May 2004 - Posts

• I'm doing my Objects talk again today (Thursday)

  My session on Tuesday was good, but not very long due to the embarrasing fact that I wrote the wrong time in my PDA calendar and thus got there late, and compounded by the fact that Joe Stagner told the crowd I was drunk and hung over and to give me shit about it, and then further compounded by an early dismissal on my part because I was freaked out about going into overtime. For the record, I was NOT hungover. I was in my hotel room writing code. I was NOT drinking the night before, I was at the Jam sessions playing my ass off and drinking water (ask anyone who was there if I was drinking). Joe was having some fun at my expense. Joe, you're a great guy, but that wasn't funny. Nuff said. Needless to say the talk could have been longer, and the people deserve to see the whole thing. So, I'm doing the talk again today Thursday. Here are the details: So you THINK you know what an Object is... Thursday, 11:45 AM in Room 1AB It will be from 11:45 to 12:30 and we will start on time. Posted May 27 2004, 04:59 AM by Carl Franklin with 10 comment(s)

• TechEd Jam Sessions Update

  For those of you here in San Diego, the jam sessions are happening at a bar on the corner of 4th and B streets. Just hop in a cab and say “take me to 4th and B” and they'll know where you're going. The sessions are in full swing. 9PM to 1AM every night through Thursday night. Nothing on Friday. There is a rumor that The Artists Formerly Known as Band On The Runtime will make a surprise appearance tomorrow (wednesday) night, but it is mere rumor at this point. I will be there every night. :-) Carl Posted May 24 2004, 11:16 PM by Carl Franklin with no comments Filed under: Music/Audio

• TechEd Jam Sessions

  If there's going to be Jam Sessions at TechEd this year, I'll be there. A couple years ago in Atlanta I had a lot of fun at the Jam Sessions, and this year should be no different. In the past Microsoft rented out a bar, filled the stage with gear, and opened it to the public. There are a few regulars that show up, and I hope to be one of them. It's a real hoot.  Ask Russ Fustino! He was there in Atlanta that year, and can attest to the par-tay rock-star attitude that was in the air. So, if you see “Jam Sessions” on the extracurricular schedule somewhere, go and have some fun. Who knows. They may give me the microphone. :-) Posted May 22 2004, 11:58 PM by Carl Franklin with 4 comment(s) Filed under: Music/Audio

• No show this week - Carl and Rory are on vacation

  There will be no .NET Rocks! show next week (May 24th) as Carl and Rory are on vacation. Next following week's show will be on time (we hope) following TechEd Enjoy! Posted May 19 2004, 07:49 PM by Carl Franklin with 5 comment(s) Filed under: .NET Rocks!

• .NET Rocks! rocks TechEd 2004!

  Rory and I are doing two .NET Rocks! shows at TechEd: BOF01 - .NET Rocks! presents The Future Sunday May 23 6PM Room 14A .NET talk show hosts Carl Franklin and Rory Blyth are always interested in what people think "the future" will hold; not just for developers, geeks, and techno-weenies; but for the human race. Will technology save us or enslave us? Come join this intruiging discussion, parts of which will be broadcast on .NET Rocks! following TechEd.2004. You can listen to dozens of .NET Rocks! shows already recorded at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/dotnetrocks DEVC14 - .NET Rocks! presents Microsoft Speaks Thursday May 27 8:30 AM Cabana 05 .NET talk show hosts Carl Franklin and Rory Blyth from Microsoft about the major announcements of TechEd 2004. .NET Rocks! is a popular talk show for .NET developers. Come and get the inside scoop. The show is being recorded onsite, and portions will be broadcast on .NET Rocks! following TechEd 2004. You can listen to dozens of .NET Rocks! shows already recorded at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/dotnetrocks   I am also doing the following talk:   DEV390  So You THINK You Know What an Object Is... Tuesday May 25 10:45 AM Room 6A You're a VB programmer. You might think you know what a .NET object is, but do you really? Things are not really as they seem in this most popular session which explores reference types vs. data types, the effects of casting, shadowing, overriding, and other OOP mechanisms on objects in Visual Basic .NET, and how you can easily be tricked into thinking one plus one does not equal two. I hope to see many of you there!   Carl Franklin Posted May 19 2004, 07:46 PM by Carl Franklin with 2 comment(s) Filed under: .NET Rocks!

• This week on .NET Rocks! - Reflections on Connections

  What started out as a show about the DevConnections Developer Conference morphed into a round-table chat with Dan Appleman, Kathleen Dollard, Mark Dunn, Don Kiely, Robert Scoble, Chris Sells, and Bill Vaughn about developer conferences like DevConnections, writing books, speaking, and various other aspects of the industry. Of course, it was lots of fun too. http://www.franklins.net/dotnetrocks Jay Munro, proprieter of TechToons, drew a great cartoon of Rory, illustrating one of the stranger Google Weirdos this week. See it at the above link. Posted May 17 2004, 09:06 PM by Carl Franklin with 4 comment(s) Filed under: .NET Rocks!

