According to the video posted at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/jul05/07-22LHMA.mspx the next version of the Windows Operating System (codename "Longhorn") will now be called Windows Vista. The video shows an announcement at some kind of show (the name badges on the people in the audience make it look like a conference) but not a lot of details. Microsoft Watch has posted a rumor here but no details. I look forward to seeing more about why they chose the name Vista and when the final release will be. I quickly scanned the Windows Vista page at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/default.mspx but didn't see anything more than a little bit of marketing and the promise that Beta 1 will be released August 3 with the final version coming in 2006.

There has been a lot of press lately about Microsoft AntiSpyware and the fact that they downgraded the cookies from Claria to suggest that you ignore them and leave them on your machine. I thought that I would weigh in on the issue with my opinion.

Let me state some of my observations on the issue:

1. This is a very politically charged issue. What one person calls a piece of spyware someone else calls a critical piece of their application. I don't think I have seen 2 different people describe spyware or adware the same way. What may seem to you like a very obvious definition may not meet someone else's definition.
2. Microsoft is a very large company. It is possible that at some level they are negotiating with Claria but in another part of the company they could/would know nothing about that. I find it hard to believe that someone high up in Microsoft would tell one of the "knowledge workers" what they are planning so I believe them when they say that there was no undue influence to downgrade the Claria cookies.
3. I really hate spyware/adware/trojan horses/viruses/etc. but in the world we live in they are a fact of life just like crime, terrorism, and really stupid drivers. It would be nice to think that we could get rid of them but as long as there is money to be made or power to be gained with spyware/adware there will be unscrupulous people who will try to profit from it.
4. I think that Microsoft might be looking at the GAIN technology from Claria to help them catch up to some of their competitiors in the online advertising space. It makes good business sense for Microsoft to gain access to the technology and even to the data that has been collected. From a strictly objective standpoint I have to say I can understand why Microsoft would be interested. From a fairness point I don't like the idea. By even talking to these guys (and I don't know for sure that they are or are not) it seems to legitimize what they have done. It seems to violate the "cheaters never prosper" rule.
5. Whether we like it or not there are all sorts of situations where we are being observed to help advertisers. Some examples are the information that TiVo collects. In their privacy statement they are clear that they collect aggregate data about what is watched. This came to the forefront after the SuperBowl "wardrobe malfunction" when they reported a lot of people viewing the halftime show. Also I have heard that a lot of stores use their survelance cameras to not only watch for shoplifters but to determine the places that people go in the store so they can place the products that they want you to buy there. I have noticed that around here they put something that looks like a garden hose across the street hooked up to a machine that counts how many vehicles cross it. A few months back there was a bilboard along the freeway touting how many cars passed by that point each year. In each of these cases someone is collecting anonymous data about where we go and what we do.
6. In a lot of cases we are willing to give up our annonymity in order to gain something that we value. A big example of this are the store loyalty cards where we give up our personal information and in return get discounts on the items in the store.

So, what do I think should be done? Well here are my by no means original suggestions:

1. I realize that Microsoft can't let us know who they might be negotiating with but they could do a better job of showing how they have separated the parts of the company that are responsible for security from any other politics in the company. If they did a better job of showing how they are separated (and not just when something like this comes up) then a lot of the rumors would be nipped in the bud.
2. I would like to see more choices for me as a user. Let me see what you have put in as defaults and let me change them. I would love to be able to go in and tell it that I don't want cookies from Claria, doubleclick.net, or a bunch of other companies.
3. Along the same categories I would like to see information from "spynet". That is whre you send your choices on what to allow and what not to allow. If I don't have time to look up a particular company or if I just don't know whether I should allow something to run I would like to see a graph or something saying that 18% of the people let it run and 82% blocked it. Of course that is not foolproof but it would help to make a decision of the percentages were skewed to one side or the other.
4. I would love to see the AntiSpyware tied into the browser settings. One of my complaints about tools like AdAware is that once I tell it to delete a cookie it doesn't automatically block that cookie so it will probably show up agian unless I go and tell IE to block it.
5. I would like some way to move my cookie preferences from one machine to another without having to export parts of the registry and import them onto another machine. I notice that I get different cookies on my work and home machines. I would like to combine the settings to block and allow cookies so I don't have to keep setting it on other machines.

So I don't think that this will change the debate or the world for that matter but I do hope that I have been clear and very understandable. As always let me know your opinion.

I just wanted to take some time to say Happy Birthday to my country and I hope that those of you who had the day off have had a safe and enjoyable day. I was fortunate enough to be able to do some yard work and then spend most of the day watching some movies and just relaxing. I know I should have been busy learning new stuff about ASP.NET 2.0, SQL Server 2005, SharePoint Portal Server, or BizTalk but it was just nice to be able relax and enjoy myself.

