Don Xml's Grok This

Disclaimer: I do not work for Microsoft, but I am a Microsoft MVP.  The following is all derived from public information, and any inferences or extrapolations are entirely the work of my imagination, and is not something that I know that Microsoft is working on.  If I knew Microsoft was working on things like this, it would be covered ...

I spent a couple days in Seattle/Redmond thanks to the MVP program and the MVP Global Summit.  This was my second Summit, and although I thought it to be impossible, it was even better then the first one.  Some of the other MVP groups got to see mostly repeats of the PDC, but not the XML MVPs.  Our team (the System.Xml team, aka ...

Don Smith hinted at it and Hernan de Lahitte gave a little more detail about it, but boy was I surprised at the“Patterns and Practices for Designing Service Oriented Applications — An Illustrated Example” PDC pre-con session.  The guys over at PAG (aka Patterns & Practices) create a Guidance Automation Toolkit for Visual ...

Remember, you heard it here first!  In about 2 years (when C# 3.0) is/has shipped some C# purists are going to start a petition similar to the whole Classic VB petition.  I can see some C# developers complaining that the new C# is too hard for the average programmer.  You will not see me sign that thing, I love the ...

While at the party at Universal Studios, I was complaining that I couldn’t meet up with everyone that I wanted to meet, and Chris Sells joked that “real geeks” are not popular.  Later in the evening (after lots more beer), the “geek fame” topic came up (with a different group of folks), and I said that I’d ...

My friends over at CodeBetter.com do not have someone at the PDC, so Brendan asked me to step in and be their guy at the PDC, and I’m glad to help out.  I’m not going to cross post, but use the other site to write from a more first person, “here’s what it is like to be at the PDC” type view (at least ...

At the last minute I decided to signup for the P&P SO precon.  My friends Don Smith and Peter Provost are 2 of the presenters, and because I know I have a big mouth, and tend to ask questions (a la Code Camp style), I didn’t want to “interfere” with their presentation, so I was not going to attend.  But, I really ...

For those of you that haven’t made it to the conference center yet, it seems as though a lot of the downtown streets are shutdown today (Sunday Sept. 11) for a movie shoot.  So the shuttle buses take a lot longer to get to/from your hotel (mine had to zig-zag all around downtown LA to get to the center).  What should have taken 5 ...

I made it to LA, which will be my home for most of the week.  When not at the conference center, you can probably find me at the Harem Room at the Wilshire.  If you are attending the PDC, feel free to look me up.  Both my picture and my IM id is can be found here. I don’t know if I can have more fun at PDC05 then I had ...

During the 2003 PDC, a few of us found a nice little room off the main lobby bar (aka the Point Moorea Bar) at the Wilshire Grand.  It was a nice quiet room with it’s own plasma TV and plenty of seating.  Great place for a bunch of geeks to take over, have a couple drinks, and not scare the regular patrons.  Well, it ...