Softer Side of Sears?

March 17th, 2007

Yesterday at Mountain West we had the pleasure of hanging out with Tim Heuer of Microsoft. It was refreshing seeing a Microsoft personality that was genuinely friendly to the community. Not in that fake we want to convert you way, but in that hey we have some issues, but we have resources that can do cool things. Let’s find middle ground to collaborate and make life better for developers. Whether they be Microsoft developers or Open Source developers.

Additionally at Mountain West is John Lam. Who oddly enough is now a Microsoft developer working on RubyCLR. I had seen John talk on MIDAS at BorCon in the late 90’s and was impressed then. It is great to see a Microsoft guy stand up use a Mac running Windows and gvim to write Ruby code. Additionally the fact he has been working with the mono team to try to make sure his work was compatiable is really great.

What a change to see these Microsoft guys playing in the community and not out to abuse it. Tim and John thanks for being good will ambassadors for a company that needs to discover a softer side if they wish to continue to be a dominant player in the community.

Caught an a light hearted and fun presentation on Ruby USB that could be interesting for client work relating to scanners. Marcel and Jamis gave a great RailsWay presentation using the OZMOZR code base. Conference has been mentally taxing, but great. Looking forward to a great Integrum hack session today and meeting up with Gregory from Ruport later to talk about possible reporting solutions.

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Journey To Mountain West

March 15th, 2007

So Jade, Curtis and I hopped in the car and headed to the airport. Curtis was heading home for his son’s birthday party. Jade and I were heading on to Mountain West. Josh and Heidmo met us at the airport and we checked in. After many struggles getting my actual ticket we head to Fox Sports for some food as we were very early to catch the plane. We hoppped on the plane and were all set to go. Then we got the lovely news that our plane had a broken fuel line and it could be up to 3 hours before it was fixed.

We headed up to the club level to grab a pretzel and wait for our plane. Shortly there after we were told our new plane was 50 gates away on the other side of the world and so we started the mad dash to get there before it took off. We got there and it was delayed yet again. I had Jade setup this blog since Vox was being evil and wouldn’t let me post. I then bought a domain name of derekneighbors.com to host the stupid thing.

There is so much more to this story but now its 1:15am in Salt Lake and I am finally sitting in bed and really would rather get some sleep before the conference starts in the morning. Good times.