Conference Memories

In honor of tomorrow's virtual SEC, I figured I would reminisce over conferences of the past. So many great memories and so many pictures to choose from, I narrowed down to some of my favs in the past 4 years.




Meeting Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and being heckled by Gilbert Godfrey is somewhere near the top of the list. I really did like him in Aladdin!






There has always been an ongoing Star Wars theme for us geeks! I am surprised we haven't had a full cos-play event at one of these things yet!






Swing dancing was probably my favorite of the interactive, not that it ever stopped me from dancing at any of the parties. I generally had to warm up the dance floor for a good hour or two at any event before I could convince others to join me (or maybe they just needed that time to have some liquid courage)

I fear (and yet would probably still be very amused) should Jim ever decide to create a video montage of my dancing antics.








Go kart racing was a blast in Fort Wayne, even tho my car got buried in the snow... And who could forget snow doughnuts? Gotta love those vendors!








While most everyone loved their cardiac arrest in the bun in Philly - I really could have gone my whole life without a cheesesteak, but what a great photo op for the Symi-Mafia!







And who could forget the infamous recreation of Milli Vanilli's blame it on the rain in San Diego? That evening set an all new standard for male chest bumping in water!










Or what about JBF's inappropriate care bears in San Antonio?








Or the trip to Sun Studios in Memphis? That's where I officially became a published recording artist with "pretty hair" sang with Elvis's mic and got to play Johnny Cash's guitar!






And the countless karaoke songs sung - I think I covered all of the Madonna "Like A" songs over the years... Virgin, prayer, etc...






Or creepy drunk Santa who wasn't really all that creepy or drunk after all?







And dodgeball!!! Oh how I miss playing dodge ball this time of year!






While I am sad to not be on the tennis courts today, I am looking forward to the next two days and virtually networking with my people. I heart my Symi friends!!! I wonder if we'll crash the chat servers or if there will be a side FB conversation? I'll be playing virtual dodgeball tonight for old times sake and hoping to make new, yet I am thinking somewhat less photogenic memories this year!

random

Don't get me started about the shoe blocking.. I got blocked shoe shopping in PA during symeast.
Shoe store blocking is just wrong!

And no, not moonlighting...
"Adele Services" is the actual merchant... I saw it come up on Digg.com a few months back
http://digg.com/odd_stuff/Adele_Services

They are trying to steal my name :-P
There can be only one.

Although I could be convinced to leave programming forever for Adelle's job on Dollhouse.
http://dollhouse.wikia.com/wiki/Adelle_DeWitt

and I could go on for days about how mad I am over the cancellation. Finale this Friday at 8pmCST. Yay Tivo or else I would have had a scheduling conflict with Star Trek.

Beastie Boys featured in Star Trek? Yes! I can't wait.

ELA projection errors are giving me a headache... I think I need some caffeine to focus.




as seen on SMUG

floating point binary

from the math thread on smug earlier today... why MONEY doesn't compute

http://www.calculateforfree.com/sci.html

Here's my 2 cents on fuzzy computer math: (please feel free to ignore my ramblings)

Floating-point is a lot like scientific notation. It generally has a radix (coefficient), which can be adjustable and an exponent or scale. The radix is multiplied by the base to the power of the exponent.

Ex: 123456.7890 in ten digit precision = radix - 1234567890 with a exponent of 2 (the radix point follows the first digit).

So the value is 10^2*1.234567890 or 123456.7890

Because the radix point is adjustable the floating point notation the math gets fuzzy.

EX: 0.15 * 0.15 = 0.0225

In float point

EX: (1.5*10^-1)x(1.5*10^-1)=(2.25*10^-2)

Computers then use rounding modes to compute the results of floating point operations

In multiplication the radix is multiplied while the exponents are added and the result is rounded, small errors are reported as multiple operations are completed. The errors will occur then the exponent is either too large or too small resulting in hidden bit differences in the math. (side google note: Horner scheme computation for a great algorithm for floating point multiplication and division)

If you made it this far and didn't fall asleep, check out this book "What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating Point Arithmetic" Goldberg, 1991... It's a great read if you enjoy this kinda stuff.

http://docs.sun.com/source/806-3568/ncg_goldberg.html

Or in the words of Xena... WIZARD!

Security Question

Jim Stickley sends you a link in an email. He “says” it’s safe.

