Category: Uncategorized

I was in Ottawa all last week so it didn’t really dawn on me until today that PDC ’05 starts tomorrow! I was just starting to read blogs a few months before PDC 03 and I was a full-on, hardcore .NET nerd (not that I’m not one now, but I was a student back then, so I could spend more time on cool shit), so I got sucked into the hype of Longhorn, Avalon, Indigo and Whidbey.

It’s been nearly two years (wow!) since that PDC and I still feel that I know very little about .NET 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005, not to mention Vista, WPF, and WCF (Yuck). Now, we’re going to hear about C# 3.0, VB 9 and, I’m sure, a whole bunch more no one has talked about outside Redmond. We’ll also see a more realistic vision of Vista, and hopefully WinFS. I wish I was going this year.

I was a little disappointed six months after PDC 03 when reality set in: delays in shipping .NET 2.0, pulling features from Longhorn. I think Microsoft got burned with all that info they divulged last time. I hope they learn from it, and give us less hype and more certainty.

I hope work doesn’t get too busy this week: I just know I’ll be distracted with updates from PDC 🙂

You are Napoleon Dyanamite and a buttload of gangs
are trying to recruit you.

Which Napoleon Dynamite character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

I write this to you, dear reader, from Windows Vista Beta 1. I’m currently installing my drive image software so I can return this machine to its old, yet functioning, Windows XP Pro state. I’ve read some of the reviews, but since my employer has an MSDN subscription, and I’ve been watching this OS since PDC 03, I wanted to give it a shot.

The UI was pretty when it came out on the Mac. It looks pretty: flashy window animations, translucent windows, shadowing. But after a while, it gets pretty annoying. Every page in a wizard does this annoying popup thing. The transluceny is kinda neato for about five minutes. I’ve seen a lot of cool demos of what’s possible with Avalon, but none of it is in this beta.

The reason I’m uninstalling it though – and I’m the first to admit this is unfair, given Vista’s beta status – is that Windows Explorer is unusable. Everywhere I browse
Takes.
For.
Ever.
To.
Get.
To.

Double click the C: drive in Computer (note the missing My) and wait 4 minutes for it to show you the folders. All these virtual folder searches kick in, and it takes a lifetime. It also freezes the rest of the desktop so you can’t do anything else. If you a have a movie playing in Media Player, it’ll freeze.

I can see why MS is stressing this as a beta for developers (although it doesn’t need to be since WinFX is available for XP), hardware manufacturers and IT departments. So, I’ll start waiting for Beta 2.

And start learning Avalon.

Funny: I never drank coffee until last November. Nor am I addicted to coffee. But we all know these tests don’t lie. Guess I’m a coffee fiend.

You Are an Espresso

At your best, you are: straight shooting, ambitious, and energetic At your worst, you are: anxious and high strung You drink coffee when: anytime you’re not sleeping Your caffeine addiction level: high