The forth and final day of PDC had a shortened schedule, but it was the high point of the conference for me.  “Using the .NET Language Integrated Query Framework with Relational Data” answered many of my questions about the capabilities of the framework with regards to large scale relational databases.  When reading and writing classes with referenced objects whose data spans multiple joined tables, the framework is intelligent about shaping queries to only include the tables and columns that are referenced or have changed.  There is also support for using stored procedures instead of generated SQL and for controlling if and how transactions are used.

I caught the end of the “Future of RSS: Beyond Blogging” panel, on which Sanaz was a member and Robert Scoble hosted.  Check out the pictures of all the big name people in my photo album.

The “APIs in the Sky: Developing Public Web Services,” hosted by Don Box and comprised of the people behind the public web services for MSN Search, Paypal, Amazon and from the Windows Communications Framework (Indigo), was excellent.  Don asked questions about problems around consuming web services in a wide assortment of languages, offering SOAP vs. REST vs. POX, how to generate revenue, authentication / authorization, Atlas vs. Indigo, JSON, Service Provider Interfaces (SPI) and versioning.  Anyone developing public web services runs into these problems, and while many of them have no easy answers, it was extremely educational to hear how the different major players have dealt with them.  In a future post I’ll write about some of the details of the discussion.

The second part of the Atlas talk included more details about accessing Atlas enabled API's with Javascript on the client side.  Basically, you include a couple of standard Atlas client side framework scripts in the page, along with a script that Atlas generates for your API that provides proxy classes.  The Atlas scripts provide a programming model very similar to that of asynchronous WebRequests.

I'd been looking forward to the "Extending start.com Using Startlets" session, because I knew that Scott, Sanaz and Steve would be unleashing some killer stuff there, and they didn't disappoint. Sanaz explained the start.com vision of pulling together gadgets (what were once called startlets) from 3rd party developers into the start.com page.  Now, anyone can develop a gadget by providing an RSS feed with an extension node that points to an XML manifest referencing the Javascript for the gadget.  It will be fun to see what everybody comes up with, and I might even write a gadget or two myself in the next couple weeks.  http://start.com/developer has everything you need to start coding.

"Windows Vista: Building RSS Enabled Applications" filled in the details about the Visa RSS store that got a lot of attention in the billg keynote.  There will be very straightforward API's accessible in .Net with a COM wrapper for adding, listing and removing the feeds in the store.  The store itself will use the BITS service (the service for receiving Windows Update packages) to update subscribed feeds along with all enclosed data (e.g. Channel 9 videos) at off-peak times. 

The MSN Search session explained how developers will be able to integrate both web and desktop search into their applications using similar API's.  They can also include files of  their own custom format by implementing IFilter, which provides the indexer property information about the files. As for the licensing of the web search API, they are open for non-commercial use of up to 10,000 queries per day for now, with a commercial license coming soon.  After the session they were giving away MSN Search T-shirts, but for some reason the Google crew in attendance passed on them ;)

• Windows Communications Foundation ("Indigo"): A Lap around the Windows Communications Foundation
• SQL Server 2005: Building Distributed, Asynchronous Database Applications with the Service Broker
• A Lap around IIS 7
• Future Directions for Data-Driven Applications: Storage, Applications, API’s
• How Hotmail Used Atlas and ASP.NET to Build a Great User Experience
• The .NET Language Integrated Query Framework: An Overview
• C#: Future Directions in Language Innovation from Anders Hejlsberg
• Future Directions for Developing Rich Web Applications with Atlas (Part 2)
• Extending Start.com Using Startlets
• Windows Vista: Building RSS Enabled Application
• MSN Search: Building Web and Desktop Search into Your Applications
• Using the .NET Language Integrated Query Framework with Relational Data
  

1. Go to Start.com in your web browser
2. Click the "add content" link in the "Start Preview" at the top left corner of the page
3. In the "Search for feeds" text box paste "http://spaces.msn.com/members/matta/feed.rss" and click the "Search" button.
4. Click the "Subscribe" link that is next to the description of my feed that is displayed. 

