Should I form a local Mobile Device User Group?

Just attended a local PC User Group, and got to thinking again about forming my own Special Interest Group (SIG) for Mobile Device Users.

If I do, I’m wondering what name I should give the group.    Since I’m old school, and I started-out on a PocketPC, part of me wants to start a “Sacramento PocketPC User Group”.  But in reality, the term PocketPC is fairly antiquated, and the new OS from Microsoft is now actually entitled “Windows Phone”.    So if I went with “Sacramento Windows Phone User Group”, then I would effectively be excluding other OSes like Palm and Apple.  

My best idea is to go with “Sacramento Mobile Device Users Group”, as it does not limit technology to Microsoft technology, but also infers a compact solution.   But after giving it some additional thought, I would not want to discount netbook or other technologies that just happen to be bigger than your pocket.  But since latops and netbooks are mobile devices, they would still be covered…

Hmmm….

Getting a new HP ProLiant DL380 G4 Server

I am making arrangements to obtain an HP ProLiant DL380 G4 64-bit Rack Server.   This is a professional-grade server, but it’s about two generations old, so it can be had at a totally reasonable price.   Here are some of the specs:

Processors:

  • (2) 64-bit Intel® Xeonâ„¢ processors at 3.4 GHz.
  • 800MHz Front Side Bus and 2MB of L2 cache.
  • Intel E7520 Chipset.

Memory:

  • (6) 2 GB PC2-3200R 400MHz DDR2 Ready Slots with online spare capabilities.
  • 6x 2048MB (12288MB total) HP PC2-3200 DDR2 RAM.
  • Support for dual-rank 400MHz DDR2 memory.

Storage Controller:

  • SCSI model includes the integrated Smart Array 6i Ultra320 Array Controller with optional 128MB of Battery Backed Write Cache (BBWC standard).

Internal Drive Support:

  • HP Smart Array 6i Ultra320 SCSI Controller with Internal hot plug capacity 1.8TB standard (6 x 300GB HDD).
  • (6) hot-plug U320 SCSI drive bays, of which (1) 1.6″ bay that supports a hot-plug DAT tape backup drive.
  • (6) 72.4GB HP 10K Wide Ultra320 SCSI Hard Drives.
  • (1) 1x IDE CD-ROM.
  • Optional PCI-X Hot-plug cage or Optional PCI Express Non-hot plug Cage.
  • Optional dual channel drive backplane (2/4 split) for U320 SCSI models.

Network Controller:

  • Embedded NC7782 PCI-X Gigabit Server Adapter.
  • Embedded “Integrated Lights Out” (iLO) port for Remote Admin.

Expansion Slots:

  • 3 Total Available Slots : (2) non-hot plug 64-bit/100MHz PCI-X slots and (1) non-hot plug 64-bit/133MHz PCI-X slot.

USB 2.0 Ports:

  • 3 Total: (1) front, (2) rear accessible ports.

Redundancy:

  • (8) Hot Plug Fans with optional full redundancy.
  • (2) Hot Plug Power Supply with optional redundancy.

Management:

  • HP Power Regulator for ProLiant, delivering server level, policy based power management with industry leading energy efficiency and savings on system power and cooling costs.
  • Integrated Lights-Out industry leading remote management with new support for two-factor authentication, schema-free Microsoft Active Directory integration, Power Regulator p-state reporting, USB key virtual media and VLAN on the shared network port.
  • Integrated Lights-Out (iLO) Standard Management on system board.
  • Support for new iLO Shared Network Port enables access to the iLO management processor through one of the embedded system NICs.
  • Automatic Server Recovery (ASR), ROM Based Setup Utility (RBSU), HP System Insight Manager, Status LEDs including system health and UID and SmartStart.

Form Factor:

  • Rack (2U), (3.5-inch).

 

Pretty sweet, huh?

I”m going to be installing Microsoft’s Small Business Server OS on top of it, and see how well that works out.   I’m hoping that this new (to me) server will take good care of me and my business for years to come!

Bought my tickets for the 2010 MVP Summit

My hotel reservations were secured a few weeks ago, and I just recently bought my plane tickets, so I’m basically ready to go (minus packing a few days before the flight).

Having missed CES (Consumer Electronics Show) 2010, I am totally bummed to have also missed CntrStg 2010.   I really miss the interaction with my MVP peers and fellow bloggers, so the 2010 MVP Summit will be a great opportunity to meet new MVPs, connect with old friends, and enjoy the best that Microsoft has to offer!