It's time I threw my two cents into the air conditioning discussion from Dan's blog (see http://blogs.msdn.com/danielfe/archive/2004/07/30/201459.aspx)

So I think what this discussion thread is really missing is a mention of cost/benefit analysis. I think for the type of house Dan and Angie are getting it costs about $5000 for good A/C. In my 3 summers in Seattle I feel like I would have turned the A/C on for maybe 15 days. That works out to over $300 per night. I can get a hotel for less than that and that doesn't even take into account the cost of electricity, noise, maintenance, etc. Of course, there's the value you add to your property and I am from Florida so my tolerance is probably higher than most... but it simply isn't worth it in my opinion. Besides - with Dan and Angie moving into my neighborhood in a few months I can just mooch off of them any time it gets warm. <g>

For a geek solution to the problem, check this out:
If I string together a series of powered USB hubs I figure I can create a comfortable array of fans for well under $5000 - and they should all be API addressable which means I can write an application which optimizes the heat flow pattern in my house. That's a lot more fun that just installing A/C, isn't it? :-)

I got my first 5 "buddies" today as part of the ISV Buddy Program! This is a really cool way for developers to interact with Microsoft employees on a 1:1 basis and just another step that we're taking to get closer to the community and be more transparent about what we work on every day. It's a simple way to establish a partnership. I'm really looking forward to learning about my “buddies“, what they work on, the types of challenges they face, their ideas for product improvements, etc.

If you're interested you can sign up here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/isv/isvbuddy/default.aspx

Who knows, maybe you'll be my next buddy? I read that BillG is participating, too. If you get paired up with him tell him I said hello. <g>

**Updated 8/31 with new links to the official releases, replacing the links to the technology preview

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.NET Framework 1.0 SP3 and 1.1 SP1 Tech Preview Available for Public Download

Today, Microsoft made technology preview versions of the .NET Framework 1.0 SP3 and .NET Framework 1.1 SP1 available for developers to download so they can test their .NET Framework-based applications with these service packs applied. Though these are unsupported technology previews, we would like to ask your help in ensuring the quality of the service packs by downloading them, testing your existing applications on them, and giving us feedback.

These two service packs address issues with the .NET Framework 1.0 and 1.1 including:

·         All customer issues addressed with hotfixes

·         Improved importing of WSDL

·         Data Execution prevention

·         Buffer overrun protection

J# Browser Controls v1.1b is now available for download

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vjsharp/browsercontrols

What are J# Browser Controls?

J# Browser Controls provide developers with the ability to migrate Java applet source code to run on the .NET Framework. This was developed primarily for MSJVM migrations, but can be used for migrating other applets as well.

Once migrated, J# Browser Controls have full access to the .NET Framework. We’ve already seen J# Browser Controls play a critical role for customers who want to migrate away from the MSJVM. One such customer is the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. A major benefit of using J# Browser Controls to perform this type of migration is that very little (if any) source code changes are required to compile and run the applet as a J# Browser Control.

What’s new in this release?

Version 1.1b replaces version 1.1 and adds support for our top requested features. Version 1.1b adds scripting support (interaction of J# Browser Controls with script functionality on a Web page) and offline support (optional hosting of J# Browser Controls without requiring a Web server). J# Browser Controls v1.1b also provides support for the Netscape JavaScript API functionality. For detailed information, please view the white paper. Localized versions of the J# Browser Controls v1.1b runtime and documentation should be coming online sometime in August.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/smartclient/codesamples/fotovision/

This is a sample best practices application that shows off working with lots of technologies.

I like the way they have turned this into a Windows Forms, ASP.NET, Web services, and .NET Compact Framework sample. I haven't had time to dig into this much but it looks fun.

PS: Don't tell them they spelled “Photo” wrong. <g>

We've finally got the “Resources for Java Developers” dev center live on MSDN thanks to a lot of hard work from Dan, Kent, and others.

Check it out here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/java/

Please let me know what other content you'd like to see. This is for Java developers who are interesting in learning about Microsoft .NET technologies for purposes of development, code migration, interoperability, etc.

The Community Technology Preview of Visual Studio 2005 represents the latest build available out of Redmond. These bits are hot out of the build lab, so they did not make the shipment in time for the attendee bags. Stop by the Visual Studio booths in the Pavilion area to pick up your copy copy.

Bonus: Most of the Visual Studio Team System components, announced at the Keynote this morning, are included in this release!!

I know TechEd isn't the most likely place to find a Java developer, but if you're out there here are the resources you'll want to check out. Maybe you're interested in porting some Java applications to .NET - or you might have a tricky interoperability need. Even if you're a pure .NET developer, you might need to interoperate with Java resources in your enterprise. We've got ya covered.

