It hasn't been easy

These past few weeks have been the hardest. First I found out that one of my best friends is gravely ill. Then Cocoa left us this morning. It was totally unexpected. Only yesterday did we all go out for a stroll, basking in the little sun we have had, and showering in what we thought was snow.

I took this picture of her at the end of our walk, and that's how she'll be remembered.

Windows 2008, here I come!

This is way cool. Easycgi has migrated my website from a Windows Server 2003 platform to a 2008 version with IIS 7.0. All that was done within 24 hours of my request. Now that is service!

Maybe this weekend I should get started on the new OS and to explore its features, even though I only have a year to do so. I just completed one course on server virtualization with 3 more to go. If you're interested in learning more about the latest server OS, there are a few courses and books that are currently offered free on Microsoft Learning.

Post conference blues

Not that I missed the conference much... but I'm having a really lousy throat made worse after I walked 3km yesterday. Funny, sometimes the best way to get around town is on foot!

The Launch wasn't all that great. The location was a little too small for comfort. The halls were okay, but the common areas and partner exhibition areas were too tight. It was really hard getting around and even worse trying to get my lunch.

The sandwich I had was pretty okay. Cold turkey hams, lettuce, mayonnaise, honey mustard and buns. I couldn't ask for much since this was a no-cost event and marketing budgets seem to be tighter these days. But I had a good time eating my bun on the balcony. You couldn't do this in Singapore without feeling the discomforts of heat and humidity. The air is fresh as Westin Bayshore was located along the harbour front.

I was most disappointed by the complimentary copies of Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 and Windows Server 2008. The licenses issued were only good for a year after your first installation. That makes me worry about using it at all. But you know what, I'll probably find sometime to evaluate the new server software. After all, I really need to have a server or 64-bit OS to fully utilize the excess RAM I have in my computer now.

But more importantly, what did I learn?

• A few more tips and tricks about using Visual Studio 2008.
  
• That Windows Hyper-V is actually running on SUSE.
  
• Different methods for virtualisation.
• Identifying the User Group leaders in Vancouver and meeting them face-to-face.
• Not all MS experts can answer what Microsoft is doing for the Semantic Web (I mean, I couldn't find one. The chump just shrugged and said, "Don't know."). My English must have sucked. Too much powder. Duh.
• SQL Server 2008 is still not ready, and so is Hyper-V.
• SP1 will make Vista closer to what consumers want in an operating system.
• A lady photographer (I can't remember her name) was commissioned by Microsoft to take pictures of IT heroes from 18 different countries.

Nevertheless, I am grateful to Microsoft for organizing the event. A little more knowledge is always good. Thanks for the freebies and lunch. But I really hope you guys can think of other ways to make software more affordable. And please, give us a feature to deactivate our copy of Windows so that we can do a re-installation without needing to call your hotline and feel like a pirate.

It's been a while

I just came across an interesting site with a very different perspective on the Web 2.0: The Drama 2.0 Show. Isn't it good to read the alternative opinion on your pet subjects?

They were recently critical of Data Portability, and how it's a useless endeavour by a bunch of techno-elites. To be fair, the Internet that is now so much a part of our lives, was only possible because of these tech geniuses. So cut them some slack ya?

However, I cannot disagree with them that the ability to move around one's personal data has a general following. The demand for human consumption of portability is pale, and the usefulness in LinkedData remains a necessity for software agents and data integration. Basically... no one cares.

One of other poser requires deeper thoughts: just how can I prevent others from adding links to me without my consent? How much entropy exists in such data links? And how much cost is paid for in reduced privacy? I am particularly interested in quantifying the level of privacy available in a set of published data. If you have any good resources to get me started, I'll be most grateful if you could point me the direction.

Btw, it seems there will be a Singapore launch event for Microsoft Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008. Thanks to Mokkie for sharing the information. You can register here here.

Microsoft Launch Party

Yeah! I finally get the chance to attend the launch events for Microsoft's 2008 products. These include Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008. In case you haven't already registered, here's the website for the launch events held worldwide. Strangely, Singapore does not appear on the list. This reminds me of how Oracle stopped holding developer events in Singapore after 2000. For Singaporeans, the nearest venue you can attend the conference is in Kuala Lumpur. That shouldn't be too expensive.

Busy Busy Busy

That's what it has been for me this past week. To kick off my week, I had a fantastic haircut and now I am feeling so much better without long trains behind my ears and on my neck. I guess the only time that I deliberately wanted to keep my hair long was back in 1993 - pre-enlistment times. Ya know... would you?

Anyway, I have been busy trying to grapple with some new stuff, geeky stuff. Ya, and I had fun. So here's a gist of what I have been toying around with the whole week:

• Longwell - a software written by the good people at MIT for browsing RDF data.
  
• Freebase - a collaborative effort to compile knowledge similar to Wikipedia, but with greater structure.
  
• Freebase-suggest - is an AJAX library for auto-completion using the Freebase dataset.
  

And for this weekend, I need to work on a PHP-based search engine for an intranet portal. Remnants of a past project that urgently needs some upgrade. So that will occupy my weekends. And yes, I need to work on my website too. I spent some lunch time today brushing up on my CSS, at the same time, working out a skeletal view of my website. And I should think it will be ready in a few weeks time. It better!

Train rides have been rather fruitful for me this past week. Last Friday, I picked up two books from Chapters: Dangerous Ground and First Team: Fires of War. Both authored by Larry Bond. I have a few other novels published by him, and I really enjoyed reading them. I guess I really like fictitious full-blown war scenarios such as Red Phoenix and Vortex. Larry also co-authored Red Storm Rising with Tom Clancy. If I remember correctly, I read this novel over 3 times. The other books that I have are Cauldron, Day of Wrath and The Enemy Within. Only when composing this post did I find out that Larry has his own series called "First Team". Well it seems I bought the 3rd part of the series and might have to source the other 2 and the 4th to be published soon. If you have read Red Storm Rising and you haven't read Larry's books, then I'd suggest that you start. ;)

Reconciliation and God's Gifts

Each year, there was always some saying or teaching from Father Scott at St. Clare's that I would remember for a long time. In 2006, when I visited Canada during Fall, I remembered his sermon and key message: "What would Jesus do?"

In his New Year Eve's Mass yesterday, he ended the service talking about the show Evan Almighty. Evan asked for God to change him, but God gave him opportunities to change instead. The underlying message is that God doesn't always answer our prayers in the way we want it.

A while ago, I asked for God for the gift of reconciliation. And instead of answering my prayer in the way I expected Him to, He brought me reconciliation with someone I haven't spoked to for a decade. That cheered my heart so much, and I move to the new year with greater hope and happiness.