Yesterday I arrived in Barcelona for TechEd 2007. I followed already some interesting sessions about LINQ, it brings you closer how you can access data in a more intuitive and more object-oriented way (data = objects). I really like LINQ to SQL, one of the drawbacks, is that it can only be used against a SQL Server database. If you need to target another database and program against a conceptual model (not a 1-1 mapping with your datatable structure and objects) you can have a look at LINQ to Entities.

Last weekend I visited CeBIT 2007 in Hannover. We rented a house for the weekend in Steinhude which is not far from CeBIT and can easily be reached by car and train. If you are looking to stay overnight in Steinhude I would recommend this house, all comfort is available (TV, shower, kitchen, etc.).

Like every year, there were lots of brands and new products to discover. One of the cool things at CeBIT, is that you can gather a lot of gadgets :). An eyecatcher was this modding project for the World Cyber Games 2007 which is a 200 hours project! And I found that server rack of IBM also impressive.

    

One of the things that really touched me - a trip down memory lane -, was a working Commodore 64 of the good old days. There was a room that showed some computer history.

    

If I remember correctly, I have had the following computers with which I grew up, and I have to admit, it was mainly for playing games

• Atari 7800
• Sinclair QL (Quantum Leap)
• Commodore 64
• Commodore 128
• Amiga 500
• Amiga 1200

And when I came of age, I switched to the traditional personal computer. But I must say that there is really nothing compared to those old skool arcade games, such as

• Commodore
  • International Karate +
  • Green Beret
  • Commando
  • Ghosts'n Goblins
  • Krakout
  • Bruce Lee
  • Aztec Challenge
  • Operation Wolf
  • etc.
• Amiga
  • Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge
  • Shufflepuck Cafe
  • Battle Squadron
  • Cannon Fodder
  • Lemmings
  • Wings
  • Rick Dangerous
  • etc.

Scott Guthrie is coming for a presentation on February 1st. The session will take place at Utopolis Mechelen. Please subscribe to the event through the VISUG site. Two presentations will be given, namely:

• First Look at Visual Studio  and ASP.NET 'Orcas'
• ASP.NET 2.0 and ASP.NET AJAX Tips and Tricks

See you there!

VISUG has a brand new website. All the necessary features are already available and more functionality is coming soon. The two last VISUG events for year 2006 are announced. One of the events is a panel discussion about exception handling and logging, and it will take place at Real Software (my home). The other event is a geek dinner where we can discuss about... you know what I mean ;).

Topic: Discussion on Enterprise Exception Handling and Logging

Description: This is a session where you (yes, you!) can discuss exception handling and logging in enterprise applications. Bring your tips and tricks, problems and exception handling frustrations with you, and we'll all learn about best practices together!
No slides or preparation required! Don't want to discuss? No problem, you're not required to say anything, but we hope you will. To help with a smooth discussion, it will be lead by a panel of 3 to 4 people. If you're interested to sit on this panel, you're invited (First-come, First-served basis).

When: Monday 11 December, 18:30 - 20:30

Where: Real Software (Prins Boudewijnlaan, 2550 Kontich, Route)

Register: VISUG website

See you on both events!

The session 'Turn Left or Right? How to Best Design Your Web Services Interface' at TechEd was very interesting and pointed issues like versioning, contracts, interfaces, etc.

Christian Weyer from ThinkTecture is currently building a tool called WSContractFirst (WSCF) that can generate code from a contract. Dealing with the "Melted Cheese Effect" is an article on MSDN about this subject and more parts will be published.

I am looking forward to TechEd Amsterdam 2005. No doubt that it will be a great experience and there will be a lot of interesting seminars  given.

And do not forget to register to the BeLux Country Drink!

This weekend I visited CeBIT. It was a long trip due to road works and heavy rain, but it was worthwhile. There was a lot of people, but thankfully CeBIT at the Messegeländer in Hannover has about 30 halls. In one of the first halls, there was an exclusive car from Bugatti. Surprisingly there was no pricing indicated

I think it was at the expo from AOpen that a couple of case-mods were shown. One of the most original one was certainly this one:

One of the manufactors that i didn't want to miss was Asus. For me there were 2 things that caught my attention: the new A8N SLI Premium which is the succesor of the A8N SLI Deluxe and of course a DUAL Geforce 6800 Ultra on one board. As you can see the board is huge and I don't think it will fit on every motherboard and/or case, but it's still a prototype of course.

One of the things I focused on, was SATA PCI-Express RAID cards because I am planning to buy one for my system. The most well known RAID card in this category at this very moment is Areca, who were present too. The card that I am planning to buy is the ARC-1220 with 8x SATA ports.

HighPoint showed also their latest products and in particular the RocketRaid 2320, which is an 8 channels PCI-Express to SATA II host adapter. The new products are included in the product guide that I took from the stand at CeBIT. The products they showed are listed here.

I also went to 3Ware, and they told to me that the PCI-Express RAID cards will be released by November of this year.

It was a long weekend, and I spent most of the time in the car but it was fun and interesting. See you at CeBIT 2006

The second day at TechEd I followed 2 sessions about ASP.NET 2.0 where the speaker demonstrated a lot of nice new controls and features. One of the features I like most (call it a feature or a bug-fix), is that the designer does NOT mess your aspx code anymore, which is a very good thing, I think it was called 'HTML preserve' :).Features like, themes/skins, a tool for deploying your web application, role based management, navigation control, a bunch of login related controls (registration, login, lost your password, etc.), ...

After that there was the Belgian Day which was very well organized and was really fun (I don't have to mention that a lot of people watched the football :)

The first opening key note was very entertaining and refreshing. There was an introduction of the team services in VS.NET, a demo with 3d-glasses on a 64-bit platform, a promising project called SkyServer.org, announce of the Express edition of VS.NET, and many other things.

It's very well organized, everybody at TechEd receives a login where you can check your email, surf on the internet, you receive a bag with a huge set of goodies and documentation, etc.

I just returned from a session of FABRIQ which can be downloaded on GotDotNet and it's a very nice messaging architecture that can be interesting on the project I am currently working on. So, be prepared Tom, Franco and Peter when I come back to Belgium :)

Now we are going to eat something...

greetz from A'dam

This weekend I visited CeBIT 2004 at Hannover and as usual there was a lot to see. It was a trip of about 450 KM but we had no traffic problems, although there were a lot of road works. We slept in the hotel Montana Lauenau which was perfectly in order and was on the road to Hannover. Finding parking at CeBIT was far from easy, practically all parkings where full but we did find one for only 5 euro for the whole day!

One of the things I have seen a lot at CeBIT were usb-sticks (one seen of 1GB) and mp3 players in all kinds of formats and capacity. An original idea was Lubic where you can create your own PC case with components, like you do with Lego. It goes from an Airplane to a Giraffe, for example:

SOHOTANK Stackable External Box from the company Stardom was exacly what I was searching for. It has a very nice design and it's easily expandable. They offer also RAID solutions!