DevCon in the Big Easy
Tuesday, May 11, 2004:
the chairman of my department yesterday told me that i'm starting to look like Rasputin. what do you think?
luke // 6:22 AM
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Tuesday, January 27, 2004:
Speaking of music, this is a group I've been familiar with for one or two old songs, but a friend just turned me on to their new album "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots", which you can hear in it's entirety at the bands website. I give you, and strongly reccomend, The Flaming Lips
luke // 8:38 AM
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Friday, March 28, 2003:
PS I know most people who have read the blog already already wont see this, but I started a new one. http://lukestevens.blogspot.com is my non-event related writing place. Feel free to stop on by.
luke // 11:19 AM
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Saturday, March 22, 2003:
Saturday morning and I'm home again. My New Orleans to DC flight was late, so I got bumped to a later flight that went through Pittsburg. It was, I was told, the only available option, so I ended up with 3 extra hours of waiting in the airport. I could have stayed for that last session, it seems. Oh well. Thats it for now, I can start neglecting this blog. Maybe I'll start another one if I can think of something interesting to write about. Let me know if you have any ideas.
over and out
luke // 9:44 AM
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Friday, March 21, 2003:
Typing this time from the CommNet Center (computer lab) for one last time...weird that the posts I make from my ipaq tend to come out in reverse order, because they get sent at the same time. So the two posts you see down below are in reverse order (newer is below older). Its coming up on noon, and people are on their lunch break. I will probably grab a sandwich even though I'm not hungry because they throw food at us every hour between sessions. I am scheduled to meet the airport shuttle back in front of the Hilton at 1:35pm. It was confirmed to me yesterday that the conference center is in fact 1.2 miles long, and our stuff was, of course, on the very farthest end. So tuesday when I walked back and forth twice before the sessions started, I put in over 5 miles, including the distance from the Hilton to the entrance of this place. Thats like 3 weeks worth of walking for me. I need a Segway! Someone buy me one.
That last session there was a cool one, featuring notification services through a third party provider. Ordinarily those are the ones I avoid, but this guy was cool because he gave a background on all the technology available, so I actually learned more than just why we should buy his product. I think that database driven notification services are a very cool thing with a wide range of application. I'm not going to tell you what those applications are though. You figure it out.
I'm tempted to buy a folding keyboard for my Ipaq at the store here...they only have the IR model and I'm not sure if I wouldnt prefer the regular one that plugs into the device directly. The IR keyboard has a little infrared sensor that beams up to the top of your device, where there is a little mirror to reflect it into the IR port on the device...I'm not sure what the benefit of that is, compared to just plugging a keyboard in. The main detraction for me is that I would probably need to add more software, and I cant do that till I get home, or at least without setting up my laptop... maybe I'll pop over to ZDNet and see what they think about it. Too bad they dont sell the thumb-keyboard, I'd buy that this very second. I can see times when it would be usefull to have both, depending on the situation. Oh well, the big one is $99 so I'll have to choke down my instant gratification reflex and hold off till I get home. That's not as easy as you'd think...
Travel tips of the day: Things in the Big Easy are freakin expensive. $3 ATM fees everywhere, $2.00 sodas (can). And every street is lined with tourist junk shops that all sell the EXACT SAME THINGS. Seriously, same t-shirts, same beads, same couple of Zydeco CD's, same New Orleans shot glasses...its weird, you keep thinking "I've been here before" but you haven't. If they had told me this up front, I could have saved a lot of time by just going into one store. Fortunately, I've had plenty of free soda, some free beads and a free t-shirt thanks to the enrollment cost for this event. I gotta say, though, that the hightlight is still the yo-yo. Did I mention before that it lights up? It does, only when its moving. The electric contacts between the watch batteries and little red LED are just a mm or two apart (woohoo look at me using the metric system. hah.) and so when you spin it, some sort of centrifugal physics doohicky makes the thing hit the other thing, and VOILA (French for "eureka")* the yoyo lights up red. Trust me, its cool. I got it from the Samsung table I think. I was really tempted to go to the Siemens display and do two things.
1. Make fun of their company name.
2. Demand a heartfelt apology for the phone I now carry, which they knowingly and willingly manufactured. I hate it. Its my own little penance for dropping my beloved Nokia 3360 into a cup of water. The cause for me ending up with that phone went as following:
Salesman: "A new Nokia 3360 is $100, and comes with a $30 mail-in factory rebate. The Siemens S46 (or whatever it is) is also $100, but it comes with a $100 mail-in factory rebate." I am such a sucker for mail in factory rebates. And now I pay the price whenever I try to send a text msg, recieve a txt message, recieve voicemail, and place or receive a call. But besides that its great. I'm going to wait till a better phone with a rebate comes out and drop this one in a toilet. I thought I'd get used to it, and in some ways I have. I am used to hating my phone and performing extra steps to execute routine functions.
