When Losi unleashed the Mini-T, it expected that the 1/18 scale class would take off in a big way. And what's not to like ? Low cost of entry for reasonable Ready-to-Run products, the trucks are manageable by a newcomer to R/C, run times with a good battery pack (1100mah) are long, and you can somehow justify having several (for bashing reasons of course).

So when the Mini-T came out, I did the noble thing: I bought one for my daughter. And she had a blast with it. But street racing wasn't all that fair against my Stampede (and don't even think about going up against a T-Maxx or comparable buggy/truggy). What to do ?

Well, another 1/18 scale truck, of course. And now there are lots of choices: ready-to-run, pro-team kits with lots of aluminum and titanium bling, 4 wheel drive, super articulated (the Tamiya rock crawlers).

I'm a huge XRAY fan, but didn't have the patience to wait for their M18T (based on the successful 1/18 scale touring car). Since this will eventually be a racer, the Team Associated RC18T was the best choice. Now that the M18T is available I suspect that I will be adding another stall in the garage.

While building the RC18T pro team kit, I gave in to temptation and added the RC18MT monster truck variant. All I have to say is that this little truck is a whole lot of fun. And we're talking T-Maxx kind of fun.

Technocrati Tags: Radio Control

So what's the different between a Solaris Boot Camp, a Solaris Deep Dive (aka Boot Camp II), and a Solaris Workshop ? The question comes up frequently, so here is how I approach each of these different events.

A Solaris Boot Camp is a thorough overview of Solaris 10, much more complete than you might get in a typical customer briefing that is usually limited to 45 minutes or so.

A Boot Camp agenda might look something like

• Operating System Strategy and Update
• Dtrace Overview & Demo
• Solaris Containers Overview & Demo
• Predictive Self Healing (SMF & FMA)
• Role Based Access Control (RBAC) and Process Rights
• ZFS

Each of these topics is generally limited to 30 minutes, so the discussions lean towards concepts: from a practical perspective to be sure, but concepts nontheless. The idea is that this is a good way to be exposed to the vast technology set that we call Solaris. It also makes the Deep Dive (aka Boot Camp II) more interesting as we can dispense with the concepts, for the most part.

So that brings us to the Deep Dive. A typical agenda looks like

• Overview of Solaris 10
• Solaris 10 Performance Features
• Migration of a Legacy RC service to an SMF managed service
• Server Consolidation with Solaris Containers including Best Practices for Container Use
• Solaris Dynamic Tracing (DTrace) Overview
• DTrace Performance Scenarios (aka How to use Dtrace in the real world)

Each of these discussions are a bit longer, 45 minutes to as long as 90 minutes for the combined Dtrace overview and use cases. With the expanded time and the assumption that this follows a Boot Camp, we jump right into the details. For example, the Service Management Facility (SMF) module is a complete migration of a legacy service - which makes sense if you understand the concepts of SMF.

So what's this thing called a Workshop ? It builds on the Deep Dive and goes farther, potentially much farther. For each Deep Dive modules there is a corresponding one day Workshop session. These are highly interactive and best done in a hands-on lab environment where each participant has their own system. It does not replace instructor led training and it will not adequately prepare you for passing the Solaris Cerification exam, but the modules are designed to help customers understand how to take advantage of key Solaris technologies.

So now you know what to expect when a Solaris Boot Camp or Deep Dive comes to a city near you. We hope to see you at a future event.

Technocrati Tags: Sun Solaris Boot Camp Deep Dive Workshop