I’ve finally come to the realization that there is no point in having a fancy LCD HDTV and watching SD broadcasts with a crappy antenna, so a couple weeks ago Comcast dropped off their Motorola HD DVR, which is “Enhanced by Microsoft”.  I can’t believe I waited this long, because High Definition is amazing!  There’s just no comparison to SDTV, and I can’t tolerate watching anything other than HBO, Discovery, ESPN or the network broadcasts in HD anymore.  Even DVDs look like utter crap to me now, and that’s with my 720P/HDMI up-converting player.  Recording two shows simultaneously in HD is super cool, as is the on-demand video selection which includes all the HBO shows like Entourage. 

I would be completely satisfied if not for the fact that the Motorola DVR is shockingly buggy.  Here are a few of its not so charming quirks:

DVR menu shows that all recordings are gone, yet indicates that there is no remaining storage space.  The only way to get your existing recordings back is to unplug the thing and wait for it to reboot. Frequency: 2-3 days.

DVR menu replaced by a message explaining that you must have a subscription to the DVR service to use the DVR.  Any scheduled recordings while the DVR is in this state are skipped.  Sometimes rebooting fixes this, sometimes not. Frequency: daily.

When using fast forward on a recorded program, there is no way to stop the FF until it goes all the way to the end of the show.  Frequency: enough that I don’t even dare use FF anymore.

Recordings of SD programs look horribly grainy.

Given the frequency with which these bugs occur and how terrible they are, I can only think of the following explanations:

The bugs are caused by some rare defect in my machine.  This might be the case, but it doesn’t seem likely since similar issues have been reported on the Internet by several users, including Mike Torres.

The product team for is totally incompetent and didn’t find the issues.

The manufacturer and/or Comcast know about these issues but find it most expedient to go on selling them anyway.

If I ever get someone to answer Comcast’s phone, I’ll try to get a replacement machine to rule out the first explanation.  It will be truly inexcusable if it turns out that Motorola / Comcast do know about these problems but keep on marketing the DVR.

I returned last evening from a fantastic trip to New York City.  Adam was a generous host as always, and I was happy to catch up with him, Jamee, Casey and friends.  It’s really been far too long.

Wednesday:
I arrived at Adam’s apartment in TriBeCa a little after midnight and soon we headed over to SoHo House to meet up with Casey, Jacqueline, Dave, Baruch and Todd.  SoHo House is a private club in - you guessed it - the meat packing district that features mod furniture, a game room with billiards and foosball, a healthy serving of Brits and, I’m told, lots of hotties at times other than 2:00 AM on Wednesday night.  After killing a bottle of Casey’s Burgundy we went to a friend’s house to say hi to a really sweet Labrador and debate the relative merits of Viking stoves and Sub-Zero refrigerators.

We capped off the night with some pizza from Steve’s.  Damn, that NY Pizza is the best.

Watched the sun rise from: Adam’s terraced balcony.

Thursday:
We began the day with a stroll through SoHo, stopping at Prada.  This Rem Koolhaas (the Dutch architect behind the new Seattle Public Library) designed store is an ultra-modern setting for ultra-expensive clothing.  After checking out a few other places, we hit Balthazar for a late lunch.  I love Balthazar’s unpretentious service and straightforward French bistro cuisine, not to mention their hangover curing Ramos Fizzes.

Later that evening Adam, Jamee and I went up to A60, the roof-top deck of the Thompson Hotel.  Lounging amid the crowd of beautiful people, I was intoxicated by the vibe of being at the center of the world, floating above a sea of glowing buildings stretching over the horizons.  It was my favorite time of the trip.

Hungry, we joined Casey at Mas, a restaurant in the Village that serves excellent gourmet food (and wine!) until 4 AM.  My oysters, brazed ribs, cheese plate and Casey’s Burgundy were delicious.
Let's just say that 13 Coins has a little work to do to match this place.

Adam and I ended up at Casey’s condo in the old New York Police Headquarters, where we reminisced about the good old days and enjoyed a rare time together over a couple more bottles of awesome Burgundy.  Casey’s place looks amazing now.

