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After the nearly complete disappointment of Launch 2010 Boston, I had given serious thought to not going to the MSDN Northeast Roadshow stop in Augusta, ME on Tuesday, May 11. I figured it would be little more than a regurgitation of what happened at last month’s event.

I’m glad I decided to go. What a huge difference.

In  half the time, Jim O’Neil and Chris Bowen provided immeasurably more valuable and interesting information about Visual Studio 2010 and changes to Silverlight, multithreading, ASP.NET and an overview of Windows Phone 7. Here’s a recap.

Jim O'Neil describes Silverlight 4's new video / webcam support features.

Silverlight 4: Lately, listening to Microsoft describe a new Web technology brings to mind the phrase “a day late and a dollar short.” That’s certainly the case with Silverlight 4.

Admittedly, Microsoft has shifted the emphasis behind Silverlight to be less a clone of Flash and more an extension to the Web of Windows Presentation Foundation. But the “new features” O’Neil described on Tuesday were very much old technologies for Flash, and pretty much obsolete tech given HTML5.

Specifically, Silverlight 4 supports Web cams and microphones; TCP/UDP; printing; and a multiple-trust-level model that includes access to the file system, cross-domain requests and COM integration. Additionally, the XAML one writes to render Silverlight, while still different from WPF XAML, is a lot more like WPF.

Silverlight is, therefore, weaker than Flash and stronger than it at the same time. But it seems mostly moot, given that Flash itself is falling out of favor in response to the HTML5 specification’s API support for audio, video and other complex objects. Admittedly, there are things one can do in Silverlight — namely, presenting stored data and integrating existing COM components, such as text-to-speech or an interface to a proprietary business object / program — that one cannot do directly in HTML5.

That seems to me more likely to matter when making a corporate intranet or the like. I didn’t see much hope for Silverlight when it was introduced in 2007, and I still don’t see a future for it.

Continue reading: MSDN Northeast Roadshow, Augusta, ME, May 11, 2010 Recap »

Now that I’m a day or so removed from the Visual Studio “Launch 2010″ event in Boston, have plenty of sleep under my belt, and the benefit of hindsight, I’d like to recap my impressions.

I still consider Launch 2010 a significant disappointment, especially compared to the “Heroes Happen Here” launch of Visual Studio 2008 / SQL Server 2008 / Windows Server 2008 that was held in Manchester, NH, two years ago. But I should explain why, and maybe at least put in context, if not rephrase, my criticisms of Thursday.

Attendance: I need to clarify my attendance estimates from Thursday.

I’m guessing there were about 1,000 people in attendance at Launch 2010, which had three tracks: two all-day tracks for developers and IT professionals, and a half-day track for managers / decision makers. Of the total number of attendees, well over half  — at least 500 — were in the developer track. I don’t have an exact count because I don’t know who to ask for one, and I doubt there is an accurate count in any event, because Microsoft was allowing walk-ins throughout the event.

However many people were there, it was too many, at least for the developer track. They ran out of seats by 9:30 AM and it only got worse until 3:30 PM, after the ASP.NET session, after which a large number of people left. I did pop in on the IT pro track, after I couldn’t regain my seat following lunch; there were a few empty seats available there.

Allowing such a significant overflow is a huge kick in the balls. I took the time to register ahead of time. I took great pains to ensure I would arrive on time. If you’re letting people filter in six hours after they were supposed to show up, you’re not being fair to me — especially if I can’t fully enjoy the event.

Continue reading: The Visual Studio Launch 2010 Boston Event, Reconsidered »

6:50 PM:

The event ended at 4:45 PM, following Chris Bowen’s very interesting overview of Windows Phone development. I was desperate to get out of there, and this is the first access to the Web (wifi on the Concord Coach bus) I’ve had since making a beeline for Copley Square.

On Windows Phone: It leverages Windows Presentation Foundation for applications and uses XNA (like XBox does) for games. The capacities of the phone seem on par with Android / iPhone, and Microsoft is using a vetting process similar to Apple’s for approving applications.

