In early December Montreal is hosting an exciting developer conference covering a wide range of topics from some of our industry's leading presenters. The 3 day conference is packed with information in 136 sessions. Pre and Post conference sessions are also available to increase your learning potential at the event. Attendees will also receive over $1000 in free software!

The fun starts Tuesday December 2nd with a key by Ted Neward. See you there!!!

http://www.devteach.com

Posted in Rant | Silverlight | Software  | Comments [1] 

Did you miss PDC? Want to see some of the latest content relating to Cloud Computing, Silverlight 2, and the future directions of ASP.NET 4? Links are below for your FREE invite!

Introducing the MSDN Southern Fried Roadshow:

The MSDN Southern Fried Roadshow is a  ¾ day, free developer event with a southern flair where you will learn about some of the latest developments in Microsoft technologies. For this edition we will cover a broad range of the latest Microsoft Technologies:

· Take a tour of Microsoft’s cloud computing platform and the services that make it easy to give your applications the most compelling experiences and features.  Explore the journey a developer takes, from writing a service to launching that service in the cloud. Learn about the cloud services that enable developers to easily create or extend their applications and services.

· Microsoft Silverlight provides a powerful platform for building the next generation of rich interactive applications on the Internet. In this session, we take a look at the programming model and tools that developers and designers can leverage to build these true next-generation experiences for consumers and business, and demonstrate building a rich interactive application (RIA) using Silverlight and Microsoft .NET.

· ASP.NET is evolving a very rapid pace, come explore all the latest features of ASP.Net such as Dynamic Data, MVC, and even take a sneak peak at the upcoming features in ASP.NET 4.0!  We’ll look at some new features such as taking control of your Control IDs, using the DynamicImage control, and ViewState management options.   We’ll spend plenty of time talking about MVC and creating applications based on this framework, so if you’re wondering how to leverage MVC in your web applications, this talk is for you!

12/2/2008 -- Charleston

12/3/2008 – Wilmington

12/4/2008 - Raleigh

12/5/2008 - Charlotte

Posted in Rant  | Comments [1] 

After doing that "Seinfeld thing" Microsoft has released a series of ads standing up for PC. I wonder if I should send in an "I own a Mac, but it runs Vista" clip?

The full set is available here

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

In a recent blog post, Karl takes us on a journey to Metadata Island. (From the pictures, it looks like a place I would like to visit frequently!). Though his post and accompanying Silverlight videos he brings up a number of very valid points regarding the use of existing metadata to make development faster.

A big pain point in development is duplication of efforts, and even in simple cases it can eat up a lot of time very quickly. Consider creating a simple database entry form. We're first creating a database table with field names, we then construct a data layer of some sort to read and write to those field names, we then add textbox (or other) controls to a form facilitate the data entry/edits, and then usually create labels (again using the field names), tools tips are added, data validation. To Karl's point, all of this information lived in the database already, or possibly even in a specification document prior to the database being created.

More tooling support would be great. Or at least some consistent tooling, as I know we've all written code to do a variety of these tasks in the past, but never really in coordination with VS.

[Karl's form generator]

As we go forward, I hope that we see a lot of innovation in this space. I think there are a lot of opportunities as WPF and Silverlight push into line of business applications.

Posted in Rant | Silverlight | wpf  | Comments [0] 

Bill and the gang down in Charlotte have opened up registration for their spring Code Camp on Sat May 17th. A number of people from the Raleigh area are thinking of carpooling down, and a number of us are speaking at the event. I will be presenting a session on Silverlight 2 control customization.

Code Camps are a great way to get training on a variety of topics, as well as to meet peers in the community and benefit from the energy and excitement that goes hand in hand with these events.

To attend this event you must pre-register: http://www.developersguild.org/Default.aspx?tabid=240 

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

One of the fun parts of Mix08 was seeing the Code Trip bus set sail on it's voyage around the western US. It's a bunch of Microsoft DE's and prominent members of the developer community that will be holding a series of events as they travel from city to city. I look forward to seeing the bus again at it's final destination at the MVP summit in Seattle in April. 

The Code Trip site has a listing of the events taking place, real time bus GPS tracking, and a travel log. Anybody recognize the two in the preview image?

Happy trails Code Trip Team!!!

Posted in Rant  | Comments [3] 

Was this the Microsoft Research showing at TED that had Scoble in tears?

See the video HERE of Photosynth and related technologies that they're working on. Very cool.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

I'd like to take this opportunity to say congratulations to two very deserving friends of mine that were recently awarded Regional Director status by Microsoft, Daniel Egan and Jim Duffy. Without going into all the details, (You can learn more here) but let's just say it's a pretty big deal and these guys should be feeling pretty good about their accomplishments. Good job guys! You both deserve it!

Jim received a big round of applause at the Raleigh Code Camp when our DE Brian Hitney made the big announcement. Below is Daniel after receiving the email following an INETA user group presentation he gave in Florida.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

Congratulations to everybody that received a Microsoft MVP award today. A special shout out to D'Arcy Lussier and Chris Love on their well deserved awards! Great job guys!

Posted in Rant  | Comments [1] 

I've ben closely watching the Scott and Scott show off the new ASP.NET MVC Framework. If you haven't been following along, here's some reading to keep you busy until we see a CTP release sometime soon. (Hopefully real soon!)

ASP.NET MVC Framework (Part 1)
The REST-Like Aspect Of ASP.NET MVC
An Architectural View of the ASP.NET MVC Framework
ASP.Net MVC Framework - Handling Exception by using an Attribute
In depth: The ASP.NET MVC Pipeline
RSS Feed with the new ASP.NET MVC Framework
DevConnections - The ASP.NET MVC Framework
ASP.Net MVC Framework - List and Save data

As somebody that's been following what been going on with Ruby frameworks like RAILS, as well as REST I'm very interested in seeing how this applies to the ASP.NET world. I'm still forming opinions, but I find the potential very exciting.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

Congratulations to all of the teams involved in bringing Visual Studio 2008 to market!

It's always a great feeling to be able to pull beta bits off of a system, and install the release version. It's been tough not using VS2008 for everything, but now that wait is over, and we're on to the rest. I anxiously await seeing the ASP.NET MVC Framework, the next Silverlight 1.1 update, more Astoria, ASP.NET Futures and anything else Microsoft wants to update before years end!

For MSDN subscribers the bits are available on the subscribers download site. For those that are not, Express versions are available as well as trials of various versions.

NOTE** If you are installed VS2008 Beta2 - READ THIS

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

Microsoft has always been involved in the developer community, but it's great to see the new ideas and innovations that are taking place to spread the word on new technologies.

The latest includes a number of Microsoft DE's (Some that I've been privileged to meet recently. I met Lynn and Woody at the INETA Leadership Summit out in LA earlier this fall and I met Anand at Dev Connections last week following his MOST EXCELLENT Silverlight demo during the keynote)

Introducing Code Trip....

Put 8 developers in an RV and send them across the country to talk code. Sounds like a blast! I haven't seen the schedule, but I hope they make it out East to Raleigh NC, or I manage to end up somewhere along the route. It's definitely going to be a fun bunch to follow! (Twitter: http://twitter.com/codetrip Facebook: join the group RSS: Subscribe To The Feed)

I'm hopeful that they be sure to drop in on any INETA User Group meetings along the way. I'm sure most groups would throw together a special event while they're in town.

Posted in Rant | Silverlight  | Comments [0] 

Why pay attention to what other language communities are doing? One day it might be coming to a language near you!

Last weekend Scott Guthrie showed the first public views of a new Model View Controller. Scott Hanselman posted some video through his blog. Jeffrey Palermo gives a great overview in this post on his blog

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

Last week I was able to spend some time at Microsoft in Redmond. I just couldn't resist a photo op with the "9 Guy". If you haven't taken a look at Channel 9, you're missing out on the great content Jeff and the gang are putting together. 

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

Welcome back Master Chief!

Posted in Rant  | Comments [1] 

Microsoft is rolling out a new tech preview of the Microsoft Live Labs Photosynth technology in collaboration with NASA. Very cool...

Check it out HERE

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

A big shout out of congratulations goes out to Scott Hanselman following his recent announcement that he is joining ScottGu's Developer Division team at Microsoft.

I've enjoyed reading Scott's blog and listening to him at conferences for a number of years now, and have always respected his thoughtful insight into Microsoft technology and how it's used. Scott is one of those voices that has always been both balanced fair, and I have not doubt his "Blue Badge" will not change a thing.

I think right now, more important than any single technology is the quality team of people that Microsoft is assembling, smart people that are passionate about what they do, doing what they love to do.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [1] 

Microsoft to open a new software development center in Vancouver this fall.  

