Paul Mooney

The XML Cabana

I was checking in with some of the usual suspect (Christoph, Kirk, Kent, Jeff Julian, kzu, Christian Weyer, etc.) and it seems as though the XML crew will be spread out amongst the other Cabanas at TechEd.  I’m in the DBA Cabana, Kent and Kirk are in the DAT Cabana, and Christoph is in the CSI (connected systems) Cabana.  Since there is no official XML Cabana (what a shame) I’m declaring the Lobby Lounge in the JW Marriott as the unofficial TechEd XML Cabana.

For those of you that have questions about XML and can’t make it to the unofficial Cabana you are in still in luck.  We have come up with a way to find us in the other cabanas and walking throughout the convention hall (this is of course for the folks that don’t already know us).  Back at the PDC 03, the different Microsoft project teams gave out 4x5 inch inserts that could slide into you badge holder, behind your id.  We took that idea, and created 2 versions of our own inserts that will also help advertise the Mvp.Xml open source library.  The first one is for all the folks helping out with the MVP XML program, both MVPs and various Microsoft employees and has the tag line:

What about da music DonXML?

Publishing 10 years

10 years

On his site's tenth anniversary, Zeldman thanks you for the memories.

Thanks for the updates Jeffrey. The next ten years are going to be amazing...

Where's Linus?

I had a chance to attend the LinuxWorld Summit in NYC last week and I met some nice people there, but also learned about the infighting that goes on within the Open Source community. It’s human nature for a group to come together and then split-up into factions, this happens often within the Open Source community.

Admittedly I’m the outsider, but I've seen this all before. Look at RSS 2.0 vs RSS .92 then RSS 2.0 vs RSS 1.0 or how about RSS 2.0 vs Adam 0.3 and soon the RSS 2.0 vs Adam 1.0 brouhaha, it’s oh so typical of what’s going on within the Open Source community.

Most projects are the work of rugged individualists who enlist support from the community and corporations, but they need a Scobleizer to mention them everyday in his blog and to link to everyone else who does so as to give the appearance they are becoming accepted.

At the The X Window System: Backbone of the Open Desktop talk, Leon Shiman was appealing for community support; his biggest problem thus far has been convincing vendors to create drivers. He's extremely dedicated and knowledgeable, a true geek who would do anything to help you. Then a young man mentioned NoMachine, Leon smiled and said it was a good technology from Italy, but it was as if he had been stabbed in the back; NoMachine competes with X.org on the desktop.

Surprisingly there was little animosity towards Microsoft; the word proprietary was mentioned often with evil connotations. Nokia, one of the main sponsors of the event did receive some jibes and there was a Nokia employee from Finland at every talk I attended to answer any and all charges. It’s the carriers fault was their ubiquitous excuse.

Most of the laptops there were running Windows XP and at the Alternatives to MS Exchange on Linux talk the conclusion was that there isn’t. CCMail didn’t scale and earlier versions of Exchange had issues, but a guy in the audience said that the US Army is deploying Exchange proving it scales very well.

Chris Wright from OSDL gave a talk on Securing Linux in the Enterprise, I was hoping that Linus himself would make an appearance in NYC as he too works for OSDL now. Why hasn’t Linus appeared in public for years? Which religious war is he avoiding within the Open Source community?

Grok.Net

The Microsoft developer community will be descending on Orlando next week as TechEd is reformatted. It's going to be a great opportunity to learn all about SQL Server 2005. All the big-shot RD's will be there giving Grok Talks.

Hey, it's not to late to add your blog to the community at TechEdbloggers.

The Speakers Will Be Set to Stun?

By Frank

Tech Ed 2005 promises to have:

We are gearing up for the most successful TechEd ever with over 1,100 Breakou Sssions, Hands-on Labs, Instructor-led Labs, Cabana Talks, Strategic Briefings, Lunch Sesssions, Birds of a Feather and Webcasts, whew....it just keeps going!  Even more impressive is the line-up of top-notch speakers.

No wonder why this man is lying on the floor.

If that weren't enough for you, the Microsoft Regional Directors have cooked up a little suprise called “Grok Talks.“  Grok Talks are 10 minute presentations on a given topic. The word grok is from science fiction literature and means to understand something completely.

Damir's really excited about the Grok Talks: “GrokTalk is leading us into a new future, beyond what we have known before... As for me, I have heard its music, have felt its call from deep within. Our life will never be the same; everything is different now.“

Ok, now I really can't wait until Tech Ed starts.  I may achieve Nerdvana there.

XBOX 360 vs PS3 talk

My blog post XBOX 360 vs PS3 got over a thousand hits today!

The Google Gods have been good to me. Listen to Major Nelson's blogcast, he's on the XBOX Team.....what a cool job that must be!

