You Know You Travel A Lot When...

Two years and seven months after becoming a software consultant I know a little more about business travel.

Some of my earlier international trips. You can tell because the dates are backwards (May 2012 and Sept/Oct 2011). 

Ten ways you know you travel a lot:

1. You can guess airline carrier by connecting flights (or lack thereof). "Was that direct flight to the Bay Area on Southwest?"  "Oh so Phoenix was your hub, was it perhaps US Airways (now American Airlines)?" "Amsterdam? KLM!"
2. You know which airport seats to sit at by looking for the power cord rather than just power outlets.
3. You recognize airport personnel, or worse they recognize you (I've only experienced this once but the joke for serious travelers is when your local airport starts holding your mail).

MVP Chat Part 2

Two years ago the MVP group chat was young and innocent. But at some point someone introduced "Sweary Tuesdays." Oh damn. We've also turned the geekery up a bit (hover over text for cypher translations or look them up yourself).

@wntr: It's F-in Sweary Tuesday!
 +Alvin Reyes: Oh hell no!
@nick: John, did you just try to answer that question on Trex? I'm way ahead of you, man.
+Nuno Linhares: fuvg, ebg13 ehyrf!
+Dominic Cronin: 聮聯耬 聦聵聣聫聥聲聳耬 聲聯聴耸耰耰耰 聲聵聬聥聳耡

Deal with the Shadowy Figure

Happy Halloween.

Question: How do you get KnewKnow to answer your question?

Answer: Post online, "This is so broken. How would you fix it?"

As a Tridion question, he is compelled to answer as part of some unholy contract he's made with some shadowy figure.

First, pick a "shadowy figure" of your choice.

"Please, make me a Tridion expert," pleaded KnewKnow to the shadowy figure. 

An ominous voice replied, "I shall grant your wish but when no one's looking, you will become a pair of chucks and will be compelled to answer all Tridion questions."

And that's the story of KnewKnow. [cue lightning and thunder... aww come on, I know it's nice weather here...]

More deals-with-the-shadowy figure. See if you can guess who's who.

1. An ominous voice replied, "I shall grant your wish but whenever someone says Java, you cannot resist."
2. An ominous voice replied, "I shall grant your wish but no one will intentionally listen to you in person. You will have to blog to share ideas."
3. An ominous voice replied, "I shall grant your wish but you will not be able to forget code you've written, especially if it's in .NET. Good or bad, it will forever be etched into your mind. You will also look quite young as those around you age like normal consultants."
4. An ominous voice replied, "I shall grant your wish but you will attract the attention of beautiful women possibly younger than you, but you won't realize they like you. After asking any technical question the answer will instantly come to you but only after you worry for exactly 3 seconds."
5. An ominous voice replied, "Wait, show me how you extended that extendable area in schemas, I've always wanted to do that!"
6. An ominous voice cracks, "No deal, man. I'm not a fool! You're already an expert! Please don't correct my TRex answers!"

Your turn. As the lucky and unfortunate hero in a similar tale of woe, what would the conditions of the deal be?

Answers in case you missed them: Mihai, me, The Huizard, a semi-anonymous "random" colleague and friend, the most interesting Tridionaut (Jaime), and the infamous Mr. P.  I'm excluding some well-worn inside jokes out of respect for my colleagues, audience patience, and my blogging quota.

SDL Tridion Humour Part 5

I'm taking a step back from the contextually-aware future and want to share some more Tridionaut fun.

The Random Tridion Blogger made a version of the
Success Kid meme congratulating The Huizard.
I updated it. 

Here's another take on D-Rex, the artistic creation of @wntr.

Another of @wntr's creations. We're still trying to figure it out.
I'm guessing it's something to do with either Jules' worst nightmares or dietary preferences.

I'm not sure where I was going with this. But I probably deserve posting it.

Mr. P's pizza!

Force Finish. Get it? No?

Maybe CMS_Borat could give me a good caption for this one.

"I, too, plan learn Tridion 2013 in 2016."

Enjoy!

Subscribe to Functional or Technical TRex Tags. Roar!

This is a (no longer) quick three-in-one post on a real question I've received, the evolving Tridion (not-all) Technical community, and a plug for DRex TRex.

1. The Practical Answer

Some of my colleagues have asked how to subscribe to Stack Exchage posts. Sounds simple and it is, but it's one of those things you have to dig around for.

1. As you click on tags on Tridion Stack Exchange (TRex), you’ll see the tag in the upper right part of the page.
2. Hover over it and subscribe or unsubscribe to email notifications for the tag.

It’s simple but not necessarily intuitive. There’s probably a bigger story here, but that’s all for point #1… for now.

2. The Observation

Yes! Tridion Stack Exchange covers both technical and functional topics. I can continue to keep up with the uber geeks in the community. With tags like "content-modeling" even content strategists that don't necessarily have Tridion backgrounds could ask/answer/join this community.

Can you guess who subscribed to the content-modeling tag?

3. A Plug for TRex

I asked how we can move from 271 visitors/day to 500 on Tridion StackExchange's (TRex) Meta site. So dear readers and search engine bots, be sure to visit TRex.

Oops, not D-Rex (photo courtesy of Content Broom's John Winter). "Roar!"

Tridion Stack Exchange aka TRex! Okay, so this isn't the official logo, go vote for the one you want.

Better yet, ask/answer/learn from others in the community and maybe make a small blog post on your thoughts about Tridion StackExchange for the search engine bots to find (come on, I know you have a blog).

New New Tridion Best Practices

With the release of SDL Tridion 2013, I'll be managing CreateAndBreak with my test 2013 VM.

Just a few content types at-a-time!

Device Preview renders the site nicely as well. 

SDL Tridion 2013 introduces Bundles, which are virtual folders that allow authors the ability to manually group and add items to an organizational item (rather than by search).

Combine this with the Core Service's role as the API behind-the-scenes for the Content Manger Explorer editor and we can create three new best practices:

• Core Services Instead of Templating (One API for everything!)
• The Single-Folder Setup (It's All Bundles)
• Return of the All-in-One-Component (Beyond Content Forward or Page Backwards)

Recognizable SDL Tridionauts: An Answerer, a Coder, a Community Builder, Mr P, and the Button Presser.

SDL itself has a few visible Tridionauts in the community. You might recognize them by their online behavior below.

KnewKnow

If someone concisely answers your Tridion question regardless of the channel (Linked-In, StackOverflow, or scribbled on a wall in a customer's war room), it might be Nuno Linhares. He will answer questions wherever he finds them.

KnewKnow thinks, "Ooh, a Tridion question."

Q? A.

Mr. Code-ariu

If you follow a link in someone's answer and find a Tridion code snippet as a reference, it might come from Mihai Cădariu. He will share interesting pieces of code that most often he writes himself.

Mr. Code-ariu thinks, "Ooh, Tridion code."

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tl;dr

I mock my reputation, which precedes me by a 100 or so tweets, 200 blog posts, and 300-page, printer-killing documentation with this little graphic.

Mock book generated at the nifty 3D package online site.

tl;dr, my strength and weakness! I promise more pictures, diagrams, and code, less prose... someday, soon. Starting any moment now.

SDL Tridion, The Most Interesting Man, and Chuck Norris

Which make better Tridion geek jokes?

• The Most Interesting Man in the World or
• Chuck Norris