Earlier this year, my wife took the calendar off of the wall, pointed at a two-week block in September and announced "Prepare yourself. We go to Europe to visit my parents." The plan: to land in Frankfurt, travel to Munich, do a day-trip to Salzburg, visit Piedmont and Turin in Italy, wind our way up to the Black Forest in Germany, and fly out again. While I was excited at the prospect of two weeks of vacation, I also had reservations about the many hours of driving which had been planned for this getaway. (History has shown, at least in my experience, that Man+Spouse+Maps=Squabbling.) However, fortune was smiling upon us when we arrived in Frankfurt and we met the "gypsy."
One thing we had agreed upon prior to leaving home is the rental of a mid-sized car. Trust me, you don’t want to be in a Smart car on the autobahn. Lucky for us, the agent at the rental check-out counter at FRA had a very limited selection of cars to offer, and we ended up in a rather nice Renault sport wagon. Even more fortunate, the car had an incredible built-in GPS system (which we started lovingly calling “gypsy.")
So here comes the plug… if you’re ever heading to Europe for a road trip, I cannot recommend strongly enough that you request a vehicle with a GPS system in place. Like any other tool that helps make the process of searching easier, you will appreciate it’s time-saving, hair-saving, and marriage-saving capabilities. Even though my wife’s uncle teased me to no end about the GPS (the fact that his country has stellar roadways, and that the device “encourages laziness”) I am eager to buy one for my vehicle here at home. I'm of the belief that often, a key tool or key piece of information can save you alot of time and energy in the bigger picture.
One member of the DotNetNuke community who is certainly no stranger to travel or to the benefits of making “search” easier is Tom Kraak. Tom, who is the founder of Seablick Consulting LLC, recently returned from OpenForce Europe (read his recap) and will also be in attendance at OpenForce in LV presenting a couple of sessions including “Intro to Search Engine Optimization with DotNetNuke.” You can also visit Tom at booth #606 on the exhibition floor. ~BW
"I just returned from OpenForce Europe where I had the 'honor' of being the only North American attendee across the entire SDN conference," says Tom. "After OpenForce Connect Orlando in June, this was my second major DNN event this year and both of them proved to be a wise investment of time and money."
"While there is certainly an overlap of speaker sessions between DNN conferences, there are always at least one or two talks that make it all worth it. 'Building Secure DotNetNuke Installations' by Cathal Connolly is one of those eye-opening sessions. As a DNN core team member, trustee, and resident DNN security guru, Cathal is chockfull of knowledge in all things DNN, but especially in the area of application security and best practices around it."
"It does not end with the sessions though as Cathal and most other speakers and core team members including Shaun Walker himself mingle with the community throughout these events. Look for Cathal and the rest of the 'gang' in Vegas ... you don't want to miss it." - Tom Kraak is the Founder of Seablick Consulting LLC