B# .NET Blog : IT Forum 2006

TechEd 2006 IT Forum - The Last Day

bart — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 12:11:45 GMT

IT Forum 2006 has almost come to an end. I've just completed my ATE duties for Windows PowerShell; if you haven't downloaded it yet, go and take a look at http://www.microsoft.com/powershell. The RTW version is available for XP SP2 and 2003 SP1. The RC2 version is available for Windows Vista.

Next, I'll be attending the last two sessions of the day. It's always nice to see Andrew Cheeseman And Team talk about their event network. For the last timeslot I'll take a look at some of the Windows Vista stuff on hardware.

Last day I attended a big session on Windows Vista Kernel Changes by Mark Russinovich (who has recently joined Microsoft, and was formerly one of the sysinternal guys). Mark gave a really nice overview of some of the most interesting changes to the Windows Vista kernel, which is also the foundation for Windows Longhorn Server. At the time of Vista SP1, the kernel versions will be synchronized again to make maintenance easier by just having to maintain one code base.

Needless to say the party last night by the Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals (or shortway DataDude) folks was great. I didn't stay so long, but nevertheless a real recommendation.

Okay off to some sessions now. Stay tuned for some interesting (technical, at last) stuff coming up this weekend in "headless mode" and with daily blogging continuing next week as of Monday.

Cheers!

-Bart (who'll be flying back to Belgium tomorrow afternoon)

TechEd 2006 IT Forum - Day Three

bart — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 13:49:42 GMT

Allrighty, kind of recoverd again; seems the BeFraLux country party last night had a healing effect. To be honest, I didn't know much of the people over there - I'm a developer after all - but lots of faces were familiar from MSDN/TechNet events in Belgium. So, we had some nice conversations about where all things come together: Windows PowerShell. Yeah baby, it's all over the place!

So right now I'm on the Windows PowerShell ATE booth (desk 28) with lots of great questions and feedback. Seems people start to love it and it's amazing to see people getting overwhelmed by all the power that gets unlocked by using the .NET Framework BCL underneath. Some of our great examples are:

PS C:\Users\Bart>([string](ipconfig | select-string IPv4)).substring(39)
172.22.28.85

PS C:\Users\Bart> [int](get-wmiobject Win32_OperatingSystem).Version.Split(".")[2]
5600

PS C:\Users\Bart> $a = [UriBuilder]"ftp://bar:foo@test.com/dir"
PS C:\Users\Bart> $a


Fragment :
Host     : test.com
Password : foo
Path     : /dir
Port     : 21
Query    :
Scheme   : ftp
Uri      : ftp://bar:foo@test.com/dir
UserName : bar

Isn't this cool? Don't try to do the URL parsing yourself, just rely on the specalized classes in the .NET Framework. Still one hour to go over here on ATE before I'll attend some sessions. Tonight another party is on, from the Visual Studio team, which I'll visit together with the few U2U people who're still in Barcelona. Yeah, devs rule IT Forum :-) Should be fun.

TechEd 2006 IT Forum - Day Two

bart — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 15:55:00 GMT

Wednesday at TechEd 2006 IT Forum. Another big day for what the conference is concerned with great sessions on stuff like PowerShell, security, Longhorn Server AD, etc. Nevertheless, I got in late, still running on asperine. Tonight is the Belgian country drink, so I better can be up and running by tonight.

For my ATE duties, things have changed a bit. I'll be on the ATE booth for Windows PowerShell on Thursday and Friday for almost the whole day. There seem to be lots of questions on Windows PowerShell but we're lacking a dedicated booth for the technology, so you'll find us on desk 28 (Longhorn Server).

TechEd 2006 IT Forum - Day One (cont'd)

bart — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 19:14:06 GMT

What a weird day this was. Woke up terribly sick and tired; guess the roundtrip through the city last weekend on top of the roof of a tourist bus is the evil (maybe the late night edition at Friday has to be blamed as well). As I mentioned earlier today, Bob's keynote kept me awake. But after that I had some pretty difficult times in the ATE to stay awake. Luckily there's that nice Spanish nurse in the cellar of the building that had some asperine that made me survive the afternoon. Never took much medicines before, but in this case it seemed to work pretty well. In the afternoon I attended (well, sort of) Rafal's session on holistic security as well as Steve Riley's one on system protection in Windows Vista, while doing some last minute work on my Speaker Idol demo. Have to say, this time I didn't win (which is kind of a relief as well; I'm not an IT pro after all). Apparently the judges liked the PowerShell-based PPT thing, but I went way over time (12 minutes instead of only 5) due to some technical issues with the Windows Live OneCare firewall that turned on all of a sudden (didn't have that issue last week) and, yes I have to admit, due to the little last-minute preparation. Maybe I shouldn't have blamed the product but that's I guess a developer's frustration when security turns against him. No further excuses :-). I want to thank the Belgian audience for the support and want to congratulate Andy Malone with his great presentation on Speech Recognition in Windows Vista. To all participants who'll be next: good luck and beware of the judges :-).