• A long-forgotten piece of my past...

  A long-forgotten piece of my past has recently resurfaced. I didn't think much about it, but I am the guy who wrote JAZZ.MID and REGGAE.MID that come with the SoundBlaster. OK, here's the story. I was working for Voyetra Technologies at the time, a company that was writing DOS MIDI Sequencing software (before Cakewalk) and they were supporting all the MIDI interfaces of the day. While I was working there, the SoundBlaster came on the scene (the first) and we got hooked up with Brown-Waugh, at the time the sole distributor of Creative Labs products, and we landed a deal to make a scaled-down version of the sequencer to go with the MIDI Interface Kit. Voyetra also wrote the MIDI driver, and... supplied a few demo songs.  I don't know where the rest of them came from, but I had written a shitload of demo MIDI sequences for them as an employee. I was just happy to be able to make music of any kind and get paid for it. :-)  JAZZ.MID is completely my composition. However, REGGAE.MID is actually a song that I wrote with a childhood pal of mine, Marc Frucht. As I recall he had mixed feelings about me handing it over to Voyetra, but it would have otherwise never been heard by millions of nerds all over the world. I think the consensus between us these days is that it's pretty damn cool that so many people have heard it. The original tune was called “Hey Mon” I think I have a recording of us both singing it somewhere. I know he does. I remember going to Comdex in Atlanta back in the early 90s and having dinner with Dick Brown (from Brown-Waugh) as well as Mr. Sim, the inventor of the Sound Blaster. As I recall he (Sim) was impressed with the fact that I had re-recorded the VOC files for the parrot and compiled them into the talking parrot application. He actually gave me an opportunity to do them over more professionally and he would have included them with the sound blaster, but I was young and stupid and didn't realize how big the SoundBlaster was going to get. Oh well... it's really a very very small piece of geek history. So, have any of you heard these tunes? Whaddya think of Jazz.mid? It sounded great on my Korg M1 at the time. I have several other jazz combo sequences that are pretty cool. I recall spending an insane amount of time on them. Posted May 15 2004, 11:31 PM by Carl Franklin with 15 comment(s)

• Call the show tonight! We need some input!

  Tonight on .NET Rocks! we'll be talking about DevConnections and developer conferences in general. Dan Appleman (a conference veteran like myself) said he'd stop by for a chat, and we want to talk to YOU about your conference experiences. Just send use messages via http://www.franklins.net/calldotnetrocks and we'll call you to get you on. We have lots of useless crap to give away tonight! 10PM to Midnight, Eastern Time (GMT - 5) Posted May 13 2004, 04:22 PM by Carl Franklin with no comments Filed under: .NET Rocks!

• This week on .NET Rocks! - Reflections on Connections

  This Thursday night, Rory and I are going to talk about developer conferences, including our recent experiences at DevConnections.  We recorded interviews with some of the speakers while we were down there, which we will play on the air. We'll also be talking about the state of developer conferences, the glut of information available, and how joe and jane developer are coping with it all. We'd like to hear your two cents! Been to a conference lately? Call into the show and tell us about it. We'll also have a few celebs drop in for a visit. Of course, Rory does the Google Wierdos and Carl does the Linux Vulnerability of the Week, and a good time will be had by all. http://www.franklins.net/calldotnetrocks Oh, and we promise to really give away some software this time, as well as .NET Rocks! useless crap. :-)   Posted May 11 2004, 02:36 PM by Carl Franklin with 1 comment(s) Filed under: .NET Rocks!

• Kathleen Dollard this week on .NET Rocks!

  Carl and Rory chat with noted author, developer, and MVP Kathleen Dollard about Code Generation, or writing code that writes code. Don Kiely also shows up to talk about working with Kathleen on her book Code Generation in .NET. Carl and Rory also check in with Sunny Day to talk about the price of gasoline in Maine. Kathleen’s been developing business applications for over 20 years, programming in Visual Basic for almost ten years, and working with .NET since the early betas. As an independent consultant, she’s had the opportunity to work in a variety of domains, including the finance and justice sectors. She’s worked extensively with application code generation and is the author of Code Generation in Microsoft .NET (from Apress). She’s published numerous articles on a range of .NET technologies including XSLT, debugging, ADO.NET, and code generation. She’s also a long time Microsoft MVP 1998, president of the Northern Colorado .NET SIG, and is an active member of the Denver Visual Studio User Group. http://www.franklins.net/dotnetrocks   Posted May 10 2004, 02:56 AM by Carl Franklin with 1 comment(s) Filed under: .NET Rocks!