Today was registration day here in Orlando, and the exhibitors (including Windows IT Pro) were setting up their booths in preparation for the opening day tomorrow. I spent some time roaming the show floor with our Larry Carillo, who's doing the camera work for the videos I'll be shooting over the next few days. We wanted to try out the equipment and get a feeling for how the videos would go.
I thought it would be fun to stop some attendees and ask them where they were from and what they wanted to get out of this week. I thought people would enjoy being in a video. Boy! Was I ever wrong. Most people looked at us like we were suggesting something as crazy as trying to run Exchange 2007 on a 32-bit machine.
One wonderful woman from Canada graciously agreed to talk to us, though, and told us she was interested in SQL Server 2005 and the new version code named Katmai. She had just attended Kimberly Tripp's pre-conference seminar and found it to be exactly the kind of content she was looking for. Maybe people from Canada aren't as camera shy as people from other countries? (Click below to see the clip.)
(Having trouble viewing the video? Click here.)
SharePoint and Office Pro
I ran into Dan Holme, our community editor for our new www.OfficeSharePointPro.com site. Here at TechEd, we're launching a beta version of this new site, which will supersede our current msd2d site. Dan has been writing SharePoint content for Windows IT Pro magazine for several months, and he's really excited about the new community site and email newsletter. Please take a look at the new site and let us know what you think. Your feedback is important so that we can make this site as useful as possible for you. And try out the forums. Maybe Dan can answer a question that's been puzzling you. Later this week I'll post a video interview with Dan so that he can tell you all about the new site.
Off topic: Dan and I are both big fans of the TV series "Lost," so we had a great time comparing notes about the season finale. I think the whole episode was one of Desmond's visions, foretelling what would happen if Charlie died. But Dan thought that explanation would be a cheap cop-out along the lines of the whole "who shot JR" mystery turning out to be a bad dream on "Dallas." (Is anybody old enough to have any idea what I'm talking about?)
Tomorrow
The real fun starts tomorrow with Bob Muglia's keynote. Stay tuned for lots of interviews with the Microsoft gang.