Xbox 360 vs PS 3 Blogcast (WMA)

 Xbox 360 vs PS3 blogcast in WMA format 19:55 (6.94 Mb)  

NYC SQL Server UG

	SQL Server Query Performance Issues
	Joe Chang
	6:00 PM on May 26, 2005
	Microsoft Office in Manhattan

In this meeting, Joe Chang will take us through a series of short topics, all focused on query performance.

• Transferring data distribution statistics in sysindexes, and statblob

A developer may want to work on the schema of a production database without having to transfer a huge amount data. However, the unpopulated database is of no use in examining execution plans. By transferring over the data distribution statistics in sysindexes, one can then generate the same execution plan as the production database, with some exceptions on memory and parallel plans.

• Statistics accuracy, when default sample causes problems

SQL Server automatically creates and maintains statistics on selectivity and data distribution to estimate the cost of queries. In theory, it should be possible to make reasonable estimate by sampling only a small percentage of the total number of rows. In certain cases, the partial sample is seriously wrong and contributes to catastrophically bad execution plans. We'll examine some situations where the default statistics sample causes serious problem and learn how to identify situation requiring higher sampling percentages instead of blindly apply full scan to every large table.

• Duplicate statistics & indexes

It is possible to have a duplicate set on statistics with the same distribution data, one on a non-index statistics entry and one or more from indexes leading with the same column. Is there extra overhead in maintaining duplicate statistics? A script is provided for identifying duplicate statistics.

• Execution plan analysis--Finding unused indexes and index management

Coefficient, PSSDIAG, and other tools can identify top queries and stored procedures by aggregating count, CPU and Duration for distinct SQL and stored procedures calls. Its up to you to manually analyze each query. Should there be a tool to automate the basic analysis for each distinct query and stored procedure? One that identifies possible missing indexes and unused indexes. A comprehensive execution plan analysis tool can help manage indexes, yet there is no commercially available tool for this task.

• OPENXML queries and the cost based optimizer

We'll look at bad query plans that can occur in using OPENXML.

Pizza and refreshment will be served at the meeting, and giveaways (sponsored this month by Imceda) will be raffled off. Please confirm your attendance via email May Meeting Confirmation

Paris Hilton remix

You deserve a break today….wrong burger chain, but when you see this video you won’t care. Oh, and it’s in QuickTime, but that’s not going to stop you....

  Paris Hilton commercial remix [Quicktime, 4 MB]

Thanks Chuck, are you are crazy enough?  Thanks

Intro to ASP.Net 2.0

Scott Guthrie talk on ASP.NET 2.0

Intro to ASP.NET 2.0 and Visual Studio.Net 2005 , check out this video done by Scott Guthrie. 300kb. 100kb.

How do we make developers lives easier?  You already have Scott, you already have. Hey, what's up with ASP.Net 3.0?

Scott will be talking at TechEd

WEB323  ASP.NET 2.0: Overview of ASP.NET 2.0 (Part 1)

WEB324  ASP.NET 2.0: Overview of ASP.NET 2.0 (Part 2)

Rob Howard too;

WEB325  ASP.NET 2.0: Building Data-Driven Web Sites in ASP.NET 2.0

Bill Gates gets XML

In his remaks to the Microsoft CEO Summit last week Bill Gates spoke about Business Impact

That's where these underlying technologies like Web services and XML are finally reaching the maturity that you can expect that all of this really does come together, that it's not super fragmented in terms of where you need to go, literally based on who you are in the organization, with the software we'll have by next year you'll just sit down and you'll navigate into the project that you care about, to the customers that you care about, and you won't even know exactly which of these backend sources that information is coming from.

Steve Ballmer made similar comments last week when asked about RSS, he believes in the power of XML and Microsoft is investing heavy in XML Web Services.

Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer understand that RSS is contentious and the day ATOM 1.0 launches RSS will be legacy code. Over the past year the ATOM group has been reaching agreement on a standard for syndication, but at the same time there has been an Astroturf campaign to saddle us with RSS 2.0 for eternity. Two bloggers link back to each other day after day proclaiming the Good News about RSS and anyone who rows downstream merrily, merrily with them in their dream. They link to PR parrots who sing the same reframe, anything to stop the conversation that will lead to the conclusion that ATOM is inevitable. ATOM is an upgrade, it is so clear and simple; an effort to create a standard in an area that up till now has been fractious.

WinFX SDK

New Avalon, Indigo, WinFX, and Speech API Beta 1 RC

We released the "Avalon" and "Indigo" Beta 1 RC to the general public earlier today (release notes). The great news is that this release supports Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 (and there was much rejoicing). There are also associated downloads of the WinFX SDK (bootstrapped EXE and ISO versions), which include documentation, samples, and tools. In addition to Avalon video support via the MediaElement tag, Robert Brown points out the new managed Speech API that enables new classes of both speech recognition and synthesis. The API uses the W3C standard formats for recognition grammars (SRGS) and synthesis (SSML). And, in the interest of completeness, there are some platform hot fixes that you'll need to install in order to enable some of the new Indigo features. Whew!