What makes a great geek vacation? Well, high-speed access from even the most obscure locale is a given. Then throw in some activities to stimulate the brain cells, maybe a dose of electronic entertainment, possibly a bit of techie history, and you’re most of the way there. Of course, it also helps if your chosen location is frequented by similarly techie folks and has some out-of-the-mainstream cred, meaning it would make your non-alpha geek friends roll their eyes. Our readers weighed in with their choices, and here’s what InfoWorld editors came up with as the favorites.
[InfoWorld's Top Geek Vacations, Part II]
Bangalore, India
Why should Thomas Friedman have all the fun? Bangalore readily appeals to geeks with exotic tastes, given its dual status as both the Garden City and the Silicon Valley of India. While you couldn’t actually visit the local offices of tech giants such as Intel, Sun, or HP, you could explore the Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum, with its exhibition halls that cover engineering, biotech, space travel, and the like. Check out the view from the southern hemisphere at the Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium. Internet cafes and Wi-Fi hotspots are everywhere; get your fix between visits to the 240-acre Lalbagh botanical gardens or the 300-acre Cubbon Park. Ulsoor Lake offers boat rides among its many small islands. Tipu Sultan’s palace and the Raj-era Bangalore palace offer a dose of lush architecture. Hindu monuments abound: The Bull Temple is dominated by a massive, monolithic sculpture of said beast. Another bull figures prominently in the main event at the Sri Gavi Gangadhareswara Temple: Every Jan. 14, a ray of sunshine aims through the horns of a bull statue to illuminate another statue, of Shiva Linga. Buy a gadget or a sari on Brigade Road or Commercial Street, and your South-Asian geek experience is complete.
Dinosaur Dig
Digging up dinosaur fossils: It's not just for stuffy paleontologists anymore! If you've ever been awed by dino-skeletons at a museum, wanted to reconnect with a youthful (or not-so-youthful) love of dinosaurs, or just wanted to see if that whole Jurassic Park thing could work for real, then are you ever in luck. You can, in fact, get right down into a real dig site. And it isn't some sort of fantasy camp-style interpretation of digging where all the hard work is done for you and the fossils are teed up for you to "discover," either -- these camps are the real deal. You get to do the actual dirty work yourself, side by side with scientists and experienced diggers. Who knows -- you might be a part of the next major fossil discovery! There are dig vacations of all sorts of durations across the United States and all over the world. A sizable list of options can be found here.
This whitepaper explains the terminology and concepts behind Data Replication technologies and establishes some sizing rules through worked examples. Learn the new paradigm in disaster tolerance—protect data anywhere.
Download now »
Server virtualization is a popular option for dealing with mounting datacenter costs. Another equally promising approach is the use of an Application Delivery Controller. Citrix NetScaler provides a low-cost way for organizations to reduce their server count and accrue cost savings from a reduction in space, cooling, power and personnel.
Download now »
The emergence of WLANs has created a new breed of security threats to enterprise networks.
Included in HP ProCurve WLAN solutions is security technology that alleviates threats from WLANs through:
* Monitoring wireless activity inside and out of the enterprise
* Classifying WLAN transmissions into harmful and harmless
* Preventing transmissions that pose a security threat to the enterprise network
* Locating participating devices for physical remediation
Effectively address data protection challenges, implementing solutions that help store and protect business–critical data while cutting costs and improving efficiency and reliability.
Download now »
Sign up to receive Careers Resource Alerts
Recommend This
