Finishing Touches

I'm mostly packed. Of course my netbook, Egg, isn't packed yet since that would cut me off from the online world and then I would go through withdrawal symptoms and no one wants that. As I was finishing packing, I realized there's one last thing I have to do and it's not running through the dish washer. I have to optimize Egg for GHC!! What does that mean? For me, it means making sure everything I'll need for GHC is right at my fingertips...on Egg, of course!

My Browser
I'm involved in the GHC online community and I want to make sure I keep up with it while I'm at GHC! I've set new homepages in Google Chrome so that when I open it, all the important GHC pages open. Here are the pages that I open:

• GHC Program Overview: http://www.gracehopper.org/2009/assets/GHC_2009-program_overview.pdf
• #ghc09 Twitter Search: http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23ghc09
• GHC09 YouTube Group: http://www.youtube.com/group/ghc09
• GHC Blog: http://ghcbloggers.blogspot.com/
• GHC09 Flickr Group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/ghc2009
• GHC09 Wiki: http://community.anitaborg.org/wiki/index.php/Ghc2009
• My mail
• My calendar

Note-taking/Blogging

Although I'm not an official note-taker, I'll still probably want to take notes in sessions. Being a blogger, I'm also going to want to write several blog posts at GHC. There's also the possibility I'll want to outline a couple episodes of Ed & Ashley's 5 Minute Show. I want to make sure that all of my notes, posts, and outlines are organized and in one place. I set up a notebook group in OneNote dedicated to GHC. I have notebooks for notes, blog posts, and the show. Everything is in one spot so I'm not searching for it later!

My Taskbar

I've also set up my task bar for GHC. I'm running Windows 7 RC, but you can create a Quick Launch menu with the same functionality. Here's my taskbar:

• Internet browsers: IE, Firefox, and Chrome (with all my GHC tabs)
• Sticky Notes, to take quick notes and write down to-do's
• Tweetdeck, my Twitter client of choice with its own columns for GHC Tweeters and a #ghc09, #ghc search
• OneNote, for all of my conference notes, blog posts, and outlines

With all these fabulous tweaks, Egg is ready for GHC!!