I dont want to end on a sour note though. So did I tell you about the yo-yo? It's seriously awesome.
I'll probably write one more entry either from the airports (New Oreleans, or DC) or from home with a wrap-up, but if I dont, thanks for reading along.
* I think I stole that from Dave Barry. At least I hope I did.
luke // 10:22 AM
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Last day...i'm about ready to get back home.
First session starting now. Enabling Apps for wlan communications.
It's put on by HP, and they are really pushing this one specific device that has built in wireless (bluetooth and 802.11b)
If you have more than one bluetooth device, is it blueteeth? Someone has to answer these hard questions.
I wonder if having your wireless stuff built in is better for battery life....
This HP guy is saying stuff totally opposite of what the MS guys said about support.
Also repeating stuff that everyone else has already told us. I wonder if he was here this week...
Ugh. Looks like he's only going to cover programming for his one HP model. I'm tempted to bail...
(2 minutes pass)
Yup I bailed. Now in a "best practices" talk for Pocket PC programing. Gotta pay attention now.
luke // 9:52 AM
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Changing sessions was definitely a smart move. The one I ended up in had lots of very cool debugging tools and techniques.
It may be normal for these types of events, but I feel slightly thwarted in my efforts to learn as much useful stuff as possible. There were some time slots with multiple sessions that I wanted to attend, and so I missed some. And now there is a session with Nothing of interest for me. Oh well. I will be missing the last round because my airport shuttle leaves at 1:30. I will update again after this session, and on the way home if possible, or at least write stuff on the way and post it later.
Oh by the way I got my free t-shirt for filling out the Conf. Evaluation. Woo-hoo i guess.
luke // 9:52 AM
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Thursday, March 20, 2003:
This is the one I wrote this morning before lunch:
The network is down here. They are saying that it’s because of the outside internet service provider, so either way internet access is up and down. Pretty funny to see how careful they are to specify that it’s NOT THEIR FAULT, its Qwest’s fiber lines coming in. See? Not enough fiber makes your connections irregular. So anyway, I’m typing this into Word, waiting for service to come back up.
Wow. Second session this morning was 30 minutes long, scheduled for 90. It could have been 10 if you took out the amount he repeated himself.
Bill Gates last night: Didn’t really say anything too new, although he did show a funny video called “MS1, Behind the Technology”. Microsoft has realized that the only way to fit in with the rest of the geeks is to engage in Microsoft Bashing when they get a chance. I think they are going to release it on the DVD that gets shipped out after the event, along with all the PowerPoint stuff, etc.
Bill is a good big-picture sort of guy. After looking at code samples and little details all day, it’s actually good to have someone speak who isn’t as caught up in the minutia, and who can communicate the point of all this interconnected stuff, programming stuff, etc. On the one hand, I respect that he hasn’t hired an image consultant, or tried to be come a big media star or anything. On the other hand, he is the Geek of All Geeks, and it shows, which makes you sorta feel sorry for him. Most geeks think that everyone around them is exceedingly geeky, and feels that he or she doesn’t really fit in with them. Except people like Bill Gates, and a kid named Tucker that I went to college with.
Last night I wandered around trying to find a bookstore or something…no such luck within immediate walking distance. Mostly places to sell beads and tourist stuff here on Canal Street. Bourbon Street was a lot more crowded than it was Tuesday night, and more crazy. The smell was also a lot worse, must have been a rough night for some folks. I’m not a big fan of huge crowds, or “woman-impersonators” so I bailed on that scene after walking around checking out some music.
This morning’s first session had a lot of coding in it, but the guy was very clear and easy to follow around. It was really a follow up, or extension of the session yesterday morning that I didn’t go to at the last minute. So I’m curious about more of the key functionality that this was an extension of. Fortunately I’ll be able to get the slide shows for it, and maybe even code samples, so it’ll be fine.
Tonight is some sort of dinner or party event sponsored by HP. There is supposed to be a band and some other stuff, so that might be fun. The people here are reasonably friendly, it’s not too hard to start a conversation with the people at your table. They are advertising Xbox stations also, for the videogame people.