Read the press release here..

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

*Ok - So I haven't actually read it yet... But I'm very happy to see that Amanda and Shane's book is out, and I'm sure it rocks! (Wrox?)  Congrats guys! I know a lot of hard work went into it!

Posted in Rant  | Comments [1] 

The community site for Silverlight will go live (or "light up") on April 30th at http://www.silverlight.net/

At this time it also sounds like like a beta (Updated from the Feb CTP of WPF/E) will be released in conjuntion with Mix07.

A few Microsoft blog posts to pay attention to:

Introducing Microsoft Silverlight

Top 10 Questions about Silverlight and Media

Introducing Microsoft Silverlight

Introducing Expression Media Encoder

AGhost.. hiw did we miss that!? http://blogs.msdn.com/mharsh/archive/2007/04/16/microsoft-silverlight.aspx

Also keep and eye on the office site: http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight

Yep.... Mix is gonna be fun!

Posted in Rant  | Comments [1] 

According to my countdown gadgets it's an amazing 14 days until Mix07 (and only 49 days until Tech Ed!) I'm really looking forward to the conference conversation this year. Last year was an amazing event, very different from the other Tech Ed and PDC conferences that Microsoft hosts.

If you're not registered, it's too late as the event has long sold out. Everybody can keep track of things though through the www.visitmix.com web site. It sounds like they are going to get a bunch of conference info online in [near] real time.

I'm very much looking forward to the latest on the WPF, WPF/E, AJAX, and Media Center fronts. So far my must see list of sessions includes:

• "Family.Show": I See Dead People, with Windows Presentation Foundation: Scott Stanfield - Vertigo
• "ZAP!, WHAM!, KAPOW!": Windows Presentation Foundation and the Next Generation of Online Comic Book Reading: Nathan Dunlap - IdentityMine, Robby Ingebretsen - IdentityMine
• Booyah! Designing and Developing Line-of-Business Applications That SIZZLE: Nathan Dunlap - IdentityMine, Darren Laybourn - Microsoft, Josh Wagoner - IdentityMine
• Ink for Designers and Developers: Sam Geroge - Microsoft
• Just Glue It! Dynamic Languages in "WPF/E": Jim Hugunin - Microsoft, John Lam - Microsoft
• The Emotion of Customer Experience: Lou Carbone - Experience Engineering
• Lessons Learned: Designer/Developer Productivity in Windows Presentation Foundation: Jonathan Russ - IdentityMine, Josh Wagoner - IdentityMine
• Building "WPF/E" Applications Using .NET: Jamie Cool - Microsoft, Nick Kramer - Microsoft
• Creating and Delivering Rich Media and Video on the Web with "WPF/E", Microsoft Expression Studio, and Windows Server Codename “Longhorn” : Brad Abrams - Microsoft, James Clarke - Microsoft, Chris Knowlton - Microsoft
• Deep Dive on "WPF/E" Media Integration: Mike Harsh - Microsoft
• Design in Motion: Video Production Workflow: Ben Waggoner - Microsoft
• Developing ASP.NET AJAX Controls with "WPF/E": Nikhil Kothari - Microsoft
• Go Deep with AJAX: Matt Gibbs - Microsoft, Jeff Prosise - Wintellect LLC
• Yahoo! on Microsoft .NET 3.0 and Microsoft Expression: Eric Burke - Yahoo!, Josh Jacobson - Yahoo!

I think I might need more than 72 hours!

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

If you've ever attended a Tech Ed conference, and are planning on attending the years Microsoft's Tech Ed conference on Orlando, you know how great the INETA sponsored Birds of a Feather sessions are. If you're not familiar with them, they are a great opportunity to bring people together with common interest in a particular topic. They may bring together a group of experts, a group of beginners, or a mix of them all willing to share and exchange ideas.

They key to this is that the topics come from the community! Which is why it's very important that your voice is heard. If you have a session you would like to see, submit. If you want to vote on which of the submitted topics should be ensured a room, you need to go vote on the sessions.

Submit Birds-of-a-Feather topic ideas now
Vote for Birds-of-a-Feather topics

More information and voting is here.

Posted in Rant | TechEd  | Comments [0] 

I love it when the man in the brown truck brings me things! This week my I-Mate Momento 70 digital picture frame arrived. I had been holding out for the 10" Momento 100, but after continued delays and Amazon having stock of the slightly smaller Momento 70's I decided to switch my order.

As with other I-Mate products that I have purchased, the product was packaged very nicely, and was easy to setup. Within minutes I had the device configured on my wireless network and feeding pictures from a PC find a permanent home for it on the mantle.

 Now let's write some code to talk to this thing....

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

Today Chris Love and I spent the day up at the Roanoke Valley .Net User Group's first (anual?) Code Camp in Roanoke, Va. Code Camp's are great. If you have never been to one, go find one near you and attend. If there's not one near you, organize one!

The day conisisted of 4 tracks which included Web, Data, Framework and Process/Design. Presenters included local group memebers as well as others from places like Raleigh, Greensboro, Richmond, and elsewhere.

I attended the following:

• .NET 2.0 Tips and Tricks - Ashton Hobbs
• Reflection & Dynamic Assemblies - Will Ashley
• AJAX - Chris Atienza
• Introduction to WCF and differences b/w WCF and ASMX Web Services - Manny Siddiqui
• Applying Layered Architecture to Asp.Net - Gustin Prudner

Congrats Robin and team for putting on an outstanding event! See you in 2008!

Posted in Rant  | Comments [2] 

Carolina's favorite Microsoft presenter Glen Gordon rocked the house today in Durham at the MSDN Events Windows Vista launch event. His half day session was full of great demos and looks at what's new in Windows Vista and .Net 3.0.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [1] 

As the clock strikes midnight around the world, signs of the consumer release of Windows Vista have started to surface.

Retailers have started getting their displays ready, with many of them holding special launch celebrations

And some even have systems with Vista pre-loaded ready to go.

Posted in Longhorn | Rant  | Comments [1] 

Hey, look D'Arcy, it snows here too....

Posted in Rant  | Comments [2] 

If this had shown up in an email I would have just deleted it, but I'll join in after the tag from Matt. In the spirit of blogs, here are 5 lesser know things about me.

1. My first computer was a Commodore 64. Followed by an Amiga 1000, then 2000, 3000T and finally 4000 before the demise of Commodore. I admit it, I used to think DOS/Windows sucked.

2. I lapped the score in Astroids on my Atari 2600 not once, but twice in one sitting. I can't recall how long it took, but do remember being yelled at for missing at least two meals.

3. In 1994(?) I was responsible for bringing internet access to our city and surrounding areas. We started with a 128k frame relay connection and 10 US Robotics Sportster 28.8 modems.

4. I have a cat that can say her own name. (Mew)

5. I'm lame and can't stand games like this appearing all over the place so I decline any further "Tag"ing

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

The launch event for the newest member of the Visual Studio Team System familiy - the edition for Database Professionals - is coming up next week in Durham, NC. In addition get a free lunch AND a chance to win an XBOX 360.

You can register here.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

This weekend I took a much needed break from work activities, and amongst other things setup the Christmas tree and made cookies. Not just any old cookies however, along with the snowmen, Christmas trees and other holiday favorites, I made special Windows Vista launch cookies to enjoy later this week in celebration of Vista making it's official debut!

Well, official debut I guess if you don't live in Canada where Edmonton Alberta hosted their Vista launch last Thursday. (I wonder if there were any cookies?) Speaking of Vista, it runs SOOOOO much better now that I have yanked the crappy ATI video card out and put an nVidia card in. No more weird artifacts and other video issues that the ever crashing ATI R300 drivers were causing.

Posted in Longhorn | Rant  | Comments [1] 

Playing with the Ink Plugin for Live Writer. A lot of people appear to be writing plug ins and contributing them to the gallery at http://gallery.live.com/default.aspx?l=8

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

November 7th?? A new dimension? In search? What does it mean????

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

On Wednesday November 8, 2006 our favorite sharer of cool technology, Glen Gordon will be presenting on Microsoft's new XNA Game Studio. If you've always wanted to make that wicked gamed idea come true, or just need a break from "real" work, check it out.

Details from Joe's Blog:

XNA is Coming to TRINUG

Glen Gordon is coming to talk about XNA Game Studio Express at TRINUG for the November 8th general meeting.  It looks like it is going to be an awesome technology.  Based on Visual C# Express, it will allow anyone to develop 3D games that target both Windows and the Xbox 360 -- and here's the good part -- with free tools!!!  To develop/debug/play games on the Xbox 360 requires a subscription to the XNA Creator's Club at a cost of $99/year or $49 for 4 months.  But, did I mention, the tools are FREE!!!  If you are in the neighborhood, come out and listen to Glen at TRINUG and see what XNA is all about.

