Report from PDC

This is the day! I'm sitting in a keynote right now, and Bill Gates is introducing Longhorn to the attendees. (Longhorn is the next version of Windows, if you haven't heard. It's pretty amazing - new graphics system, new file system, managed code model.) We're the only magazine at the show with Longhorn and Yukon articles. YES! WE'RE THE BEST! If you want to read all about Longhorn, check out our new Developer's Center. Almost makes it worth it to brave the choking air filled with the remnants of people's homes.

The atmosphere here is so nasty right now. It’s over 90 degrees, the city is covered with a silty layer of yellow smoke, and worst of all, it’s Los Angeles. Check out the sunrise!

After a couple of hours of keynotes (and an unusually humorous video featuring Mark Andreesen, P. Diddy, Bill Clinton, and a cast of dozens), I spent a few minutes on the show floor. The MSDN booth was a bit understaffed because the fires had delayed flights, so I answered a couple of softball questions. In my opinion, MSDN had the best giveaways at the show – a great metal lunchbox with a long-sleeve t-shirt inside. To add a touch of excitement, every 50th lunchbox had a severed human hand nestled in it.

MobilePlanet had a special show offer for Pocket PCs. I honed in on an iPaq h2210. I can’t find this unit for less than $340 anywhere online, but it was $199 at the show. And they had them in stock! It was an amazing deal.

So I spent the afternoon talking to companies about their products, hanging out at the MSDN and CMP booths talking to readers, and then playing with my new iPaq. It’s so cool – you can use it as a universal remote control and it’s actually strong enough to work. The battery comes out now, so the thing doesn’t just die like it used to on iPaqs. It’s got an SDIO slot and a CF slot both built in. Just great.

There was a good party at The Standard, a hotel that’s so intensely annoying that you want to slap the crap out of it. It’s also Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Los Angeles (specifically, in The Standard). You also want to slap the crap out of that, to be honest. Band on the Runtime played the party, and I got to see a bunch of tres important people enjoying cheap snacks. (In no particular order, Steven Smith, Shawn Nandi, Betsy Aoki, Laura Johns, Kevin Ledley, some of the DotNetJunkies, Chris, David, and Bianca from CodeProject, a few thousand other Microsoft people, and a bunch of waitresses dressed in crappy 1970s athletic outfits. How “hip”.)