Daniel Spisak on Technology

So here I am, in Las Vegas for the entire week working my ass off like a dog for events in and around the CES or Consumer Electronic Show. However, as much as it is rough it’s for a good cause namely making myself some cash!

Basically one of the companies I do consulting for does location based networking for companies. What this means is we get pulled in to bring in workable and reliable Internet connections for special events and help interface with the client and their customers to make sure everything works like it should. Basically managed IP network services for special events like press shows and the like.

During CES the two biggest shows are the Pepcom and Showstoppers events which are for press, media and analysts only. The press types come to these evening sneak peek shows to see what the hot companies at CES are without having to deal with all the people buzzing around on the show floor. Business cards get exchanges and products get given out even as swag or for writers to review and evaluate. Overall its a great way to network with new and old companies alike and the various rotating lineup of PR agencies these companies hire to represent them.

However these shows are massive, this year both shows had something like over 120 different companies with tables at each event with not much overlap between the companies. One show was at the Grand Ballroom of the Bellagio, the largest ballroom in Las vegas at something like 200 feet wide by 280 feet deep. The other show was at the new Wynn hotel in one of their big ballrooms as well. Quick sidenote, if you are in Vegas anytime soon, check out the Wynn its not noisy at all and very nicely laid out. Very classy place!

NOTE: These rooms are so big I couldn’t get all of them into the frame

Doing these shows means running lots of Cat 5 cable for ethernet hookups, which means lots of time on your knees. Then there is the wireless network that has to get setup. Remember that our clients pay significant sums of money to ensure a reliable network connection. Of course the big problem with making wireless reliable is when you have a room full of 120+ companies invariably you end up with a lot of wireless equipment chatting in the RF spectrum and if you aren’t quick about finding undocumented offenders and moving them to an assigned channel the performance of the Wi-Fi network will degrade quickly. This is where a new device from the guys over at MetaGeek came in handy, the Wi-Spy. Basically it’s a USB 2.0 dongle that cost $99 and provides you with a rough resolution RF spectrum scanner for Wi-Fi RF signal space, which is a boon when it comes to understanding your RF environment and wanting to move people to as clean a channel as possible.

Right now the Wi-Spy only works on Windows systems but they say support for Mac OS X is coming within the next 6 months. However, invariably at these massive events we run into a few people who have problems connecting to the wireless network and 9 out of 10 times its embedded device people whose RF front ends simply weren’t designed to handle a heavily polluted RF spectrum. After doing these events for the past 5 years I can honestly say, if a vendors piece of equipment functions in either of those two huge show events, they will work in any environment.

In any event, working these shows plus trying to cover events at CES as press is very tiring and leads to 16 hour plus long days or worse where you wake up at 8AM and don’t get to sleep until 2AM the next morning. Normally I could handle this okay, but I also have some amazingly crappy crud/cough/avian bird flu crap in my throat that is slowing me down. With luck I wont get worse with all the running around in Las Vegas here. Anyways, after I get back from this rat race I get dumped straight into the frying pan of my Winter quarter class schedule at UCI which has me on campus every day of the week this time around. Wish me luck!