Posted in Rant | TRINUG  | Comments [0] 

I'm so happy! After a long, hot summer, hockey is back! We went early, we grilled some brat's, had a few "pops" and then went in and watch the 'Canes raise their Stanley Cup Chamions banner. Then they lost in a shootout after OT, but it was great!

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

Use Windows Live Writer? Check out THESE plugins

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

I'll be off the grid for a while as I take a little vacation.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [2] 

Home office Internet = down
Favorite Wifi equipped Cafe Internet = up, no down, no up, no down
Favorite Wifi equipped lunch restaurant Internet = down (But oddly enough when the Internet is down is forwards all requests to their router setup interface which still has the default password. bad bad bad....)

So.... working through my cell phone!!! Thanks Cingular for not breaking too! And who knew Microsoft Live Meeting would even work over it!

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

The Beta 1 release of Windows Live Writer, an offline blog authoring tool is now available for download. [Download] It supports a variety of blog hosts, including Das Blog. It provides a WYSIWYG editor with a variety of helpful tools.

One of the cool features is the ability to generate and insert a  Windows Live Local Map, such as my upcoming holiday destination.....

The timing of this is great as it will come in very handy for my upcoming trip! If you see this entry, then posting was try as easy as clicking Publish!

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

As a frequent visitor of locations offering public wifi access, I see great value in service being provided. I certainly base my choice of destinations quite often on the availability of internet access. With freedom however comes responsibility however, as these place are businesses who's core business model is not to provide internet access, and definately not for free. It's a great value add, until it starts to restrict their core business. I always enjoy a coffee, lunch, cookie, soda or some sort of item, but I hear stories, and have seen a few people just taking up space, using the free service. This hurts a business when tables are not available for paying customers. I feel it's sort of an unwritten rule that needs to be enforced. Having talked to a few places without wifi, this is their primary concern. Anyways, to get to the point, today while having lunch at Panera Bread, I needed to check in on a couple of issues back at the office and connected to their free wifi (While enjoying be tastey smoked turkey sandwhich and broccoli cheese soup!) and noticed this on their entry screen:

It's too bad that the need to say, but I'm glad they do for those that just don't get it. Please be considerate when using a free wifi service.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

Last weeked, Tom a friend of ours, and avid glider pilot took a few of us up for a spin. It was a blast!

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

Greg said that my blog looked too dreary, so I decided to make it look at little more cheery.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [1] 

A whole lot of thanks need to go out to Fred Stutzman and the rest of the BarCampRDU organizing committee (Paul Jones, Scott Morningstar, Robbie Allen, Ryan Daigle, Terrell Russell, Jackson Fox )for putting on an extremely good event. Thanks to all of you! Thanks as well to Red Hat, Lulu.com, 6th Sense Analytics ,The Aurora Funds, rPath, Council for Entrepreneurial Development, and Blogads for sponsoring the event.

The energy created by brining together such a group with common, yet diverse technology interests is amazing. I hope that was discussed by a few, that we can find a way to get together with more of those people on a regular basis. See you next time! (Pictures of the event can be found here!)

Posted in Rant  | Comments [1] 

I'll be spending this weeked attending BarCampRDU (@RedHat HQ, Raleigh, NC) I'm very much looking forward to meeting more of the local geek community, and a few geek celebs that are making a trip out for it. The session list is pretty cool, including (But not limited to):

• Refactoring Your Wetware - Andy Hunt of the Pragmatic Programmers likes to talk about how your brain works. Pole-bridging, pragmatic learning, the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition, and even a little of Getting Things Done are all fair game.
• Social Networks - FredStutzman. We'll spend a session talking about Social Networking Websites, such as Myspace, Facebook and Linked In. We'll look at them, figure out why people use them, and share ideas about how businesses can leverage social networks.
• Open Source VOIP - Scott Morningstar We will take a stock Linksys WRT54GL and install OpenWRT Linux Firmware and Milkfish Open SER implementation. We will set up an account with Junction Networks for inbound and outbound PSTN calls. I will bring several SIP phones ranging from the budgetone 101 to the Cisco 7970G as well as several 802.11 wireless SIP phones. This is everything you need to replace your land line phone using hardware you probably already have. If people bring routers we can flash them up as we go.

THis session will be a good dose of non-Microsoft focussed topics for change.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

In honor of the re-branding of WinFX to .Net 3.0 (Or NetFX 3.0 as some are picking up on) I thought I would share this excellent poster that was so graciously (Shamelessly?) given out at Robert Ingebretsen's most excellent WPF talk at Tech Ed.

There just wasn't enough room in the suitcase to bring it home, so this image is all I have, but I did proudly hang it in my suite in Boston before leaving!

Posted in Rant  | Comments [1] 

It was a good time in Boston for Tech Ed last week. Although Boston is a pretty cool place, I must admit that it’s been my least favorite venue for Tech Ed. Don’t get me wrong here, Boston is cool; it’s just not as conference friendly as some of the other venues. Maybe I’m just bitter because they wouldn’t let me switch just one of the seven TV’s off of the Red Sox game the other night to watch a little hockey! Maybe it was the fact that transportation sucked, although the drivers on strike might have been the major factor there. Even still, I was lucky that my hotel, (In the middle of the bay) was close, but for many the conference was a long bus ride, or an extremely expensive subway ride away. I'm certainly glad or their subway which quickly allowed me to get almost anywhere for a mere $1.25

The conference however was great! As planned, I spent much of my time attending sessions but on by the WPF (Avalon) and WCF (Indigo) teams. Let me first say, what a great group of people these folks are! It is amazing the expertise and passion that these teams have for their products, and the time they take to help us understand it. Both of the teams made themselves extremely accessible in the technology lounges during the week to answer our questions and help us understand! A special thanks to

Beatriz Costa, Chris Han, Clements Vasters, Karen Corby , Kevin Moore, Lauren Lavoie, Robert Ingebretsen, Steve Maine.  

You guys alone made Tech Ed worth attending!

Thank you!

Posted in Rant | TechEd  | Comments [0] 

As I frantically rush to gets things wrapped up, the excitment is building in advance of attending Microsoft's TechEd conference in Boston. I'm a huge fan of these events, both for their educational value and from the energy that's created when you bring large amounts of really smart people together in one room, one very very large room!

Aside from attending any session containing the terms WCF, WPF, WWF, Mobile, CRM, Communications Server, and the odd Exchange, IIS, Atlas session, here are a few of the other activities I'll be tryign to attend:

Party with Palermo: Tech Ed 2006 - Sat June 10th 7:30-

INETA Leadership Summit - Sunday June 11th 9:00-1:45

Mega User Group Meeting on Monday 6/12 from 6:30-9:30

Dop me a note if you're in the neighborhood! See you in Boston!

TECHED06

Posted in Rant | TechEd  | Comments [1] 

On Sunday June 11th, user groups from throughout New England are hosting a special event at the Waltham Microsoft Offices. The event is targeted at members of user group “leadership”, meaning not just the president, or official group leader, but all of those people involved in making user groups happen. While the event is being hosted by local groups in the Boston area, anybody that happens to be in the area for TechEd is invited to attend. The day will be full of opportunities share ideas and energy about building user group communities.

INETA Boston User Group Leadership Summit

“User Group Leaders today faces many challenges such as promoting your group, financing, engaging existing members, recruiting speakers, finding new sources of content, leveraging local Microsoft relationships; etc. The New England INETA user groups along with INETA, in hopes of building a more close knit community, invites you all to join us on Sunday June 11th, prior to the start of “

Registration for this FREE event is now open, as well as a schedule with more information @ http://www.wedevelop.net/leadershipsummit.aspx

See you in Boston!

Posted in Rant | TechEd  | Comments [1] 

If you were unable to attend the MIX06 event in Las Vegas earlier this spring, you'll want to check out each and every one of the 52 presentation videos that have been posted on the Mix06 web site. Great content!

Posted in Rant  | Comments [1] 

INETA Live! is a series brought to you primarily by user group leaders around the country that have exceptional material they believe would be good to share with other user group leaders. Don't miss these if you are interested in growing your own user group.

