April 2004 - Posts
Slightly out of topic but technologically (and musically) interesting…
Last evening, I went to see Kraftwerk live in concert in Montreal. For those who don’t know them, it’s a German band that has been making electronic music since the ‘70s. Basically, they have laid the foundations for all the electronic music 20 and 30 years ago.
The show was great with the band playing lots of old songs and new ones from their latest Tour de France Soundtracks album. What’s interesting from a technology point of view is that they only bring laptops along with MIDI controllers to their shows. Every sound is either sampled or generated from soft synths. This could be pretty boring to watch but the visuals are just fantastic.
It was listening to Kraftwerk when a was a boy in the ‘70s and seeing them live was something that I wished for a long time but they don’t tour very often and when they do, they don’t play a lot of gigs (5 in North America for this tour!).
Here’s the set list:
1. Man Machine
2. EXPO 2000 ( Planet Of Visions )
3. Tour De France Etapes
4. Vitamin
5. Tour De France
6. Autobahn
7. The Model
8. Neonlights
9. Radioactivity
10. Trans Europe Express
11. Numbers/Computer World
12. Home Computer
13. Pocket Calculator
14. The Robots
15. Elektro Kardiogramm
16. Aero Dynamik
17. Music Non Stop
Here are some photos that I found on the Web. They were taken In Glasgow. More here.
I discovered Sysprep recently while discussing with some Virtual PC product team members at the MVP Summit. Basically I wanted to install and set one XP virtual machine and use it multiple times. The problem is when you need to run two virtual machines at the same time; they have the same name.
Once you have created, installed, configured to your heart one virtual machine, you run Sysprep to "reseal" the image. The next time you run the virtual machine, it will ask for the product key, machine name and network info but all the apps that you installed before running Sysprep will still be installed. Cool !
Sysprep.exe can be found on the XP CD in the \Support\Tools\Deploy.cab file. You also need to extract Setupcl.exe.
I you live in the Montreal, Canada area and want to convert some Java developers friends to .NET, tomorrow there's a free MSDN event:
MSDN Deep Dive: .NET For Java Developers
15/04/2004 9:00 AM - 15/04/2004 12:30 PM
Welcome Time: 7:45 AM
Language: English
Paramount Montreal
977 Ste-Catherine West
Montreal Quebec H3B 1E8
Canada
Recommended Audience: Developer.
This presentation is designed to give J2EE developers a strong familiarity with the .NET framework. The goal of this seminar is to explain .NET concepts and technologies to an audience that is familiar with the J2EE framework.
To this end we will take a look at the following topics:
The runtime components involved with the execution of .NET applications including the CLR, IIS, and ASP.NET.
A quick tour of the .NET framework base class libraries including ADO.NET, Windows Forms, ASP.NET, and Enterprise Services. Time will be spent contrasting the available .NET technologies to similar or equivalent technologies in the J2EE framework.
Explain the purpose and capabilities of the Java Language Conversion Assistant (JLCA). Additionally, demystify the role that the J# language plays with respect to the .NET family of programming languages.
Evaluate the possible interoperability choices available for applications that use both .NET and J2EE. The majority of the time will be spent speaking about message-based interoperability by way of web services or some other messaging medium. We will briefly mention some of the bridging and adapter technologies that are commercially available.
Attend this MSDN Deep Dive where we will go deep on .NET for Java Developers.
Register here
Yes I know that I'm late but here are my thoughts about the MVP Summit 2004.
In the past, I attended on numerous Microsoft conferences like TechEd and PDC but this was my first MVP Summit. Being an RD, I was invited to attend this year. The dynamic is really different from the big conferences. The first thing I noticed was that everybody seams to know everybody maybe because you find MVPs for different Microsoft products and technologies and they know everyone in their group. It’s fun to hear and participate in conversations.
The thing that stroked me the most is the interaction between MVPs and Microsoft. MS is really relying on MVPs to provide feedback and you can sense the openness (something you don’t necessary have at TechEd or the PDC).
It also was my first visit in Seattle and on the Microsoft Campus. I loved the scenery and the trees. I found that the downtown area is very clean and that it has life.
In my opinion, it was a week well spent meeting great MVPs and RDs and learning cool stuff. Now with some cool things that we saw: (bleep) (bleep) (bleep) (bleep) (bleep) (bleep) (bleep) (bleep) (bleep) (bleep) (bleep).
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