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Louis Kessler’s Behold Blog » Blog Entry           prev Prev   Next next

My RootsTech Tech - Thu, 2 Feb 2017

Several others have already written about the items and the Tech that they’re taking to #RootsTech.

Nichole Dyer wrote about 8 Tech Tools to Bring to RootsTech. Alona Tester gives a big list of her general stuff and techy stuff in RootsTech 2017 – Counting Down. Christine Woodcock gave her list in RootsTech is Next Week! Wait! WHAT?  Jill Ball (GeniAus) gave her Rootstech Checklist in Just 7 More Sleeps. Devon Noel Lee gives her 5 Tips to Survive RootsTech 2017 to you as a video. And Linda Stufflebean lists a few tech items in her Preparing for Double RS – Research and RootsTech 2017.

So just for fun, here’s my list of Tech stuff I’m taking (or not taking):

  1. Two smartphones. I have tried those portable phone chargers before, but I found them to be a nuisance. The phone is hard to use with them plugged in, e.g. taking a picture or whatever. And keeping it in my pocket with the phone recharging is uncomfortable and sometimes the cord comes out.

    Better is to use my current phone, a Nokia Lumia 930 and my previous phone, a Nokia Lumia 920. One phone is not enough juice to last a day at RootsTech, but two do the job. Both have all the same apps on them, and access to the files I’m going to need.

  2. Two cord chargers. Obviously with two phones, I need two chargers. I leave these at the hotel to plug in each night.
  3. My OneNote App. This is probably my most important App. I’ve got everything in here, from my plane tickets to my hotel reservations, to my schedule of what I plan to do, to the people I hope to meet and on and on. The notes I take of happenings and people that I want to remember will go into OneNote. 
  4. My Twitter App. I love to live tweet a conference with pictures I’m taking. And I’ll be following what others say on the #RootsTech tag.
  5. My OneDrive App. At home I have an Office 365 subscription. For $99 Canadian a year, that gives me full copies of Office on 5 machines (me, my wife, my two daughters, and one extra), 60 monthly Skype minutes for each of us, and the biggie: 1 TB of OneDrive cloud storage per user. OneDrive is where I put everything I may want to reference including all the RootsTech syllabi that I’ve already downloaded.
  6. My PowerPoint App. One thing I like about my Windows Phone is that it has mini versions of the Office apps. I can load my Double Match Triangulator Presentation for the Innovator Showdown onto it and also my two Presentations for the BYU Family History Technology Workshop. Then I can review and even update them any time I want, as I usually do on the plane on the way there.
  7. The RootsTech App. One thing I don’t like about my Windows Phone is that a lot of places don’t make Apps for it. The RootsTech App is only available for iOS and Android. But I can do the next best thing and use the online version of their app. I think it works just the same. The disadvantage of it is that it needs wifi, and with 24,000 people going to RootsTech, there will be times when the wifi will be spotty. So that’s why I’ve put my schedule of what I’m going to attend into my OneNote app (see #3).
  8. Windows Live Writer. This is one of my favorite programs which I use for all my blog posts. I just turn on my PC and … whoops. I’m definitely not taking my desktop, and I took a laptop to RootsTech in 2012 but it was so cumbersome and bulky that in 2014 as an experiment, I just took my phone. That worked out pretty well and I found it wasn’t too bad to blog each evening after the day was done back at the hotel on the business computer they provide. My blog would be a compilation of the tweets I did that day and can easily be done just the basic editing that Wordpress lets me do.
  9. Ribbons and Business Cards. Trading ribbons is the latest craze at conferences. Gotta catch ‘em all. They’re the new tech. But some people still want to trade the old tech: Business cards

    No automatic alt text available.

  10. No bags or anything. No pen. I’m not planning to carry anything with me. My phones will be in my left front pants pocket and that is it. If there’s a bunch of swag that the vendors in the Expo Hall are giving away, I’m sure one of the vendors will have a bag I can put it all in.

    I’m not planning to write anything either. If there’s a contest, I’ll use their pen, or throw a business card in the bin.

    If I do any research in the Family History Library, well, that’s what OneNote and the camera on my phone are for.

  11. My boot. I’m so happy my surgeon told me today that I won’t need to take my crutches to RootsTech. But the boot is still required. So a Star Wars  Stormtrooper I shall be.

    image     Image result for stormtrooper star wars

There is one Tech thing I would like to do in Salt Lake City if I get the chance. That is to visit the Microsoft Store in City Creek Centre. It’s just a block away from the Salt Palace Convention Centre where RootsTech is held. We have an Apple Store, an IKEA, and a Disney Store in Winnipeg, but not a Microsoft Store.

1 Comment           comments Leave a Comment

1. geniaus (geniaus)
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Joined: Tue, 20 Mar 2012
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Posted: Fri, 3 Feb 2017  Permalink

No pen, n paper, no laptop. You are a brave man Louis.

 

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