Back from TechEd

I returned from TechEd ITPro last night, after a very long and interesting week. Quite a few amazing sessions with Steve Riley, Mark Minasi, Jesper Johansson, Mark Russinovich and many others. Lots of interaction in the “Ask the Experts” area, and plenty of new business opportunities as well.

All in all, the event was a pretty good one. Well, maybe except from the food. But that’s usually a general thing, since I’m a vegetarian. On two of my four flights this past week, the airline (TAROM) apparently “forgot” my previously confirmed request for a vegetarian meal. Even more so, when they brought the food (which was all with meat), I asked them what they can provide instead of that, and I was just told “we’re sorry sir, but we can’t really give you anything else – we’re not vegetarian ourselves!”. I mean, WHAT?!

They did have vegetarian meals at the conference, but I believe people fail to grasp the concept of being a vegetarian. They probably think salads contain enough nutrients, or that they can provide the needed vegetal proteins. But food-related things aside, the conference was a real success in my view.

I have no regret whatsoever as far as the sessions I chose to attend go (we’ll get all the others on a DVD anyway). Most of them were sessions which are a must-see, such as “Do these ten things now or else get 0wn3d!”, “Virtualization and Security: what does it mean for me?”, “How IT will change in the next 10 years and why should I care?”, “Privacy: the why, what and how”, “Q&A – Privacy, to be or not to be”, “It’s the 21st century: time to throw away your medieval gateways”, “The fine art of security panacea, achievable or not?”, “Naked dancing pigs and Werner Heisenberg: how security changes everything”, “The case of the unexplained”, “Anatomy of a hack” and several others, the ones here coming from the speakers I mentioned above.

I didn’t get much time to visit Barcelona, so I don’t have that many pictures. Even so, as soon as I sort them out, I’ll upload them online. I’ve sorted them a bit, so here they are.

The hotel was ok, the main quality being its central location. And again, thanks to Microsoft Romania for providing some very fun and interesting evening meetings all week long!

I’m now looking forward to my white hat hacking lab starting this weekend, since I see that the things are getting pretty hot already by just reading the comments…