Next week I’m going to be attending the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference or PDC.  I’m very fortunate to have been able to attend three PDC’s previously in 2003, 2005, and 2008. These events included the first looks at Windows Longhorn, Avalon, Aero, Indigo, IE7, Office 12 and “the ribbon”, first looks at Windows 7, Azure, and the Surface SDK.

PDC 2003 was the first time I was able to hear Bill Gates speak live (And never would have guess I’d have lunch with him less than 5 years later). PDC is also first met some of the developers that have helped shape my career, becoming highly valued mentors and friends.

For anybody attending PDC for the first time this year, I encourage you to take full advantage of the opportunity, but don’t feel the you need to attend every single session. While the sessions are great, this event brings together that absolute best minds and talent related to Microsoft technologies. Make some time to interact and ask some questions. Take a few moments and sit back and listen to what others are asking. I still tell people the story about listening to Don Demsak, Kirk Evans,  Peter Provost , and more debating over some minor aspect of the SOAP web service protocol, and during the course of that conversation having my eyes opened to more knowledge and viewpoints on a wide array of topics than any single session that week.

An excellent way to get out and meet some people is the INETA Birds Of A Feather sessions that are taking place during PDC. The list of sessions is on the conference schedule, so take a look at find a session that’s of interest to you. The BoF room is also a great place to stop in to see what’s going at PDC and meet some people actively involved in user group communities across the nation and around the world. For more information on the sessions, visit http://www.pdcbof.com/.

I’m looking forward to the technology surprises that lay ahead next week, but more importantly I look forward to the people I will share the week with, the things I will learn, and the opportunities that will be created by interacting with them. If you’re attending, I hope I get the chance to chat with you!

For anybody not attending, Channel 9 will be streaming the keynote sessions live and broadcasting live from the PDC with a variety guests. Many members of the developer community not attending are participating in www.notatpdc.com presenting a variety of sessions during the week via Live Meeting.

Posted in PDC  | Comments [1] 

Yup.... anther adventure in LA. THis time, unlike last PDC I didn't have to spend 10 hours or whatever it was stranded in an airport half way! However this time, I started to wonder as intersection after intersection downtown had flashing red lights and people trying to remember how a four way stop worked. [Now, I'm sure we've all had experiences where the traffic lights have been out, and we were shocked at people's lack of ability to resolve the issues of a 4 way stop, well in LA, it's much much worse! Anyways.... Finally made it to the hotel which had just received power, oh just lost it, oh wait, nope we have it! The officialy news from www.ktla.com read:

"   A wide-ranging power outage, set off when a cable was accidentally cut, darkened large sections of downtown Los Angeles and many parts of the San Fernando Valley shortly after noon today, authorities said. "

As luck would have it, my web hosting company who is usually on the other side of the continent from me, apparently is near by and suffered some down time from the event. All appears well and it's back to the business of the PDC. Going to be stopping by an event hosted by the Wintellect and SPI folks before heading over to and helping out with the INETA BOF (Birds Of a Feather) Sessions that are taking place. You should go check them out! (They're at the main conference center)

 

Posted in PDC  | Comments [0] 

I have funny feeling that the MSN Developer Center will be launched at PDC. Their 404 error page for the web page listed in their early add in MSDN Magazine has now been replaced with an updated page that lists September 13th as the day.

 

 

Posted in PDC  | Comments [0] 

 One of the items on my list of things to do before heading to PDC was to install the latest Vista Beta available through MSDN. Today I noticed that recently the Tablet PC Input Panel (TIP) for Vista has also been released recently, which was the final push I needed to install the Vista on my Toshiba M200 Tablet PC.

 

I am pleased to report that the install went amazingly well. I clicked next a few times and before I knew it, my video card and other devices drivers were being successfully recognized and Vista running. One more double-click to install the TIP and Vista was Ink enabled on my M200. Very nice! I give the user experience of the install an A+.

