SQL 2008 Frustrations

I have been trying to use SQL 2008 for a new project, but I just broke down and decided to go back to SQL 2005 so that I can be productive.

Even after installing Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta I still can't get Visual Studio 2008 to play nicely with SQL 2008... Tools like Schema Compare apparently still don't support "SQL 10" according to the error messages, and there still aren't any SQL 2008 specific database project types.

To be clear I haven't had any problems with SQL 2008 itself, just a lack of tools support.

Minnesota Developers Conference 2008

I'll be speaking on Enitity Framework development at the Minnesota Developers Conference 2008 on September 9, 2008 in Minneapolis.

Check out the website (http://mdc.ilmservice.com/) there are a ton of great speakers! It should be a great event, so register early.

Peeking behind the curtain at a Microsoft presentation

With 45 minutes to go before a presentation to 500 developers in Omaha, Microsoft Evangelist Mike Benkovich (right) is writing a new demo from scratch with help from his manager Brian Moore (center).

It's not that he wasn't prepared for a presentation that he's given several times before in other cities, it just that he thought his existing demos were a little "boring".

Nothing like an untested demo in front of a live audience to make things exciting!

Microsoft opening new development center for Expression Suite in Minneapolis

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA - Microsoft is actively hiring developers to staff a new development team that will be based in the Twin Cities. The group will be working on parts of Microsoft's new Expression Studio tools for creative professionals.

Expression Studio competes directly with products from Adobe, and Doug Olson, and Bob Pappas, the managers for the new Microsoft team are both alumni of Adobe product development teams based in Arden Hills, Minnesota.

Microsoft has an existing sales and consulting office located in Bloomington, Minneapolis, but there isn't space available in that office for the new Expression team, and so they are currently shopping for office space, location TBD.

The open positions are for senior Software Development Engineers and Software Development Engineer Testers working with C# and WPF. This a rare opportunity to work on a cutting edge Microsoft software product, and live in Minneapolis. Interested candidates should visit http://members.microsoft.com/careers/default.mspx.

Bill Gates keynote at the Office Developers Conference 2008

I'm working the "Architects @ Microsoft" booth at the Office Developers Conference in San Jose this week, but my booth doesn't open until 12:30, and so I had time to take some pictures at the Bill Gates keynote before I get to work in the exhibit hall...

I was standing at the back of the hall with one of the convention center security guards, who doesn't now anything about Microsoft, but has probably watched a lot of keynote speeches over the years. About an hour into Bill's presentation he turned to me, and said, "Wow, he really knows his stuff doesn't he."

I theory Bill should be coasting into his upcoming retirement from day to day involvement at Microsoft, but you would never guess it by watching him speak to a thousand developers for an hour and a half here at ODC 2008.

The view from mission control at the back of the hall. The technician on the left is running the teleprompter for the speakers (no most of them don't do it all from memory... but I'm not sure about Bill).

FedEx had a major demo in the keynote showing off a cool new OBA application they've developed to integrate package shipping and tracking into Outlook. At the end of the demo this FedEx delivery guy ran up on stage with a package for Bill.

The box contained a custom Guitar Hero guitar that is going to be auctioned off to some lucky ODC attendee.

Silverlight news: Tafiti source code released and a new Silverlight development site

A couple pieces of great news for Silverlight developers:

1. Microsoft has just released the source code for Tafiti (http://tafiti.com) on CodePlex: http://codeplex.com/WLQuickApps Tafiti is one of the most sophisticated SilverLight applications I'm aware of at this time, and so this should be an interesting body of code for aspiring SilverLight developers to dig through. Note: This Silverlight 1.0 code, NOT Silverlight 2.0 alpha code, and so it is using JavaScript not C#.

2. Microsoft and CMP Media have just launched a new Resource Center for MS Silverlight site for developers (http://www.ddjresources.com/silverlight/) this looks like another great resource.

My new approach to personal email management

I have adopted a new approach to personal email management that I thought was innovative enough that it is worth sharing.

The problem being solved is to try and find more effective ways to manage my inbox, while reducing the number of people and businesses that I give my primary personal email address to. A secondary goal is to track which businesses use my email address to spam me with unwanted third party junk email, and then easily block that email.

So here is the approach: I have a dedicated domain name "scrappydog.com" with just one email user (me). All email to any email address in the scrappydog.com domain lands in my inbox. This allows me to created a separate dedicated email address for every organization I do business with, and I can create a one off random address for any interaction I want.

Here some examples:

1. wellsfargo@scrappydog.com
2. americanexpress@scrappydog.com
3. somegirlimetatthebar@scrappydog.com
4. criticalworkstuff@scrappydog.com

Then I can create a single inbox rule to route email addressed TO wellsfargo@scrappydog.com straight to the trash after I close my account there, instead of ten different rules for all of the different addresses they send me email FROM based on different marketing campaigns.

Important point to note: What makes this so simple is that I'm routing ALL the email for this domain to a single inbox, and so there is NO SETUP for a new address, I just make them up on the spot. And I can easily create rules to make them go away.