Tag: san francisco

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Visiting San Francisco for RSA Conference 2011

I’m off to San Francisco again next month for the RSA Conference 2011, one of the world’s biggest information security conferences. On Microsoft’s tab.

Microsoft is obviously keen for me to hear their guy Scott Charney, who’s giving a keynote entitled “Collective Defense: Collaborating to Create a Safer Internet”. This follows on from his presentations last year about treating internet security like a public health problem. Word is he’s starting to get a few converts.

But I’m also interested in hearing the US Deputy Secretary of Defense, William Lynn III, outlining the Pentagon’s Cyber Strategy, and a panel discussion on cyberwar that includes the redoubtable Bruce Schneier.

Once more I’m staying on for a couple of days to explore the city some more. Last time I asked for suggestions of places to visit and things to do, but as it happens I ended up doing none of them. Well, except taking a photograph of a seagull. I just prefer random exploration of a city over museums and packaged tourist experiences. And I did find some great little places to eat and drink. I’ll give them a plug over the next couple of weeks.

As for the conference, by all means have a squizz at the agenda and let me know if anything strikes your interest. I’ll be collecting material for the Patch Monday podcast, and filing stories for ZDNet.com.au and anyone else who’ll have me.

RSA Conference 2011 runs from Monday 14 to Friday 18 February at the Moscone Center. I’ll be staying in San Francisco until Sunday 20 February.

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Accommodation: into the unknown

Oddly enough, I might end up managing my hunt for a new home more effectively and more cheaply by leaving the country next month. But even if that doesn’t happen, it looks like I’ll be in temporary digs for a while.

If you don’t like personal blog posts, stop reading now. Instead, read about this pro-intervention former CIA officer who runs his own private intelligence service.

If you’ve just tuned in, we were given notice to vacate the Enmore house by 3 February. The property owner refused my request to change that date or even negotiate. January is when I should be focussed on kicking off work for the year, especially given that freelance writing and production and my other billable work all but disappear during the so-called holiday season. I really should have kicked off the househunting too. But I was, erm, distracted to say the least during Artemis’ final days.

So, as I feared, the deadline approaches without the cashflows needed to cover moving house — you know, the usual annoyance of having to come up with a bond and additional rent, as well as any removalist costs. Friends have offered to help, so that’s good. But I will admit that I’m still very, very stressed. It’s affecting my productivity. Which affects my cashflows. Chicken. Egg. Etc.

Then last week a PR agency asked me whether I’d be available for a trip to San Francisco in February. I can’t say when or why or who’d be paying just yet, and in any event the offer hasn’t been confirmed. But it set me thinking. There could be another way.

Continue reading “Accommodation: into the unknown”

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Weekly Wrap 28

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets — which this week wasn’t very much at all because I lost a couple of days returning from San Francisco.

Articles

None this week.

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 69, “Service goes social, but how?”. Based on material recorded at Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce event in San Francisco, this episode includes a chat with Fergus Griffin, vice president of product marketing for Salesforce.com’s Service Cloud product.

Media Appearances

  • On Wednesday I did another brief spot with Paul Turton on ABC Radio Statewide NSW.

Corporate Largesse

Elsewhere

Most of my day-to-day observations are on my high-volume Twitter stream, and random photos and other observations turn up on my Posterous stream. The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags.

[Photo: Since I didn’t take any photographs this week, here’s one of the rather serious seagulls they have in San Francisco.]

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Weekly Wrap 27

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets — very late this week because I just couldn’t be arsed doing blog posts while I was in San Francisco. But here’s the summary of last week. On Wednesday. So I’ll refund your goddam subscription fees.

Articles

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 68, “Wikileaks: the survival lessons”. A panel discussion with network engineer Mark Newton — he described WikiLeaks as “a bespoke cloud-based CDN [content distribution network] that is enabled by the Streisand Effect” — information security specialist Crispin Harris, and platform architect Benno Rice.

Media Appearances

None. What wrong with you people?

Corporate Largesse

Where do you start? This week was all about me travelling to San Francisco as a guest of Salesforce.com. So they paid my airfares, accommodation, food and drink throughout the event, and “networking functions” at the W Hotel and the Palace Hotel. Plus they gave me a Flip HD video camera, a scarf, a t-shirt, a universal power plug thingy and a can of whipped cream. Don’t ask.

Elsewhere

Most of my day-to-day observations are on my high-volume Twitter stream, and random photos and other observations turn up on my Posterous stream. The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags.

[Photo: A comparison of real American men with the idealised version portrayed in advertising in a storefront on Market St, San Francisco.]