Rants

WWDC Logistics Suck! Viva la TechEd Organization

Chris Haaker — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 04:18:57 GMT

Okay, I didnt know what to expect this being my first Apple WWDC. I am a vetran of ten Microsoft TechEd’s and a couple MECs. For the most part, Microsoft has cold the logistics of feeding, moving and running over ten thousand people around in an orderly fashion. People would joke about the strictness of the lunch ushers or the “soda and cookie nazis” that guarded the coolers and treats until just the right moment. We laughed at the guards that made us go a certain way and managed the ebb and flow of the geeky crowds. Having been at the Apple WWDC for one day, I laugh no more.

To say that there is no control over anything here would be generous. To wait through the ritualistic Jobsian hazing for this morning’s keynote was a case in painful point. My flight was late last night and I couldnt register on Sunday. Registration opens at 7am, three hours before the keynote. Even though I know the Apple fanboys are famous for lining up hours ahead of time, surely I say, registration would be a simple affair. Ha! How wrong I was. People waiting for the keynote seating and those waiting for registration are put together in one line. This I had to finally just accept as none of the guards or ushers at the front door could confirm this for me. I was told to just get in the big line. Later, some of my line mates confirmed this is indeed where I should be. Then the condensation of the line starts. As you move up you are instructed to make a line four across and the mass starts to condense. Then you are allowed in to the building in groups. At this point, you can continue on to wait in line or register. If you register you lose your place in line and have to then re-join the line wherever it happens to be when you are done registering. You are reminded not to lose your badge – you will not get another.

The way food is distributed is a nightmare. It is just wheeled out to the masses and you would think they just threw one hundred pounds of red meat to five thousand starving tigers. At 3pm, after a morning of nothing but coffee and little dixie cups of water, they put out Odwalla juices, cookies, fruit and chocolate. Chaos insued as people fought and shoved to get to the juices and snacks. People were literally shoving and pushing to grab a juice or a bag of chips. It was a repeat when they rolled out drinks and hot hors d'oeuvres at the reception later that evening. I didnt even stay. I couldnt find anything redeeming about the mess.

Lining up to get in to sessions isnt any better. Most of them fill up and you have to get in queue as soon as the previous session ends if you want to get in. There are plenty of Apple “staff” around, but not many get involved to make things a good experience.

Apple, send some people up to visit Brian’s team at Microsoft that runs TechEd. Take notes.

And lastly, why the top-secret, CIA type security at all the sessions with regards to giving out information and guarding what is presented? Again, Microsoft beats you hands-down with their transparency, open blogging by staff and information sharing. There arent many (if any) things they wont share and discuss with you, especially at their top technical conference. Community, learning and sharing are key examples they set.

Technorati Tags: Apple WWDC,WWDC,Apple,Microsoft,TechEd,Microsoft TechEd

The Quality of This Site

Chris Haaker — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 20:22:25 GMT

As I was looking over the main feed and wishing I could be a fly on the wall when D'Arcy takes back that PCMCIA card - I noticed there are a lot of Microsoft MVPs blogging on this web site. Now, I know the measure of the man is not MVP membership, but by and large these people are very bright and know their stuff. Out of the top 13 posters by volume, only five of them are not Microsoft MVPs. And there are a ton (technical unit of measurement) more on the list. Jeff, you have quite a community here. PS This is not a manufactured post submitted in an attempt to keep my post numbers up ...

Problems With Zoho Notebook

Chris Haaker — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 13:22:23 GMT

I am in a training class all this week in Toronto at the EMC office in Burlington, ON for EmailXtender. Usually I am a well prepared traveler having consulted for many years. For some reason though I forgot my power adapter for my laptop on this trip. I sought out the local Best Buy to see what a universal charger (like the model from Kennsington) would set me back - Yikes! $125.00 CAD. I have my Blackberry so I thought I could make it through still having email and internet access from the device. One thing I was not looking forward to, however, was taking pen and paper notes. I am a OneNote junkie! I remembered Google Notebook and Zoho Notebook and having used Google's version on occasion decided to give the Zoho product a spin. While the results were overall positive, there where definitely some show stoppers IMO that will keep me from using it more.

