A Portal to a Portal

Well, that was interesting. Being a naive Brit, I assumed that travelling from my hotel ( which is at the entrance to the Disneyworld complex ) to the Swan and Dolphin hotels, where Lotusphere is (mainly) at would be a relatively simple matter.

Think again, my young friends :-)

• Left the hotel at 1100
• Got a bus to The Magic Kingdom, a monorail to Epcot ( which is next to S&D across the lake ) only to find that I can't get in 'cos I have no ticket to ride
• Took another bus to MGM Studios
• Took a ferry boat across the lake ( waving at Epcot ) to the S&D

Getting back was (slightly) easier - a walk along the lakeside from S&D to MGM, a bus to Magic Kingdom and then another bus to the hotel ( missing out the hour-long wait in the bus park ).

Hoping I'll get it sorted by, say, Friday :-)

Also noted that it's cold here in Orlando - no surprise, I guess, considering it's January in the northern hemisphere, but it did teach me that NEXT YEAR, BRING A DARN JACKET :-)

Still, the first day experience was a blast ( being a Lotusphere virgin ) - showed up, registered, did my duty as a room monitor, ate food by the lake ( it's 10 degrees C, darn it ) and then walked away.

The two sessions that I was monitoring; Notes/Domino integration with desktop applications ( Office and OpenOffice/Symphony ) and Notes/Domino security were great, especially given that I'm a portal guy so am a (l)user of Notes rather than anwhere like an expert

Learnt lots that I can tell my customers about e.g. integration is fun but takes coding and patience and a knowledge of MS Visual Studio in many cases, ND security is excellent IF you use it effectively and Domino Domain Monitoring seems to make so much sense etc.

In short, an interesting but most excellent day.