I’ve been playing solitaire for the last 30 minutes since finishing that last sentence…still no internet service…I’m going to see if I can save this on this machine and post it later…current time: 11:35AM
luke // 1:33 PM
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I have a long entry that I saved downstairs when the network was out, I'll post it when I can get back to that computer. Just spoke with some guys at lunch who suggested that learning C# instead of VB.Net wouldn't really be any more work to learn...lnteresting...
luke // 11:33 AM
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Wednesday, March 19, 2003:
My head is bursting with information. Bailed out halfway through a session just now...I got what I needed to know out of it. You can print with web services...This had to be the lamest demo i've ever seen. Someone stood their holding an Ipaq, presumably working on it, and someone else held a wireless, battery powered printer. The talking man walked away from them, and so of course our eyes followed him while he kept talking, then he says "are you done? look, it printed!" We'll have to take his word for it.
On the other hand, the technology they were talking about was cool. Definitely one that we have use for in the emergency department.
So now I'm out on the beanbags checkin email, sorta taking an extra hour off before the next go-round. Charging up the ipaq battery for more note-taking. I would have bought a keyboard for it but noone is selling them here...
This mornings session (choosing the right mobile technologies) was in part a review of stuff I learned yesterday at the pre-conference sessions, but had a lot of good information in it. They presented multiple ways to skin the cat. Looks like I should be able to learn one skill instead of two, by using the same language to right the new version of my application, and also writing apps for the handheld. That might be good. Also, I think we have a good oppurtunity right now to build our stuff with an eye towards the future. When more xml and web service based applications come out, we'll be there ready to interface with them.
Visited the expo during the lunch break. Its quite a bit smaller than what I was expecting. I guess this is still a pretty new market, and not a lot of people have grabbed on. The mobile phone expo next door, on the other hand, looks huge. I hope to go wander around it today or tomorrow and see what they have. One of the best things about these sort of shows is the give-away junk. I got a yoyo, a couple nice pens, and a little radio with earbuds and a compass built in (from a navigational software company). I bet the phone people have cool toys.
In my backpack full of stuff I got at registration there was a card to download free software from handango, so I got a PowerPoint viewer that normally costs $20, so I can read the files they publish from the speakers. All the best info is in those files, and I'm sure its going to be a great way to review what was covered. Also, I can download the files for presentations I didnt get to attend.
Yawn. More later, maybe. I'll put up a review of Mr. Gates speech (scheduled for 4:30).
luke // 12:02 PM
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Just finished breakfast. They need to make their coffee cups bigger, would save me some steps.
Last night had dinner at the Cajun Cabin, a pretty cool place (read: bar) with a live cajun band. Accordion, bass, electric guitar, drums, and washboard. The accordion player had a very david-gray-esque head nodding thing during his lightning fast accordion solos. It was a lot of fun, even if it took me an hour to get my food. I learned that a crawfish, for all practical intents and purposes, is a midget lobster with no claws. I could probably hold 5 in my open hand (my hand being larger than some). The waitress gave me a little tutorial on eating them (Remove head, peel tail, eat). Its just like eating a tiny lobster tail, from a labor point of view. Taste is different, though. Also on the plate was fried crawfish, some little crawfish pot-pie sort of thing, and spicy jumbalaya. I would reccomend only eating this food while the band is playing, it adds to the experience.
Thoughts on yesterdays sessions: Apparantly, from what the speakers said, and a guy I ate lunch with, .Net framework is pretty much Java with different names for things. I dont have an opinion on whether this is good or bad yet, because I dont know much about Java. Also, it reminded me of how little really deep programming I ever do. They were saying "this is the new .Net way to do COM, or to do multiple dll's from different sources, etc etc" and I'm thinking, I never neede to know the OLD way to do that stuff. All I ever do is read and write records from/to a database. But it was very interesting and I'm sure I'll be a better programmer when I find ways to incorporate it. I've already started coming up with ideas to use the new technologies in my work. Also, just seeing other people program, away from my office, is good for finding new approaches, and thinking about the larger application picture.
I did get the powerpoint presentations downloaded, which is cool. They have code samples and are a very good outline of the sessions. I'm going now to install a ppt viewer in my Ipaq, so I can review them without needing the laptop.
Oh, speaking of the laptop: It's battery is shot. Good for about 10 minutes after being fully charged. Someone mentioned to me recently that leaving a battery in the laptop while it was plugged in for extended periods of time can ruin a battery...it seemed strange at the time, but it looks like he may be right.
L8r...
luke // 5:55 AM
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7.15 am
On bus to convention center.
Yesterdays sessions were more about specific code examples, so I didn't post much info on them. Todays first block will be a panel discussion on choosing mobile technologies. I was originally signed up to take a hands on lab for some more coding, but i changed my mind. It's too early to write code.
This bus route is rather circuitous, going to other hotels before it reaches the conv. center right next to the hotel I'm in.
time to go!
luke // 5:42 AM
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