 

On this topic there is a very informative advertising insert in in the October 2005 MSDN Magazine "The Evolution of Tablet PC Technologies in Microsoft Windows Vista". It provides some answers to many questions on the future of the Tablet PC. When people heard that Microsoft was no longer going to brand a Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, some worried that the Tablet PC was going away. Others of us hoped that this meant that the features of the Tablet PC edition functionality would just be a part of Windows, enabled when the appropriate hardware was attached. This article explains "In Windows Vista, Tablet PC shifts into the mainstream. Ink becomes more ubiquitous, integrating indirectly into the presentation subsystem in Windows Presentation Foundation"

 

In Windows Vista, there will apparently be three parallel technology stacks for Ink: Com, Windows Forms, and Windows Presentation Foundation (Formerly know as Avalon). This is very exciting news for Tablet PC developers, users, as well as every future user of Windows Vista.

 

 

Posted in PDC | TabletPC  | Comments [2] 

If you're heading to PDC, be sure to get online and vote for your favorite INETA Birds Of a Feather (BOF) session. You only have until Sunday to vote, and there are a bunch of new session proposals so check it out. To vote, visit the PDC site here: http://commnet.microsoftpdc.com/bof/bofvoting.aspx

These sessions are a great way to spend some time with experts and other developers interested in learning more about various topic areas. These community driven sessions are an open and informal format is both fun and highly educational.

Posted in PDC  | Comments [1] 

A PDC countdown banner? Who can resist a countdown banner! This is even cooler than being linked by Scoble!

 

Posted in PDC  | Comments [0] 

PNL08: Computing on the Beach: Visions of Mobility (A general overview)

This last panel, on the last day of PDC was definitely one of the most interesting sessions that attended. It was interesting not so much because of any specific content, (Although there was definitely some great content!) but rather because the panel did not agree. Unlike the other panels (that I attended) that included experts with slightly different interests and views that were pretty much already heading in the same direction, these folks were all headed in different directions.

 I think that this lack of agreement was very representative of the current mobile device market. There was a lot of discussion about what the ideal combination of functionality, form factor, and price should be to expand the market. Each panel member seemed to have an interesting view on which were the major devices and which were simply “Tweeners”, or devices that were between device A and device B. While nobody came right and said it, the event appeared give a really good unscripted look into some of the competing arguments that take place between the different product development groups trying to win support for their ideas and concepts.

If you didn’t know better you would never have thought everybody on stage was from a totally different company. While I can certainly see this looked upon poorly by the marketing folks, I think it was excellent for the developers forum. There was a lot of two-way conversation between the audience and the panel with some questions submitted through PDC Bloggers thrown it. There were many great comments and if definitely shows that this is a rapidly evolving market that is definitely being influenced by not only those that develop the OS and hardware, but those that write and make use of applications as well.

Otto Berkes, Senior Platform Strategist, Microsoft Research talked a lot about small form factor devices with full computing power. His “goody bag” included a small industrial prototype design of a small screen device with that featured a split design allowing for a thumb keyboard to slide forward. He also had a Sony Vaio U101 sub-notebook.

Arif Maskatia, Chief Technology Officer with Acer America Corporation shared the manufacturer’s viewpoint about the Tablet PC market. It sounds like there are some very good things in the works as companies understand that a Tablet PC is not simply a notebook with a special screen. The next generations of devices will really be the first designed to be Tablets and not simply modifications to laptop designs. Discussions also included display and battery life issues and solutions in the works. I’m looking forward to seeing some of the things (including biometrics) he hinted at possibly coming to market in 1Q 2004.

Donald Thompson, Software Architect, Smart Personal Object Technology, Microsoft, gave some very interesting viewpoints about trying to engineer the extremely low power, low cost, small footprint (Fingerprint?) size devices that are being used in Microsoft’s Smart Personal Objects Technology. These devices initially are initially starting as watches that can receive content specific data broadcast over the airwaves.

David Groom,  Lead Program Manager (Hardware), Mobile Devices Product Group Microsoft shared how Microsoft is working with the OEM hardware manufacturers to bring the best possible products to market to take advantage of the Microsoft platforms. Microsoft has a small number of hardware people that design next generation prototypes to show where they feel the market is heading.

