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Archives / 2005

  • SQL Server: very popular for new projects

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    According to  this article, 51% of new projects chose SQL Server, fairly ahead Oracle (36.4%) that in turn is way ahead of the rest. Moreover, at least that what it seems like anyway, decision making was done without taking into account SQL Server 2005 which bring even more to the table.

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  • Webcast Series on C# Video Game Development (in Spanish!)

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    Basándonos en una exitosa serie de webcasts en inglés, nos vamos a introducir en los conceptos de la producción de juegos de video. A lo largo de ocho exposiciones, los presentadores demostrarán las etapas clave en el desarrollo de un motor de juegos a través de la creación de un juego de acción top-down llamado “Star Trooper”, usando Visual C# 2005 Express Edition, el nuevo ambiente de desarrollo de Microsoft diseñado para programadores principiantes. Los ocho webcasts de esta serie son:

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  • Ecuador at the Imagine Cup 2005 Japan finals. Day Two.

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    After yesterday's test presentations, Team Ecuador hammered it hard to be ready for the real thing:
     
     
     
    As you can see, the teams basically cleared the premises from every non illegal drink (available for free and in seemingly unendable quantities). It goes without saying that not everyone follows the standard way of getting ready:
     
     
     
    Team Ecuador had its first presentation at noon and we were already getting nervous because they didn't show by the booths. Alas, it became clear that what they were doing is ironing out every other aspect:
     
     
     
    The good thing of arriving in the last hour is that you don't have to wait outside too long, so after Team USA finished their thing, Team Ecuador stepped on stage to get everything ready in front of the judges:
     
     
     
    As a matter of fact, there were some glitches with the audio and video connections, but as this wasn't part of the grading, this wasn't a problem (expect for the mounting stress, of course). And then the first real 25 minutes started:
     
     
     
    The explanation of the technical details of the project happened to be, in my extra-oficial opinion, a strong point of Team Ecuador and, as you can see, there were no lack of questioning (in English of course, don't forget that most of the teams at Imagine Cup are *not* native English speakers). The other strong point was the live demo which included the update of a database in Quito (from Yokohama at midnight) and getting back a message on a Japanese cell phone that the team rented when they arrived to Narita. Even though a lot of things could go wrong, the demo went smoothly:
     
     
     
    The final questions of the judged pressed on security (how to protect grades sent over the Internet?) and innovation (this kind of stuff is new in Latin America but not so much in other parts of the world). At last, the 25 minutes were over and the kids could relax for a few hours, I killed time in several ways, for example watching the Visual Gaming finals:
     
     
     
    Project Hoshimi is a game in which Dr. Hoshimi innoculates himself a virus and the competitors must build nanobots (actually .NET classes) to search and destroy the virus, the "gaming field" was a special framework developed in .NET in which the competitors assemblies are loaded. Hoshimi is a strategy game that requires deep knowledge of .NET and AI. There were a high school category (some of the competitors are very young and came with their parents from places like Serbia and China) and an open category. Some of the things I saw will mold my game development webcast series that I'll be doing in August. But I digress, again. After some 6 hours, the time was close to the second graded presentation and the team used every minute: 
     
     
     
    Remind, rehearse, image what are you going to say and how. At long last, they went on stage for their last presentation for the second group of judges. The view from the team's perspective was more or less like this:
     
     
     
    As you can see the judges (from Japan, Mexico, and Australia in this case) took their jobs very seriously. This time the initial preparations went smoothly but the demo did have problems:
     
     
     
    So the team scrambled as the 25 minutes were running up. In the end, the judges pretty much questioned the same topics of security and innovation as the first group of judges did and, after the final remarks, the work was over, now all is left is to wait for one day before knowing the 6 runners-up from the 37 teams. Leandro y Sergio suggested that we take the guys and gals from Latino teams out to some place to kill the stress but coming back to normal behavior could be hard:
     
     
     
    What else could I say? what could've been done different? was the Japanese judge happy with my answer? But one good thing about young people is that they can leave things behind so, bit by bit, in Yokohama Hard Rock Cafe the teams started to do some group therapy:
     
     
     
    Here Leonardo pays attention to how things went for a friend of a Mexican team, specifically from Tijuana (to the best of my knowledge, Mexico had 3 teams at Imagine Cup: Puerto Vallarta - Short Film, Tijuana - Software Design, DF - IT, but I could be wrong). After a few hours of laughter between Mexicans, Costarricans, Peruvians, Ecuadorians and Portorricans), Team Ecuador said good night in a notable more relaxed and intercultural mood:
     
     
     
    Now to wait all day tomorrow, which is basically a free day and at night to the dinner where the runner-ups will be announced. We'll see.