Do you:

a) Click on the link – if it’s from Jim so it HAS to be safe

b) Ignore the email and continue monitoring the Woot-Off in the hopes at snagging a bag o’crap

c) Think about how you’ll look on the today show when Jim does his segment on “how gullible email readers will click any link you send them”.

http://www.tracesecurity.com/office-prank

*** secretly hoping that Woot puts the Shun knife block back up for sale at 90% off again!!!

creative solutions

Do you really want to see my name up there 15-20 times??? I don’t.

I want to see your ideas! Submit now!!!

Episys® Creative Solution Submissions

We will be featuring another installment of Creative Solutions at this year’s Educational Conference and Technology Expo, during which we will share our clients’ best practices with all conference attendees.

As always, we need your help to make this session a success. We need your Creative Solutions to showcase. If you have developed any programs or processes that are saving your credit union time and money, improving customer service, or otherwise contributing to your credit union's success, we want to hear about them. Your submission should briefly describe the situation, the solution you developed (note that it can be PowerOn or SymConnect-driven or something else entirely!), and the benefits of its implementation to your credit union. Screen shots or report output should be included, if appropriate.

In addition to providing your credit union with high visibility at the conference, each person who submits at least one entry will receive a $10 Amazon gift certificate, and we will enroll his or her credit union in a drawing to win one of three free registrations for this year’s conference. For each creative solution you submit (regardless of whether we include it in the session), your credit union will receive one entry in the free registration drawing. The more creative solutions you submit, the better your chances of winning a free conference registration. And the more submissions we receive, the more the Creative Solutions session will benefit all of our attendees.

Please send your submissions to Barbara Fraire (bfraire@symitar.com) by Friday, July 25, 2007.

SSCUG

Last week went amazingly smooth. Many kudos to my team at work for helping me out with the last minute prep chaos and for being patient with me.

I am so pleased with the conference turnout. We had over 80 people in attendance (CU) and over 100 (if you include vendor attendance). Lots of new friends to add to the Symitar family and lots of great information shared. It was a great conference.

I had a nice recoup over the weekend and now it’s back to the daily grind. I will have to hunt down the conference photos to post for viewing enjoyment.

working on SSCUG

I tend to take on multiple large projects at once.

For example. I have three large scale work projects in progress, school (2 finals this wek) and to top it all off I have SSCUG to wrap up in appx 2-3 weeks.

Today I was finalizing the booklet for the printers and I decided to do a lexicon of industry terminologies.

SSCUG – Symitar South Central Users Group – Hosts the Symitar community Sforum http://www.sscug.com/

SMUG – Symitar Midwest Users Group – Hosts the Symitar community listserv of the same name. To subscribe, visit http://www.smugonline.org/.

To view the SMUG archives, visit http://www.trustds.com/SMUG/.

SymEast – The Eastern Symitar Users Group - http://www.symeast.com/

NWUG – NorthWest Users Group - https://www.boardroomweb.com/

SWUG – SouthWest Users Group - http://www.symitarusers.org/

SYMWiki – The Symitar Wiki - http://www.symwiki.com/

RepGen – (aka, RG, PowerOn, specfiles, PORC (Power On RepGen Code), is the community standard name for the proprietary programming language that Symitar makes available to clients within the Episys core platform.

NTMC – (aka, MCW, Member Connect Web, NetTeller MemberConnect, Home Banking) Symitar’s home banking package.

SymiGoddess – Hosts the unofficial Client Conference/User Group apparel and merchandise. http://www.cafepress.com/SYMIGODDESS All proceeds from this website are donated to the Children’s Miracle Network.

I did a letter style opening and signed it Symigoddess too. I am hoping that comes off as lighthearted as I meant it and not pretentious. I am trying not to over think the process too much.
When I became chairman (chairwoman, chairperson) of the group I decided to make a concerted effort to bring my energy into the group and make things enjoyable and fun. We all need more fun in this world, Right?

would you Rather?

Would you Rather listen to Dan Rather give a keynote address?


Personally I would, and I plan to at the SEC this year. I was pleasantly surprised to see the keynote speaker announcement for this year. I am also happy to be presenting this year. It should be a great conference. I have dodgeball stuff to work out again as well as a booth to find manning for, so it will be yet another super hectic week-o-rama, but I really do enjoy the yearly trek to San Diego to catch up with colleagues and see what's new in the CU world.

I am wondering what else will be on the agenda this year. Registration is coming up next month right after the SSCUG conference. I am thinking I might get a rest between June and July somewhere if I am lucky. Oh wait... there's a major release in there. maybe next year :)