Sitting in HK airport now, waiting for my second last flight to get back to Belfast. In a single week I managed to check quite a few travel “bucket list” boxes thanks to Auslug (and Tony Holder from HADSL). From Hong Kong to Sydney, Manly bay, national parks and then to Brisbane, I consider myself very lucky. Tired, but very lucky.

The Auslug conference is about 10,000 miles away from the usual conferences I attend. However, it was the same in many ways. Organised like clockwork, with madness up to the day before, it ran smoothly, with fantastic content and speakers, all paid for by sponsors. People the AUSLUG region are very lucky to have Mat Newman, Karen Hooper and the many other organisers to put this together. They are also very lucky to have sponsors like IBM, HADSL, ISW, Net-effects, Teamstudio, Dr. Notes, Crossware, BCC and more to pay for all of the content. A brilliant event. If they will have me, I will be back.

My last day in Brisbane was spent covering the ethical hacking day in the IBM offices. Again, great crowd and great discussion. Now to get home and get back to work before BLUG gets in gear.

The mobile market is the fastest growing market in the world.  Just like every other technology, there are different sectors, tools and skills required to integrate mobility to your business.  Be it small scale, mid size, enterprise or government, there are many considerations and masses of information and vendors.  User group events have always been very successful at cutting the hype from the content, the marketing from the reality and the sales from the skills.

On September 9th in London, the first UK Mobile User Group event will run.  A single day covering different tracks in mobility.  All vendors, all technologies welcome.  As with the other user groups we have arranged over the years there will be no cost to attend, as your investment is your time.  Come for a day to find out what you need to know to work with mobility. Be it blackberry, MDM, MAM, device manufacturers and glimpses of what is to come.   This is aimed at technologists and strategists, management and development.  Hopefully it helps everyone.

We are *really* excited about this User Group event.  Spaces will be limited as we are testing the water, so if you want to go, register here.  If you want to sponsor and demonstrate your technology or solution, click here.

This year, I am fulfilling a promise made to Mat Newman over 2 years ago.  I will be speaking next week at Auslug 2013.  It’s my first time at Auslug (and first time in Australia for that matter) so looking forward to seeing what the down-under version of the LUGs brings to the event table.  By every account over the past two years it is a well planned, well laid out conference with excellent speakers and content (and the occasional beer).  The day following Auslug (13th March) I will be presenting my Ethical Hacking and Domino workshop before heading home.  There are still spaces for both events, so if you are in the region try to make it.  I doubt I will know many people there, so be sure to say hello.

From a travel perspective, I will be leaving Belfast for London tomorrow, meeting with Tony Holder and heading to Hong Kong for a night.  Then Sydney for 2 days and flying to Brisbane on the Sunday.  Three days in Brisbane at Auslug and flying home straight afterwards.  It will be a rough week, travel wise but I am looking forward to actually making it all the way to Aus.

As taken, by me in Stratford, London earlier this week.  Please excuse the quality of the photos.  As you can imagine standing at an ATM taking snaps bring attention.  Still a great way for a bank to make a mundane task memorable.

Sitting in Belfast City Airport now, awaiting a flight to London, to meet Bill Buchan and then we head over to LCTY Hamburg, generously arranged by the great guys (and Simon Peek) in We4IT.  There is an impressive lineup for the day, including Scott Souder taking over Ed’s Messaging and Collaboration Strategy session.  As for me, I will be presenting Adminblast followed by a reprisal of Bill and I doing Worst Practices from Connect 13.

In May 2007, we ran the second Irish Lotus User Group event.  It was a 2 day, Dublin based geekfest, kicking off a new model of “grass roots” conference and organised by people with no clue what they were doing, in their own time, for free.  And somehow, we pulled it off.  It was my favourite LUG event and I have very very fond memories of the run up, organising and the event itself..

At the end, this community did something special for the organisers and I was introduced to Macs with my first Macbook as a gift.  Actually, a blackbook.

I have been on them since.  This wee Intel Core 2 Duo with 128GB drive and 1GB RAM was smokin fast at the time.  After a few years I replaced with a 15inch MBP, and have since replaced that model with a 16GB RAM, 500GB SSD Monster MBP, which even though it is 2 years old, is still super fast.  In the meantime, my blackbook was put out on loan.  The only condition was it was to be returned when it was finished with.  I could never sell a gift.

Tonight, it was finished with and it’s back with me.

It is old, slow, worn but still works perfectly.  Although I had owned many pieces of hardware before this, the blackbook was the first piece of technology I had an affection for.  Always reliable, it brought me into Macs, travelled the world and never once let anyone down.  Getting it back reminds me of happier times and how good people can be to each other.  It will have a treasured place in my house.

I am always on the lookout for a way to merge my bikes with being a geek.  Since I have the Interfone F4 bluetooth kit in my helmet, (FYI, there is an F5 model now),  I have used my iPhone for satnav, podcasts and music/calls on the move.  Finding a good motorbike mount for the iPhone though, has been a challange.  I have had one in the past for the iPhone4, but it will not fit the newer model.

Enter the recently released Kickstarter project, the  Annex Quadlock.  In a geek-biker chat I am a member of, a colleague mentioned this upcoming release so I contacted them and asked if I could have one to review.  This Australian company obviously focus on pushbikes, but the design looked compatible with multiple size bar-frames.  Yesterday, I got this in the post from down-under (disclaimer: they have not charged me and I will return the product).

Opened, it consists of a rugged polycarbonate iPhone5 casing with a mounting fitting built in, the bike handlebar mount and wall mounts (if you fancy mounting your device to a wall).  The wall mount doesn’t interest me, so lets look at the phone casing.

I like the casing.  It feels tough and secure.  There is a bump on the back side where the mount attaches. About 2mm increase in size in the centre point, which means the iPhone does not lie perfectly flat in this case.  Power and volume buttons have polycarbonate covers for pushing, but all options in the phone are available.  The only issue I have is that the Apple Lightening to 30-pin converter (to attach to older device cables) cannot connect anymore to the device due to the covering.  It’s a minor gripe.  A real Lightening cable works fine.

The bike mounting comes with rubber O-rings (2 sets of different sizes) and tie-wraps.  You put the mounting on the handlebar and attach using the O-rings.  If you wish, you can also use the tie-wraps.

Assembly takes all of 20 seconds and then it is fixed to the bike.  Attaching the phone is a simple twist/release mechanism.  Here are some pictures of the mount, and the phone attached to my Ducati Monster.  As you can see, the mount is not obtrusive when not in use.

Just using the O-Rings, I took the bike out on an 80 mile spin, over country roads.  It was secure at all times.  When stopping at a station, it was a simple twist/click remove to take the phone with me.  All in all, I am impressed with this product and would recommend it to bikers looking for a handlebar mount.  My only reservation is with trusting the O-Rings for a period of time.  I could remote/attach the mount when not in use, but I do think some sort of  handlebar mounting attachment (like on the GoPro or SwannCam Freestyle) would be a better option.  However, the super-rough trip I took with the mounting yesterday was no issue to the mount, at any speed).  The pricing is reasonable and the company has been very responsive.  Recommended.

If you want to lose a few hours….  Click on the image

I forgot to post this until I received an email asking for the updated version last night.  The speedgeeking session on Apple Macs and IBM Notes (Updated for Mountain Lion) is available on the resources page.

As many of you are aware, Kenneth tragically passed away during the hog ride at Connect this year.  We have setup an online condolences site with the permission of the family where you may choose to leave a message to pay respects to a life lost too soon.  Please click here.