Patrick Wright has been working hard to line up more events based on the topics presented at the 2005 Betas Unleashed conference in May. I just got the following schedule in my e-mail today. Please make sure you sign up for the ones that you can attend. All the events will be held in the Microsoft offices in Salt Lake.

Aug 3rd 9:30-12:00
Data warehousing using SQL 2005
Jim Hill
Event ID: 1032279359
Link: http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?culture=en-US&eventid=1032279359

Aug 10th 09:30-12:00
Aaron Zupancic
.Net 2.0
Event ID: 1032279360
Link: http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?culture=en-US&eventid=1032279360

Aug 17th 09:30-12:00
Tjay Belt
Profiler and 2005 Tools
Event ID: 1032279405
Link: http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?culture=en-US&eventid=1032279405

Aug 24th 09:30-12:00
Pat Wright
DB Mirroring with 2005
Event ID: 1032279361
Link: http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?culture=en-US&eventid=1032279361

Aug 31st 09:30-12:00
Scott Golightly
SQL CLR
Event ID: 1032279362
Link: http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?culture=en-US&eventid=1032279362

Sept 7th 09:30-12:00
Jason Walker
Team System
Event ID: 1032279363
Link: http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?culture=en-US&eventid=1032279363

 

I have been going though my list of things to blog and came up with these links that I intended to blog bug hadn't yet.

Backups? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Backups! - If you don't mind a little bit of advertising there is a bunch of humorous content on backups and the importance of doing them at http://www.backuptrauma.com/video/default2.aspx The site is pushing backup to disk which is looking more and more feasible every day with the low cost of disks and their relative speed.

Adobe Illustrator to Avalon/XAML Exporter - Anyone who has seen the programs I write will know that I am graphically challenged. I have never used Adobe Illustrator but the whole idea of converting from that format to XAML intrigues me. You can read a blog announcement or watch a video about how this all works.

Connected Systems Developer Contest - This contest has been running for a while now but there is still time to sign up. With a grand prize of $50,000 USD you can bet that there are a lot of people wracking their brains on what they can do to create the greatest applications using the next generation tools from Microsoft. If you have a good idea go over to http://msdn.microsoft.com/devcompetition and register. Hurry, you only have until August 30 to register your idea. You can get the full list of categories and the official rules from the web site.

ASP.NET 1.1 to 2.0 Upgrade Center - Microsoft has set up an upgrade center for information on upgrading to ASP.NET 2.0. There is a video, answers to questions, and a tutorial avaliable at http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/migration/upgrade/default.aspx.

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.