Some of the mot interesting points brought up from the audience were:

Why can’t we have tablets with smaller screens (say 4x6) to reduce the power consumption, reduce the cost, and reduce the processing?

Will we be able to buy devices and displays separately?

Durability was another major issue that received a lot of discussion.

For being the last session slot of the conference it was a surprisingly active and energetic session that I wish could have gone on even longer. A big thanks to all of those involved.

The full BIOS of all the speakers are available here.

Posted in PDC  | Comments [0] 

Today I was very excited to wake up in LA knowing full well that I didn't need to depend on a form of transportation other than my own two feet to get me to the PDC. (I confess, I took the shuttle, but I could have walked). Arriving early at the site to register (Thanks to Scoble for the heads up on the early registration times) before any sort of rush.

Without any lines I walked up and was rapidly provided with a bag full of goodies. Since there was no line, the nice lady that helped me decided she had some time to ask about my "I'm blogging this" t-shirt. "What does that mean?" She asked, "What is blogging". Hmmm.... what is blogging?? I know what it is. I have a blog, but what "is it"? I did my best to explain that it was an online journal that allowed me to make comments about subjects, in this case the event, that allowed anybody on the internet to view it. She heard the words, but I think I need to come up with a better definition.

I quickly found myself all ready nowhere to go. I used the time to get my devices configured for the wireless access. Everything worked great just like it's supposed to. However, seeing that I was online brought a number of questions from others having problems getting configured. (Most just needed to refresh and IP or connect to the correct wireless service)

Before long it was time to get in line to get a good spot for the keynote. The whole line up, file in, and find a site made the "longhorn" name seem much more appropriate. However, before going in there was another question. A fellow in a "Longhorn" shirt approached, greeted me and proceeded to ask what I expected to see and hear. Again, more questions. If I knew what I was going to see and hear I wouldn't be standing in line. I did my best anyway to explain that I was optimistic we'd see the new OS Longhorn and some demos about the other various aspects. I continued on to explain that I was also there see the "hype" and too be inspired by it. After a few minutes of chatting he mentioned his name (Hillel). A short while later in the middle of Bill's talk I was quite shocked when he introduced Hillel Cooperman to demo Longhorn. All I could think about was what I could have said differently if he had walked up and said "Hi, I'm Hillel Cooperman and I'll be doing the Longhorn demo for Bill Gates." Oh well... You live and learn.

Posted in PDC  | Comments [0] 

What started out as a day of excitment boarding a plane to head west to LA almost become a day ending wondering what strange city (Other than LA) I might rest my head in. While transfering planes half way accorss the country we were informed that the Air Traffic Control Center for southern California had to be evacuated and that all flights into that area were on hold. We were told that our 11:23 am flight would be 12:30... 1:30... 2:30... 4:15.... 7:00.... and FINALLY at 8:30 (I'm not even sure in what time zone) two flights worth of people were loaded onto one larger aircraft and we all finally made it. I hope that everybody attending the conference will share out luck.

It was interesting how during this wait time I was able to meet a number of strangers heading to PDC from various places. We're all really looking forward to the show.

Posted in PDC  | Comments [0] 

Version 0.5 of my PDC Session Browser is ready to roll! This started off for me as a way to learn how to do a few specific new things for a current project and to get ramped to attend the (Now sold out!) Microsoft Professional Developers Conference in LA. In order to get the most from the conference, I’ve been working hard to increase what I know going in so that I can build upon it and do even more with what I’ll see. It has been great to hear the ideas of others including those working on similar projects. it has been great to make a number of new contacts and I look forward to meeting you in LA. I think that this is an excellent time to be a Windows developer, with great opportunities for us to make the most of.

 

As mentioned before, I decided to create a Visual Basic.Net application using the Compact .Net Framework so that it would run on my Pocket PC PDA. The goal was to write a small application that would provide me with informational details on the various conference sessions.

