SSWUG vConference

Last week I did my session recordings for the SSWUG vConference and it was great, this time I am doing 4 sessions and I kept all of them at level 100 as I remembered when I started looking at these topics few months back I was struggling myself. There is so much information on the Internet but its hard to find introductory topics, topics which will tell you in short what the technology is all about, in what case you need it. I hope I have done a good job at that :)

BTW if anyone wants to register for the event they can use "SPVSUVC09" coupon code and that should save them $25, not bad. Plus the total cost is also very less compare to other conferences so great opportunity for all of us to save some bucks and attend the great sessions seating at home or office in comfort.

What I don't like about Windows OS

Today the news about Google coming out with its own operating system "Chrome" is all over the Internet and I was wondering can they make an in-road into the OS field which is basically been dominated by Microsoft for decades. And the answer to that is possibly yes, if not as a full fledge OS for desktops and servers but for portable devices.

There are 2 things that I hate most about windows OS first it takes forever to boot the OS, since I had SP1 installed on my Vista it takes more than 5 minutes just to boot the machine (I have dual core CPU with 4 GB of Ram with high speed HDD), it seems that the OS has gone into some kind of comma, and it's frustrating. Windows 7 seems to be lot better but I still have to see one with all the applications and junk loaded on it. Here Google is giving indications that it wants to keep its OS simple and lighter for the faster boot up. Vista may have many features that are great and that's the reason it may be taking forever to load, but 90% of the users are not even aware of those Features, so why load them by default, let the user turn it on as they need it.

Second feature that I use to hate about windows is that currently it lacks security against spy ware and viruses which they have finally decided to take care by offering Microsoft Security Essentials. I feel that security should always have been part of OS, Windows did have Windows defender but it did not have protection against viruses and spy-wares. One could get the anti-virus with Live One care plan but not many people were aware of the plan and it was like buying a car first and then buying it's warranty plan (here we are not even talking about the extended warranty :) ). Microsoft has promised to release the Security Essentials during the second half of 2009 and one can download the Beta from Microsoft site . Reviews on CNet are mixed, will have to wait and see how the final product turns out.

>> Update: I just checked the Microsoft site and they are not accepting any more participants for the Beta testing of Security Essentials so if you have not downloaded already you may have to wait for some time.

It may take years for Google to come up with a serious OS for the desktops and laptops but for the portable devises and netbooks it may come up with a good solution.

SQL Server 2008 New Data types

Yesterday I was trying to create my first database on SQL 2008 and thought let me check out if there are any new data types that I can take advantage of and yes in fact there are. The best I liked is Date and Time data type, how many times we needed a field just to store either the date part or just the time part and we ended up using DateTime data type which stores both date and time when you don't need both. Besides saving space in storage it saves the hurdle of reformatting or massaging the code while displaying, comparing or manipulating. I use Oracle more often then SQL sever (not by my choice) and each time we have to compare the date part we have to remember to do the TRUNC to remove the time part, same applies while displaying the fields on screen. Some time we just want to store the time part like Shift start and end time, we still end up storing both date and time and then remove date before displaying. It's just annoying. Also on storage side the date field just takes up 3 bytes instead of 8, one may say that in current time when we are dealing with Tera bytes of data how much does 5 bytes matter; I would say there is no alternative to responsive design.

When I designed my tables first time I added the fields with SQL 2005 in mind, good that I checked the new types and even though I had to redesign some of my tables I think it's worth the efforts :)

Check out TechNet for nice article explaining the types in detail.

That's the fun being in IT field you can never say you know the it, every time you cross check you will learn something new. Happy learning.

Virtual Earth development with silverlight

Yesterday Telmo Sampaio of Blue Dasher Technologies presented Virtual Earth development with silverlight at the West Palm Beach .net user group and it was more than amazing. During his presentation he demonstrated how one can take the mapping applications to next level with the help of silverlight, now the maps on your application need not be just plain maps with zoom in and zoom out, you can plot any custom silverlight objects on the map and play with them. Enough said take a look at this cool application they have developed at Blue Dasher

http://www.bluedashertech.com/

You can learn more about SDK download and updates from Bing Maps team blog.