Live at Redmond! is a series presented to you directly by Microsoft product teams! No marketing hype -- just the technical details that you want to hear and need to know. Stay ahead of your peers by attending this exclusive series.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

I've finally returned home from a crazy month of travel, some for work, some for me. Some good, some.. less than good. Somewhere in the middle of it all I ended up at the Microsoft Mix06 conference in Las Vegas. I personally think that the conference was a huge success. it was very different that previois MS events I have attended such as PDC and TechEd. There were many people there who had never really seen Visual Studio, or any of the .Net related technologies that some of us know and love. This was interesting because these were truly smart people, that are doing amazing things with other tools such as Flash, PHP, Ruby, Perl, etc. I found it very insightful to hear what they had to say, both good and bad about what they saw from Microsoft. I think a few are even rethinking their current tool focus.

Before the conference even officially started I had my first chance to see Origami, the Microsoft codename for the new Ultra Mobile PC's. These are slick little devices with touch screens running the Windows XP Tablet PC operating system.

The conference officially started with the Bill Gates keynote. A little less spectacular that I had hoped for, but it's not everyday you get to see him speak in person so I enjoyed it. The real highlights were hearing about the insane stats from the guys at myspace.com and their use of ASP.Net 2.0. There were some amazing WPF demos showing off work by the BBC and Rezn8. Way cool!

With the major focus on being the web, there was a lot of attention given to Atlas. It has certainly come along way since the first bits were given out at PDC. The latest March CTP was released along with a Go-Love license to starting using it on production sites. Brad Abrams/Rick Spencer and Nikhil Kothari had excellent sessions.

One of the nifty things along the way was the concept of LiveClipboard, recently discussed by Ray Ozzie. There seems to be a lot of moment, and an active community building around microformats. I hope to have a demo of my own of shortly, but until then, check this out: LiveClipboard Demo

A had a lof of questions answer by the Indigo team. Thanks Ami, Clemens, and Steve for all the time and information. Access to amazing people like these is what truly makes these events worthwhile!

There were more cool Avalon (WPF) demos than I could count. All I can say is our expectations of what an application looks like is going to be forever changed.

It was great to see those folks that I only seem to get to talk with at conference. Lora, Loren, Jeff, Reg, Robert, Paul, ChrisG, Trisha, Amy, Caleb, (Sorry if I missed anybody) and also it was a pleasure to meet all you new people as well!

It was 72 hours well spent!

Posted in Rant  | Comments [1] 

Congrats on the MVP award Matt, you deserve it!

Posted in Rant  | Comments [1] 

After a hectic few weeks of work and travel, I've finally reached the "pack for mix" line on the to do list. I'm very excited this event, and look for to the opportunities it will bring. What does one pack for a 72 hour conversation however? While I figure that out, if you're attending drop me a note. I'm looking forward to meeting a number of people for the first time, and seeing some good friends again.

See you in Vegas!

Technorati tags: mix06

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

hmmmm...... is this it? http://jkontherun.blogs.com/jkontherun/2006/02/origami_video.html

If so, very cool. There are sooooooo many uses for a small tablet device.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [1] 

This is not an endorsement, but I know some folks that do like the product.. anyways...

"Axosoft is offering their OnTime project management / bug tracking software for $5. You actually get 5 user licenses for that price. The whole $5 goes to the Red Cross."

http://www.axosoft.com/Products/ontime.aspx?cn=otm_stepromo

[From Devcow]

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

http://www.origamiproject.com

What is it? What is? I don't know, but I get the feeling I want to!

[From Scoble]

Posted in Rant  | Comments [1] 

Frank has annoucned that there is going to be a Code Camp in Richmond, Va on April 22nd. Information is available here: http://www.richmondcodecamp.org

Is going to be held at:

Location:
ECPI Technical College
800 Moorefield Park Drive
Richmond, VA 23236

If anybody else from these parts is interested in attending please let me know.

Tags: Code Camp

Posted in Rant  | Comments [1] 

For all of those that know Greg from the Triangle .Net User Group, he has starting a blog over at LimeInTheCoconut (http://www.limeinthecoconut.com/blog) with an initial post on using SQL Profiler.

Posted in Rant | TRINUG  | Comments [0] 

On Wednesday February 8, 2006 Kate Gregory will be presenting an Advanced Click Once topic at the monthly Triangle .Net User Group meeting as an INETA guest speaker, that will take us much deeper than the previous VS2005/Click Once demos that have been shown. I've had the privilege of hearing Kate speak a few times in the past and can guarantee this will be a must see event. She is an extremely knowledgeable and enjoyable presenter. See you there!

Smart clients offer many advantages over web applications but they must be deployed and installed on the end-user’s computer. The new ClickOnce technology in Visual Studio 2005 and the .NET Framework 2.0 makes this much simpler than it once was – at least in demos. What happens when ClickOnce meets the real world? How can you combine ClickOnce with SMS, or with an MSI install that updates the registry? How can you ensure the prerequisites for your application, including the framework itself, are on the end-user’s computer? This talk will cover these and other advanced ClickOnce scenarios.

Kate Gregory is the Microsoft Regional Director for Toronto and a founding partner of Gregory Consulting Limited (www.gregcons.com). Based in Peterborough, Ontario, Gregory Consulting provides mentoring, consulting, and development services throughout North America, using the .NET Framework, XML, Web Services, Visual C++, Visual Basic, C#, ASP.NET, Java, and Perl. Migration, conversion, and integration of existing applications are a current focus. Kate is the author of numerous books, most recently Visual C++ .NET KickStart. Kate teaches (and develops courses on) .NET, XML, UML, C++, Java, and the Internet. She has a Visual C++ column at codeguru.com, is an adjunct faculty member at Trent University, serves on numerous advisory boards and has spoken at Tech Ed USA, Tech Ed Europe, and VSLive. She serves on the executive of the Toronto .NET Users Group and leads the East of Toronto .NET Users Group

Posted in Rant | TRINUG  | Comments [2] 

As much fun as it would be to see MSDN Evangelist Rory turn to a diet of cheese things, I'm concerned about the Ewok. Please do your part and visit TinyThings. (I'm starting to wonder if the name "Tiny Things" has created somewhat of a marketing issue for Rory. I mean, let's face it, who goes looking for tiny things? At least, not without some context. What if i said visit Sexy Technology? Or the Ultimate Windows Mobile 5.0 Podcast? Whatever your preference, please click one and go take a look!)

(For the complete story, visit http://neopoleon.com/blog/posts/17356.aspx)

Posted in Rant  | Comments [1] 

With all of the new things we are bombarded with and must learn, do you ever get the felling your brain would love to pop this error message?

Actually, kidding aside, I love the excitement from the level of change in technology today. It doesn't matter if you're talking about developing software or buying a cell phone, things are changing fast. While it's a battle at time to keep up, it's a reality of today. As DonXML recently stated in his Developer Career Tips -2006 post, "Complacency is a career killer". He's absolutely right. A job requirement of today is simply keeping up with the pace of change, and understanding the impacts of where things are going. As developers, it's a fine line between trying to implement everything new vs. understanding how changes effect our future directions and design decisions today.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

Ok .Net developers, just to make sure nobody falls behind, here are the new releases I downloaded today and need to take a look at:

Windows Mobile 5.0 Developer Resource Kit (1.5) http://msdn.microsoft.com/mobility/windowsmobile/howto/resourcekit/default.aspx

WinFX January CTP (Includes WCF and WWF GoLive License) http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/archive/2006/01/18/514356.aspx

Enterprise Library for .Net Framework 2.0 (Release) http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/?url=/library/en-us/dnpag2/html/EntLib2.asp

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

Today before spending some quality time at the local cafe, I spotted [and purchased] Robert Scoble and Shel Israel's new book Naked Conversations on the shelf at the local Barnes and Noble. With North Carolina being such a blogger hot spot, I would have assumed these would be displayed more prominently than on the bottom shelf. I thought about setting some out on the "New Items" table myself, but wasn't sure how that would go over. If they haven't moved by my next visit I will relocate a few of them.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

If you haven't tried this yet, add encarta@conversagent.com as a contact in MSN Messenger. It allows you to ask it questions and provides answers. Very sci-fi like... Anyways, ask it "Where is Pluto?", read the stats it returns and then check out the map it displays.

(No, I can't jsut post it here, you have to go look!)

Posted in Rant  | Comments [1] 

Despite Glen Gordon and the MSDN team continuing to pack the house, I always hear from people that somehow missed hearing about the events so I decided to make this post early. If you are in the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill area of North Carolina and are interested in learning more about Visual Studio 2005, .Net 2.0 and other exciting technologies, go signup now before it's too late! At the last event in November a number of people were lined up at the door hoping for an empty seat after the registration was full. Don't let this be you. Go signup now for the March 2, 2006 event at http://www.MSDNEvents.com

The schedule for the March event appears to include:

Smart Solutions with SmartClients
- Session 1: Building Mobile Applications with Visual Studio 2005
- Session 2: Creating Office Solutions with Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office
- Session 3: Introduction to the Windows Presentation Framework

The gang from TRINUG will be there as well, so please come by and say hello!