1. Other shortcuts and links can high jack your browser window where you are taking notes. This happened to me after I had not saved for awhile. There doesn't seem to be an auto-save in the background every time you add new data as there is in OneNote. In OneNote you never have to do a File -> Save. I lost a half page worth of notes.

2. I cannot find a way to get the data *out* of Zoho Notebook so I can distribute it to my co-workers. You can publicly publish the pages, but I don't want to do that. It seemed simple enough to cut and paste the data from the last two days in to a Word doc, but Zoho will not let me. Some inferences on the forums point to the version of IE being the problem but I have tried it on IE6 SP1, IE7 and FF2 in XP SP2, Windows 2000 Server and Windows Vista Ultimate. No dice in any combination of browser and OS.

3. When you re-select Zoho Notebook as the active window and click on the page to begin typing the cursor always jumps to the top middle of the page and I have to use the arrow or page down key to get my cursor down to the bottom of the page where I was before I moved my focus to another window.

4. Can someone say numbering? Bullets? Bold? Italic? And make the default tool for a new page the text tool and not the drawing tool. It took me about 15 minutes to figure out why I couldn't type on the page! I think 90% of the people will be typing ...

5. Import OneNote files in to Zoho Notebook. I am NOT doing all that work over.

6. Spell-check. Not as much of a problem in FF2 - but still ...

7. Technical support. I submitted a question to the support forum yesterday around 6PM EST and it is still awaiting approval for submission the next day at 9AM EST. This seems like an unacceptable delay.

Update: Google Notebook has basic formatting like bold, italic and other. But alas, no numbering or bullets. It does, however, auto save my work every few minutes for me.

Boycott the RIAA in March

Chris Haaker — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 13:36:00 GMT

Gizmodo is proposing March as "Boycott the RIAA Month." I, for one, am happy to join in. There arent many groups I am in disagreement with when it comes to trying to increase their revenue income, but the MPAA and RIAA have been so blind to making a system for fair digital consumption of their respective media for America that it boggles the mind! They could both be rolling in more money than they could ever want (well, maybe not that much) if only they would inact a no DRM or more DRM-friendly system. Of course, the only language they speak is $$$ so let's hit them where it counts.

Technorati tags: Gizmodo, RIAA, MPAA, Boycott the RIAA

And Now Back to Exchange ...

Chris Haaker — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 16:55:00 GMT

A week out of the blogosphere feels good - and a refreshing way to recharge the batteries! Of course, now I have to wade through 700+ news items. I have not removed my laptop from its bag since December 22nd. It was hard at times, but I made it.

I noticed a lot of people are getting their blogs in a knot over Microsoft giving out some review laptops loaded with Windows Vista Ultimate to select bloggers. I wasnt selected so it is hard for me to be anything but envious. On the other hand, I find it hard to critisize the fruits of others hard labor. Will their view be influenced or slanted? Only time will tell. It would be extremely short sighted of them to compromise their blog's integrity for a laptop. In the long run reader's are savvy enough to tell posturing from the truth and then they will have no traffic or credability. Will they fabricate good reviews or old back on criticism? Again, I think no, they wont. I dont think (hope) they would trade a few not-from-the-heart blog posts for the next ~~gift~~ review unit to come down the river.

The week between now and January 8th when my beloved Ohio State Buckeyes will dismantle the University of Florida Gators seems like an eternity. Why the extra week? Why? You are only allowing more time for a student-athelete to do something ~~stupid~~ ill-advised and get themselves disqualified from the big game.

PS Notre Dame will continue its streak of losing in bowl games.

I have about five extra pounds to shed thanks to the holidays. My committment is to lose 45 lbs. by my birthday in June. I swear it! :) I have had success in the past, but I have also had success in putting it all back on. I have to be strong of mind and body to make this work.

And now Back to Exchange! Exchange 2007 is now available for download on MSDN and TechNet Plus Direct.

Technorati tags: Exchange 2007, MSDN, TechNet Plus, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Buckeyes, Acer, Vista, Windows Vista

Flickr Down and Out

Chris Haaker — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 14:39:00 GMT

Something weird is going on over at Flickr. Could just be a blip, perhaps something has crashed? All the photos in my blog linked to my Flickr account cannot be viewed and when I sign in I get the resulting screenshot . . . odd.

