This newsletter was issued on Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This information is pertinent only to those attending the upcoming 12th EUGridPMA meeting in Amsterdam. Registration has now really,really closed and we are working on getting the logistics sorted out for those of you who registered late after the meeting venue was already quite full. It's by far the most crowded meeting ever, with over 50(!) participants, and we apologize beforehand for any inadvertent warm and fuzzy feelings you may experience in the venue -- but we'll try to do our best. If you know you cannot or will not be physically present, please also let us know so we can adjust the catering accordingly. For those of you who can not physically come to the meeting for various reasons, high-quality (hopefully) videoconferencing capabilities will be provided using the ESNet H323 gatekeeper and the customary "88IGTF" video-conference number. Details will be posted shortly, but on the Amsterdam end this will be supported with some Polycom equipment so the quality should be decent. Below is some last minute information I would like to share with you. All other guidance is available on-line at http://www.eugridpma.org/meetings/2008-01/ In particular, I want to draw your attention to the travel guide and maps section that should help you arrive at Nikhef in a timely fashion. On all days, including Monday, the meeting will start at 9:30 AM. Please try to be there on time ... the agenda is really packed as tightly as the room. Dinners --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Whilst the lunches and breaks are sponsored by NCF-the National Computer Facilities Foundation, Nikhef, and the Virtual Laboratory for e-Science (VL-e) project, all dinners are no-host: you have to pay for yourself. For Monday and Tuesday evening the locations are pre-booked, and the cost will be EUR 30- plus drinks. We assume that (almost) all of you will join the dinner and have reserved accordingly, usually just the entire place. For Sunday evening there is no organized dinner, but I expect that many of you will already be there. But, even if only a fraction of you shows up on Sunday evening, it will be neigh impossible to find a restaurant that can seat us all. I can reserve beforehand, but then, if you want to join a SUNDAY EVENING trust building dinner, starting around 19.30 (or at the hotel at 19.00), please SEND ME AN EMAIL. I'm currently thinking "traditional Dutch" Indonesian, but it ultimately depends on the number of people that join and if the restaurant can take us all. So, for the SUNDAY EVENING TRUST BUILDING DINNER, please EMAIL ME. Hotels --------------------------------------------------------------------------- All of you who have requested hotel accommodation have by now received an (email) confirmation from Eveline. If you do not yet have a confirmation, AND you have specified on the registration form that you need a hotel, AND you have faxed back the confirmation form with your creditcard details, AND you made your reservation on or before December 21th, 2007, please send an email to Eveline to request confirmation. Late hotel reservations are not guaranteed until you receive a confirmation mail. Such a mail will certainly NOT come before Tuesday January 8th at the earliest, since we are still in holiday mode. Transport --------------------------------------------------------------------------- In addition to the travel information provided in the on-line Guide, I would like to draw your attention to the possibility of buying a 72-hour "all Amsterdam" public transport passe-partout. For EUR 13,50 you can travel all you like on the GVB buses, trams and metros for three days. Buy the card from the red GVB vending machines, or ticket kiosks such as the AKO news stand at Amsterdam Central Station. Note that this card is NOT valid on trains or long-distance bus lines (and the latter ones you do not need anyway). Agenda pages --------------------------------------------------------------------------- As the agenda keeps changing, the CDS-style electronic agenda will only be set up once the time table is consolidated. For the time being, the PDF document with the agenda is authoritative. Upload facilities will be provided,but only a couple of days before the meeting starts. Wireless networking --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The room will have eduroam(TM) wireless networking available, as well as a open network but with a hidden SSID ("PMA2008"). Please make sure your networking setup allows to connect to either eduroam, or that you can manually configure an SSID to use. Outbound direct SMTP traffic to port 25/tcp will be blocked. Use your VPN or SSH tunnel for sending mail, or be prepared to re-configure the SMTP gateway for your mail client to point to "smtp.nikhef.nl", that will be provided for your convenience. Note that there is no in-bound tcp or udp connectivity to your laptop. Hope to see many of you in Amsterdam in a little less than two weeks. Regards, DavidG. The 12th EUGridPMA Amsterdam meeting is financially supported by NCF/NWO, the National Computer Facilities Foundation and Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (www.nwo.nl/ncf/); Nikhef, the national institute for sub-atomic physics (www.nikhef.nl); and the Virtual Laboratory for e-Science (VL-e) Scaling and Validation Programme (www.vl-e.nl).