Microsoft has posted a free book on VB.NET 2005. It looks like you can download the chapters in .PDF format. You can get the book at http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/whidbey/introto2005/.

Here is the description from their web site:

Get a focused, first look at the features and capabilities in Microsoft Visual Basic 2005, Visual Studio 2005, and .NET Framework 2.0. If you currently work with Visual Basic 6, these authors fully understand the adoption and code migration issues you’ll encounter. They’ll step you through a quick primer on .NET Framework programming, offering guidance for a productive transition. If you already work with .NET, you’ll jump directly into what’s new, learning how to extend your existing skills. From the innovations in rapid application development, debugging, and deployment, to new data access, desktop, and Web programming capabilities, you get the prerelease insights and code walkthroughs you need to get productive right away.

There is a short review of SQL Server 2005 by Gartner at http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?doc_cd=129042. It is mostly favorable to SQL Server 2005. My favorite quote is "Gartner believes SQL Server 2005 will, overall, have been worth the wait." There is not a lot of technical depth but still it is good to see some positive press.

I just realized that in all the excitement and business that is coming home from TechEd I didn't blog about my last day there.

I only made it to 1 session. That was WEB 327 - Best Practices for UI with ASP .NET 2.0.
Using XHTML and CSS will make your pages easier to create and maintain.
ContentPlaceHolder goes onthe master page, ContentControl goes on the detail page.
When you declare the master page in the web.config you loose some intellisense support and some designer support.
Change the master page file in the preinit event.
Use themes to change visual appearance, use master pages to change content.
You can use a menu with only static display, images, and CSS to make a tab bar.
Themes can be set a t the page or web.config level. You can swap the theme in the preinit event.
StyleSheetThemes show up in the designer, themes do not.
csszengarden.com is a good example of changing display using CSS

If you have listened to a TechEd talk and thought you might want to have some time to ask more questions this might be your chance. A bunch of the RDs and other TechEd speakers have donated an hour of their time to be auctioned off on E-Bay. The proceeds go to the continuing releif efforts in south east asia and you get a chance to ask questions of an industry leader and very smart person.

Check out the auction at http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5587400881

We finished filming the last of the GrokTalks. It has been a lot of hard work and I think that the hardest part, translating the video and sound from the camera and the video capture of the presenter's screen into a single, professional looking video.

We had a lot of good sessions. There were talks about reporting services, master pages in ASP .NET, code snippets, and XAML, to name a few. We had another session in spanish on reporting services. Even though I don't speak spanish I was surprised at how well I could follow the demos.

I hope this becomes a tradition for the RDs to create these little talks anywhere and everywhere that we can get together. For me I felt like I was getting to see "the best of TechEd" in little 10 minute chunks. The best thing was that with only 10 minutes there was little chance of suffering from "death by PowerPoint slide" like you sometimes feel after sitting through 3 or 4 hour long PowerPoint sessions.

The attendee party at Universal Studios Florida was a lot of fun. It is always great to be able to see friends and people you have worked with in the past.

I spent most of most of my day in the Regional Director booth helping out with the GrokTalks. It was a great day. From hearing Billy Hollis preach to us about our code addictions, to seeing Scott Hanselman go through 10 utilities in 10 minutes, or Vishwas Lele telling us the secrets to AJAX programming they were all good sessions.

I even got to do my GrokTalk session. It was a lot harder than I had thought trying to look at the camera and not at the people behind the camera doing their own thing. I went a little long but hopefully with editing (I messed up one demo and went back and started from scratch on it) I will be under 10 minutes.

A great big thanks goes out to J. Michael Palermo IV who took over my duties on the production crew part way through the day so I could both do my session and take a break.

Scott Stanfield is working feverishly to edit the video and get it out there. We tried posting some of it but it looks like the firewall at the convention center is blocking us.

I had an experience with the people who "really run TechEd", the guys who let you into the meal hall and direct you to the appropriate line to get your food. (There was an article about it a while back that was very funny but I can't seem to find it right now). Scott Stanfield and I went to lunch but he forgot his badge in the booth. The guy at the door actually ran to catch up with us and tell us that Scott couldn't come in without a badge. I know the guy was just doing his job but for crying out loud, would Microsoft have missed one free meal? And besides, how was Scott supposed to get in the building without a badge?

In the evening I went to a Birds Of a Feather (BOF) session on developing as a non-administrator. It actually had a lot more discussion than the one I hosted last year. It seems like there are more people trying to use least privilege accounts.

The day ended with a party for "influencers" at a local night club. I am not sure this was such a good idea given the fact that there were about 200 men for each woman so there was very little dancing going on. When I walked in and heard the loud music I realized that I had turned into my dad complaining about the young people and their music. Oh well, I guess it was bound to happen some time .

Time to get ready for another exciting day of GrokTalks and other TechEd mayhem.