Microsoft Corporation: September 2006 Archives

I attended an MSDN Event yesterday, over at the Regal Hacienda theaters in Dublin. I always enjoy these events because they are free and there is always useful information presented. One of the speakers, Anand Iyer, is very enjoyable to watch. He's very good at presenting technical information and sprinkling little humorous comments throughout. A year ago my friend Dave got a kick out of Anand explaining ClickOnce: "You click once to download the application from a web site...and then you click once again to install it on your PC. It should have been called Click Twice!" Yesterday, Anand was slapping himself for promoting Google Maps when talking about AJAX and Atlas (Microsoft's AJAX sdk for ASP.NET): "I should be promoting Live Local Maps instead!"

Anand mentioned the Silicon Valley Code Camp 2006 that will be held on October 7th and 8th (the weekend) at Foothill College. This is also a free event, and the sessions will cover all kinds of topics, from .NET related technologies to Amazon Web Services. There's also a free Vista Install Fair, where you can upgrade your current Windows XP SP 2 computer to Windows Vista Ultimate. There are some restrictions for memory, graphics cards, etc., and you should backup your data. But it sounds like a good deal, getting some help with an upgrade, and you will receive a free copy of Windows Vista Ultimate after it is finally released. You can just bring your computer without the monitor, keyboard, or mouse.

External Link:
Silicon Valley Code Camp 2006

I worked for Microsoft during 1990 to 1993 on the Visual Studio team. During the end of that period, Windows NT was being developed and about to be released. I didn't work on the main operating system--my job was to help get MFC ported on the new platform. We would receive various builds and they would run slowly on the computers in our office. Someone in the company (not me) got frustrated with the performance issues and created this splash screen as a joke. I always found it to be funny and have saved it on my hard drive for over ten years. I wonder if people on the Windows Vista team have done any pranks like this?