Continue reading »]]> So being a techy, I have to ask who will be bringing their tablets to SymEast this year? I know I will be bringing my iPad 2 to the conference and will be tweeting and blogging throughout the entire event. I hope to see a lot of others there with similar devices this year but more importantly I want to know how you are going to be using them while at the conference. Will you be tweeting? Blogging? Recording Video? Let us know what you will be up to so we can better provide the resources you need!

Continue reading »]]> OK, I have to get this out there because I can’t be the only one that has thought about this (come on Symitar marketing…) but shouldn’t Jack Henry license the Black Eyed Peas song “I Gotta Feeling” and have that as there theme song? Seriously, “…I gotta feeling that tonight’s gonna be a Goodnight…” is perfect for them and catchy.

Continue reading »]]> Training Sessions – Check!

Registration – Check!

Welcome Reception – Check!

What a Tuesday! Today we had our optional training sessions and also our registration and welcome reception in the Deleware meeting hall. Overall it was one heck of a day and dispite some early morning box drama, everything went off just as we wanted! The early morning sessions we appreciated by all who attended and we heard many positive comments about both of them. Between the SymConnect and the RepGen topics there was something for every techie in the house and provided a great warmup for the rest of the conference.

Vendors started setting up at 2 PM and while we are missing a few of them due to weather, most made it and had everything ready to go for all of the attendees. Registration started at 4 PM for the vendors, and at 6 PM for the attendees who all quickly filled the hall in preperation for what has amounted to be one of the best conference dinners ever! Thanks Blanche! At 7 PM dinner was serverd – pasta, potatoes, salad, fruit, desert – you name it we had it and obviously there was the ever popular bar!

During dinner, we met a lot of great people and caught up with friends that we haven’t seen for a year or more which is always great to do. It is always nice to finally be able to put a face to the people you talk to each day on the phone either for sales or technical support. The topic of the evening seems to still be the “interesting” 15th floor rooms which all have a very unique look to them. Some requested to stay in them, some didn’t know what they were getting into and eitherway we have pictures! We will be posting these along with others to Jonathan Cilley’s Flickr photo stream located at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cilleyperson/sets/72157616644827371/

Please be sure to check this out since we cannot post this many photos to twittpic, especially at this resolution.

Now that everything has wrapped up, some have gone to the bars and others are already in bed, but we all are looking forward to another awesome day tomorrow! We will see you all there!

Continue reading »]]> So here it is, the first post from the conference venue and dispite a bit of an issue when I first arrived, everything is resolved now. I have a nice room, Internet connectivity, a LCD TV… All the stuff a geek needs.

As for the venue, I am pretty impressed so far and I have wandered around a bit to see the place. The committee and I will be having dinner tonight at one of the restaurants in the convention center this evening to see how that goes. If you are in town around 7 PM come find us and say hi. We are looking forward to seeing everyone today and tomorrow.

Continue reading »]]> Since we are starting to have more people signup and track the conference on Twitter, I have added a new page here http://blog.symeast.org/symitar-twitters/ which is also a navigation item along the top tool bar. This page will list all of the people who have sent us their Twitter user name so their feeds are available during the conference. Of course the SymEast Twitter account will also be following them as well so you will see their posts come through on the sidebar of the blog too.

I have also added a “Friends of SymEast” link section so I can start putting links to blogs that some of you Symitar users have on the site. My only request is that they be somewhat related to Symitar and not just a personal blog since this is a Symitar users group after all. If you have a blog or resource you want listed, send them to me at jonathan.cilley@mctfcu.org.

Continue reading »]]> The blog is looking better now anyways, I’ve been trying to clean it up a bit and have added some nice new plugins to help the search engine rankings. My next step is to redesign the logo but since my GIMP/Paint.Net skills are not so hot and I do not have Fireworks at home, that will have to wait for the time being.

So here’s what has changed:

• Added the SEO pack for WordPress
• Added content caching (just in case we get dug!)
• Added a nice plugin to post Youtube videos (have you seen those WRG band videos?)
• Twitter now gets updated when we post here

So far so good, just a little bit more and I think this thing might just work!

Continue reading »]]> SymEast (@SymEast) is now tracking on Twitter! I am going to try and update this during the conference via my blackberry and keep it fresh… You think it will work? We want our attendees to be involved and engaged throughout so this is one more opportunity to keep everyone on the same page. I’m taking my inspiration from folks at the interactive SXSW conferences in Austin (which is awesome btw and you should go if you have any interest in flash/web development) and I know the SymEast folks are at least that cool if not cooler.