We’re just another band out of Boston
On the road to try to make ends meet
Sleeping in our cars and playing in the bars
We practiced every nite in the streets…
As a technologist who’s had the great opportunities to do a lot of things…from working in the various roles of technology to being a presenter for a major software company canvassing the country showing people what’s possible, it’s interesting I’ve never been to a major conference before. The closest thing to it has been presenting sessions at the Visual Studio launch events (like Minneapolis, Houston & San Antonio). Lots of people, but a different perspective than what I hope to get from going to Boston this week. For the first time I’m honestly going to be a true participant at one of these things and be able to explore what’s going on. I look forward to the chance to see it from the attendee view.
I expect there’s a lot to see & learn about what’s new from MS. With the Vista launch for later this year there is a lot of excitement on the WPF and Workflow that will impact how we build systems and applications. I’ve seen what WinFX can do, having worked with demo applications that feature extreme graphics and highly interactive user interfaces for the Q3 content we did for MSDN.
On another tangent, I’m excited to explore Boston and it’s vicinity. My wife & I recently read the Adams book by McCollough, in which he chronicles the founding of the country, and talks about what was going on in the area at the time. She will be joining me for the weekend after the conference and we’re going to explore the area. I understand that Quincy is nearby, and we’re looking to find a Bed & Breakfast in the area to have a nice weekend.
Well, that’s what I’ve got to offer for now…I’m planning to provide updates as we go. This is so wierd, to feel like a journalist. My good friend Greg Downey (who’s a professor at UW Madison in the school of Journalism) would be impressed I think. Then again, maybe not. Let’s see how the week goes. I’m hoping that this blog is at least entertaining if not useful.
By the way…I will be presenting the last of my webcasts in the series on Business Intelligence with SQL Server 2005 focused on Data Mining. It will be on Thursday, and I’m planning to post some links and code samples with it so those who are interested can download ‘em. Check out my website http://www.BenkoTIPS.com for more information on this and other webcast series.