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Update: I've put a project and binaries up for the projectile demo. You can download at http://projectdistributor.n

I ran across a posting on the main geekswithblogs page. Aaron R had written about some projectile physics calcs. It reminded me of some graphics programs I wrote on my HP-48GX. So just for fun I used his sample calc to write a simple ballistics simulator: Just some simple math, but it was fun. Once I get a group created on Project Distributor, I'll put up the code. Update: I've put a project and binaries up, you can download at http://projectdistributor.n...

GeeksWithBlogs.net runs on the .Text ASP.NET weblog. .Text provides a couple of services to allow you to program against your blog: The SimpleBlogService and the MetablogAPI. SimpleBlogService is a .net web service, and MetablogAPI is an XML-RPC service. For the application I'm working on, I need the functionality in the latter. Chuck Cook has written a nice library for using XML-RPC in .NET projects. So I've been taking a look at that. There are three ways to implement an XML-RPC client with this...

I finished creating my virtual pc install for testing the betas of all the stuff I picked up at TechEd. I've got Windows Server 2003 R2, with IIS 6, SharePoint, SQL Server 2005, and Visual Studio 2005. I tried to get Visual Studio Team Server installed on it as well, but I had some problems with the data tier. Looking at other people's experience, this may be due to the beta not being very happy on a virtual machine...or could be because I missed a step. If you're installing VSTS, do it on a fresh...

Matt Z was also at Ingo's talk, and blogged the bit about web service perf increase that I didn't get written down

Thats it folks, Im outta here. TechEd 2005 was awesome. The event staff did a great job, the facilities were excellent, and the food was pretty good. Yay, I get to go home

Karthik (from our Mobilizer Madness group) found me at the computers, and dragged me away from blogging this morning's sessions to go eat lunch. After lunch, I went to: CSI448 Optimizing Scalabilty, Performance and Availability with Systems Built on the .NET Framework This was a great talk by Ingo Rammer, because as he said this was based on current technology rather than talking about how Microsoft Scalability Server 2008 is going to solve all of our problems. He works as an architecture trouble-shooting...

Designing Connected Systems with the .NET Framework and an Eye on the Future This session covered architecture, patterns, and philosophy to keep in mind when developing connected apps. It brought up some comples issues (at least from my level). Will have to ponder. Stuff like service oriented architecure, data contracts, Indigo...They're more than just words, and this presentation helped bring it all together. Heh, but not well enough for me to blog it yet. Developing High Performance Applications...

Well, maybe I'll get home tonight, if Arlene lets me

I realized that most news aggregators show only the title of my posts; so giving titles like “Tuesday Evening” are not useful. I've updated the titles of some posts to correct that

Today's entry will be short. I'll dump more out later. System.Transactions A way to use transactions in code. Can use SQL resources, or CLR resources. The general idea of a transaction is that if something fails in the transaction, then you can roll back the whole think w/o having made changes. For example, if you have this method: Transfer(fromAccount, toAccount, mAmount){ fromAccount.Withdraw(mAmount); toAccount.Deposit(mAmount);} You don't want to do the deposit operation if the withdraw operation...

That was it for classes. At 6:30 I joined something called Mobilizer Madness. It was a scavenger hunt, powered by PocketPCs connected to the network somehow. The PocketPC asked questions, and our team of 7 people had to run around the convention center and answer questions. The device worked great, and the game was fun. You got points for how fast you answered the question, and how many tries it took. One of the questions was: “The phone company wants to create a system where if you mis-dial...

[I've changed the title of this entry to be more useful than 'Wednesday Summary' -- Tim] So far, today's not been quite as dynamic and exciting as the other days. Dunno if it's the sessions, or I'm just wearing down. Introduction to Managed Development for Devices with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Presented by Neil Enns, this session covered changes in VS 2005 for mobile development. That means SmartPhone, PocketPC, and WinCE. Some highlights: VS 2005 will support SmartPhone 2003 and later, and PocketPC...

