On the Startup theme, Startup Weekend Dallas will be in 2.5 weeks.  Again, information at http://dallas.startupweekend.org/ – there will be a LOT of people around that you recognize from the BizSpark crowd!

For all those that were asking, just a reminder that the first Startup weekend Tulsa is happening next weekend.  More info at http://tulsa.startupweekend.org/

Also, come out to Tulsa TechFest this Saturday, StartupWeekend will be involved there as well.

We’ve got the Headspring Event tomorrow here in Austin – 1-5pm at the Austin Microsoft office.  You can find the details tonight at ADNUG or at the event link: http://www.headspringsystems.com/services/agile-training/continuous-integration/

In the spirit of completeness, I wanted to make a few comments about my other session I submitted for SxSWi- “Smart for Who?”  This session really came out of looking around my office and working spaces and really noting not only how connected all those “impulse electronics” and “entertainment devices” have become, but how little most people consider what their full capabilities and purposes are.  As we’ve seen in the history of PC’s the best capabilities have come with networking and larger connectivity between systems, but that increase has also been paced by an increase in vulnerability and exposure to those connections being done with malice.

So as we connect more and more devices that we use every day not only to each other, but to the internet at large, we need to be aware of what’s going on between those.  PVR’s often report back not just what shows you watched, but how many times you rewound that halftime commercial or act.  The old days of “tracing a call” have become a Hollywood gimmick – the number is available even before the connection is made, and the call itself can be real time transcribed to text.  Your printer is network connected, and most embed unique numbers in ever item printed, your security system knows when you’re home and when you’re gone.  And they’re all able to talk with each other.

This session will be about how much control we have over this – how much is black helicopters and how much is actual productivity enhancement and personal customization that I WANT to be done.  Do I want my bedside alarm clock to check my schedule and know that it doesn’t have to wake me quite so early tomorrow morning because my first meeting got cancelled overnight?  Do I want the world to know I’ve put my house on power save mode because I’m going to be in Chicago for a couple of days?  The Yin and Yang of connectivity is that Identity, Privacy, and Security are key – and we’re having to find new ways of making those concepts easy enough that you don’t have to read another 300 page manual just to use your new remote control or VOIP phone!

If this sounds like something you would be interesting in hearing about, either at SxSWi or in the community after SxSW – please “Thumbs Up” my session either above on the link or below!

I’ve had a couple of people ask me (and a couple of people not ask, but given their own spin on the title) and so I thought I’d do a bit more commentary on my “Brain” session submission.

From the site (“Your Brain in the Cloud”), you’ll see the description as:

Workflows, Agents, Bots... Not only is our data going into the Net but our decision making processes as well. What constitutes “Me” and how carefully should we consider how much of that resides outside of my own skull? Who owns or has access to that part of us outside ourselves?

So what does this mean?  Well when I first started thinking and talking about this, “Bookworm, Run”, “True Names”, and “A World out of Time” (Peerssa for the state) were some of the works that had already been thinking about what happens when we begin not just using computers, but embedding our own decision making processes into them and then turning over those “mundane” activities to be freed up for more lofty (or just more fun) activities.

Well, as the years went on and many people continued thinking about it, most of the “Serious” work was focused on either higher FPS’s, achieving the holy grail of the Memex, or embedding the decision making processes of Corporations and legal entities into the programs and systems of the machines.  But Moore’s Law marches on and what used to be in the reach of only governments and multi-nationals are now the playground of everyday users, and embedding yourself in various systems comes along with that. 

What I hope to talk about is how this initiative/push/desire – whatever you want to call it – will affect us.  Don’t think you’re part of it?  Have you ever run a tweetbot?  Set up an email rule?  Configured your phone to allow some people and not others at different times of the day?  Used a Bot in an online game?  These are all ways that people today are putting parts of themselves into the cloud without even realizing it! 

So what I hope to do is get us all thinking about what we do outsource of our internal selves, what makes sense to push up and to think about what happens if that repository should be compromised.  While we all want the happy part of “True Names” (“My kernel is out there in the System. Every time I'm there, I transfer a little more of myself.") we also need to be aware of Stross and his vision of multiple copies of self aware selves and how the very idea of identity can be challenged by this. 

And my final plea – if all this sounds interesting, please “Thumbs up” my session either directly or by the link below. 

I can’t let St Louis get too far ahead of us!  Looks like I need to get more involved in the Austin Hacker Space movement!

http://archreactor.org/

Looks like their first meeting is next week.

