Since arriving in the Bellevue/Redmond area I have been struck by the lack of people. Wherever I have gone it seems like the place was built for at least twice the number that are present, whether it be the shopping centers or restaurants. I wondered was it because: the others are soon to arrive half the people left …

We are at the Microsoft SOA conference in Redmond , we have been meeting up with old friends and bumping into people who only exist on our bookshelves in the office. Compared to the last time I was here there is a LOT more interest in BizTalk and SOA. We have see running versions of Oslo Microsoft's vision of beyond …

So my thoughts at the end of day.... Certainly a useful day, but the conference seems a little slow. The breaks seem long,the sessions short and the breakout sessions finished quite early in the day. Maybe I am just used to the crammed in format of TechEd that go on late into the evening. On the plus side this format …

Sitting here at the back of the Kodiak room at the Microsoft Conference Center in Redmond is somewhat similar to the control room at JPL which I went to on my last trip to the USA. All is can see is a sea of laptops and heads just visible over the rows of desks. It is nice to have a desk and easy access to power and …

SOA being a conference on business process is a great place to learn new words for the game of buzzword bingo, new ones to me thus far are: Onboarding - to hire staff Toast - information provided via a gadget on the desktop

After a couple of days in the Washington state my body has caught up to a manageable time zone (somewhere east of Denver I think, but that is close enough) just in time for for the start of the Microsoft SOA 2007 conference. The keynote for me highlighted that Microsoft see the future in the cloud, the Internet Service …

For a while I have been suffering that when I switch on my Acer Core2 Duo Vista laptop, both cores sometimes go to 85%+ utilization, so the PC is slooooow. Usually after a few reboots it seems to clear. This can happen after a resume from hibernate and complete restart; there was no obvious pattern. Task manager only …

Richard and I are currently in Redmond for the SOA conference at the Microsoft conference. if you are at the SOA conference come over and say hello b.

I have been on holiday for a week and I see that registration for DDD6 has opened and closed - good job my session was voted onto the agenda else I would not be going. Thanks to anyone who voted for my session, see you there.

The Imagine Cup Software Challenger 2008 has opened with a new format for 2008. You will need to get your idea in by December the 14th and then (hopefully) onto an innovation accelerator and then to the final UK round. I think the new format will help level the field a lot allowing teams to shine with innovation not …