[Note* If Greensboro is closer or you really can't wait, there is an event there on Feb 28th]

Posted in Rant | TRINUG  | Comments [0] 

Wednesday the 11th... Thursday the 12th.....   yup Friday the 13th. Now, I'm not superstitious, but it's a proven fact that technology does not like Friday the 13th and the days leading up to it. If you're planning a major software update or little change on the server, wait. Please wait! On my way to the TRINUG meeting my power steering started sounding really strange and not working as it shoud. Today I find out that along with a couple of other minor, but can't ignore problems it's gonna be more expensive than a new MacBook Pro to fix. This morning I sit at the local over priced coffee shop watching their computer freak out not accepting any form of plastic payment including their handy new gift cards they've been forced to promote so heavily recently. Any to think, it's only the 12th. Be very careful tomorrow dear friends, very very careful!

Posted in Rant  | Comments [1] 

2006 has started off with a bang! It's definately going to be an exciting year for us in the technology field. So many things that have been building momentum seem to be reaching a critical mass all at once. Pretty soon anything with a battery will be able to be used as a phone, take pictures, connect to the internet, sync with Outlook, record and paly back your favorite TV show, and tell you your exact position on the planet, as well as hopefully some unique feature to diferentiate it from the other products. For those that hate change it's going to be a very unpleasant year. This fact becomes crystal clear when I look at my list of "Things to Look Into". It's going to be a busy year.

One example of change was also shown at the PodCasterCon2006 conference hosted this weekend in Chapel Hill. The event was organized by local podcaster/blogger Brian Russel, and he put together an amazing event. With attendees from all over the map, and i mean the big map, not the little state map, the event provided a great forum for folks to get together and talk about technology. Listening to why people attended was half as much fun as any of the actual content. It's great to hear everybody's idea of what they want to say to the world, or just simply say for their own benefit, and how they feel they can make a difference. There is something great about gathing a bunch of people with common interests.

On the local blogging front, ASP.NET Super Star Chris Love has started blogging on a new site at www.ProfessionalAspNet.com with his usual practical approach to web technology. Worth a read if you do anything ASP.NET related.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

"No matter what your profession, if you arent busting ass to be prepared and to get better, you are falling behind." - Mark Cuban [From Blog Maverick]

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

It was amazing to see how within minutes of Microsoft releasing the new versions of Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 to MSDN Subscribers on MSDN.COM, blog posts were appearing everywhere announcing the event. In the day of the blog, it's great how fast news can spread!

Now with that said, the MSDN subscriber download site appears to have been brought to it's knees. If news didn't spread so fast, a much more gradual number of visitors to their site would have likely occurred. In the day of the blog, it's terrible how fast news can spread! UPDATE: I now see that downloads have resumed!

Personally, I'm happy to say that rather than be the first to post about it, I made sure my transfers were well on their way before making mention of it to others. (Sorry) I'm happily exploring my new install of VS2005 outside of a VPC!

For those wanting to confirm release build numbers, that are in fact 8.0.50727.42 for Visual Studio and 2.0.50727.42 for the .Net 2.0 Framework.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

Afer much anticipation I'm very happy to be installing the final, release to market (RTM) version of Visual Studio 2005 and the Microsoft .NET 2.0 Framework. It's been a long journey since I was first introduced to the product at PDC03. Congratulations to all of those that invested time and effort in getting this product to market!

Now to complete all of those projects I've started in beta2 and have been holding back on...... (So much for sleep)

For those without access to MSDN, be sure to attend a Visual Studio 2005 launch event near you!

Posted in Rant | Software  | Comments [0] 

Last night a packed house had WAY TOO MUCH FUN with Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell on their .Net Rocks Road Trip. Atlanta is next! For a town near you visit http://www.dotnetrocks.com/roadtrip

Photo and artwork by Tom Gieger

.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

Just a reminder that pod caster, internet talk show host star, developer trainer, and all'round great guy, Carl Franklin and the DNR gang are going to be in Raleigh at a live event as part of their cross country road trip sponsored by TRINUG (And others) talking about the upcoming VS2005 launch. It should be a blast! Mark it down, and go register as space is limited. You can signup at http://events.trinug.org . NOTE - YOU MUST REGISTER TO ATTEND! I hear they might even let Jim Duffy near a mic, and you don't want to miss that!!! Oh, and there's free pizza. FREE PIZZA!!! How can you resist that?

Did I mention you must sign up?

Also, while you're signing up for that, Microsoft Developer Champion Glen Gordon [With a title like that, what more can I say?!] will be hosting a MSDN Training Event in Raleigh on Nov 8, the day after the VS2005 Launch, showing off the new Visual Studio 2005. There is also a SQL 2005 event in the morning as well. To sign up or for more info visit http://www.msdnevents.com/launch . Glen's Blog says they might even be working on a Pub Club after the event. What free training and more free food??? How'd we get to be so lucky!

Posted in Rant | TRINUG  | Comments [0] 

I just want to take a moment and say congratulations to a few folks out there or a couple recent achievements.

First of all, I’d like to say congrats to Caleb Jenkins for his new job as Microsoft Developer Evangelist for the South Central Region.

Secondly and thirdly I’d like to congratulate Matt and Brendon from the .Net Regular Guys out in Atlanta on their recent appointment as co-VP’s of Technology for INETA. These two have done great things for the developer community in the South East, and I can’t wait to see what their energy and ambition does for INETA in this more active role. (Although some how I have a feeling this will mean more work for me, but oh well)

Lastly, I’d like to thank the academy… Oh wait wrong speech, I guess that that’s it. Great job gents!

Oh, and congrats to D'Arcy for being Canadian!

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

Robert Scoble has a new address for his blog http://www.scobleizer.com/

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

[First of all, to anybody living in suspense from my last post about having lost power in LA and not being heard from since; I had a great conference, had power for the rest of the week, and as usual ended up having a very eventful time in LA. More on that later! ANyways]

I hate both sides for the strike and think there were no winners, and that the game will never be the same. I was tempted to stay away from hockey in protest, but in the end could not. I'm glad to see it back in action, and hope the new rules make the game as exciting as I remember it used to be before the league sell out management ruined it.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [2] 

It's hard to beleive that it's been 10 years since millions of little blue boxes were opened around the world, giving us Windows 95 and all of it's innovations. Things were certainly different back then before broadband, Google, VoIP, Scoble. I wonder how many clicks of the Start menu it's been since? I think the feature that had the most impact for me was the integrated dialer for interenet access. At the time ISP's were trying to support a variety of PPP/SLIP dialing applications. A dial and a browser in the OS? Now that was innovation!

Posted in Rant  | Comments [1] 

Our favorite DCC (Developer Community Champion) is BACK in Raleigh this week to show some Visual Studio .Net 2.0 coolness!

MSDN Event by Glen Gordon
Tuesday, August 16, 2005 1:00 PM - Tuesday, August 16, 2005 5:00 PM (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time Welcome Time: 12:30 PM
North Raleigh Hilton
3415 Wake Forest Road
Raleigh North Carolina 27609
General Event Information
Products: ASP.NET and Visual Studio.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/EventDetail.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032277527

Posted in Rant  | Comments [1] 

Look out! Carl Franklin, Richard Campbell, and Geoff the sound guy are rock'n their way on road trip from Boston to San Francisco for the VS2005 launch. They'll be in Raleigh on October 20th recording a live show. Mark your calendars and stay tuned for a location and time.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [1] 

"Geeks understand market competition about as well as men understand women."

Eric Sink has a very interesting post comparing competition in the software industry to games.

This seems to be a common topic lately. Just last night, Jim "I'm getting a blog soon, honest" Duffy was recommending the book "The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What To Do About It" by Michael E. Gerber. I haven't taken a look at it yet, but I guess it's main take away is that just becuase you understand the technical work behind a business doesn't imply that the person understands that kind of business.

I think that in many ways, more so than ever, you need to either be jack of many trades, or have the right people in place to bring the required skills to table. I've had many conversations recently about the gaps that seem to be growing with developers understanding systems, and systems people not understanding networks, and nobody really understanding the business model behind it all that makes it possible.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

Robert Scoble and Jeff Sandquist interview Steve Ballmer on Channel 9 [Video Here]. [Transcript Here]

My favorite quote from the interview is:

"I’d say the same thing to our developer customers as I would say to our employees. There has never been a better opportunity than today to make a real difference in the world. The next 10 years are going to be as exciting in computing and information technology as the last 10." - Steve Ballmer

Call me crazy, but I believe that!