Oh, before I do forget, below you can find the "slides" I used. Just copy-paste into Windows PowerShell and press enter twice and there you go:

$ppt = {
cls;
write-host Windows PowerShell in 5 minutes;
write-host *******************************;
Read-Host;
write-host * Next-generation command-line shell;
write-host * Object-oriented;
write-host
write-host ??? = DIFFICULT ???;
Read-Host;
cls;
write-host Discoverability;
write-host ***************;
Read-Host;
write-host * Getting started;
Read-Host;
write-host * Demo - Scream for HELP: get-help;
Read-Host;
powershell;
cls;
write-host Commandlets and aliases;
write-host ***********************;
read-host;
write-host * Cmdlet = Verb + Noun;
read-host;
write-host * get-process, get-childitem, clear-host, ...?;
read-host;
write-host * Enter aliases;
Read-Host;
write-host * Demo - get-command and get-alias;
Read-Host;
powershell;
cls;
write-host Object-orientation;
write-host ******************;
read-host;
write-host * Developers, developers, developers?;
read-host;
write-host * NO!;
read-host;
write-host * What is an object?;
write-host   - Data = properties;
write-host   - Operations = methods;
read-host;
write-host * Discoverability: get-member
read-host;
write-host * Demo - The old way;
write-host;
cmd;
cls;
write-host Object-orientation;
write-host ******************;
write-host;
write-host * Developers, developers, developers?;
write-host;
write-host * NO!;
write-host;
write-host * What is an object?;
write-host   - Data = properties;
write-host   - Operations = methods;
write-host;
write-host * Discoverability: get-member
write-host;
write-host * Demo - The old way;
write-host;
write-host * Demo - File information and file operations;
Read-Host;
powershell;
cls;
write-host Drives all the way;
write-host ******************;
read-host;
write-host * What is a drive? [a-Z]:;
read-host;
write-host * Much more;
write-host   - HKLM:;
write-host   - Cert:;
write-host   - Variable:;
write-host   - Alias:;
read-host;
write-host * get-psdrive
read-host;
write-host * Demo - Dive into the registry;
Read-Host;
powershell;
cls;
write-host Conclusion;
write-host **********;
read-host;
write-host * 5 commandlets to remember:;
write-host   - get-help;
write-host   - get-command;
write-host   - get-alias;
write-host   - get-member;
write-host   - get-psdrive;
read-host;
cls;
write-host Q "&" A;
write-host *****;
write-host;
write-host * info@bartdesmet.net;
write-host * http://blogs.bartdesmet.net/bart;
read-host;
$ie = new-object -Com internetexplorer.application;
$ie.Navigate2("http://blogs.bartdesmet.net/bart");
$ie.visible = 1;
exit;
};
&$ppt;

Enjoy! On to my ATE dutie right now, where I'll be the rest of the week at the indicated times (see previous post) to help you out with all possible PowerShell issues.

Cheers (Bart still in recovery mode)!

TechEd 2006 IT Forum - Day One

bart — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 12:32:38 GMT

Right, here we are again, up and running (well, sort of) at TechEd 2006 IT Forum. I'm actually feeling pretty sick today, guess the tourist bus roundtrip last weekend has been a bit too drafty. That's kind of the dark side of "Sunny Barcelona". Luckily, Bob Muglia was able to keep me alert during the keynote, which I found pretty interesting, even from a developer's perspective. Needless to say, Jeffrey Snover did a great job with his PowerShell baby once more, which just RTM'ed. Download now!

Later today I'll be trying to reload my batteries to get on stage this evening at 7PM for Speaker Idol once more. So if I do not run out of juice, come and see me. Guess a talk on Windows Vista Application Recovery would be right choice in my situation, but I'll tackle some IT related topic.