Watched the sun rise from: the cab back to Adam’s place.

Friday:
On the subway up to Midtown Adam and I witnessed a violent verbal altercation.  Apparently, one guy felt rather strongly that another guy should "stop looking at him like that" -- so much so that he would be compelled to "break his teeth into 7 pieces" if he didn't stop.  Meanwhile, a nice looking woman nearby expressed her worry that if the first man took such recourse the second man would drop on her young son.  If that were to happen, then she and the first man were "going to have a problem."  Obviously, that wouldn't be in the man's best interest, so she advised him that he "best check himself."  The atmosphere on the car was charged, but tensions eased as the man got off the train at 59th St.  Unfortunately, we didn't manage to get off there, our intended stop, and ended up riding the express train all the way to its next stop 125th St. and back.

We walked through the new Time Warner Center which houses Per Se and Masa, two restaurants I definitely can’t afford right now, but I am committed to partaking in a double-header in another trip ASAP.  We bid farewell to the legendary Cipriani restaurant which is scheduled to close its doors soon and then walked over to Jamee’s office in the Hearst Magazine building.  It was fun seeing her office, but I bet she can’t wait until they move over to the new one.  Before heading home we checked out the summer sale at Barneys.

We ate dinner at Sushi Yasuda.  It had a chic, modern décor and the sushi was formed with perfect rice - uniform, precisely shaped and it never stuck to my fingers. The menu included Copper River Sockeye and King salmon - a very promissing sign.  The Unagi was impressive. Every other time I've eaten it has tasted exactly the same, like it was thawed from a bag of pre-made pieces saturated with coca-cola syrup, but this was very different. It melted in my mouth and the sauce wasn't cloyingly sweet. I wish we had found a place at the bar though, because the extra attention and entertainment would have made the astronomical check easier to swallow. You don't eat at a top Zagat rated restaurant in Manhattan for cheap, but damn!

Back at Adam’s we met Jamee's charming friend Tara and all went to
Milk and Honey. This is my favorite bar in the world, because it has such a mysterious and romantic atmosphere, nonpareil drinks and of course, the imfamous house rules.

We ended our night at Brandy Library in TriBeCa for some late night food and Scotch.

Watched sun rise from: Adam’s terrace.

Saturday:
I kicked off the early afternoon with a Croque Madame at a cool neighborhood place.  We procured some Guacamole ingredients at the farmer's market near Union Square and mixed it up in order to bring it to a house party at one of Jamee’s friends’ pads in Brooklyn.  It was fun meeting a bunch of new people, but it was as hot as an oven in there. We regrouped back at Adam’s before heading out to some clubs.  While waiting to catch a cab we witnessed a deranged foreign traveller attempt to avenge the loss of his wallet in the back of a taxi by, no shit, hurling himself at moving cabs speeding down Church St.  He was struck and knocked to the ground, but undeterred, he rose up to launch into an invective against the cabbie until Adam calmly asked him if he was waiting for this particular ride.  He politely deferred and went on his merry way while we got in the car.

We hung out at a table with bottle service at Marquee in Chelsea, got rejected at the door of Bungalow, and checked out Little Branch, the new, larger and more accessible offshoot of Milk and Honey.  Finally, we enjoyed a tasty last meal of my trip at Blue Ribbon.

Watched sun rise from: Adam’s terrace.

Awesome trip!

Slate is running an excellent week long feature chronicling David Plotz's American barbecue pilgrimage.  In today's installment, he visits Lockhart, Texas, where he finds "the greatest barbecue restaurant in the world." 

Texas barbecue is like Texas itself: brash, arrogant, and beefy. In the Barbecue Belt, meat is seasoned with only salt, pepper, and a little cayenne, then smoked quickly over mesquite or post oak. It is cut in huge slabs in front of you and served on butcher paper with a pile of saltines or white bread. The best places serve no sauce. Some don't even have forks. It's pure longhorn showmanship: They are so sure of their meat, they don't think you should eat anything else.

