posted on October 31, 2008 by Bryant Zadegan
This is the segment where I talk about how PDC went and what I thought of everything tied to it, including but not limited to such factors as my flight here, my hotel stay, the conference itself, the quality of the sessions, etc. in order to give people a feel of what to expect should said people ever decide to come to PDC, for example, next year.
I’m doing this because many people have contacted me during the course of PDC to find out what I would recommend doing in order to get the most out of PDC and other similar events, so I’ll almost definitely put up posts like this after every single major event which I attend.
You can catch the list after the break, though here’s the quick summary:
Virgin America: Overrated.
The Omni Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles: Amazing.
AMD: Awesome, even if afflicted by some minor foibles.
Microsoft: Wonderful with most everything this time around.
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posted on October 30, 2008 by Bryant Zadegan
The taskbar team has an amazing innovation up their sleeves, but if you ask any of the team directly, what do you get? They’ll tell you that the taskbar is more an “evolution” than a “revolution” in the Windows UI.
For those of you who aren’t convinced, the old taskbar actually happens to still be around, but only in the sense that the opened applications can have text next to their icons in the new taskbar. Besides that, the new taskbar functionality will all still remain intact, even though you can bring it close to looking like the old taskbar. Take a gander below; you’ll see more in our interview next week.
posted on October 29, 2008 by Bryant Zadegan
For those wondering, Mike Nash is (according to his business card) the “Corporate Vice President” for “Windows Product Management.”
Mike held a small roundtable for a number of pressies. He gave a quick rundown of things you all basically already know, so I took the time to ask a few questions which kept you guys in mind. The questions I asked:
- What’s the difference between “API Complete” (build 6801) is and “Feature Complete” (Beta 1)?
- Why were lots of code samples and features being shown off for the Superbar at PDC when developers can’t develop for it? (Rafael’s extension of my API v. Feature Complete question)
- Why were the sensor demonstrations missing from the Windows 7 keynote today?
The answers to these questions can be found in the true-to-life* transcript after the break.
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posted on October 28, 2008 by Bryant Zadegan
Yesterday was packed with much news about Azure and other cloudy things. Thus, I’ll focus instead on some of the other things which took place on the 27th of October, the first day of PDC.
Today’s happenings, likely including images from the party as well as images from other goings-on, will come near the end of the night (pacific time).
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posted on by Stan
Our very own Bryant managed to get several Windows 7 screenshots off a broken CommNET system. Follow this link to get a first glance at the new version of Windows.
posted on October 26, 2008 by Bryant Zadegan
PDC this year will be huge, but it actually looks mildly subdued. I’ll update this with pictures and general experiences as time passes.
One thing to note: the process by which this post was generated is highly experimental. It’s a system we also plan on using during the keynotes, during some of the sessions, and during the days themselves. The timestamps which you may see are not representative of when they occured; rather, they represent when the post was updated with the labeled information.
Check the break for pictures and very quick analyses of different happenings today.
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posted on October 13, 2008 by Bryant Zadegan
Slashdot readers, thanks for visiting. Feel free to chime in here or on the forums.
Mike Nash, former Security Guru and current Client Guru over at Microsoft, has just announced on the Windows Vista Blog that the new name for Windows “7” will be:
…which makes me wonder why it’s going to be NT 6.1.
It also means that Windows Strata will likely be the codename for the new Cloud OS discussed by Ballmer earlier this month. We’ll carry more about all of this from PDC in two weeks.
Update: Brandon followed up with me on twitter saying it’s the 7th release of Windows, which is ridiculous:
- Windows
- Windows 2
- Windows 3.0
- Windows NT (NT 4)
- Windows 2000 (NT 5)
- Windows XP (NT 5.1)
- Windows Vista (NT 6)
That’s 7 releases right there, including XP. If XP isn’t counted because it’s Kernel 5.1 (which would bring the total with Windows 7 back down to seven), then why is Windows 7 being counted as the “seventh” release if it’s kernel 6.1? I hope I’m not the only one seeing the naming problem here.
Kernel increments are used mostly for application compatibility purposes, but still, the logic is lost upon us as most people would count XP as a semi-major release in comparison to 2000. I hope the guys at the Blog have an update, because this is weird.
More potential views of how this could have worked (Update 2: as well as Mike’s clarification) after the break.
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