For my ATE duties, here's the schedule for the week:

Tuesday 14 Nov - 18:45 till 21:00 (I'll be at Speaker Idol between 19:00 and 20:00 however, but I'll try to compensate later this week).
Thursday 16 Nov - 10:00 till 13:00 (hopefully I can close the country party on Wednesday on time).
Friday 17 Nov - 10:00 till 13:00.

So, feel free to come and see me at desk 28 (Longhorn).

Cheers (Bart in recovery mode)!

A weekend at Barcelona

bart — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 09:35:11 GMT

What a busy weekend it has been. It al started on Friday evening with some nice dinner in the heart of Barcelona. Geeks all the way, so the topic of the talks shouldn't be too surprising :-). Nevertheless, it's amazing how fast Friday turns into Saturday, especially if you take a cab to Port Olimpic with people like Hans Verbeeck with some of his EMEA colleagues and a few guys from Redmond, responsible for TechEd US. We also met Tom Mertens finding his way back to the hotel after spending an evening with Wim and Wim visiting Parc Guell. Luckily bars close at 5 AM in the morning, otherwise chances were high Hans didn't make it in time for his plane in the morning :-). Btw, congratulations to Hans' daughter for her 8th anniversary. So, at the time metro trains started to run again, I found myself walking through the city to my hotel where I arrived somewhere around 6:30 AM. Needless to say I overslept and missed the breakfast :$.

Saturday noon: time to awake the tourist in me. It's the third time (previously TechEd 2003, IT Forum 2005) I'm in Barcelona, but the first time I had the time to explore the city (finally!). So I did with a ticket for the touristic bus that goes around the city. On Saturday I visited the Sagrada Familia (where I also found a pretty good restaurant for a nice pizza, my favorite tourist food) and Parc Guell (I'll post some photos somewhere online when I'm back at home). TechEd certainly is in the air (even in the weekend it is) since a couple of TechEd t-shirts appeared on several places in the park :-). If you visit Barcelona some time, these are two places you should have seen. Another popular place where the bus stops is FC Barcelona, but I skipped that one due to my low sports interest.

Sunday, another city exploration day. This time I took the bus for the Southern route, driving to Plaça d'Espanya and on to Montjuïc. It was a pretty long climb to the top of the hill to visit the castle and the Olympic village from 1992 when the Olympic Games took place in Barcelona. If you decide to make the walk to the top, I'd recommend you to take some drinks with you. Things are not always as they look: imagine a nice terrace on the top of the hill without service :s. As worse as things can get, the regular entrance to the castle seemed to be blocked due to construction works, so I had to walk around the castle in the opposite direction. It was only when I arrived at my destination (i.e. on top of the castle), I saw the regular entrance being reachable by a very small path. After all, I'm happy to have taken the long way, which had a great panoramic view on the Mediterrean Sea. The next stops of the bus were the World Trace Center, Port Vell, Port Olimpic (where I took a photo of the infamous pubs we visited throughout the week), the Poblenou Cemetery (the oldest in Barcelona with great sculptures, worth the visit), the Parc de la Ciutadella and Barri Gòtic (which I still have to visit next Saturday before catching my flight to Brussels). And I has been proven once more: it's a small world we live in. During my walk back to the hotel, passing by Palau de Musica, I met Jan Tielens and his wife.

On to another week in Barcelona for TechEd 2006 IT Forum. You can find me on the ATE booth for Windows PowerShell once more (desk 28) on the following times:

Tuesday 14 November 2006 - 18:45 to 21:00 (during the exhibition hall opening reception, I'll be off for one hour to Speaker Idol once more)
Thursday 16 November 2006 - 10:00 to 13:00
Friday 17 November 2006 - 10:00 to 13:00

Today I'll be following the pre-conference on SQL Server 2005 Always On Technologies. I'll report about it later today.

The October 06 Month Report

bart — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 13:00:00 GMT

One month after the start of the Daily Blogging Mission I'm happy to see I survived yet another month: "a post a day keeps the ... away". And again the comments and feedback have been great, so thanks everyone for the active participation. Furthermore, I'm proud to be re-elected as an MVP on Visual C#. Needless to say, the Daily Blogging Mission is part of my commitment for this MVP year. But the community world isn't only about acronyms of course: it's great to obtain the new string(new char[] {0x4D, 0x56, 0x50}) title, but the more important thing is to spread the word and help people in discovering new technologies and working with existing ones. Last but not least, I want to thank the people at Microsoft Belux to put me in the spotlight on www.msdn.be last month.