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

After what seems like an eternity away, I am finally back at my desk for a few weeks. My wife calculated for me that I was only home for 8 days during the month of June. No wonder my desk seems so foreign. June included the Microsoft TechEd in Orlando and some quality “face time” at the head office. Both were a bit of a shock after spending the end of May on a sail boat. But now, back to business….

So much has been happening on the .Net front it’s hard to keep up with it all. My self-inflicted summer learning project is some quality time with both WSE and Indigo, two somewhat related technologies that I intend to know well. It’s hard to imagine writing an application that doesn’t involve communicating over a network these days.

I’m a big believer in continuous learning. I have an incredible desire to know the how and why of things, especially relating to technology. This effort to learn has introduced me to some pretty amazing people over the years. There are so many incredibly smart people out there with a passion to both learn and share what they have learned. These are the people to surround yourself with.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

Today marks the end of a good thing for me. Since April of 2004 I have been a very happy subscriber of the Nextel Broadband Service. This mobile data service provided broadband speeds with the flexibility of moving wireless within the coverage area. The speed was amazing, and although limited to this region the coverage was excellent. My understanding is that because of their merger with Sprint, and Sprints heavy investment in the slower and more expensive EVDO technology the trial has been cancelled. I find this extremely hard to believe that this product was not wildly successful, and a candidate for a national service. I guess I know how all those Beta-max users felt when the world was going VHS, despite it’s technical advantages. I guess now I need to seriously consider a new Windows Mobile device that allows me to use it as a modem as well for my laptop. The service officially ends June 30th (Anybody want to by a used Flarion card?) but I will be away from the area until then. :-(

Posted in Rant  | Comments [2] 

A wonderful week of sailing around the British Virgin Islands with some good friends has come to an end. There's something truly great about island time, as as much of a technology fan as I am, it was nice to spend some time away from it all, but now back to the grind for a hectic short week trying to get everything important done before I shock my system and head to Tech Ed. Drop me a note if you're going to be there.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

Just becuase I can, blogging from the British Virgin Islands. 10:51 AM and already it's hot, dam hot! And now we're off to sea! A three hour tour.....

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

Friday the 13th, what better thing to do than hop on an airplane and head to Atlanta for Code Camp. I'm looking forward to what should be a really fun event. This will be my 4th CodeCamp event of the year, and the third time I've been speaking at the event. For anybody that attending one of my previous Tablet PC Ink Application Development sessions, watch for my new code here soon as I have updated a number of things including a couple of new demos.

Now for those last import work emails before boarding.....

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

If you didn't sign up, it might be too late. According to the Tech-Ed website, it's sold out. I think that there's just a little bit of interest in everything that's going from Microsoft. I know I'm looking forward to the event.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

Without really thinking I opened an email client on a laptop that I rarely use, which it turns out is still configured to check an email account that was part of a broadband connection that was cancelled in December of 2002. Well, apparently, rather than going to the place where old discontiniued email accounts are supposed to get, this one which I had used for a good 7 years before (Initially started off as a dialup account) has found a way to stay active. A little neglected, but still active. The last 30 or so messages with warning messages that email was being rejected becuase the mailbox was full with a rapidly decreasing byte count. Amazingly enough, I don't think there was a single message that was not some sort of spam. 10021 messages worth! Think back now, I probably shouldn't have just delete them all as I did with great joy, but instead saved the info for some thesis on the evolution of spam. Maybe next time.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

One week from today, Saturday April 9th is the 2005 Raleigh .Net Code Camp. [LINK]

What is Code Camp? Code Camp is a free day of Microsoft .Net related sessions, presented by speakers from within the .Net development community, on topics areas they are experts, or interested in. Some of these speakers are professionals, other are people with some very cool skills, ideas, and content on topics you might not find at a major, marketing driven conference. A list of sessions is available at www.codecamp.org/sessions.aspx

Did I mention it's free? Any you even get lunch! Free lunch? And .Net? What more could you add?

Fun! This event is not only full of learning, but good times and networking with other developers in the area. Don't miss out. To attend, please visit www.codecamp.org and signup, but hurry as the event is almost full.

See you there!

Posted in Rant | TRINUG  | Comments [4] 

This weekend I had a wonderful time at the Code Camp III event organized by Thom Robins in Boston. I traveled up to get some ideas for our Code Camp being held in Raleigh, NC on Saturday April 9, and to give a presentation on developing Tabled PC software.

I had a lot of fun preparing for my session which I am also going to be presenting in Raleigh and at the Atlanta Code Camp in May. Attendance for my session which was in the first time slot Sunday morning was a little lower than I had hoped, but since it snowed all day Saturday we were happy that the event was able to continue on Sunday. (I don't expect snow to be an issue at my next events)

The entire event was excellent. Thom and has helpers did a fantastic job of organizing and hosting the event. I think attendance for the two days was over 500 people. I enjoyed talking to a wide variety of people on an even wider variety of topics. There were a wide variety of speakers including some well known speakers, and some not some well knowns that had equally good, and at times even better real world information to share.

Martin Shoemaker presented two other sessions relating to the Tablet PC that were very enjoyable. Martin has done some great work with tablets on things like his TabletUML software. Martin definitely sparked some ideas for me that I hope to reciprocate back in the future.

Raj Das shared some great information on work he has been doing in Smart Client development. I'm hoping to convince him to join us at the Raleigh Code Camp in April.

Saturday night we were able to meet up with some of the speakers in the hotel lounge for some continued conversations. I really enjoyed seeing Don Demsak (DonXML) again (And thanks for the ride!) as well is having an opportunity to talk with Julie Lerman.

If you have never been to a Code Camp event, I strongly encourage you to attend an event in your area, or make your way to one away from home. They are a great mix of sharing of ideas, insights, and how-to's mixed with incredibly valuable networking with others in the .Net development community. It's value truly comes from being presented by the community to the community.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [1] 

This weekend promises to be a busy weekend around Chapel Hill, NC. Saturday is the Triangel Bloggers Conference at UNC. Dave Winer will be in town attending the event and will be getting together for brunch with those interested on Sunday.

I'm looking forward to some comments and feedback on my Our Words Community Blog Project. If you haven't been there, check it out and let me know your thoughts.

Last night was the Community journalsim discussion with Dave Winer and Editor's from the News & Record in Greensboro. There is a podcast of the event available here. My favorite is when Dave talk about Robert Scoble being a "loose canon" and "a natural born blogger", and what it says about Microsoft to encourage the visibility he provides.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

While trying to follow through on New Years resolution # 3, I spent a good part of last night and today taking a good close look at the various syndication feeds that various local bloggers are using on their sites. I am truly amazed at how different the “standard” files generated from the different blog applications out there. It’s also been very interesting to compare the different formats that these packages are supposed to generate. I have never seen so many different time formats in my life! Not to mention that fact of how many people aren’t really sure which time zone they should be in.

I am however having a great time and making some good progress on a project that I’ve been thinking about for quite some time and now seem to be finally getting some of those thoughts turned into lines of code. I’m not quite ready to spill the beans yet. In some ways it’s more of an experiment than a project, but I hope to be showing it off for some limited feedback in the next couple weeks and opening it up further in advance of the 2005 Triangle Bloggers Conference happening in Chapel Hill on February 12, 2005.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [1] 

Two years ago my wife and I spent New Years Eve in an empty apartment after moving across the continent to begin a new adventure. Last year we celebrated with new friends, met through our new adventure. This year we will again spend time with our new friends, some of which will likely be moving on to new adventures of their own in the months ahead. This is a time to reflect on the year that was, and the year that will be. With that said…

2005 New Year Resolutions

1. Communicate better
2. Exercise more regularly
3. Follow through on ideas
4. Do more public speaking
5. Continue to push myself to learn
6. Meet new people, both socially and professionally
7. Stay in touch more often with old friends
8. Do at least one thing I’ve never done before
9. Enjoy each day, as each is a gift
10. Make it to PDC

I am excited about 2005 and the opportunities that await.

For other resolutions from the bloggers, visit Technorati

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

Now, I know there's no way they could have know, but hearing the Dell TV ad promoting their 24/7, always available tech support was a little strange today.

Tech Support ”Dell Service and support. Can I help you?”
Customer “You're there?”
TS “Ah, yes sir. We're here 24/7”
C “24/7, 365?”
TS “365”
C “What about leap year?”
RS “366”
.
.
.
C“Tsunami?“
TS “ We should be here“

I'm not exactly sure, but part of me feels that with the devastating destruction to part of the world that hosts the outsourcing of telephone support services that this ad isn't the best thing at this time One of those things that's funny until it comes true I guess.

