I suppose I have to set up this video.
We had been waiting a little over 3 hours to get to this point… this… oh glorious point at which we climb the holy escalator to the third floor of Moscone Center West for a chance at getting into the main keynote presentation without falling victim to the overflow room. In the final stages of the line, we had been broken up into two feeds to tackle both escalators. I was on a feed that was moving at a nice clip. As I turned on the camera to record the video, I noticed that the other line was not moving.
Greetings again from WWDC 2007.
Those of you who know me know that I’ve made my living thus far as a Windows admin. I’ve always had a particular bent toward messaging technologies and I do have certifications in the Microsoft space to prove that I can architect these solutions.
The project I am working on now has made me take a second and more objective look at Exchange server. For a long time, I’ve heard Microsoft trainers and other folks complain bitterly about Microsoft Exchange. Most of the complaints started around Exchange 2000, when Exchange merged in with Active Directory. The complaints get worse as the enterprise grows. Exchange 2003 has some real issues with clustering and large deployments. I’m hoping many of these issues are resolved in Exchange 2007, but as I’ve not had the chance to dive into that just yet I cannot speak for any improvements.
Last night I attended the MacBU WWDC 2007 reception. It was quite the party. I met the new GM of MacBU, Craig Eisler. He’s a very energetic fellow. One fo the MacBU devs described him as “kinetic.” That’s probably accurate.
We spoke a little bit about issues with Entourage that plague our mail system, but I turned the conversation to something a little more positive. He was one of the first DirectX developers back in the Windows 95 days. That made him a hero for me. It was great to meet him.
I’ve heard/read many people project the death of the Mac Mini.
After spending half a week here at WWDC, I’d like to inform you that I don’t believe this to be the case.
Mac Minis have proven to be quite the useful little box here at WWDC. They are set up as cheapo terminals for users, practice stations, whatever you can think of. However, the most prominent use of them (and one that will definitely keep them alive) is using them with Leopard and Podcast Producer.
I am in the process of adding a few more photos of WWDC 2007. In particular, these pictures are of waiting in line for the keynote. I have videos of that too… but… gee, who wants to see a bunch of geeks waiting in line?
I also have video of portions of the keynote (like the John Carmack portion), but I’m not bothering to post it since a good slice of the keynote has been posted and does it much more justice than what I can offer.
So today was the keynote and I have to admit – it was a little underwhelming.
Most of the chatter I heard around the show today seemed to share that sentiment. The excitement was pretty good surrounding the newer features – specifically the new Finder, Cover Flow integration, Time Machine and Core Animation. It’s cool stuff. I personally never found the Finder offending enough to need replacing.
The keynote was definitely entertaining – which is good since I waited three hours for a chance to see Steve Jobs in the flesh. Since this is my first real Apple event, I got a true taste of what these things are like starting around 7am. The line stretched around Moscone Center West quite early. We were corralled into the center little by little as a teasing mechanism. As time went on, we found ourselves wound up on the 2nd floor and spiraling throughout the entire complex. Finally, when the doors were opened to the Presidio, where the keynote was to be delivered, the flock began moving. One of the escalators stopped working on one side of the lines. One guy had the bright idea that he was going to jump lines. He did so and what resulted was a crowd following suit until the security folks halted the movement. At least one person quite loudly declared, “This is bullshit man! Our escalator stopped working and we can’t get upstairs!” He was quite upset.
So we journeyed down the hill from our hotel to Moscone Center West to get a gander of WWDC 2007 and register for the show. Many folks had the same idea – they were streaming in from everywhere with excited looks on their faces. Many of them registered and immediately unpacked their laptops – perhaps to blog about the experience.
The show’s swag featured a fairly elegant WWDC ’07 laptop bag and t-shirt. The laptop bag posed a bit of a problem for us since we had a toddler and stroller with us, but the wife managed to find a way to get it attached to the stroller to make it easier to carry.
