MEDC 2006
Attended the Microsoft Mobile & Embedded DevCon 2006 (MDEC) on Tuesday. Arrived at the Sunway Convention Centre at 8:00am. I bloody woke up at 5:30am that morning for no inconceivable reason and forced myself to sleep till 6:30am. As usual, the Sunway Toll on the LDP was jammed. People are never on their lanes. Left wants right, right wants left. Nice. Anyway, I tried to register when I received, but they couldn't seem to find my name...
Usher: Good morning, sir! You're registered as a ..... ?
Me: Morning. Err, I think under delegate.
Usher: This way sir. What's your company name?
Me: *Censored*.
Usher: Ohhh, that would be at this line.
(My turn arrives)
cute registration girl: Good morning, sir. Your business card?
Me: Morning.
(I hand over my card, she struggles to find my record)
cute registration girl: Can you repeat your information again sir?
(I repeat myself, meanwhile another girl joins the fray)
Another cute registration girl: Sir, are you sure you paid?
Me: Emm, I'm pretty sure it's paid for. I received the reminder e-mail and everything. Perhaps you could check under unpaid for me.
cute registration girl: Yeah, your name is under unpaid. Sir, are you sure you have paid?
(Girls stare at me thinking 'BLUR'. Red in the face)
Me: Ohh. Let me come back to you on that.
(I call my boss.)
Me: Morning. Have we paid?
Boss: Morning. The cheque is with the other guy.
Me: Oh. Never mind then... I'll wait.
The conference
actually started at 9:30am. Ugh. I shouldn't have dragged myself outta bed so early. Kena tipu. In the keynote address and all the other track sessions, it's obvious that Microsoft is hawking their Windows Mobile 5.0 and Visual Studio 2005. The speakers kept on emphasising on how easy it is to use, the IDE of choice, increases productivity, yadda, yadda, yadda. But it really is quite impressive. Intellisense now inserts code snippets, 'using' statements can be automatically inserted for you, the SDKs provide much abstracted APIs... Cool stuff. However, the typical Malaysian audience doesn't quite show much enthusiasm. So, when certain features are announced (that are supposed to cause developers to jump up and down with wild abandon), the speakers themselves have to create the excitement. It's THAT simple?! I don't have to worry about the nitty-gritty external interfaces anymore?! Wow! It retreived data in 728ms?!. You get the picture.
One speaker I
have to mention-- Mel Sampat, Program Manager for Application COmpatibility at Microsoft. It's obvious he's
not Hokkien. The food was great. The talks were interesting. But I didn't get to use the hands-on lab. Not really a loss, I do zilch development for mobile equipment anyway. But with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005's emulators, anyone can do it! Oh my, I'm beginning to sound like one of their evangelists. And what's a conference without freebies? They gave away t-shirts, knapsacks, misc. SDKs, magazines and HP IPAQs!!! I'm not one of the lucky guys. :(.
And here's something interesting at the conference. You drop a mentos into the appropiate vase to indicate whether you're satisfied with the organizers. At the end of it all, there was SUMO ROBOT tournament. Little robots with sensors and servos
and Windows Mobile 5.0 programming duke it out in a cirlce, trying to push each other out. Some committed suicide, but most had assisted suicide. It was fun.
Usher: Good morning, sir! You're registered as a ..... ?
Me: Morning. Err, I think under delegate.
Usher: This way sir. What's your company name?
Me: *Censored*.
Usher: Ohhh, that would be at this line.
(My turn arrives)
cute registration girl: Good morning, sir. Your business card?
Me: Morning.
(I hand over my card, she struggles to find my record)
cute registration girl: Can you repeat your information again sir?
(I repeat myself, meanwhile another girl joins the fray)
Another cute registration girl: Sir, are you sure you paid?
Me: Emm, I'm pretty sure it's paid for. I received the reminder e-mail and everything. Perhaps you could check under unpaid for me.
cute registration girl: Yeah, your name is under unpaid. Sir, are you sure you have paid?
(Girls stare at me thinking 'BLUR'. Red in the face)
Me: Ohh. Let me come back to you on that.
(I call my boss.)
Me: Morning. Have we paid?
Boss: Morning. The cheque is with the other guy.
Me: Oh. Never mind then... I'll wait.
actually started at 9:30am. Ugh. I shouldn't have dragged myself outta bed so early. Kena tipu. In the keynote address and all the other track sessions, it's obvious that Microsoft is hawking their Windows Mobile 5.0 and Visual Studio 2005. The speakers kept on emphasising on how easy it is to use, the IDE of choice, increases productivity, yadda, yadda, yadda. But it really is quite impressive. Intellisense now inserts code snippets, 'using' statements can be automatically inserted for you, the SDKs provide much abstracted APIs... Cool stuff. However, the typical Malaysian audience doesn't quite show much enthusiasm. So, when certain features are announced (that are supposed to cause developers to jump up and down with wild abandon), the speakers themselves have to create the excitement. It's THAT simple?! I don't have to worry about the nitty-gritty external interfaces anymore?! Wow! It retreived data in 728ms?!. You get the picture.
have to mention-- Mel Sampat, Program Manager for Application COmpatibility at Microsoft. It's obvious he's
not Hokkien. The food was great. The talks were interesting. But I didn't get to use the hands-on lab. Not really a loss, I do zilch development for mobile equipment anyway. But with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005's emulators, anyone can do it! Oh my, I'm beginning to sound like one of their evangelists. And what's a conference without freebies? They gave away t-shirts, knapsacks, misc. SDKs, magazines and HP IPAQs!!! I'm not one of the lucky guys. :(.
and Windows Mobile 5.0 programming duke it out in a cirlce, trying to push each other out. Some committed suicide, but most had assisted suicide. It was fun.
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