ZogBlog

He's here, though I haven't seen him walking around. He just started a wiki for geek dinners. Sweet now I won't be stuck eating by myself. As usual I'm stuck way over at the New Otani while all the fun happens 4 streets over. :(

Scoble also points to a PDC flickr site. Maybe I should post my Channel 9 guy pic. It's over on my textamerica site (or it will be once my phone finishes uploading it).

More on the triathlon too.

Scoble just keeps on truckin'... I imagine him saying: "PDCr's refactor and ROLL out." [hint: think transformers] LOL

Tags: [PDC05]

After trying to find someone to eat with (since I'm here at the conference all alone), I finally called my dad who was born in LA. He knew nothing, so I asked the front desk at the New Otani. Some italian looking guy recommended a bunch of places... but I settled on the italian option (figuring hey - he IS italian and all).

Turns out it was a good choice. A short walk from the hotel and I was there. I had what was called the Bisticcine Pozzaiola. Basically it was filet mignon with tomato sauce. I had the bread with the olive oil to start, followed by caesar salad. After the main meal I decided to have a slice of tiramasu. It was great... but it was also the biggest piece I have EVER seen. I couldn't finish it. Grand total with tip: $44. No reimbursement here. This entire trip is OUT OF POCKET.

Sometimes you've got to live a little right?

Tags: [PDC05]

A few things I thought were interesting from this morning.

70% of all software projects fail. 80% if you're dealing with the Federal Government. I'm guessing it's 90% if dealing with the Military. My personal ratio is more like 60% while working for the Army (2 of 3 major apps I've worked with have been turned off. Both were exceptional pieces of engineering if I do say so myself... but one was OBE and the other was just a plain stupid user issue. Users refused to update their own phone numbers when they were shuffled through the organization. They figured it was an IT issue. Management never enforced this... in fact they actively went around my application (bypassing it's AD editing capabilities) and went to Exchange 5.5 (which was just replaced with AD+Exchange 2003) as the valid source. Bet they wish they had it now. Bastards.

SQL Express will come with SQL RS.

VS comes with an embedded version of SQL Express(?). I must have misunderstood this.

TFS will come with 5 free licenses (for small shops). I wonder if they mean that TFS is FREE for 5 users... or that you buy TFS and it comes with 5 CALs. Either way VSTS comes with ONE TFS CAL.

TFS uses SQL, which as you know is transacted, secured, clustered (can be) and is already included in the enterprise backups. VSS2005 uses the same broken file system approach.

A Visual Studio 2005 release candidate is due shortly (perhaps Tuesday after Gates keynote). TFS will hit B3 soon (which we already knew). TFS will be released in the Mar-Apr 2006 timeframe. VSTS will release with SQL2005 in November (also already known).

Now on to the VSTS Dev Edition demo (can you say CLASS DESIGNER!!!!).

Tags: [PDC05]

We started off with the Project Manager's view of TS. I only took three notes:

• Areas (Production, Development, Test) - near as I can tell these are the scm frameworks (branches?).
• Iterations (Alpha, Beta, RC) - these are for actual BUILD / iterations of your solution.
• Project Alerts - PMs can get project alerts for any changes or violations of the process (eg. MSF Agile).

I also noticed something interesting. When VS2005 has multiple tabs open, the selected tab's title is shown on the VS tab on the taskbar. I don't remember VS2003 doing this...

Oooh... Ice Cream! BRB

Tags: [PDC05]

One last note. I've stood in a line at an Apple store waiting to buy OS X 10.4... and bashed them for a sh*tty dev environment. Now I'm at a Microsoft dev conference... and using my PowerBook. Something's wrong with me. I just hope I don't get lynched. :p

Tags: [PDC05]

Since the Microsoft store was open selling everything (except SOFTWARE) I decided to pick up a few shirts. One is a baseball style Halo 2 shirt.. the other is a black shirt that simply says "geek." I tried to pick up a cool green shirt with Master Chief (from Halo 2) on it.. but they only had XXL/2XL. In other words, its freezing cold in the precons and all the shirts are made for REALLLY, really big FAT guys. But most important was the longsleeve hooded sweatshirt that I picked up because I'm freezing my b***s off. I tried to pick up a large but all they had was XL.

I guess they figure if you're a programmer you are so fat (from sitting on your a** all day) that the extra insulation keeps you warm. Right?

Anyway, it's time to start up again. This time I'll be warm. If you see me in 408AB (PRE05) - I'm in the middle wearing an oversized Red sweatshirt wearing a puple bracelet. Yep, it sounds gay. The bracelet is for entrance into the precons, and the sweatshirt is so I can feel my arms again.

Tags: [PDC05]

Some sort of triathlon slowed the shuttle down this morning... or so I'm told. It looked like a basic run from my vantage point.

Registration had been open for some time by the time I arrived... and a light breakfast was also being served (pastries, fruit). We got another bag and a PDC05 shirt... mostly junk mail in the bag, but a few cool things. Like a Channel 9 Guy! I too can take pictures of this guy all over the world. If I'm still at the same job later this year... this guy might need to get Combat/Hazard pay. :(

My precon session was rather boring this morning. Little of the content was new to me. I'm guessing the soup-to-nuts demo this afternoon will be more useful. More on that later. For now, its lunch time.

Female Update: At least one hot asian chick was in my session. WooHoo, ONE out of about 500. Ugh.

Tags: [PDC05]

In bed by midnight... sun up at 6a. Tried to sleep... woke up again at 7:15a. Finally alarm went off at 8a. Not the best sleep one could hope for... but then again my internal clock is probably 3 hours ahead.

Not sure what's going to happen with breakfast. I have to work downstairs to read the PDC sign about the shuttles. Maybe it has some more info. As for the conference center... the best they have is Starbucks (if they haven't started serving meals).

Last time (PDC 2003) in LA I was sick after the first 3 days. Hopefully I'll stay healthy and be able to hit the strip one time... maybe even goto one of the clubs (Keys?).

My pre-con: Software Development with Visual Studio Team Systems awaits.

PS. I forgot my cell charger... so I'm sans phone this week. Email is the best way to reach me as I should have my laptop with me... and wireless access is free at the conference center.

Tags: [PDC05]