My heart goes out to all everybody impacted by the tragedy.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [3] 

Somebody please tell me why a company who's basic purpose in life is to sell electronics, would willingly display products in a way that actually makes them seem worse than they are? For the last year or so I've been putting off the purchase of an LCD flat screen and decided to go see what I could find for deals. The local Best Buy had one of the better selections.

The only problem with their display however is that all of the monitors are fed from a single source. A single source that is connected to a couple video amplifiers and fed to each monitor. This causes all of the monitors to display the same 1024 x 768 image, which looks equally terribly on each and is pretty useless to compare anything other than brightness. Accordign to one staff member, the feed wasn't really even 1024 x 768 as somewhere along the way it was first coverted to S-Video before being split. The staff response to any requests to see a monitor on an alternate resolution (Such as the 1280 x 1024 that many of them are designed to run at) or seperate system was a simple “sorry” before walking away.

What ever happened to showing off what a product could do? I remember the year I spent working for Sony, we would find the best possible source to display the higher end products so that there was a visible difference. There's somethign to be said for those small dealers that take the time to show you the products and help answer your questions, not just push boxes.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

Triangle Bloggers Conference 2005

Using Blogs to Build Community

A gathering of North Carolina bloggers to discuss websites, community building, podcasting and more. A follow-up to the highly successful Piedmont Bloggers Conference in August 2004.

Saturday, February 12, 2005
9 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
(room to be announced)
FREE

More Information.... 

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

T'was the night before the night before Christmas and all through the web, every creature was blogging, not just Scoble?

No, I'm not sure what that is supposed to mean either, but that's how I decided to start this long over due post. It has been a busy few weeks that has involved many miles of travel for both work and pleasure. During this time a lot has happened with projects and technology that I really should write about, but for now I simply want to wish everybody a very
Merry Christmas!

Coming next week:

-RTP Blog Conference
-A demo of better local blog aggregation
-Printing with .Net
-Developer events in North Carolina for the new year

And some project goals for 2005!

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

Congratulations to Ed Cone (www.edcone.com) and the organizers of the 2004 Piedmont Blog Conference that took place today in Greensboro, NC. The event was a huge success and provided some intelligent and thoughtful insights into the worlds of political and journalistic blogging.

The conversations were definitely less technical than the BoF session at PDC I attended in the fall. I didn't hear a single argument over preferred syndication format. In all, there were very few discussions about the software tools involved.

One of the software topics that was discussed was the use of comments, especially in a political candidates blog. The primary concern was enforcing some sort of accountability in the comments. Many felt that comments were too great of a risk while others felt that the comments area is what enables a blog conversation. Interestingly enough there were a couple of people in attendance that have no blogs of their own, and simply participate in the community through comments on the sites of others.

The political attraction to blogs was largely as a method to quickly get a message out, to a large number of people. During a break Jeff Thigpen, a currently running for Registrar of Deeds (http://jlthigpen.blogspot.com)
gave ma a great example of how you may get a bunch of emails from a certain group about a topic, but you have no way of sending an email back out to everybody that may want to see it, where a blog gives you the ability to quickly respond and get the word out.

The second session dealing with the media was very interesting, with a lot of discussion about the difference between blogging and journalism, or if the two were, or could be the same. In the end my favorite quote, and forgive me for not being able to credit the individual that first said it, was that "blogging is a medium, journalism is a craft". There were some great stories shared about blog posts having an impact on traditional media and their coverage of certain issues. The session was well represented with a number of traditional journalists from local print and radio organizations.

One important topic that I think maybe deserved a little more coverage was the concept that readership and credibility are earned. The concept of "journalistic credentials" for bloggers came up a few times, but it was clear that just because you can write it, doesn't mean that the audience will listen.

The closing session touched briefly on the concept of community, and here in North Carolina there is definitely a very active, very vocal, and very visible online community that is is growing in strength and size, developing a very tight community.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

As New York city braces for the upcoming Rebulican National Convention, Greensboro NC prepares for a conference of it's own. Tomorrow is PBC04, the Piedmont Blog Conference in which bloggers will gather to discuss topics rangign from political campaigns, journalism, and a special session “Blogs as culture and community”.

Now the last time that I was in the same room with more than a handful of bloggers, talking abou blogging was the “Weblogging: The Future of Conversational Software” BoF session at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference in LA back in Oct '03. While that event was.. shall we say interesting, and tended to focus more on some of the technical aspects of syndication format, search ranking and classifications, this event should be equally as intersting.

While holding it at 9:00AM instead of 9:00PM will likely have an impact, being in the middle of the political instanity known as “election year” will bring it's own moments. While I admit I am much more interested in the technology aspect, I'm lookign forward to whatever the day has in store. If you're in the area, check it out, otherwise watch for details following the event.

Info is available here.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [1] 

Hmm... Friday the 13th... in the forcast track for Tropical Storm Bonnie... in the forcast track for Tropical Storm Charlie... Should be an interesting weekend out here in North Carolina.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [1] 

Today I discovered an interesting blog post “An Overview Of The Weblog Tools Market” and I was a little surprized to see no mention of two highly used tools that I am aware of. Neither .Text (Or It's new Community Server :: Blogs name) or Das Blog were mentioned which to me seems a little strange since the majority of the sites that I read run on one of these systems.

As far as their hosted communities statistics go, I wonder how weblogs.asp.net or similar would fit in with market share based on google hits?

If you're looking to host you own blog, check out one of the above!

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

Recently Robert Scoble announced that his blog would send a MSN Alert with every post. Quite a while ago I signed up to Scoble's alerts, wanting to be in the loop if he had something important to say. When I first read I didn't think too much about it, until a few days into the change when I happened to spend some time away from my computer a heavy posting day.

My default config is to have these Alerts sent to my cell phone if I am not logged to MSN Messenger. Now for some folks at Microsoft, it might be worth a note simply to know that they posted this month, but that's not the case with Robert. It's a farley safe bet that everyday (or so) will result in a series of posts.

It was easy enough for me to set my Scoble Alerts not to be sent to my cell phone if I'm not logged in, but does that defeat the purpose? I think it would be great to know if Robert posted something he felt was important, significant, or just otherwise cool. So now I do not get the alerts sent to my phone, but if there's something worth alerting me, it won't any longer. Personally I preferred it the old way when an alert was something important, not just a post. My feed reading software alerts me when there are new posts, so i really don't see the point of using alerts simply for a new message, but that's just my opinion.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

Hey .Net fans, it's going to be a busy week in Raleigh North Carolina! ...

Posted in Rant | TRINUG  | Comments [0] 

Robert McLaws:

“As tech-savvy users, it is your responsibility to make sure everyone you know has installed this update as soon as you get access to it. It's more important than anything in Longhorn, because it's here today, and it improves the security and stability of your machine TODAY.”

I think this is a great call to action for the entire technology community. Make the world a better place an get this update out there. Make a CD and take it with you. Tell your clients they need it, don't even give your friends and family a choice. And if you're a Tablet PC user, go get it because you'll love the new functionality!

Posted in Rant | Software  | Comments [0] 

On the morning of July 16, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins left our planet on a brave voyage that would forever change the world. It was from this launch control center that all of the hard work and sacrifices came together in success.

NASA has great look back on this 35th Aniversary. Check it out:

http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/apollo11/index.html

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

This holiday weekend - install anti-spyware software on your relative's machines!

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

I'm back! After a lengthy time back at the "head office" being bombarded by everything imaginable, I'm now back home and eager to get back to my development work. Thanks to all of those that kept in touch while I was away!

Posted in Rant  | Comments [2] 

After spending near two weeks on a sail boat in the Caribbean with no technology other than a GPS, it’s time to get away from “Island Time” and jump back into the real world. One never really realizes how badly they needed a break until after the fact. There is no better feeling than to not now what time or day it is, and really not care that you don’t know.

Now that I’m back I have a week to get caught up and then it’s back onto a plane to spend some time at “The Head Office”. Despite the fact of being able to digitally commute 2500 miles to work daily, every once in a while you need to go see what the other end of your voice over IP line and VPN tunnel look like. My trip will actually be multi purpose. The plan is to hire some new IT staff, meet with some clients about wireless data connectivity and mobile devices, including RIM’s BlackBerry, PocketPC Phones, and of course the Tablet PC.

Now to figure out what I missed… What happened at TechEd? What’s in the new VS2005 tech preview? And why haven’t you been to Channel9 yet?

