On Monday Microsoft announced that they had added 3-D maps to their mapping service. I was curious about it so I decided to see what the fuss is about. Maybe some day I will get to see it but not today :-( So here is what my experience was like.

1. I read the press release that said that said only certain cities have 3-D maps. No surprise, Salt Lake City is not one of them. Oh, well, I can always look at Las Vegas or another city that I have been in to see what the experience would be like.

2. I go to the site and search for a hotel on the strip. I then click on the 3D icon on the floating tool bar. I am presented with a pop-up window that tells me I don't have the software installed. I think to myself didn't the press release highlight that this is better than Google earth because you don't have to go to a separate application. I continue reading and find that it is going to install an ActiveX control. I have a bad feeling about this because I don't run as administrator on my machine and therefore installing ActiveX controls or any software for that matter usually involves starting a new application. I decide to forge ahead.

3. I download and save setup.exe. I use makemeadmin to open a command prompt with administrative privileges and run setup.exe. I am shown a dialog that a file is downloading. When prompted I decide to run the .msi file. It asks me a few questions and then fails because I am not an administrator. Apparently it started in another process than the setup.exe was running under.

4. Download VirtualEarth3D.msi and save it to disk. From the command prompt with administrative privileges I run the setup. This time it all appears to work.

5. Click on the 3D icon again. Get an error that acceleration is not turned on and a pop-up help window actually on the correct topic. So far about the only thing that works like I would expect/hope it to.

6. Look at the first option that asks me to run dxdiag. Fortunately I haven't closed my command prompt so I can run it. I look and on the VMWare virtual machine that I am trying to install this on DirectDraw acceleration is turned on but Direct 3D Acceleration isn't even available as an option. I guess they haven't gotten around to virtualizing that hardware yet.

7. Give up, blog the experience, and look forward to installing it on another machine that is not a virtual machine and for which I have an administrative login.

On the whole I know I should cut Microsoft some slack since it is a beta but having to download the .msi file separately and run it seems like a problem. I know I have installed other programs that have a setup.exe that downloads something else from the Internet and they have worked correctly.

I am also hoping that somewhere down the road Microsoft might change the requirements and allow the program to run even if hardware support for 3D acceleration is not available. I realize that it will make it slow but I feel that is a better solution than locking me out of seeing the program run. I may be engaging in wishful thinking, however as Vista will start making powerful graphics cards mainstream.

Yesterday Microsoft and Novell announced that they are going to work together to make Windows and SUSE Linux work together. The major points are that they will collaborate on translators for office documents and make efforts to make web services that will allow virtual environments to work together. The biggest item is the announcement that they will not seek to enforce their patents on each other. I am not sure what that means to Red Hat or other Linux distributions since they could be opening themselves up to trouble if they copy "protected" code from SUSE.

You can find the press release at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/nov06/11-02MSNovellPR.mspx.

Haven’t had the time to look at LOVE lately? Our LOVE Guru’s are here to help guide you towards what’s new with Live, Office, Vista and Exchange…

Now is the time!  Gather your laptop and power cable and get your dose of LOVE!

Please join us for a half day workshop on Windows Vista Application Compatibility and Deployment Tools where LOVE Guru’s will help you install Vista and Office 2007.  This event, specifically created for IT professionals and Developers, will take place on November 17th from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm.  We have partnered with Fujitsu LOVE Guru’s to provide expert Vista  content using the new Windows Vista and Office 2007!  Fujitsu  is the experts with regard to Windows Vista and Application compatibility. Fujitsu has been working with Windows Vista with Microsoft product teams and customers since the early stages. This event is targeted for IT Professionals and there will be an overview of the Vista Operating System. 

Registration:   http://www.msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032313827&culture=en-US

Later the same afternoon on November 17th from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. we will hold a more Developer focused event to cover the Application Compatibility Toolkit, .Net Framework 3.0 and Office 2007 development.  We have partnered with Neudesic LOVE Guru’s to provide expert developer content using the new platform that Windows Vista and .NET 3.0 provide!  The developers at Neudesic are the experts with regard to .NET 3.0 and have been working on .NET 3.0 solutions with customers since the early stages.  Their staff is hands-on and ready to share their wealth of knowledge!

Registration: http://www.msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032313832&culture=en-US

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to get a jump start on the platform technologies from Microsoft coming out by end of this year!
 
Registration is required! If you would like to attend both events please register for both using the separate links above. Seats are limited!
  
Event Details:
 
When:
Friday, November 17, 2006
9:00 AM – 4:00 PM
 
Where:
Microsoft Corporation 
123 Wright Brothers Drive, Suite 100
Salt Lake City, UT 84116
801-257-6400

http://www.microsoft.com/about/companyinformation/usaoffices/Desertmtn/SaltLakeCity.mspx 
 
Vista Install Checklist:

• You must provide a qualified machine to Install Vista
• All important data has been backed up! 
• PC has Intel/AMD processor at 1GHz or higher
• PC has a minimum of 512MB of RAM
• PC’s video adapter is AGP4x/8x or PCIe with a minimum of 64MB of RAM
• PC’s hard disk has a minimum of 15GB of free space
• PC has a DVD-ROM drive

You can find more information about Vista compatibility here:  Windows Vista

Or if you chose to run Windows Vista as a Virtual PC please down load:  Microsoft Virtual PC 2007

Please ensure you have a DVD reader.