I had to link blog this – it’s promising to be a GREAT series.  I couldn’t have done so well myself.

http://www.sharepointhillbilly.com/archive/2009/08/07/getting-your-feet-wet-writing-code-for-sharepoint-ndash-part.aspx

SharePoint Joel (http://www.sharepointjoel.com/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?List=0cd1a63d%2D183c%2D4fc2%2D8320%2Dba5369008acb&ID=243) has a very nice summary of the current state of Office 2010 and SharePoint discussion points that are covered by and released from the current NDA’s.  If you’re looking to blog or present on the new features – take a quick read through the post above.

So if you’re tired of shooting Zombies in Left4Dead on your XBox, or have beaten the “I, Zombie” level on Plants vs Zombies one too many times, and you’re in the Seattle area – try the live action event!http://blog.seattlepi.com/digitaljoystick/archives/172804.asp?from=blog_last3

I want!  http://nevver.tumblr.com/post/128929601/realtime-3d-airtraffic-fubiz  Of course I mean the display hardware mostly.  The controls seem like they could be refined a bit more.

You may remember the high priority post back in May (Important information on SharePoint Server 2007 based products and SP2) about an issue with the state of activation after SP2 is installed on SharePoint Server and associated servers.  There was a pretty simple fix posted, but if you want to script the fix or just use the officially blessed correction to the issue, Hotfixes have been released for both the 64bit and 32bit versions of the SharePoint servers. 

You can find the 32 bit version at office2007-kb971620-fullfile-x86-glb.exe and the 64 bit version at office2007-kb971620-fullfile-x64-glb.exe

(Blogged for my reference and to close the loop on the follow up action with the release.)

It’s been up a couple of days, but I just saw a tweet fly past about it.  If you check out session CI011 on the session track (https://www.mspartnerconference.com/public/sessionlist.aspx?keyword=CI011) you’ll see that there’s some great information about the Infrastructure strategy behind Microsoft’s cloud computing.  We expected to see a good bit about that, but there’s also a nice little spot in the end of the session description - “and the Dynamic Datacenter Toolkit for Enterprises (available Q4 CY 2009) that enables building the foundation for a Private cloud.”

Hmmm, I need to try a lot harder to get to the conference – it isn’t that far away!

While I’m looking at my Micro Framework notes, I wanted to push this one out as well.  over at CodePlex (http://mftoolkit.codeplex.com) you can find Michael’s toolkit for networking Micro Framework boards.  To get your interest, let me just quote directly from the latest release notes:

Oh, did I mention there’s XBee support in there too?  OK, I’ll stop typing because you’ve already clicked over and are downloading the toolkit!

Pavel sent this to me a while ago, but I haven’t been keeping up.  You know those super expensive universal all in one programmable remotes?   Well he put together one all on his own, the great part is that he can can keep adding to it or tie it into other systems to work.  On his post below he shows how to take a simple IR LED and a Micro Framework board and create his own multisystem IR remote.  But once you do that, you’ve got the basis for LOTS of other stuff – add an RF transceiver and you’ve got a bridge/extender.  Add an IR photocell and you’ve got a learning remote.  Take advantage of the networking capability, and you’ve got a house controller that doesn’t have to be hard wired in any particular location…

Oh, and did I mention that Servos work off the same concept of pulse modulation?  No, I don’t have to, you’ve already figured that out!

http://bansky.net/blog/2009/04/microframework-device-controlled-via-tv-remote/

Some of you may have already seen the Hohm site – but if you haven’t you can take a look over at www.microsoft-hohm.com (and sign up while you’re there.)  I’d also recommend taking a look and possibly subscribing to the team blog – http://blog.microsoft-hohm.com. 

So why the blog post?  Well lots of people saw what Hohm is about – letting you know your energy usage and allowing you to plan and optimize what you’re using (which is pretty critical as I type this and look at my weather station readings – 107.32F right now.)  This helps us survive the bills and the weather and our power grid survive the demand load that summers generate with record breaking heat and expanded populations in the hotter parts of the country. 

But there was something in the announcement that I don’t know that a lot of people caught.  That was this line in the release – “… if you are a customer of a Hohm-partnered utility company you can choose to automatically upload your energy usage data into the application in the near future.”  Hmmm.  Now that’s interesting.  I was hoping for something like this eventually, but it sounds like the feedback loop of our “Smart Power Grid” efforts are actually starting to come about in the real world!  Now that’s progress!

BTW, why did I put this also under Robotics?  Because that feedback loop that’s starting to happen is exactly what mobile robots have to do all the time.  Not just send instructions on power consumption, but monitor usage, monitor needs, prioritize, and then manage that consumption to goal.  Lots of crossover opportunities.