This Monday at HP World'99.

(You'd think the title would be Y2K compliant?)

I went to one of the most boring training
sessions on e-commerce.  One of the speakers
spoke everything about authentication,
encryption, keys, and other compusec topics
the military had already taught me years ago.

It was topped off late in the afternoon by a
vendor presentation, mostly about how great
this company was at doing it.  Lastly before I
finally walked out, the HP person couldn't
get the demo to work.

The Program Guide, like Janus, has two sides.
Make sure your reading the correct side because
on the back and upside down for 16 pages is
ERP WORLD'99.  The larger portion is HP WORLD'99.

Page 19 has a small map of the hotels near
the convention center.  However the name of the
street that the Renaissance Parc 55 Hotel is on
was renamed from "Cyril Magnin Street" to
"Quail Magnin Street".  Apparently the mapmaker
who designed it was either thinking of hunting,
or was another Republican trying to promote
his presidential candidate and couldn't spell
either.

I noted the color coding for MPE seminars was
colored "gray" as opposed the bright colors
for other systems.  Is HP World using psychological
warfare versus other systems, or are they
trying to remind us MPE types about our age?

I wandered through the Moscone Convention
Center.  During my travels, where the rooms
had numbers in the 200 series, I found a desk
promoting "certification" on HP systems.  They
tried to reel me in.  None of their posters
mentioned "MPE" on it, although some of their
flyers did.  I told 'em I'd been working on
MPE systems for 20 years and I didn't need no
"stinkin' certification".  They countered that
it was "user groups" that had requested this.
I mumbled something about "young pups needing
this" and moved on.

I looked around and got my bearings, took the
escalators down further to the 100 numbered
rooms.  Found a few areas that looked like
they're getting ready for a party.  Apprently
it is for the Welcome Reception in about a
half hour.  I also noted it is listed in the
Program Guide on page 30 as being in the
"Gateway Ballroom" but doesn't provide the room
number like other events, it is rooms 102, 103,
and 104 however.  They were setting up balloons
in obvious HP blue and white.

More later.