This was in my e-mail yesterday.

Understanding The SQL Server 2005 Pillars - A Refresher
Thursday, November 30, 2006  9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Salt Lake City, Utah
Join us for a day as we take you on an educational journey through the key pillars of SQL Server 2005. The development, management, and business intelligence pillars of SQL Server 2005 provide a powerful one-stop-shop for enterprise customers' applications, data management, and analytics platforms.

From the registration page at http://www.microsoft.com/events/EventDetails.aspx?CMTYSvcSource=MSCOMMedia&Params=%7eCMTYDataSvcParams%5e%7earg+Name%3d%22ID%22+Value%3d%221032314370%22%2f%5e%7earg+Name%3d%22ProviderID%22+Value%3d%22A6B43178-497C-4225-BA42-DF595171F04C%22%2f%5e%7earg+Name%3d%22lang%22+Value%3d%22en%22%2f%5e%7earg+Name%3d%22cr%22+Value%3d%22US%22%2f%5e%7esParams%5e%7e%2fsParams%5e%7e%2fCMTYDataSvcParams%5e

Summary

Did you miss the SQL Server 2005 Launch last November? Does your company wait to embrace products until after the first service pack? Perhaps you are an Oracle professional and want to get introduced to the SQL Server 2005 product suite. No matter your situation we invite you to join us for a day as we take you on an educational journey through the key pillars of SQL Server 2005. The development, management, and business intelligence pillars of SQL Server 2005 provide a powerful one-stop-shop for enterprise customers' applications, data management, and analytics platforms.

We'll provide breakfast and lunch - you just bring your questions.

Details

With Daylight Saving Time (DST) set to end tonight there has been some discussion about what will happen next year when DST will start earlier and end later. As a long time reader of the RISKS Digest I can attest that there always seem to be problems with the timing (happening too early or too late in some part of the world) or with processes that are set to run around 2:00 a.m. that either don't run or run twice. I suspect that tonight will be no different. Microsoft has release information about how they plan to update current operating systems for the change in the US. According to the article at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/timezone/dst2007.mspx it sounds like they will release a single patch some time in the future that will update for the US and any other changes world wide.

And just in case you haven't been reminded/nagged enough, don't forget to change the batteries in your smoke detectors.

Yesterday the CTP 6 version of Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals CTP 6 was posted for download. I have been using and loving the tool. You can go to http://blogs.msdn.com/camerons/archive/2006/10/18/ctp6-is-live.aspx for more information about the release.

I will be trying to get everything updated for my talk on this at the CodeCamp this weekend.

It looks like we have found a new home. NuSkin has offered to host our meetings. Along with the new meeting location we will also have a new meeting time. We will be meeting at the NuSkin Network Operations Center (NOC) located at

1175 South 350 East
Provo, UT 84606

Note that this is not the large building in downtown Provo but is rather in EastBay. You can get to it by going to the south most University Avenue exit in Provo. We will also be moving our meetings to the 3rd Wednesday of the month and start at 6:00. Since today is the 3rd Wednesday we will be holding the October meeting next Wednesday.

Our featured speaker will be Aaron Zupancic who will be talking to us about refactoring. Aaron is a very dynamic speaker and a Microsoft MVP. He will be helping us to understand refactoring and how it can help us develop better code.

NuSkin will be sponsoring our meeting with pizza and drinks.

Also don't forget the Utah Code Camp happening this Saturday at Neumont University. You can find more details and register at msutahevents.com.

If you are into video sharing and for some reason don't want to use you-tube you can now get in on the beta of MSN Soapbox. Details are at http://www.on10.net/Blogs/laura/soapbox/.

This just showed up in my inbox this morning and the registration deadline is today but it looks like you have a chance to get some free training on VSTS next week.

I just finished speaking at a code camp in Colorado Springs last weekend. It as a lot of fun and I would do it again in a heartbeat. The best part is that I get the chance to interact with a bunch of other smart people.

Utah is holding a code camp on the 21st. I would encourage you to come out for at least part of the day if you can't be there the whole time. The details are below:

Join us on Saturday, October 21st for Utah Code Camp!

The local .NET Users Group and SQL Server Users Group is conducting a "Code Camp" for local software programmers next month at Neumont University.  The code camp follows the Code Camp manifesto that it is for the community by the community and always free.  We are looking forward to excellent sessions on lots of different topics.

The event is scheduled from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. The conference is free, however we request that you please register at www.msutahevents.com and enroll for the event so that we can get as accurate a head count as possible.

We will have sessions for both Developers and DBA's. We will also have a Sponsors area with lots of giveaways!

If you would like to speak or are interested in speaking, please email Pat Wright at pat_wright@sqlpass.org - visit www.msutahevents.com for more information.

I got a call this morning early from my wife. I knew it was bad news because it was about 6:30 A.M. where she was calling from. She was crying and I found out that my dog Max was seriously ill. Max was over 12 years old and he had gotten to the point where he could barely walk so it wasn't totally unexpected but it still hurts none the less. I have played with Max, watched over him, stayed up all night with him when he swallowed a fish hook, and have greatly enjoyed his company. If you have had a pet yourself then you know what I mean. I will miss him very much.