MMS Followup
Summary: the recovery period is over, so it's time to get serious again. Here's some conference notes and the the sample scripts/queries from my presentations.
Have you recovered from MMS (assuming you were there this year)? It always takes awhile to get unpacked, catch up on work, catch up on household duties, and psychologically unwind. I'm now there, but still inspired! Given the ConfigMgr v.Next directions I'll finally get serious about SQL Server Reporting Services and get more familiar with SQL Server replication. That will eventually make for some good blog posts (I hope).
The conference is always intense for me, with full days from early Sunday afternoon to Friday afternoon. Up by 7AM each day for the breakfasts and keynotes and to bed no earlier than midnight (4AM Wednesday, but that's another story...). Great conversations throughout, and many of them are on unexpected topics. I chatted with a guy from Intel at breakfast and he got me enthused about AMT/vPro. Another fellow at a lunch managed datacenter servers but I loved it when he said "I cry like a little girl when I have a problem that I can't solve with PowerShell and have to use vbScript". That's a guy that loves PowerShell, and so maybe I should give it another chance (you may know I'm a vbScript fan). I met a dedicated client health administrator from a large organization at one of the big parties (and later at my presentation) and I'm sure we'll have some ongiong serious conversations. So many great memories, conversations, and relationships...
That actually leads to a good point (though you've probably heard it already). Apparently there's some possibility of merging MMS with TechEd. No doubt there's pro's and con's to that idea, so get out and voice your opinion: http://www.myitforum.com/absolutepm/polls/mms-teched.asp.
The evaluations for my presentations were around the average for the conference, with the client health presentation a little above and the local policies presentation a little below. Some people loved each and some were not so pleased, which is typical. My aim is always to please as many people as possible but it is tricky (as you can probably imagine). The scores weren't as good as I usually get and not as good as I would like, but they give ideas for improvement. Hopefully I'll be able to demonstrate that next year. Both did better than similar presentations done in past years.
In any case, if you attended the presentations (or see them in future forms), the attached file has the local policy sample scripts and the client health queries. [To see the attached file click on the title of this posting to open it as a seperate page (as opposed to the home page of the blog) and you'll find the link near the end]. The files should be available on the conference CommNet (I didn't have a chance to check) and the DVD, but if all else fails you have this option.
p.s. I have to post the pictures of the conference bags (one for speakers and one for everyone).