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

On Tuesday Glen Gordon was in town presenting a half day MSDN event Raleigh. For anybody that has never taken advantage of one of these free events, I strongly encourage you to check one out. (Go signup, tell them Rob sent you!) I can't believe more people don't take advantage of these events!

The content covered included:

• Leveraging Application Blocks in Application Development
• Rapid Application Development Features coming in Visual Studio .Net 2005
• XML, XQuery and CLR Integration coming in SQL Server “Yukon”
• Introduction to SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services

There are definitely some very cool, useful, and time saving features in VS2005 and Yukon! I was extremely glad that a good deal of the content dealt with technology available today, that we could all take home and immediately use. Glen’s did an excellent job of looking at the Exception Logging, Configuration, and Auto Update application blocks. I think these are great resources for every developer. They are great to use as-is in your apps, or to pull code out as needed for your use. Definitely another one of those things that you’re missing out on if you haven’t looked at them! I hope to post some code in the next day or so with an example of how easy it is to take and application block and build upon it.

Over on Glen's Blog he asks about the value talking about “old“ (Or also called current) vs. “New“ (Or unavailable yet) technology. I strongly believe that we all need to keep an eye on where things are going and how we can best prepare our code today for what's coming tomorrow, but I think the real value is in better understanding the “old” technology of today to help us get more done, be more productive, and better prepared to take advantage of “New“ technology that builds on the old. Having immediate results from these events makes them much easier to justify the time away. Keep the new coming, but as with all good things moderation is the key!

Posted in Rant  | Comments [1] 

Today I received and installed my cT-1000 Nextel Wireless Broadband PC Card. The hardware is manufactured by Flarion. Nextel and Flarion launched a trial in the Raleigh-Durham area back in February and have been expanding the coverage in the triangle area as the trial has continued. The trial appears to have been called a success as Nextel is now offering the product to the public.

Nextel is currently offering plans ranging from $34.99 to $74.99 depending on usage and speed requirements. Download speeds range from 750kbps to 1.5mbps with bursts up to 3mbps possible. Packages also provide private or dynamic-public IP addresses with static IP addresses available for a small fee ($10.00). The hardware is currently being offered for $50 (Regular $199) until June 30th.

I think there is great potential in this product for mobile users that move within the RTP area. While being marketed as "Cable-speed without cables", the result of bandwidth and mobility greatly increases the possibilities for mobile applications. This modem in a TabletPC creates and extremely versatile and well connected platform for software developers.

The setup in my Toshiba M200 went extremely well. In fact, compared to devices I have installed from other manufacturers, this was amazing simply. The process was to insert an auto-starting CD, click next 3 or 4 times, agree to run unsigned code (Which is something in this day and age I think they should correct and instructions should not tell you to ignore those warnings. Get your drivers signed!) and then insert the PCMCIA card. I was connected. Plain and simple.

I haven't had much of a chance yet to test the speed and coverage in the area, but I'll report back when I do.

Posted in Network | Rant  | Comments [0] 

Actually, I really don’t how to describe it in  a word, but it’s pretty nifty. I'm talking about the new Channel9 site from Microsoft.

The main choices are:

Echo Chamber –  A place where the Channel9 folks get to speak through posts on wide ranging subjects

 

Videos –  Described with “Next time your manager comes to you and tells you that you're going to be filming amateur videos, run, run hard and don't look back.” and while not flashy, provide some good insight. I think it’s great that the people making these great products have a way to share and at times explain or set the record straight.

 

Who We Are – Those responsible for this content.

 

Moblog – Photos from inside.

 

Wiki –  The user editable website

 

Forums – A place where in traditional forum style conversations take place ranging from introductions to discussions on content and technology.

There are RSS feeds everywhere which Robert Scoble said that they were even going to list for us all in one place! (He's also got a number of links to much more comments about the site, good and bad) User profiles provide a basic sharing of interests and information while the “Avatar” images give us a personality.

I need to go play some more, but I thought I would share. Check it out!

Posted in Rant  | Comments [1] 

Well what a week it has been. Google is going to give away free email with a gigabyte (Or was that a Googlebyte?) of storage, Sun and Microsoft have put aside their differences and reached a 2 billion dollar “framework for industry cooperation”, the charter yacht company that is supply the boat for our May trip to the British Virgin Islands went out of business, and I’ve been just swamped with work. Don’t you just love it when projects overlap like waves and the workload just gets higher and higher, and the world around you seems further and further away? Anyways, I am glad it’s the end of another Friday and I can look back at what this all means.

If only I could do the Bill Gates “Think Week” to gain perspective. What would be my key topics for the year?

• Connectivity – As the availability of wide spread, near constant network connectivity increases that applications and advantages.
• Mobile Devices – To use this network anywhere, you must have a device that you can use anywhere. From Tablet PC’s to Pocket PC’s and smart phones, there are some cool applications just waiting to be written.
• Developer Productivity – And to take advantage of the above the whole “Do more with less” slogan becomes a fact of life as we’re all tasking with making more of these things happen quicker. [This is the category that would include RSS]
• And in all fairness to Bill, yes security is a must. Or as Steve Ballmer would probably say, “it’s a must, must, must, must, must, must…”

Now back to Google and Sun. A gig of space? That’s just insane! You would need to google it just to find anything! And should we really be ok with the potential of such content being categorized for us? Or having adds displayed based on the content? If they could somehow perform a Googlekill on incoming spam it might be worth while.

As for the announcement by Sun and Microsoft, good for them. I think it’s great for the customer to have two companies of their size say let’s cut the crap and get some work done. In the end, isn’t that what’s going to make a difference in the world of technology. Not lawyers and government regulators, but technical innovation that also has the potential to bring financial rewards.

Bring on the weekend!

PS - As for the BVI trip, we've been able to rebook through an alternate agency so all is well.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

Microsoft has now made the Visual Studio 2005 Community Technical Preview available to MSDN subscribers and those in attendance at VS live. The download on MSDN is a whopping 2.7gb DVD ISO image. I'm glad that it was put up as a single complete download. Yes, it takes a while to transfer, but that just gives us extra time to do our real work.

On the topic of 2.7gb downloads, I can't help but think back to the good old days of modems, Bulliten Board Systems (BBS), and files over 100k being huge! Hmm... 2.7gb at 2400 baud? if I started back in 1988, would I have the file yet? Heck, I remember going all out and buy my first 100mb hard drive! Ahh... those were the days.

Oh ya... back to the real work.

Posted in Longhorn | Rant  | Comments [0] 

A big thanks to Doug and all the speakers for putting on a very enjoyable and informative DevDays 2004 in Durham, NC. Some of the key points that made it into my notes are:

Posted in Rant | Software | TRINUG  | Comments [2] 

Tech Engage is a non-profit organization in North Carolina with the goal of providing technology training to those that are unemployed or under-employed in the IT industry including courses on ASP.NET and SQL SERVER.

Posted in Network | Rant | Software  | Comments [0] 

Microsoft has bolted an extended event to the end of DevDays on March 9th in Durham.

Posted in Rant | TRINUG  | Comments [0] 

Welcome back Mr. Scoble!

Robert Scoble is one of the reasons that I started to read weblogs and eventually started my own. I think many would agree that he is a poster child for blogging. He always seems to come up with some real gems. To me the real value is when he applies his own experiences of the technology industry to current events. His insights are well worth noting.

Over this time, there has been another Mr. Scoble that has been taking form. As part of his role as a Microsoft “Evangelist” for Longhorn, he has made himself very accessible to the community. I think that Robert by far has a better understanding and relationship with the users of MS products. He is easily one of the most approachable faces Microsoft has ever seen. He really seems to care about the issues and truly gets involved with the issues that corss his desk. This s the real value, to us and to the “New“ Microsoft, a publicly accessible, well connected Robert Scoble.

Posted in Rant  | Comments [1] 

Mar 15,16 - The University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill is hosting a Weblogs In Journalism Conference

Posted in Rant  | Comments [2] 

January 25, 1925...

Posted in Rant | Telephony  | Comments [0] 

Happy New Year to one and all!

I've returned from my trip home for Christmas. It was great to see as many friends and family as we could cram into such a short trip. It was also nice to go and visit “the office“.

 Thanks everybody for all of the great gifts including the collectors edition robzelt.com hat that my brother Dave acquired for me. Nothing beats a little self promotion!

The trip also allowed my to spend some quality time with my new Toshiba M200 Tablet PC. So far I'm very pleased. I haven't written nearly as much tablet specific code for it yet, but that's high on the list of things to do this year!

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

Time flies when you’re having fun!

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0] 

I said I wouldn't rant, I know, I said it, but....

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0]