Office 2007 arrived on the MSDN Subscriber downloads this afternoon. It's 70% downloaded on my machine so far.

In a previous blog post, I moaned about TechEd 2007 being moved to Orlando rather than the originally scheduled New Orleans. Many of us were so happy that it was going to be in New Orleans for the sake of supporting the economy there. The reason had something to do with the airport saying they couldn't handle the traffic for such a big conference.

I just received this comment from Matt Brewer and it really makes me wonder....

The past two days at DevConnex have been busy indeed. I got a chance to write about them while waiting for my midnight flight home. Read more...

[A DevLife post]

I have two talks to do today - one for ASP Connections and one for Mobile Connections. Therefore, this morning I decided to treat myself to room service breakfast. I learned years ago from Kate Gregory to have a good breakfast and protein when you are speaking. Kate is one of the best presenters I have ever seen (and usually one of the highest rated at conferences) so I pay close attention to her advice! Rather than stuff myself with the yummy bagels and breads they have for us in the speaker room, I ordered eggs benedict. Yummmy. At about the right time, I could hear the room service cart bouncing down the hallway. The hallway is long with stretches of carpet followed by a stretch of marble. So every time it went from carpet to marble from mrable to carpet, it would rattle. I could hear him approach my room and went and opened the door and there was the poor guy kneeling on the floor next to the metal box that is used to keep the food warm. The box had fallen off the cart as he bounced off the carpet on to the marble in front of my room. Eggs all over. The guy really felt bad, but I assured him it was not a problem and after he poured me a cup of coffee, headed downstairs to get me another plate of breakfast. In the meantime, I have sun streaming into my room and can look out at the beautiful range of mountains past the airport.

My first two days at DevConnections have been busy. Read all about it here. Now I need to get back to making sure tomorrow's talks will be great.

[A DevLife post]

Lots of news in the last few days! Here's a list of all that has rtm'd and what is finally very imminent: read more...

[A DevLife post]

Who else but the energetic Stephen Forte! HEre's his account of running yesterday's marathon. Now he's on his way to TechEd Barcelona. I'm on my way to speak at DevConnections in Las Vegas. But my marathon was a marathon weekend of sitting in front of my computer.

Getting SqlDependency to work takes an enormous amount of orchestration up front - especially with regards to SQL Server permissions. Steve ran into a problem which made SqlDependecy work only intermittently. He finally got to the bottom of it (was related to the dbo owner) and has blogged about it here.

Something to write home about! 

(It's my mom)

Torn between wanting to just get 'er done and wanting to have a complete comprehension of everything that is going on under the covers? That's the line I have to constantly wrangle with when giving conference presentations and it's truly hard to please everyone, though I do know who I'm aiming for. Read more...

[A DevLife post]

DevConnections is this coming up this week! Here are some last minute things to know about.

The registration is unbelievable this year. There are nearly 5000 people registered for the combined shows. More stats: 190 speakers and held in a convention center that is literally one million square feet!

1. If it's not too late, don't forget to vote before you leave! Check with your town clerk ASAP.
2. There's a Women in I.T. Lunch on Thursday for attendees and speakers. Space is limited, so sign up for it when you register.
3. Bring your suit! You may find some time to enjoy the beach and big pools at the Mandalay before, between or after sessions. The weather is looking great - low 80's and sunny during the days.
4. Bring comfortable shoes since you'll be doing a lot of walking. Not that I've ever seen a programmer in high heels.
5. Evening activities
   1. Monday Keynotes 6:30 - 8:30pm
   2. Tuesday 5-7pm reception in Expo Hall
   3. Tuesday 7:15 - 9:15 Microsoft Unplugged for attendees of ASP.NET/SQL/Mobile Connections (w/pizza & beer)
6. If you've never been to Las Vegas, get a pass for the local 2 decker bus that drives all the way up the strip and back. The strip itself is 4 miles and ends at the Stratosphere, but the bus goes past that and through the old downtown, too.  It's $5 for a whole day (just pay for the pass as you get on the bus) and seeing the strip at night is a must. I only did this for the first time last year. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_Vegas_Strip
7. I've never done it but have constantly heard that the last minute tickets to the Vegas shows are the way to go as they are heavily discounted. I think the deal is just walk up to the ticket window shortly before the show. Something to consider. 

We have gone to see the Telluride Mountain Film Festival for hte past few years because it comes to us. It will be in four locations in Vermont this year - Burlington, Waitsfield, South Royalton and Middlebury - during the month of November. Luckily I'll be back from DevConnections in time to see it in Waitsfield, which is near where I live. Here's the schedule.

One of my clients rolled out the Beta version of their big project this week - a public website with brilliant plumbing that allows end users to build their own interactive floorplans and maps. Drop your map or plan onto the site, upload pictures that represent views of different locations on the map/plan (a bedroom, a vista on a trail map), link them up, type in some descriptions and voila - you have a beautiful end product that any user can easily navigate. There are no refreshes to bring the various pictures up and I'm not talking AJAX style partial post backs. The photos just transparently change on the page.

It was a major undertaking and is all done in asp.net 2.0. I did not do the site, but mentored them through a good chunk of the process. It was wonderful to work with folks who were not only software smart, but their level of attention to the user experience was hugely impressive to me.

It's called MapsAlive.

Go check it out and it's a beta - so feedback is appreciated!

Here's a screenshot of the home page.

I was on a flight yesterday that required a re-boot of the plane's computer system. Huh? [Read more ... ]

[A DevLive post]

Rich and I went to a halloween costume party this past weekend. I did something I've always wanted to do - put wire in my braids to make them stick out so I can be Pippi Longstocking. My hair is a little long for doing this which made it hard to get through doorways and a little dangerous to walk around the party. Rich was a villanous Vampire.

The U.S. elections are Nov 7th. There are two big conferences next week in our community: TechEd Europe in Barcelona, Spain and DevConnections in Las Vegas, Nevada.

If you are leaving home for these events, don't forget to vote before you go!

In Vermont, absentee voting is allowed for 30 days prior to the elections. I'm not sure how this differs in other states. Here, you can get an absentee ballot in the mail from your town clerk (which needs to be back to the town clerk by Nov 6th, or to the polling place by 7pm on Nov 7th) or just go there and vote. I went to the town office and just sat down and voted there.

It didn't occur to me to do this until about a week ago even though I've known for a long time that I'd be gone. I just hadn't put two & two together!

In "blogtime" this is old news, but I just caught that John Lam is joining Microsoft to work on the CLR team, "to help bring the love of dynamic languages out to the statically typed heathens ". Great news!

I've been helping a client deal with a website that we think was designed by DOS programmers. [read more ...]

[A DevLife post]

Noah Coad was a  student ambassador and an MVP when I first met him a few years ago. You could easily describe him as a young, eager, bright and clean-cut kid.

So was Ian Ceicys!

I see both of them occasionally at Microsoft events such as the MVP Summit or TechEds, 

Both of these young men got sucked up by Microsoft when they graduated from college.

(I am feeling older with every sentence - egad!)

I don't think I have ever seen them together which is the likely reason that somehow they had blended into the same person in my mind.

When I saw Ian at the New England Code Camp last weekend and asked him why he was in Boston and how his Microsoft job was going, he gave all the right responses - it could have just as easily been Noah - which is the mistake I made. I even blogged about it. Oops.

So here I am putting their pics side by side and now the difference is a little more obvious! Sorry guys!