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  • Ecuador at the Imagine Cup 2005 Japan finals. Day One.

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    And well, after the welcome party, it came the day for the first round of presentations, so things were getting serious, which was clear even as the team arrived for breakfast:
     
     
     
    As a reliever, nor the Jamaican neither the Japanese teams look far better than ours. After recovering energy with a champions breakfast, the team went to check their official post:
     
     
     
    And not, it's not like anything is broke. It's simply that as the presentation time got closer, the stress grew (by the way, this is Byron's picture debut, who did the trip to Yokohama through Newark, which made our team actually make a travel around the world and half to get here). Once the place was set up, it was the time for a final rehearsal and minor adjustments to the script:
     
     
     
    As you can see, even Sergio Victorio (Microsoft responsible for academic evangelism for the Andean region) is dead serious about it, which just figures as he is the one who is actually paying for having the team here. The rules of Imagine Cup establish that every team has to start making two 15 minutes presentation, the first one for three of the six judges in our category, Software Design.
     
     
    And there you have the Ecuadorian shirt doing its first presentation, which is basically for reducing the stress, as the judges even if they are present didn't take any notes or qualified the team in any other way. Moreover, only two members of the team must do the talk, that's why Mario and Leonardo, even as they were there could just watch from behind:
     
     
     
    And try hard to telephatically transmit the script to the guys in the front. It's hard not to be able to do any more. In the end things didn't go bad, there's a lot to fix and better for sure, but that was what this presentation was meant to, so that after the mandatory feedback the whole team could even smile and breathe:
     
     
     
     
    Anyway, you have to check out Christian's face: he hasn't fully overcome the first round and the second one was just a few hours ahead. At the left you can see Leonardo Doeyo, Microsoft responsible for academic evangelism in Latin America, an Argentinian who is as good as any Caribbean at singing and dancing salsa (which I know for what happened later, but I digress). After lunch, the team waited for the presentation for the second group of three judges:
     
     
     
    Once they got the handle of the game, they are more relaxed as they must basically repeat what they did in the morning (totally OT and only relevant to Latino audiences: guess who is becoming known as Elvis Crespo across all Imagine Cup?). I save you the picture of the second presentation because, as I said, it was pretty similar to the first one, only more relaxed hence better (now the real question is how the other teams are doing). At dinner, the agenda said it was karaoke night. It's widely known that karoke is a Japanese National Sport (they've got entire buildings dedicated to it around here), so every team *just had* to do it. Team Ecuador choose one of the very few songs in Spanish: "La Bamba" (Para bailar la bamba, para bailar la bamba se necesita una poca de gracia...)
     
     
     
    No national pride involved here: Team Ecuador was one of the best at it! Again, the relax was what everybody needed as tomorrow comes the real thing: two 25 minutes presentations done by the whole team. The judges will take notes and decide. For good or bad (or better, whatever).
     

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  • Ecuador at the Imagine Cup Japan 2005 finals

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    In our last chapter, we left our heroes very tired after a really long trip (by modern standards, anyway). Actually, we got to Yokohama at 7:30 A.M. on Wednesday (Tuesday night in Quito), at pretty much the same time as several other teams. That's why this day was dedicated for the teams just to recover themselves. At night, the Imagine Cup hosts throw a "Welcome Party":
     
     
    As many other official Microsoft parties, the night was kind of boring relaxing but there was still good chance of making new acquaintances, like Christian here who is already good friends with the Costa Rica team (which is in the Office Design category, and therefore not in direct competetion with our team which is running in the Software Design category):
     
     
     
    A nice surprise was a ryu-kyu dance énsémble, which performed an intriguing mix of folkloric and modern rhytms:
     
     
    The presentation was not only unexpected, different, cool and, dare I say, educative, but, amazingly, ended with many developers-developers-developers dancing and claping on stage:
     
     
     
    This of course included the andean/ecuadorian team (do you recognize some of them in the above picture?). All in all, it was a nice relaxing time, great for getting used to the local ways and for making new friends:
     
     
     
    As in other Microsoft parties there was no alcohol (which in this case was mandatory because of the kids as young as 14 who are running on the High School category, they traveled with their moms by the way). At 9:30 P.M. the place was closed, which is just good, as tomorrow (well, today) the serious stuff will start and we need the neurons of the team as clear as possible.
     