Pavilion Booth 21, “Java and .NET: Migration and Interoperability.”
Topics include:
- Interoperability, including a cool new tool for testing interoperability scenarios built by Simon Guest
- Visual J# .NET
- Java Language Conversion Assistant (3.0 now in beta!)

DEVC35  Web Services Interoperability
Thursday, May 27 8:30 AM- 9:45 AM, Cabana 06
Speaker(s): Simon Guest
Track(s): Developer Tools and Technologies
Are you looking to Web services to provide interoperability between .NET and other systems? Maybe you are involved in a project to prove Web services connectivity with .NET and IBM WebSphere or BEA WebLogic? Come chat about your experience and share questions in this open roundtable discussion. Learn valuable recommendations for implementing interoperable Web services today and see how we are taking this forward with WSE (Web Services Enhancements) 2.0. 

This just in: Phone Snags Thwart 'Idol' Voters!

Ok, Captain Obvious. But here's the interesting part:

In last year's finale between Ruben Studdard and Clay Aiken, a total of 24 million votes were recorded, with Studdard declared the winner by a slim 134,000-vote margin.

But on the same night, Verizon, the nation's largest phone company, saw its daily volume increase by 116 million calls while SBC reported a call-volume increase of 115 million, according to Broadcasting & Cable.

Doing the math, that's 24 million votes recorded out of 230 million+ calls (not including other carriers) which is only 10% of the total votes cast! [As a Floridian, this makes me feel much better about our ability to record votes. <g>]

Now I know that 10 million or even 10 thousand out of any sized population is more than statistically relevant - but it seems like there should be much better ways to capture the vote from a technology standpoint. Of course, Fox loves the higher numbers and busy signals since they try to use them as a proxy for rating, so they'd probably never bite on some of these ideas. But it's worth considering.

1) Use caller ID to determine where votes are coming from and only allow each person to vote once per contestant per week (potential problem here with “private numbers“ that don't support caller ID). Another problem is that there's disparity here w.r.t. the number of phones per household.

2) Assign voter registration codes. People go online to register for these just like they would a real voter registration. This allows you to vote from any phone more than once (everybody in the family is happy) and potentially allows Fox to use registration data as the carrot for getting a code. That could be extremely valuable to advertisers. It eliminates the problem associated with private numbers - the new problem is that it requires Web access, but maybe you have a separate channel for requesting a vote code via telephone or snail mail. Of course, making sure everybody requests 1 and only 1 vote code is your next challenge - you can't use something like a social security number to ensure uniqueness. But this would stem the tide of “power dialers” who simply revive their BBS WarDialer software to cast Idol votes.

3) Web voting. It's obvious why they haven't implemented this yet given the sponsor money they get from AT&T. But they could make MSN or that “other” online service the sponsor. ;-) Obviously Web voting may not scale either, but I think it scales better than the existing telephone voting system would.

4) Stop caring about the outcome. That's right, after all, it's just American Idol. Sure, I'm rooting for Diana DeGarmo as much as the next guy - but if she doesn't win, I'm sure she'll have a perfectly good career (once she finishes high school and all). <g>

I did a Webcast yesterday that's online now. You can view the archive of that here:
http://www.placeware.com/cc/mseventsbmo/view?id=1032247776&pw=webcast

Several people have asked whether or not it's still important to migrate away from the MSJVM in light of the April 2nd announcement. While the deadline has been extended for us to support the MSJVM, organizations still need to move away from the MSJVM for several reasons:
1) Microsoft can only fix critical and security-related bugs with the MSJVM. This means that any bugs not falling into those categories can not be fixed as per Microsoft's agreement with Sun.
2) Microsoft cannot enhance the MSJVM. Unless your application or applet is scheduled to be retired, this obviously can limit the amount of innovation you can do with your applet/lication.
3) Microsoft cannot fix any bugs, even security bugs, after December 31, 2007. This means that if you have the MSJVM installed on any machines, you do run a potential security risk.

Migrating to .NET is just one way of getting off of the MSJVM. My webcast focuses on migration to .NET.

MSDN Webcast: Microsoft Java Virtual Machine Transition
The recent announcement between Microsoft and Sun Microsystems has extended the end-of-life deadline for the MS JVM to December 31, 2007. But Microsoft can still only support critical security bugs during this time, and Microsoft can no longer enhance the functionality of the MS JVM. If you want to learn how to migrate your MS JVM-based applications to the .NET Framework and take advantage of a modern, fully-supported developer platform, then you should view this previously-recorded Webcast. This Webcast covers key migration scenarios using J# and the Java Language Conversion Assistant. Click here to view the webcast archive.