I just read this announcement from SQLServerCentral.com

SQL Server 2008 on Feb 27, 2008

At it's annual Worldwide Partner Conference yesterday, Microsoft announced the release dates for it's next trio of products: Windows 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008. On February 27, 2008, Microsoft will launch these products in Los Angeles with a wave of kickoff events around the world to follow.

That's 231 days from today and it means that it's time to start getting ready for those upgrades.

I think it is nice to know the launch date but what I really want to know is the release date. The launch date is when the large events that tell us what the new features are and how to use them. The launch usually is close to the release date but in the case of some products like BizTalk server they were months apart. I have very much enjoyed the little time I have spent working with Visual Studio 2008 and can hardly wait for it to be final.

I saw an e-mail going around a while ago (not sure when but I think it was in the last few weeks) about someone who had worked at both Google and Microsoft and was comparing the experience between the two companies. One thing he said was that at Google there was an IT store or something like that on each floor where you could get your computer fixed. One of the comments was something along the lines of "If Google hires such smart programmers why do they need an IT department?". I was thinking something similar since I have been both a programmer and a system administrator for most of my career. The last two weeks I realized why there are dedicated IT people in companies.

I was copying a large file to my web server when the machine reported that the network connection was lost. I thought it was no big deal and I would just get around to copying it the next day. The next day I had e-mail that my web site was down. When I looked the server was in a constant reboot cycle. After a few days in recovery console and running checkdisk I realized that something had gone wrong with the disk. I am not sure what it was but I lost a directory that had the backups of the How Do I videos that I am making for Microsoft. I ended up rebuilding the machine. To make matters worse the XP Home edition machine that our family shares also developed problems. I ended up rebuilding it as well. The total time to do it wasn't that long but since I have a "day job" I could only work on the evenings and weekends which stretched it out to more than 2 weeks to get everything back up and running. I was thankful for my backups but realized that I need a better solution. I am still working on that better solution but for now I have a 1TB drive sitting near my server that I am backing up to.

It has been a while since I have posted here, but it isn't because I haven't wanted to. I have just been very busy. First there was Microsoft Mix where I got to learn more about Silverlight, Blend, and the future of web development on the Microsoft platform.

Last week I was at TechEd Orlando where I spent a good deal of time in the TLC area talking about Windows CardSpace. It was a lot of fun and I also got to give a chalk talk on Friday about identity in the real world. While there I also was asked to sit in on a panel discussion on identity and CardSpace that was recorded for Dot Net Rocks! I don't know when the episode will air but when it does I will be sure to post information about it here.

Finally I have been busy creating a series of screen casts for Microsoft about ASP.NET and VSTS. The first of the videos is available at http://www.asp.net/learn/videos/view.aspx?tabid=63&id=147 and covers creating an HttpModule. Look for more videos at http://www.asp.net in the future. The first VSTS video should be posted soon and I will be sure to let you know where that is available.

I also have been busy preparing for Tech Ed South East Asia in September.

Add to that all of the issues that come up with having a family, job, and life and I hope you will forgive the lack of information.

On Tim Sneath's blog he has announced that "WPF/E" or Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere is now called Microsoft Silverlight. This is the typical renaming from a "code name" to a "product name" and not much more but now we know what it will be called. You can read the announcement from Tim at http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/archive/2007/04/15/introducing-microsoft-silverlight.aspx. The official (although not yet really functional site) is at http://www.silverlight.net/ and more information is available at http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight and the press release is at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/apr07/04-15WPFEPR.mspx.

I saw David Yack demonstrate this at the Code Camp on Saturday. It looks like it is very easy to embed rich content into web pages and also to code against that object model.

I am really curious what the big announcement that Tim alludes to in his #10 item on his blog post. Now I can hardly wait for MIX. Only 2 weeks and counting.

I really enjoyed today's Code Camp and the opportunity to speak about SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition (Sql Server 2005 CE). The slides I used (yes, there were only 3 and 1 was an intro slide and the other was the sponsor slide) and the code for the demo I created from scratch can be downloaded by clicking the link below.