Developer tools, including an express version of Visual Studio 2010 and an emulator, are available at developer.windowsphone.com, where you can also register for their marketplace.

On the event’s end: End-of-event giveaways were paltry; a notebook charging station (not the laptop rumored earlier), three copies of VS 2010 and some trinkets, for 500+ attendees.

Not to sound greedy or childish, but that’s pretty cheap. If Microsoft can’t afford to seed its new products by giving away some of its software to those who were motivated enough to spend an entire day learning about it, that’s a sad, sad commentary.

Overall, I rate Launch 2010 a major disappointment. The afternoon sessions were good, but I have a feeling the Roadshow event being held in Augusta in two weeks will be effectively the same thing.

Overbooking the event, providing little more than glorified commercials for half the day, sending me home with garbage, hosting a mixer after they  wore out my patience and making me look like a fool for talking up this event has put a seriously sour taste in my mouth, one I won’t easily forget.

Continue reading: Live From The Microsoft Launch 2010 Event In Boston »

While cruising through Google Reader’s recommendations, I ran across a link to the idroid Android OS port for the iPhone 2G that has set the Internet tubes to rattling in recent days.

That’s right: If you have an iPhone 2G laying about (and I am seriously kicking myself in the rear today for having turned my old 2G iPhone in to the recycler a couple months ago), you too can put the vastly superior Android OS on the vastly superior iPhone device.

This is not a project for a Linux noob, as you have to have enough skill to follow the instructions (PDF) on how to extract the touchscreen firmware from the iPhone, plus extensive skills in installing and configuring Linux (I probably couldn’t pull this off). Fortunately, the package comes with prebuilt images for Android, Linux and other necessary components, so once you have properly prepped the iPhone to receive Android, it should go smoothly.

The MediaFire link is http://www.mediafire.com/?xqjzn12igfn. Be forewarned: There are JavaScript redirectors and pop-under ads at MediaFire, and unfortunately you must enable JavaScript to get the download link.

I am not telling you to do this. If you add Android to the iPhone, you are certainly violating several agreements with both Apple and AT&T. You probably will brick the iPhone. It certainly will have performance issues and may not work at all as expected. If you install Android on an iPhone, you do so at your own risk.

All links in this post on delicious: http://delicious.com/dougvdotcom/idroid-andriod-os-port-for-iphone-2g-available-for-download-from-mediafire

Sent to me via e-mail from Billy, a frequent commenter on this blog (that is, for as infrequently as the blog gets comments, Billy is often one of those commenting):

I was wondering if I could get a small interview, just one question, for a term paper. I have 15 bibliography cards to do and I need sources and I was going through websites, found three good ones about career prospects in the programming/web development and design fields and that was it. I was thinking about people I could ask questions to and thought about you. I basically needed to know what you think the career opportunities in the programming and web development fields are and what you think they’ll be years on down the road. If you’re too busy I understand. Thank you for your time.

Billy:

I’m no industry analyst; my prognostications are usually limited to American football, and more often than not turn out wrong. (Quoth I, just before kickoff of Super Bowl 44: “The Saints are a great story, but this is gonna be a rout. Indy’s gonna annihilate them.”)

But I do have opinions about what programming and the Web will be like in 20 years, formed as a result of listening to others’ opinions, the history of the neolithic, agricultural and industrial revolutions, and my own experience of seeing how the Web has changed over the roughly 15 years I’ve been working in programming it.

The Web and computer programs we have today are, in a lot of ways, very much like the horse plow, rail fence and punch-card looms of antiquity. Today’s Web technologies and desktop programs are not primitive, but they’re largely second and third drafts of technologies that are changing fast.

The first Arab to tend a garden didn’t envision ConAgra; Adam Smith would probably have laughed at the notion of a Chinese economic juggernaut as he wrote The Wealth of Nations. The same will hold true of Al Gore and Tim Berners-Lee: What they thought they were making, at the time they were making it, is markedly different from what we have today, and will result in something far different, further down the road.
Continue reading: The Future Of Web Programming: From Artisan To Assembly Line »