     
    Edgar Sánchez
     

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  • Ecuador in the Imagine Cup Japan 2005 finals

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    To begin with, the trip Quito-Bogotá took me an hour and 15 minutes then, after waiting 5 hours, more than 10 hours between Bogotá and Paris, and finally over 12 hours between Paris and Tokyo. The team did it even longer: Quito - Bonaire (in the Antilles) - Amsterdam - Paris - Tokyo. To get an idea of the size of the trip, this picture illustrates just the last leg:
     
    I took the picture at 4 A.M., while flying over Siberia when we had still three hours before getting to Tokyo. That should easily explain why the team that in Paris still looked like this:
     
    Nine hours later, while flying over Siberia, looked like this:
     
    Almost two days flying, with precious little sleep and a time zone shake up (I'm writing this at Thursday noon in Yokohama, which happens to be Wednesday at 10 P.M. in Quito), but the team is now in good shape again (they are strong college students, these guys) and poised for the first round of presentations this afternoon.
     
     
    Edgar Sánchez
     

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  • Almost ready for Imagine Cup Japan

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    On Monday I'll start a (very long) trip to Yokohama for the Imagine Cup finals. An Ecuadorian team from the Universidad Católica won the Andean Region chapter and with that their ticket to the Yokohama finals. As I was designed coach for the team, Microsoft is sending all of us to Japan (us and 35 other teams). As a bonus, we will be doing the trip Quito-Bogotá-Paris-Tokyo-Paris-Bogotá-Quito, so I'll be in France for the first time in my life also. This is going to be a really cool trip!

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  • Tomorrrow: GrokTalk en español

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    Some RDs (Patrick Hynds, Scott Stansfield, Kate Gregory, among others) had this great idea: GrokTalk.NET. I volunteered to do a presentation on VSTO 2005, and silly them, they took me in on the condition of doing it in Spanish. So tomorrow there'll be the unexpected espectacle of a 10 minute live presentation on a place flooded with English speaking people, by the way, if you happen to be at TechEd and speak Spanish (or know somebody like that) send her to the RD Cabana at 11:50, various Latin American (OK, OK, Fernando, Ibero American) flags/shirts will be most welcomed.

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  • TechEd 2005: Day 1 afternoon

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    On my way to a Cabaña Talk on Biztalk and web services I bumped on Nilda and Daniel Seara, Daniel used to be an RD and now is an MVP, über-geek on Visual Basic .NET. So we just sat down to talk and laugh during an hour (TechEd is as important from a technical standpoint as for the people you meet/talk again to). After that I went to an introductory talk on Biztalk 2004 for Visual Studio developers, so far it's best one I've gone to (but it's only Monday): Aaron Skonnard know his stuff and he's also a great presenter, I look forward to meet him personally some day.

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  • TechEd 2005: Day 1 morning

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    In fact, TechEd started yesterday for many of us: I had a full day NDA meeting for RDs where I learnt a few interesting things and then had some fun with other RDs. The public part of the story started for me this morning: a reasonably good keynote by Steve Ballmer with two high points: Outlook programmability with .NET (yes VSTO 2005 will allow to create impressive Outlook plug-ins) and then MOM, what with a MOM server controlling Sun hardware live, then pulling off fans one by one from the box (and SteveB very much enjoying it), and then finally remotely booting a backup Sun server. Impressive, even more so given that, being a developer, IT doesn't easily impress me.

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  • Webcast: Clientes inteligentes con Windows Forms 2.0

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    First of all, I must apologize because, due to technical problems, we weren't able to present live last week webcast (De ASP.NET 1.1 a ASP.NET 2.0). I hope this time we don't have any problems.
     