Sorry, North Carolina, Memphis, Kansas City, and Korea, but Texas barbecue is indeed the best. I miss it.

I think this is the first time I've seen our baby mentioned in print.  Check out the whole article,  MSN: The Inside Story. 

The unified contacts store--or ABCH (address book clearing house), as it is called internally--is a huge infrastructure investment that took MSN a couple of years to complete...  For MSN, this is important work: The division has created both an infrastructure investment and is releasing features on top of that investment in a more rapid fire way than was possible in the past. "This way we innovate not only for consumers, but also move the state of the art in terms of operating large services and building new capability into the platform," Sohn says.

 To the end user, the unified contacts store is essentially plumbing, but here's an interesting statistic: MSN has over 8 billion contacts in that database. "Without beating our own chests too broadly, because right now, as a social network, it is one of the biggest social networks on the planet. It might be the biggest. We really don't know. But in the next year, year and a half, you're going to see us start thinking about how we can provide experiences that can take advantage of that."

I managed to pull myself out of bed this morning and make it to the theater at Crossroads by 9:30 to see Star Wars Episode III with my group at work.  Aside from the fact that “Crossroads” can only be described as being at the crossroads of slow moving, slow thinking drivers and that endless sequence of poorly timed stoplights known as 156th Ave. NE, I enjoyed the movie.  The beautiful visuals were enough to distract my attention away from the wooden dialog and even from Lucas’ clumsy jabs at Bush. 

Now, you may think it obvious that Anakin Skywalker’s temptation and subsequent decision to go to the “Dark Side” is a plot device that neatly sets up the conflict in the rest of the series, so as to explain to even a 5 year old (or maybe 13 year old in the case of this episode) why a guy as cool as Darth Vader would want to fight Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill.  Honestly, I would have probably done the same thing if I had a girlfriend as hot as Natalie Portman.  That’s why for the life of me, I can’t understand why this dilemma of choosing between the light and dark side of “The Force” is central to what I call the geek model of ethics.  I don’t know why the kind of people who post on Slashdot actually give serious consideration to the “philosophy” of The Matrix, with its red and blue pills or Star Wars, with its red and green sabers.  Perhaps it’s because they took only engineering classes in college or something. 

It’s this kind of thinking that leads these guys to debate in earnest whether or not a corporation with thousands of employees and millions of shareholders is “evil.”  I agree, guys, that Google putting ads in RSS feeds is bad for RSS (see below), but can we please skip the talk about whether they still “do no evil?”  They’ve got to be good, or there won’t be anyone for the evil empire to fight in the next episode.

I saw a "Sponsored Listing" in the Slashdot RSS feed today for the first time.  Oh well, RSS was cool while it lasted.  Advertising will ruin RSS.

Tivo, HBO, Satellite radio and now RSS have dedicated, almost fanatic user bases, because they are faithful to the customer. They all exist as technologies that hold the user's interests paramount, never compromising them as a concession to the sponsors.  For people who value their own time, they are indispensable tools.

Today, you would be laughed out of the room if you proposed building a service on the Internet that didn't rely on advertising to pay the bills.  Why is it that people are willing to pay $15 per month to watch HBO or use Tivo, but they won't pay one cent to read all the news they care about quickly and conveniently via RSS.  I know the .coms spoiled everybody by giving away free dog food and sending shareholders the bill, but is it really the case that nothing unencumbered by advertising can survive on the Internet?  Can paid and ad supported versions of the same service coexist profitably?

What sets Match.com, Zagat.com and XBox Live apart?

If it comes from Microsoft and Walt Mossberg likes it, it’s got to be good! 

Microsoft has just launched its own blogging service, called MSN Spaces (spaces.msn.com). Because it's the newest of the giants' offerings to complete its test phase, I decided to try it out. Microsoft says it already has more than seven million blogs in Spaces, and is adding new ones at a rate of over 100,000 a day.

 

My verdict: MSN Spaces is very well done. It makes it easy to create a simple, attractive blog with text, links and photos, and to customize the blog in interesting ways.