When I saw ‘Macallan Windows CE release Due this Summer’ from Mary Jo Foley’s Microsoft watch, I laughed. “Funny, “ I thought, “that can’t be a reference to The Macallan “ – a high end Scotch Whiskey (I don’t drink whiskey but I once had a job that required me to be in the know). It was clear that this is indeed, the reference as I saw further in the article that the code name for the current version of Windows CE is McKendric.
Monthly Archives: March 2004
Hey Verizon – Please talk to Robert Hurlbut and Sam Gentile!
This is the third month in a row I have had trouble paying my Verizon Wireless bill on line. Even the pay by phone method had me going around in circles before I gave up and pressed “0”. It took me over 10 minutes to finally find out from someone that they were updating the systems (on a monday morning? must have been some problems, poor I.T. folks!!) and just gave up and am putting my check in the mail.
I think that the project that Robert and Sam have been working on (bcgi Mobile Guardian) might help Verizon out…
Great Pro & Con lessons on the GAC
To me, the best education is gained when two great and knowledgable minds debate.
Here are Chris Sells and Ted Neward on the pros & cons of the GAC. Chris is talking about not using the GAC and Ted heartily disagrees with a lot of Chris’ points (though he heartily agrees with some as well.) Listen and learn, folks!
update Steven Smith adds some valuable insight to the conversation.
Who to market Tablets to??
From my previous post: Microsoft and Tablet PC manufacturers have a hard road ahead of them. Who should they be targetting? Developers? (yes) Consumers? (iffy) Corporations? (yes yes yes).
IF IF they want the consumer market, that will be the rockiest road. I had a long talk with a friend who is a passionate tablet pc end-user – not a developer and not using custom apps. Just using it as her main computer. Her advice is this: target the 40+ crowd. Target the crowd that wrote all of their college theses by hand (before they sat down at a typewriter to make it legible). The crowd that does not type 100 words a minute on a computer. The crowd that travels and has to work on planes (in coach, with no room for a keyboard).
I’m sure she would be MORE than happy to talk to the marketers.
As for marketing to the developers, Lora says that Microsoft still missed a big opportunity at MDC : “Judging by the number of people in the hands-on labs and in the sessions I’d say that had the Tablet PC been given a more prominent spot in the conference the group could have accomplished even more.”
Lora Heiny MDC Wrapup and Showing Tablets to PDA Developers
Thought I suggest reading her entire post , this part was the most interesting to me:
”I was very pleased to see that though many believed the myth that Tablet PCs are just a big PDA that by the time they used it and saw what was being done that they understood that the Tablet PC is really an extension of standard Windows XP in a highly portable design. Many asked if this is simply the future direction of all Windows clients.”
Microsoft and Tablet PC manufacturers have a hard road ahead of them. Who should they be targetting? Developers? (yes) Consumers? (iffy) Corporations? (yes yes yes).
More thoughts but they deserve their own post… watch for my next one. (who to market tablets to…)
DevDays and the last ski day at Mad River Glen??
I went today to Mad River for the last hurrah. It was just like one of those great spring days in college where you just have to cut class and go play frisbee and drink beer (back in the old days when the drinking age was 18) on the college green. A day of sheer sun, joy and new found freedom after a long, long winter. And slushy snow and lots of bare spots. Nevertheless, the parking lot was completely filled, there was a long line on the single and the deck was jam packed with happy people enjoying the 50 degree weather and the sun.
 | I took one last glorious run for the season then hung out on the deck eating a burger. I was in disguise – braids and a bandana – good little hippie tele chick gear. After a few minutes one of the guys sitting near me says, “Excuse me, but did you give a talk on .NET at DevDays in Hartford?” LOL! What a funny small world. This is Vermont, I’m 7 miles from my house and 4 hours from Hartford. |
Database Maintenance Plans for the developer
The latest issue of SQL Server Magazine has an article by Vermont.NET member Roman Rehak (and PASS Track Chair & Speaker and DevTeach Track Chair & Speaker and and and…). The article is called Inside Database Maintenance Plans. According to Roman’s weblog, “the main target audience is beginner-level DBAs, but it should also be useful to developers that are responsible for setting up maintenance plans on customer sites since many of them sort of fall into that category, although not always by choice. The article also discusses modifying runtime behavior of maintenance plans programmatically and a few workarounds around the existing bugs in DB Maintenance Plans. You have to be a SQL Magazine subscriber to be able to read the article [online].
Last Day at Mad River – sniff sniff
3/27: After some fantastic powder skiing early in the week, spring has arrived. With last night’s rain and today’s warm temperatures, we have lost a great deal of snow on the mountain. Forecasts are calling for more unfavorable weather next week, so we have decided to close for the season after skiing tomorrow, Sunday, March 28th. Tomorrow we are expecting sunshine from mid-morning on and temperatures in the 50s, so we’re looking forward to one more great day of spring skiing and a great end-of-the-season celebration! Tomorrow the Single Chair will be open until 4:30 pm, we’ll have a BBQ at lunchtime and live music on the deck from 3-6 PM, plus all season passes will be honored! Tomorrow we’ll start off the day skiing on at least 24 of our 45 trails with variable spring conditions, primarily wet granular. If the snow sets up enough with tonight’s forecasted cold temperatures, hopefully we will be able to reopen most of the closed expert terrain for some great spring corn skiing!
I don’t think Rich and I have any plans for searching out more snow at Tuckerman’s or anything like that this year – so it’s probably best to just start getting my bikes tuned up and dig out my paddling gear (well – not until the water warms up!!)
Why I will stick with my stable PDC bits over the Tech Preview
I would love love love to look at the newer bits but after reading Rick Strahl’s very trustworthy blog on his experience with them, I’ll just leave the PDC bits on my box for now, thank you very much.
Update: in my comments, Bliz suggests using VPC. I’m a VPC “never-ever“ and don’t want to go through Rick’s continued agony: http://west-wind.com/weblog/posts/332.aspx
Google your FIRST name?
You’ve GOT to be kidding me. Robert Scoble mentions in a post on searching for people that if you google “Robert” he comes up second (well 3rd in my search – but damned impressive). So just out of curiousity – well, I came up on page three – after a few Julia Childs a few more Julia Roberts and a heck of a lot of other Julia’s. It was just funny to see. Now Avonelle Lovhaug, she’s got a good google first name! She comes out on top. Shelley Powers is a page one hit though she does have to compete with a poet and that Frankenstein author. Halley Suitt– A#1 Halley. Rory Blyth gets a first page, but is topped by Rory Gallagher and the phenomenal Rory Block. Werner Vogels even eeks it onto the bottom of page one for Werner’s (glad to see one of my favorite director’s there too.) Okay, so these are not TOTALLY common names, but ROBERT is not that unique! Anyway that was a silly use of my time.