Technorati tags: Flickr, Flickr Outage

Michigan is No. 2 - So What?

Chris Haaker — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 13:18:00 GMT

Disclaimer: I am a die-hard Ohio State Buckeyes fan.

Everyone in the country who loves college football is talking about this and yet, I feel compelled to put my two cents in. It is most likely due to this being the day before Thanksgiving - who wants to actually work? I wont recount every argument I have heard on ESPN, ESPN Radio and in the press. There is a good summary of all the salient points here.

Plus, I really agree with his reasons for not having the rematch. If the unthinkable happened and OSU loses in the desert, who is the number one team? Your chocolate is in my peanut butter! No, your peanut butter is on my chocolate! I also agree with ESPN Radio's Mike Golic: it may be the right game, but it wont be the best game. USC or Florida would deliver the best game.

Hey Michigan: Congratulations on the Rose Bowl!

Goodbye RSS Bandit, Hello FeedDemon

Chris Haaker — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 20:10:00 GMT

Now that I have made the switch to Windows Vista full time I have had to re-think my RSS reader. I originally switched to RSS Bandit after being a long time FeedDemon user one day when FeedDemon pushed me over the edge with its activation. I work as a consultant and systems engineer and I love to beta test software and generally experiment. As such, I rebuild my laptop often. One to many times as far as FeedDemon was concerned. The first time it happened their support team was quick to clean it up. The next time it was weeks and in frustration I switched to a free RSS reader. I had heard good things about RSS Bandit and I wasn't disappointed. It is a fine reader and I loved it. Until I switched to Windows Vista. It has an annoying, and to its credit, documented bug that causes it to freeze every time you access a menu. Dare says it will be fixed in the next version code-named Jubilee. In the meantime, however, it is driving me nuts. If anyone has a meantime fix I would love to hear it! Otherwise, I am back to FeedDemon for now.

Technorati tags: FeedDemon, RSS Bandit, RSS Reader, Windows Vista

WTF - Podcast Management in Zune

Chris Haaker — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 20:41:00 GMT

I know, I ranted on the Zune already, but how the heck did the Zune team overlook building in some kick-butt pod\blogcast management and subscription tools in to the Zune player and software? It seems glaringly apparent to me that the only qualification for being on the team for this device was a love of obscure indie music and the color brown. Pod\blogcasts are no longer cutting edge, but a must-have, especially for an IT Pro looking for a device that can help him consume job-relevant content in his downtime or while traveling. Strike two Zune!

Another Blogging Tool - BlogMailr

Chris Haaker — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 15:22:00 GMT

Not too long ago there was only one blogging tool that I felt great about – BlogJet.

I used it for a long time and was very happy. There wasn’t anything I was especially displeased with. Then some more blogging tools made their way on to my radar. From Microsoft. Generally, I will give any product from Microsoft a shot. I use a Microsoft OS. I am a (largely) Microsoft-centric systems engineer and technical manager. The first was during the beta testing of the Microsoft Office System 2007. My favorite application, OneNote 2007, introduced a “blog this” feature. I enjoyed the fact that blogging from OneNote allowed me to keep all of my posts in a notebook. They were then searchable, reproducible and handy. Soon after, the Word 2007 team introduced the same functionality. You could define your blogging provider from within Word 2007 and compose a new “document” (blog post) and then post it to said provider. OneNote 2007 could even compose the entry and then pass it on to Word’s blogging engine for posting. Nice.

I used it and was happy. Then the Microsoft Windows Live team introduced Windows Live Writer.

This was the most complete blogging tool that Microsoft has released. It has a robust and active community of users developing plug-ins as well as all the features (once said plug-ins are loaded) that BlogJet had (previous to version 2.0). Now enter BlogMailr. This is a service that allows you to set up an account for your blogging provider at their website and in turn assigns to you a custom email address. Mail sent to this address goes straight to your blog as a post. Many providers are supported (except .text for some reason – please correct this) including Spaces and Community Server. So this blog comes courtesy of Microsoft Outlook 2007. Of course, I have Outlook set up to use Microsoft Word 2007 as my editor so I guess it really comes from there. But Word has blogging built in! Doh. Should I uninstall BlogJet and Live Writer finally? Only time will tell . . .