A few of the things used in to achieve this were:

 

- To connect to a web service to receive the latest updated session list.
- Store the all data locally on the device in XML
- Create a custom control to display the session data
- Maintain as small of footprint and ease of deployment possible

 

 

 

 

My next steps are:

- Fix the date sort

- Refactor a lot of the code now that I know what I’m doing
- Provide better error handling
- Create some sort of P2P/Blog style message board WIFI equipped devices
- Provide session notes (Share session notes?)
- Update notifications.

 

The ARM self-installing CAB file is available here. Drop me an email if you require a different version. Just copy it onto your device and give it a tap. It will install itself in the Program Files directory.

 

Thanks to everybody for your help and support!

Posted in PDC | Software  | Comments [0] 

To me, it seems really strange that I'm not somehow able to get a data friendly version of the Microsoft PDC sessions and their appropriate info. What better way to attract a bunch of developers than to give them a webservice with the details!!! It's just one of those things that would be really handy. Well folks, it's not official, it's the best list I could compile and I hope it's accurate (Don't blame me if you miss a session at this point because you think it's gospel! Use at your own risk, Bill and Steve own the rights, not me! ...(Did I miss anything?))

PDC Session List Web Service

PDCSessionList returns a dataset that looks something like this. After some sleep I'll do some fine tuning and post some better details!

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>

 

Posted in Software | PDC  | Comments [0] 

 Another day, some more code. I made some good progress on my Pocket PC PDC Session project. Mostly just worked on the custom control to display the info. I've started on the code to sort and I'm trying to decide what I want to do about filtering data views. I'm hoping to find time to put together all of the session info from the conference and get the web service going. I'm jus tnot looking forward to trying to strip all the info off of the PDC web site.(Wouldn't it be great if I could just get my hands on an XML file or something with all the session info!)

Posted in PDC | Software  | Comments [0] 

Oh sure, just when you think you have a good idea, you read a PDC blog about somebody else doing the same thing. Well, at least similar! Who says there is no competition to innovate! I guess a learning project is still a learning project even if it’s not totally unique. Maybe this will even inspire me to get more done. It’s all good.

 

So what the heck am I talking about you ask? Well, in an attempt to try out a few coding things for a work project I decided to write a .Net Compact Framework app, partially inspired by the Task Vision sample, to act as an event guide at the upcoming Microsoft PDC Conference in LA.

 

The original idea was to have a disconnected app that could obtain a current session list from a web service, allowing the user to view and select their own “personal” session list stored on their device. I also wanted to have certain network aware capabilities to do some cool (potentially P2P) things at the conference if there happen to be some WIFI enable areas. I’ll keep you posted on my progress…

Posted in PDC | Software  | Comments [1] 

Talk of the upcoming Microsoft Professional Developers Conference is certainly filling the airwaves. Many are saying how great it’s going to be. The folks in Redmond all seem to have new exciting technology to share. Cool buzzwords including “Longhorn”, “Avalon”, "Whidbey", and “Indigo” have become part of the regular vocabulary.  However, there are now a few voices asking if it’s really going to be as great as everybody says. Is it going to be the conference of all conferences? Will more announcements be made and more secrets shared than at any other time in the history of conferences? Does it really matter? It’s already obvious that there’s more information there than any of us could absorb in such a short time. There’s no way to make every session, hear every tip, and see every single cool thing. For me, I just want to be inspired. I want to feel that I’m part of something bigger. I want to see the faces behind the code. I want to dream about what I can build. Sure, I’m expecting to learn some new things to do more, make my life easier and all that, but I think some times we get too caught up in the details. Go, learn, and meet some new people. Ask some questions, share some stories. People are going to be proud of what they’ve done and what they have to say. Let yourself buy in the vision and go away energized with their message. I try to remember an event like this is largely what I make of it.

 

Oh ya, than and I also hope to get a Datagrid Girl button!

Posted in PDC  | Comments [0] 

It’s official, I’ll be there! For me the past couple years has been a great adventure, turning me into a Knowledge Sponge, trying to figure this whole thing out. A lot has been learned and some pretty cool things have been done already, but I hope this will help me put it all together. Bring it on! Know if I only knew somebody else that was going….

Posted in PDC  | Comments [0]