{"id":1362,"date":"2015-05-13T22:56:56","date_gmt":"2015-05-13T21:56:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tekhead.org\/blog\/?p=1362"},"modified":"2015-05-13T22:56:56","modified_gmt":"2015-05-13T21:56:56","slug":"spiceworld-london-day-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tekhead.it\/blog\/2015\/05\/spiceworld-london-day-two\/","title":{"rendered":"SpiceWorld London Day Two"},"content":{"rendered":"

So that\u2019s it, finito, over, done! Day two of SpiceWorld London is officially closed, and we are all left contemplating what we\u2019ve learned, the new acquaintances made and how we are going to use the information we have learned over the past couple of days to influence our jobs and careers moving forward.<\/p>\n

With the removal of the marketing track and most of the main hall sessions, today was a quieter, more tech focussed event than Tuesday. The more subdued atmosphere may also have something to do with last nights party of course\u2026 That said, I saw significantly more discussion and interaction at the sessions I attended, which always makes for a more engaging event. I was able to catch 4 sessions on a variety of subjects including cryptography, Windows 10, certification and a session on the SpiceWorks community, and what they\u2019re developing.<\/p>\n

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The first (and most well attended) session of the day was on all of the new improvements and features in Windows 10. Two of those features in particular stood out to me, one of which generated some (rather heated) debate in the room!<\/p>\n

The first feature which rather concerned me was around the potential privacy issues with Cortana. There have been a number of fairly high profile privacy issues with recent editions of OS X<\/a> and Ubuntu<\/a>, yet Microsoft seem to be quite happy<\/a> to have joined in. Many smarter people than me have articulated the risks of the direction in which our industry is headed when it comes to privacy!<\/p>\n

The feature which actually generated the most debate in the room was around the requirement to have a Microsoft Account in order to use the features of Cortana, and the subsequent impact it may have when user\u2019s either want (or don\u2019t want) to use their personal accounts to enable this feature on their corporate devices. Undoubtedly this would be\u00a0Microsoft\u2019s preference as it enables them to build up a more accurate profile of you from the data collected in both halves of your life (tin foil hats at the ready people!).<\/p>\n

\"hat\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The alternative of course if for users to maintain two separate identities with MS, for example based on their corporate email. This then has the potential to lead to confusion for users, and additional work for the IT department who most likely have to setup and support these accounts, in addition to everything else they have to manage. There were some fairly strong opinions in the room to say the least, and the atmosphere got pretty tense at one point!<\/p>\n

On the plus side, it was nice to be reminded that Microsoft do seem to be taking security pretty seriously these days. Here’s\u00a0a quick reminder\u00a0of all of the security features now built into Windows:<\/p>\n

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The final session I attended mirrored the first in many ways, being all about IT certification, this time led by CBT Nuggets instructor Chris Ward<\/a>. Chris’\u00a0style of presentation was very different, and the structured part of the session was relatively short, lending itself to a much more interactive event. One discussion I found particularly interesting was started by one of the attendees who runs a team of contractors at a large organisation. His challenge was with an individual who was still working from some very old certs and skills, who kept saying he had no time to train himself and that the company should send him on a paid VMware course. To me, there are numerous\u00a0issues with this situation, and yes I may be over simplifying a bit, but:<\/p>\n