Some highlights of last month include another series of blogposts about Windows Workflow Foundation:

I hope you really enjoyed reading these articles as much as I did in writing it. Beside my personal interest in .NET FX 3.0 (and WF as one of the core pillars), the big stimulans to write these kind of lengthy tutorial fashioned posts is my thesis research activity at UGent on dynamic and generic workflows. This month I reached a next milestone in this research, dealing with dynamic workflow instrumentation and various performance-related tests. I can't tell very much about it yet, but stay tuned for regular updates.

Technically, there has been an upgrade of my blog to CommunityServer 2.1 (better late than never). Once more a decent job of Telligent with this release. And not to forget: Internet Explorer 7 has been released last month, so allow me to congratulate the IE team with this release. Check out the Channel 9 "Internet Explorer 7: The Browser. The Team. The Tour." series of posts.

Next month, blogging will continue on the same basis but with a slight difference: from November 5 to November 18 I'll be in Barcelona for Microsoft TechEd Europe. It's my goal to report about TechEd adventures during these two weeks, instead of the typical technical daily deferred posts. However, deferred posts are already online for the weekends, i.e. November 5, 11, 12 and 18. Nevertheless, lots of great stuff will be presented at TechEd and you'll hear from it through this blog as well as through the Virtual Side. During TechEd, I'll be on the Ask The Experts booth (schedule will be posted later on), so feel free to jump in for questions or a chat. And make sure to come and see me at Speaker Idol too for a 5 minutes presentation :-). For the first round at TechEd Developers, I'll be on stage on November 8th somewhere between 12:30 and 13:30. And for TechEd IT Forum my first round presentation will take place on November 14th in the timeslot from 19:00 to 20:00.

Thanks to everyone for reading my blog. More cool stuff soon!

Bart De Smet - 10/23/06 - 8:14 PM

TechEd 2006 - Welcome to the Virtual Side

bart — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 19:03:00 GMT

TechEd 2006 is approaching very fast now. Only one month to go and about 8500 people will spend one (or two) weeks in Barcelona to get training on various technologies from a bunch of great speakers and experts.

Gerd De Bruycker, owner of the event, has posted about the Virtual Side early this morning. Basically, it's a way for those who can't attend the event to learn about what's going on at the event. You can find his post here, and both Virtual Sides:

It's also worth to mention IT Forum is aldready sold out with 4500 registered attendees. So come on developers, let's keep up and sell out TechEd 2006 Developers too. Registration is still open.

TechEd Europe - 5 days to go for early bird registration

bart — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 19:00:00 GMT

Four days that will take you months ahead of the game.

Time is ticking; only 5 days to go for TechEd (Europe) early bird registration. So in case you've not registered yet, do it now and get a € 300 discount. For groups of 6 or more people there are also very attractive discounts, check it out here.

Your interests reach from hardcore development to IT administration? So you want to attend both events? That's possible with a 30% discount for the second event registration!

As usual, TechEd features a lot of great speakers. Eric Rudder will do the keynote, make sure not to miss this one.

Not convinced yet? Experience TechEd 2005 from your seat by watching some of the top session videos from last year over here.

Don't forget: Early bird registrations (Save € 300) run till 29 September 2006.

TechEd Developers and TechEd IT Forum (Europe 2006) registration on air

bart — Sun, 07 May 2006 02:50:00 GMT

A couple of days ago, the TechEd Europe 2006 websites were released to the web, enabling you to register today for TechEd Developers (formerly called TechEd) and TechEd IT Forum (formerly called "IT Forum") which will take place in November 2006 in sunny Barcelona.

From the Microsoft EMEA TechEd website:

7 – 10* November 2006
Barcelona, Spain
*6 November for Pre-Conference Seminars

Tech·Ed: Developers is Microsoft’s premier EMEA conference designed to provide developers with deep dive technical training, information and community resources focusing on building software solutions with Microsoft development tools for current and soon-to-be-released products and technologies.

14 – 17* November 2006
Barcelona, Spain
*13 November for Pre-Conference Seminars

Tech·Ed: IT Forum is Microsoft’s premier EMEA conference designed to provide IT professionals with technical training, information and community resources to build, plan, deploy and manage the secure connected enterprise.

I'll post more information on this event later over here on my blog. Stay tuned!