Mike-Ward.Net

PDC09 – Day 2

Day 2 is shaping up to be a much better conference day. Scott Guthrie really delivered the goods this morning with a look at Silverlight 4 and IE 9. It’s a great time to be a Silverlight developer. And speaking of Silverlight…

The Silverlight application that I and my colleagues developed was demoed in the keynote. That Siemens medical application that was shown. That was the handy work of none other than yours truly and of course my most excellent team members.

And then there was this other minor announcement about the conference attendees receiving a Microsoft custom made laptop. Yep, that’s right. And it’s not a wimpy little thing either. They did an incredible job keeping this a secret. There wasn’t even a rumor as far as I know.

I also have to take everything back about the lack luster swag this year. In fact, the laptop is one helluva of conference gift. My coworkers are all begging to have it, and who can blame them. It’s one sweet little, full-featured laptop. Part of me really wants to give it away but I suspect my more selfish instincts will prevail.

And in a rare instance of self restraint, I’ve elected not to pick it up until I’m on my way back to the hotel tonight. I figured it would be just too much of a distraction and I am here to attend the breakout sessions.

Speaking of breakout sessions, with the announcement of Silverlight 4, Microsoft also added a bunch of Silverlight 4 breakout sessions. Sly devils… The sessions were jammed pack as expected.

The cool thing is most of what has been announced in Silverlight 4 is going to put our medical application over the top. The doctors already love it but all these new features will enable us to literally rock their world. I’m looking forward to it.

As to the session content, it would take a long time to summarize all the stuff that came at us today. I’ll have to save that for another post. There was however a demonstration of an Azure cargo container server farm. Demonstration is perhaps the wrong word. It was the actual container complete with servers and liquid cooling. Inside, there’s a purple glow to everything. They also let us stand inside while they ran it full out. It can get quite chilly inside. Here’s some pictures.

Ouch, I just encountered my first hard Windows 7 bug. My SD card reader is not working. Guess I’ll have to wait until I get back home to download pictures with a USB cable. Bummer.

Guess it’s time to go pick up that laptop…

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