So, PDC09 is not far away. But, sadly, I’m not going to make it this time.
I had thought for a longer time about posting some pictures from PDC08 as kind of a retrospective – but you know how it is, other things coming up, not much time, well.
And then this nut showed up, hijacked my blog and posted this nonsense about some crime that should have happened last PDC? Come on! Here’s the list of what I can only call a real good example of real dumb accusations:
- PDC08 – the unrevealed crime (featuring Anders Hejlsberg)
- Part 2: Management Panics (featuring Ray Ozzie)
- Part 3: Early Responses (featuring Bob Muglia, Steven Sinofski, and others)
- Part 4: One Special Response (featuring Chris Anderson and Don Box)
- Part 5: The Investigation (featuring Channel 9 and the audience!)
- Part 6: A Copy Cat (featuring Scott Guthrie)
- Part 7: The Revelation (featuring Bob Muglia again)
- Part 8: The Guilty (featuring Don Box – talk about nuts)
- Part 9: Aftermath! (featuring PDC, L.A. and Halloween)
Let me stress that again: There is no proof whatsoever to this story! As I see it, all these accusations are groundless, all people addressed are innocent victims. So, please, do not accuse anyone of installing LINUX on somebody’s machine if you don’t have proof. Much less on the grounds of this story! 
All that remains for me is some complementary pictures:
Windows Azure was THE big announcement at PDC08, and it’s going to be one of the major topic for PDC09. Microsoft really has something here that might change a lot in the long run. If they remove the two road blockers, that is: One, they need to make this infrastructure available for enterprise customers to lower the barrier to entry. Two, they need to do what they always did: attract developers and create a prosperous community of enthusiasts around Azure. To achieve that, they need to offer the platform for free. All with reasonable constraints of course. And this is just my opinion.
Oslo, and M, was another major topic. But I can’t help thinking that this was mainly because it was the “Don Box-Topic”. It’s been relatively quiet around it since then, and unfortunately this also includes the somewhat related “Dublin”, which I think is a very important step in the services area.
Hands-On-Labs was as always the best way to lay your hands on the stuff you heard about for the first time just this very morning. If you had the time.
Talking about the location, the first and the last thing you saw about PDC was L.A. …
the Convention Center…
… and if you didn’t use the shuttle system, it was probably Pico Station, featuring a great view at Downtown.
However, I have been attending 3 PDCs so far, all of them in L.A. I’d really like to see some other city next time? (Microsoft, I could give you a list of areas in the U.S., I haven’t visited so far ).
So much for my little retrospective. CU at PDCnext… .
That’s all for now folks,
AJ.NET
Officials didn’t know (or reveal) anything!
Other attendees searched for some kind of evidence – no success either.
The local muscle knew nothing.
Law enforcement was as confused as I was.
When the PDC closed the doors for the last time, after sunset in L.A., I know that everything was lost.
“Someone stole my belt…” “No Don, no one stole your belt!”
“Chris was supposed to be here but he ‘volunteered’ for toilet cleaning!” “Now Don, isn’t that nice? Doing something positive?”
“You know what?”
“I just got a wonderful idea….” “Don? Don’t start something foolish. Again. You know what happened…” 
“YES! But you will not catch me NEXT TIME. Wait until PDC 09!”
“I, Bob M., do confess that I knew from the very beginning about…”
“Chris and Don are not bad people, really, …”
“… they are just misguided, maybe hung out with the wrong people…”
“… we have to help them. Make them see the wrong in their doing.”
“That hideous crime … scratch that, I’m not allowed to talk about that any longer. Anyway, I can live with LINUX. I mean, as long as I can install Visual Studio it could be running on DOS….”
“What… What is ‘Booting Linux Kernel’ supposed to mean? … Wait! Where’s my Visual Studio? …”
Fortunately the forensics where still around. They secured the evidence and got the machine running in no time. Real pros, I have to say.
Later the “problem” was explained as some ‘glitch’ in an early Windows 7 version. (There was some talk about a run-in, Scott supposedly had with Steven later that day, but I could never confirm that.)
Some forensics specialists… 
Some, let’s call them detectives,… – see that innocent looking guy right in front? Did you notice that he is obviously watching the audience in front of him, rather than what’s going on on the stage? See? And two rows behind him, probably his assistant, looking directly at ME? 
But most important was 
He would spot the suspect in a crowd like a blood hound. Hunt him down… hunt me… OH NO!!
… and finally confront me. “Excuse me?… … Who me, sir?… … No sir, I know nothing about no LIN… uhm… what did you call that?”
“This is plain disgusting…” “Oh yeah!”
“Could you imagine something more vile?” “No never. Do you think they’ll catch him?”
“No, I don’t think so. They’ll never find out that w…” “Uhmm!” “… ahm, I mean, we will never find out who did it!” ”He he.” “YES!”
“Oh, I’m still sooo shocked.“ “I have no words…” 
“Let’s write some letter of condolence…” “OK, shot! I’ll write.” “You can’t write.” “Yes, I can!” “OK…”
“Dear Mr. Assassin…” “D-e-a-r… M… where is the M…” 
“What on earth is a human being thinking, installing LINUX on a machine of an innocent person…”
“… never understood those freaks. Must be some personality disorder…”
“You heard what happened?” “Yes, I was told that there were three of them…” “Hush, they’re going to cover-up. This is a marketing disaster.”
“Now personally I can understand that someone would get rid of Vista. But Anders actually had Windows 7 running and THAT is the real crime here….”
“My dear friends. Before I get to the finest newest technology in the world, I have to bring you some very sad news…”
“… I’m still deeply shocked myself…”
“… I implore you to help us solve this… this… lèse-majesté!” 
“But rest assured! We WILL find this criminal and we WILL bring him to justice…”
“We shall not allow this to happen again!” 
“What’s that…?” “No… that can’t be…? Must be some hardware problem…”
“Really it has to do with these cables…?” 
“I’m usually a nice and likable guy, …”
“… but let me get my hands on this culprit, this evildoer, this…” (again, I have to protect the innocent.)