CodeCamp2007SQLCE.zip (501.99 KB)

I hope everyone had as much fun as I did and also had a chance to learn a lot. I would like to thank Pat Wright for arranging the Code Camp and Ben Miller for taking time out of his vacation to give us the keynote.

I just found this announcement in my e-mail. I have not heard Mr. Godin speak nor have I read his blog but it sounds like he might be a very famous person. In any case I thought I would pass this along to help Phil and just in case you know who he is and want to attend. Be sure you are aware of the catch at the bottom that the pledges for attending the dinner should be submitted by Monday (yes, 3 days from now).

He started one of the first internet companies, yoyodyne, which was acquired by Yahoo, he then became a VP at Yahoo.  He more recently started a Web2.0 company, squidoo.  He is always talking about internet marketing – he’s one of the experts on it, and he has one of the most popular blogs on the internet.

If he’s geeky enough for you, we really need to rally our Geek Community and make some small personal efforts because …. We have a HUGE opportunity to get Seth to come speak to us here in Utah!  People have tried to get him to come speak here in the past but to no avail.  Now, it will take the efforts of us all in order to bring him here on May 24^th of this year!

To get him here, we need to get 500 people willing to pay $50.00 to hear him.  Not only will you have an opportunity to hear him speak, you’ll get 5 copies of his new book, The Dip.  We are gathering pledges to pay to hear him to see if we can get 500 people to pledge (instead of gathering money up front).

If you’re interested in hearing Seth speak, there are a few things you need to do. 

·         First, pledge to pay $50.00 at http://www.pledgebank.com/SethGodinUtah

·         Next, blog about it!  We’re trying to create a blog storm about this, even a quick simple post advertising this will help a lot

·         Third, tell everyone at work or who you think will be interested about it!

·         Finally, all the details and updates are being managed at a new site, http://www.wordmob.com keep an eye on the site for details

Here’s Seth’s blog post announcing this opportunity: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/the_dip/2007/03/the_dip_tour.html

There’s a big catch here, we have to have evidence of a large motivation to do this my Monday (like, in 3 days)!  We have a tentative date from Seth that he’s been kind enough to hold for us, but we have to show we’re going to be able to make it so, please, if you’re interested, stop what you’re doing and go sign up here: http://www.pledgebank.com/SethGodinUtah RIGHT NOW!  Then blog about it asap, encourage other to blog about it and talk about it all day!

This is a pure grass roots effort, it will only work if those who are interested (YOU?) take 5 minutes and actually do something about it – so please help out!

I have been running into the same problem lately with a couple of different programs. The root of the problem to me seems to be programs that are trying to figure out what I want to do and give it to me. Now, I will be one of the first to admit that I think computers should make our lives easier but when the technology starts to do something that I have specifically tried not to do then I have a problem. The specific problem that is bugging me lately is the number of programs that look at my text, see something that looks like a URL or e-mail address, and makes a hyperlink out of it. You can see the behavior by opening up Word and typing in the URL to your favorite site or this blog if you can't think of anything else and you will see it underlined and in blue text. Hovering over the new link will bring up the tool tip to prompt you to click on the link and go to the web site. Also if you type in something with an @ sign in the word (like some passwords) it treats it as an e-mail.

The program that is causing me the most heartburn at this time is Adobe Reader. I have a client that has created many PDF documents with a URL in the text. Before version 7 it treated the text as we created it in the document and it displayed it as text. In an effort to help us Adobe has decided to make the text a hyperlink. The problem is that the URL is long and wraps to a second line. The "automatic" URL doesn't take this into effect and so the "link" is broken. We have had to license a different version of the control and I will need to make the URL into a real hyperlink that included the entire URL so it isn't broken any more.

For the record, I haven't tested every reader out there but the FoxIt Reader from foxitsoftware.com doesn't add in the spurious hyperlink. Also opening the PDF in notepad will show the format of the document without the hyperlink so I am pretty sure that Adobe is the one to blame.