See Steve Ballmer open the NASDAQ today alongside fellow RD Tim Huckaby at 9:30AM EST. Then you can watch SteveB and Tim launch Vista, Office 2007 and Exchange 2007 at 4:30PM EST. Tim is doing the demo of the Scripps Cancer Research solution (the one he let me demo at the PDC). Watch the demo here.

Today Garry talks about me whining on Mt. Rainer (not true!) as well as the David Sharp story and the commercialization of Everest. Read it here.

Part II of Gary's interview is here.

Catch it here.

Check out Part I of my three part interview with mountain climber Garry Porter.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

SQL Server Express for the .NET Developer

Subject:   This presentation, recently presented at VSLive, will get you up and running with SQL Server 2005 Express Edition, the latest free version of SQL Server available to use and redistribute with your database applications. Learn how you can leverage features available specifically in the Express edition. We’ll compare Express with the other SQL Server 2005 editions, and describe scenarios that Express is particularly well-suited for. Find out how to handle the configuration of new SQL Server 2005 features, such as CLR integration, in the context of new features available only in Express, such as user instances. Explore features such as dynamic database attachment, security, advanced services and more.

Speaker:   Leonard Lobel, twentysix New York

Leonard Lobel is a Senior Consultant with twentysix New York, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner in New York City. Programming since 1979, his experience spans a variety of business domains, including publishing and retail store management. Lenni has served as chief architect and senior developer for various organizations, ranging from small shops to high-profile clients. He is also a consultant and trainer, and has been a contributing editor to Visual Studio Magazine. Lenni is also the lead developer of six of Microsft's Starter Kits and Sample Applications for SQL Server Express Edition.

Date:   Thursday, November 16, 2006  

Time:   Reception 6:00 PM , Program 6:15 PM  

Location:    Microsoft , 1290 Avenue of the Americas (the AXA building - bet. 51st/52nd Sts.) , 6th floor 

Directions:  B/D/F/V to 47th-50th Sts./Rockefeller Ctr

1 to 50th St./Bway

N/R/W to 49th St./7th Ave.

Tech*Ed here in Barcelona is progressing well. Richard and I did the TSQL session yesterday for 500 people as well as recording a .NET Rocks show on Agile Development with Roy Osherove and Kate Gregory.

After we went drinking at the Norway party. What happens at TechED Europe is that each country put on a party for their attendees. Since there is a TechEd in the USA there is no party for Americans. So the Norwegians took pity on us speakers and invited us. Thanks again!

After the party we went to Football!

Today was an XQuery session and now we do the last of the Speaker Idol contest, today at 12:30 pm we see:

Bart De Smet

Dennis Doomen

Luigi Crispo

At 14:45 we do the final round and name a winner!!!

Microsoft is releasing the SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 Community Technology Preview November 2006.   The CTP release is scheduled for Tuesday, November 7^th.  

Some bullets:

§  Support for the upcoming Windows Vista.

§  Data Mining Add-Ins for Office 2007, which enables data mining functionality from SSAS to be used directly within Excel 2007 and Visio 2007.

§  SSRS integration with MOSS 2007, which allows integration with the Report Center in SharePoint providing seamless consumption and management of SSRS reports within SharePoint.

§  SSAS improvements for Excel 2007 and Excel Services relating to performance and functionality. 

Heterogeneous Environments (Interoperability):

§  Oracle Support in Report Builder. Users will now be able to use Report Builder on top of Oracle data sources.

§  Hyperion support with SSRS. Organizations will now be able to use SSRS to build reports on top of Hyperion Essbase cubes.  

Performance/Enterprise:

§  Data compression (varDecimal), which is important for data warehouse scenarios and is specifically important for SAP BW scenarios. This requires less disk storage of decimal data which increases overall performance.

§  Manageability enhancements. Based on customer feedback, SQL Server provides enhanced management capabilities for DBAs such as improvements in database maintenance plans, enhanced management reports and a new copy database wizard. 

SQL Server Express Edition

§  Management reports have been added to SQL Server Express Edition enabling customers to get insights into the performance of their Express Edition and SQL Server Compact Edition databases.

§  SQL Server Management Studio Express Edition now enables management of SQL Server Compact Edition databases. 

SQL Server 2005 SP2 will ship shortly after the launch of Windows Vista and Office.  You can find more details about the features in SP2 at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=71711.

The first wave of the Speaker Idol Contest is today at 19:00 in the expo hall. Come see:

Anthony Harris

Andrew Godleman

Evangelos Hadjichristodoulou (yes that is his real name)

They will all compete for 5 minutes in front of the judges (myself included).

So I lost to Lance Armstrong in the NYC Marathon yesterday. Oh well. I am now in route to TechEd in Barcelona!