    Today, Tuesday April 19 2005, starting at 2 P.M. Eastern Time (GMT -5), that is 13h00 in Panamá-Bogotá-Quito-Lima, I'll be doing a webcast on the development of smart clients using Windows Forms 2.0. You can register and then join the presentation at http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032273483&Culture=es-MX. Once again, I hope and pray we can go live without problems this time.

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  • Webcast: De ASP.NET 1.1 a ASP.NET 2.0

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    Following the trend of Roy Osherove about webcasts and other activities in Hebrew, I hereby announce my very own personal webcast, but in Spanish: De ASP.NET 1.1 a ASP.NET 2.0. If you've seen any decent ASP.NET 2.0 presentation (or better yet, you're developing with it), you won't really see anything new. But if you want to know how we translate web form or how I pronounce "Visual Studio" or "cache" in (Latin American) Spanish then come watch this presentation, I think you'll find it amusing.

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  • .NET and Oracle

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    It's fun to see some love-hate relationships. Early on, Oracle bet on Java, so much so that only after Microsoft created its Oracle ADO.NET data provider and under pressure of the growing popularity of .NET, Oracle created its own ADO.NET data provider. And now increasingly, Oracle is accepting and taking positive steps about the popularity of .NET:

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  • TechEd 2005: I'll be there

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    One of the perks of being an RD is that, from time to time, you get invited to cool events like this one. I look forward to meet with at least as many interesting people as I did last year. On the down side, T&E are on my tab, which could be expensive for a guy living in the Andes. Luckily, I've got a few months to do the savings.

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  • SmartClient Offline Application Block on .NET 2.0

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    Today I had the pleasure of showing some concepts and examples of Smart Clients to over 200 people. For doing that, I used the Offline Application Block that has been around for a year already. The interesting thing is that I moved it to Visual Studio 2005 and I compiled it: a change here and there aside, the Application Block moved to .NET 2.0 without problem. Encouraged, I did the same with IssueVision and everything went OK again. It seems like compatibility between .NET 1.1 and .NET 2.0 is doing pretty well. Oh, and I almost forgot: smart clients are cool.

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  • VS 2005 Beta 2, RCs and Final Release Dates anyone?

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    Our small software shop has made its name by aggesively adopting new technologies. At different times it's been Pascal as a business apps language (we've been in the market for a long time... :-( ), LANs, PowerBuilder, Lotus Notes, Java, .NET. Along the years, we've been among the first in our country to create business apps using these technologies, often with Beta versions. Now is the time for .NET 2.0, VS 2005 and SQL Server 2005: we are currently working in 3 projects with these new technologies (it would've been 4, but the 4th was a big bank and they dimmed too risky to use 2005, so we settled on .NET 1.1 and VS 2003). About our 3 Whidbey projects:

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  • Wiki wiki patterns

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    Paraphrasing the Enterprise Solution Patterns Using Microsoft .NET book, most complex systems are built by composing (and composing, and composing) simple, proven solutions. And of course, a programming pattern is a simple, proven mechanism that solves a small problem effectively. Hence the popularity of design and programming patterns. On the other hand, the wiki wiki web is a very effective tool for a community to build reference encyclopedias. Thus, it sounds like a great idea to have a patterns wiki. Come to think of it, there must be a handful already, but what caught my attention is a wiki specialized in patterns revolving around .NET:  http://patternshare.org. A place worth watching, not only because its renowned authors but because we can also actively contribute.

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  • SQL Server 2005 Express restrictions and footprint

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    In a recent mail thread among RDs, a few thing about SQL Server 2005 Express (aka SSE) became clear:

    1. Yes SQL Server 2005 Express will be free, as opposed to Visual Web Developer 2005 Express or Visual C# 2005 Express whose price (or lack of it :-) is still being discussed.
    2. Restrictions:
      1. Maximum database size: 4 GB
      2. Maximum memory used: 1 GB
      3. Maximum CPUs used: 1
      4. No connections restriction
      5. That's it, regarding restrictions
    3. Footprint:
      1. Disk size: 35 MB aprox.
      2. Memory used: 8 MB without activity, and it will eat up memory as agressively as its major siblings
    Thanks to Lance Delano for the info.

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