” followed by an Arabic comedy. But that wasn’t the problem at all, they had the audio playing on speaker, so no one could get any rest if they’d wanted to. The plane had a weird smell to it, and it wasn’t because it was packed. I was glad I had the conference to look forward to, so I just tried to be patient. Yes, water was served - in the smallest plastic cups possible. Other than that, everything was good.

We landed safely, and it took me 10 minutes to get out of the airport and to the conference. GCC line was empty so I finished really quickly. My ride was outside and I was off to the Keynote. I caught up the last 5 minutes of the Opening Keynote and then someone from Batelco was up on stage to talk about how they are using Microsoft’s latest technology. That was surprising, because I thought they’d have a local company speaking here instead.

I have already decided on the sessions I wanted to attend and they were not restricted in the Developer’s Path this time. In fact, most of them were in the Administrator’s path.

First session was on Business Fundamentals with Joel and Todd speaking. It was fantastic! They both took turns talking about really basic stuff on SharePoint and its capabilities. Joel was a senior position in Microsoft (Redmond) and Todd is a MVP SharePoint Guru. They also spoke a bit about installing MOSS 2007, and recommended to always go for Advanced method of installation and never use the basic, since it limits the tools you might want to use in the future. The best thing about MOSS is that if you ever decide to upgrade, from say standard edition to enterprise, all you have to do is enter the new KEY. Nothing to reinstall.

Next, Eray Chou, one of my favorite presenters, kicked off his first of two session on Web Apps using MOSS. I am currently working on my first MOSS web app, so it was really interesting! Eray came down to Dubai from Redmond and is a program manager on SP Designer, so it was wonderful having him. We all had our questions answered and I was really looking forward to his next session.

Eray had his second session later that day and it was cool because he got into much details. I then attended Joel’s SharePoint Governance session, which was a nice hour to wrap up the day with. Joel is really funny and the session was very informative. Fun and not too technical.

The second day started - for me - with Todd and Joel. This time they had their separate sessions with Todd starting of with “Administering SP using STSADM.exe”. Now, for any developer, this session was way cool! Most of the audience were admins but they’ve enjoyed it as well. STSADM is awesome because there are things that you can not do on the front-end UI and only achieve through STSADM. For example, automate scheduled backup, and moving site collections. You can also use STSADM with PowerShell.

Joel went up next to talk about more advanced Administration features in SP 2007. He and Todd quickly went over things like Intranet, Extranet and Internet Solutions. Covering topics on Security, Authentication and Architecture.

After Lunch break, I attended Amr ElGarhy’s session on SQL reporting services in MOSS 2007. It was a really fun session because he immediately went into the demos, without going through the slides. This gave him a whole lot more time to cover the out-of-the-box features.

The Closing Session took place at around 4pm and it was basically a Q&A session.

Trip Back - Somethin’ else

I spent the rest of the day with my dad, who incidentally was in Dubai for a conference of his own, and that was really fun. We left Mall of Emirates after 1am, nobody was around except employees. All the shops had started closing up after 11.30pm, but we wandered around anyway and had a late dinner there. I had to catch my flight early the next day. First thing I did after I reached the airport was get my E-Gate card. I don’t travel that often to Dubai, but I had to try it out. I got my number, third in the queue, so that was good. The process is, after you go in, they ask for your passport and fill in the data. You’re index fingers are scanned and your picture is taken on the spot - if you didn’t have one. You later sign on a tablet, and thats about it. The card costs 200 Dirhams and expires two years after issue date. The printer was not printing anything on my card so they had to print it on another machine, which was fine because I had a nice time with the ladies.

I went straight to check-in and it was so cool trying out my card for the first time. First thing you do is place your card on a scanner and the doors open, you go in and follow the single instruction: place your index finger on the scanner. Once verified, your done! The second door opens and your out.

You can use this card at any airport in the UAE. Bahrain has already implemented their e-gate system on their own smart card. Why couldn’t they all just use a standard card for the entire Gulf. Ah well, I am getting my smart card later this month, so it should be an experience to blog about.

I spent the rest of the time shopping for books and stuff, until it was time to fly. This time, the plane was nearly empty and everything during the trip was so much better. It was cleaner and the crew were very friendly. The captain, when he had anything to announce, did it in Arabic, English and then in perfect French. I wouldn’t know, porque me habla español, but it did sound perfect! I didn’t even mind that the exact same shows were playing throughout the trip all over again!

All in all, this conference covered pretty basic stuff on SharePoint. I look forward to seeing a whole lot more in the Middle East.

More conference photos at: http://flickr.com/photos/jonquille
Slides are available at the speakers’ blogs.

Filed under: Microsoft | 

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