After the VS Team System session, I bopped back to the hotel to drop off my bag. Next to the hotel is an Indian Restaurant. Their Chicken Tikka Masala was very good. The waiter asked if I wanted it mild, medium, or spicy. I asked for spicy. When he came back with my plate, he said, “...and the Chicken Tikka Masala....SPICY! Bwaaaa haa ahahah!” Well, not really. But he thought it really loud. Like I said it was good. So then I went back to the convention center to attend the Avalon/XAML...

Phew, another long day. It started off with another keynote, this one by Paul Flessner. He spoke about upcoming stuff in Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005. Uh, there was a demo involving a battlebot powered by .NET compact framework, a network hub, and fireworks...oh yeah, and two servers running SQL Server. The point was to, rather elaborately, show off automatic failover built into SQL Server 2005. Weee. Let's see...they also showed off how much faster 2005 was compared to 2000; and how much...

I'll blog today's stuff later, but I wanted to dump out what I got from the BOF session on Avalon and XAML. Jean-Luc David, hosted/moderated this session. He doesn't work for Microsoft, so he doesn't have all of the details. However, a couple of MS guys were in the audience. Questions and discussion centered around XAML, deployment methods, WinForms vs. XAML, etc.. WinForms vs. XAML: They are two different things. You can host WinForms controls in a XAML app (window)? But this involves some sort...

One of the areas on the main floor is called “Cabana Sessions.” It's a bunch of tables, with one for almost each of all of the current and upcoming server, developer, and platform products. The tables are manned by a total of 500 Microsoft Team experts--these are the people who've worked on these products, or support them. You can walk up to any of them, and ask questions. Many of them have their laptops setup so you can run some code, or see how something works. So--If you have a question...

After the last session ended, I wandered around looking for the FedEx that was supposed to be in the convention hall...the load of shwag in my pack was killing me (that was all free stuff!). I stumbled into a small classroom off to the side...outside was a table with people giving away t-shirts and CDs, and a sign that said “Biztalk Loadfest”. Hmmm, ok. I'll grab a shirt and CD for Allen (hope an XL will fit!). Then I notice event staff taking some pizzas into the room. Mmmm, I'm hungry....

I attended the keynote, plus three sessions today. Here's a quick summary of points I found interesting: Steve Ballmer Keynote I blogged about this already, but you can watch the webcast yourself. Live Communication Server 2005 This is basically an enterprise IM server, with ability to interoperate with other company's IM servers, and public IM (MSN, Yahoo, AIM). If you want to have IM in your company, but don't want employees using public IM (and therefore possibly sharing sensitive info on public...

Lunch was wild--how do you feed 11,000 people in a short amount of time? Well, the lunch room was huge, maybe 4 football fields large. They had about 20 different buffet lines, so you could 'parallel process' and get your food quick. The food itself was pretty good, too. After munching, I made my way to the vender exhibits for a swag-fest...er, considered look at the various product offerings. (Ooo! Blinky lights!). You tend to get free stuff in exchange for letting them scan your badge barcode....

Just a quick note before I go grab lunch...my flight hit Orlando last night around 7:30pm. It was late leaving DFW due to weather. Anyway, I got here ok. My room's on the 16th floor of the hotel, so there's a great view. Florida seems much like Texas, but even greener and more water. I guess a lot of it is reclaimed swampland. Last night I met up with a guy from Univ. of Missouri. He had a car, so he offered to drive to dinner. Aboma's had lived in Austin for a while, so he wanted to get some mexican...

Here's my planning schedule for next week. There are so many interesting topics, it's difficult to choose. I've picked multiple sessions for each timeslot; so I'll have to figure out which session to attend. Monday, June 07 9:00 AM - 10:15 AM Opening Keynote 10:45 AM - 12:00 PM MBL251 What's New with MapPoint Web Service S 310 E 12:15 PM - 1:15 PM 1:30 PM - 2:45 PM CLI201 Building Smart Client Applications with .NET: The Future of Software Development S 330 3:15 PM - 4:30 PM ARC303 Planning a Global...

I've never been to a TechEd before...and I'm really looking forward to it. I'll try to keep this blog updated with anything of interest during the event. Afterwards, maybe it will evolve into a blog covering general .NET and technology issues as they relate to work