Bits and pieces

It's been one of those weeks with a lot of bits and pieces going on.  Busy and varied is how I'd probably sum it up!

Tuesday was the NGS Collaboration Board meeting which was held at the University of Birmingham thanks to the kind hospitality of Paul Hatton.  The theme of the meeting was reaching out and engaging with potential new communities and existing user communities.  Mike Jones gave a presentation on SaRONGS to show how we are making it easier for people to access grid resources and I gave a presentation on the Campus and Community Champions networks.  Following on neatly from my presentation was Rebecca Notman who is one of our Community Champions.  Rebecca spoke about her role and how the NGS has played a part in her research.  There was also plenty of time for discussion with each of our Collaboration Board members updating us on new and activities from their institutions.  It seems to be a busy time in the world of research computing!

Wednesday was the next seminar in our short series.  This time it was the turn of John Kewley from STFC Daresbury who is the NGS helpdesk manager.  After a few technical issues, John spoke about the Certificate Wizard - a tool that the NGS produced to help people manage their grid certificate more easily and it seems to have worked.  There have been less helpdesk queries regarding certificates since the introduction of the tool.

Yesterday morning I took part in the steering group for the forthcoming Software Sustainability Institute Collaboration Workshop.  This is always a really enjoyable conference as it's 2 days of full interactive discussion and networking.  If you go to a conference to get peace and quiet to read your email then this isn't for you!  Every session is a group discussion session apart from when the groups report back to the conference as a whole.  There are some really interesting topics for discussion this year, all of which have been suggested by the attending delegates.  If you would like to attend and you are a software developer then have a look at this as you may be able to get a free place and a contribution towards your expenses.