Friday, August 20, 2004

Wrap-Up

I guess the question that the folks who didn't attend generally ask is: "How was it?" Unfortunately, I think I was a bit to close to the action this year to give an adequate answer.


Wednesday, August 18, 2004

Enhancement Sessions

Oops! Somebody slipped up here. Major confusion.

There's no indication in the schedule where the enhancement sessions are being held other than "conference center ballroom level". Lots of people wandering around trying to figure out where they're supposed to be.

The tools enhancement session featured Brian Ennis of ISUG and Dave Fish (PB Specialist), Dave Dichman (PowerDesigner Senior Staff Engineer - Product Management), Ian Thain (PocketBuilder Architect), John Strano (PB Senior Systems Consultant) and Jonathan Baker (EAServer, Manager ITSG Evangelism).


Tuesday, August 17, 2004

Tools Keynote

The tools technote opened with a 'birthday cake' for Sybase, which apparently turned 20 years old as of today.


Database Keynote

One big improvement this year. Instead of trying to do the database and tools keynotes in a single session, they split them up this year. The database keynote was on Tuesday morning and the tools keynote will be on Wednesday.

The database keynote was introduced by Raj Nathan, who was followed by by Tom Rabon, Executive VP of Corporate Affairs for Red Hat, who talked about their relationship with Sybase.

Raj delivering keynote

Red Hat speaking during keynote

Irfan Khan, Director of Evangelism for Sybase, then discussed new features and options in upcoming ASE versions such as Dynamic Archiving and Dynamic Auditing. A demonstration of some of those new features was then done by Javier Cuerva, a Sybase Envangelist.

Irfan giving update

ASE features demo

On the iAnywhere side, Dave Nuedoeffer(sp?) discussed new features in a number of the iAnywhere products such as Server Initiated Sychronization. Then Alex Reif(sp?) gave a demo of some of those new features.

Monday, August 16, 2004

Opening Session

They haven't announced exactly where TechWave 2005 will be, but John did indicate during the opening session that we're returning to the west coast.

John Chen, Sybase CEO, laid out some arguments that is finally the year when wireless (unwired) technologies will take off.

John Chen delivering keynot

John Davis, the Vice President for Solutions for Intel, talked about some of the initiative that involve a combination of Inteal and Sybase technology. That involved brining a physician by the name of Juan Jose Ferreris to discuss how he uses a Sybase based technology (MediNotes).

IBM keynote speakers

Brian Vink, Vice President of Marketing for iAnyWhere made the 2004 Innovator Award Winners: Gavril Nanaziashvili of MediNotes and John Greisz of DB Microware.

Cindy Bean, ISUG President, made the 2004 ISUG Achievement Award to Sethu Meenakshisunderam (Sybase director of engineering for the Data Management Group), Luc Van der Veurt (former ISUG president and current member at large) and myself.

Saturday, August 14, 2004

Registration

Registration was a piece of cake like last year. The email kiosks are back, as well as the internet hot spots throughout the conference area.

Email kiosks in registration area

Portal application running on kiosk

Getting to TechWave 3

They've added a lot more entertainment to the convention center hotel this year. There's a laser light show in the atrium every night at 9:30 pm. At least when I arrived, there were also a number of entertainers doing performances throughout the hotel. It may have been for the conference prior to ours that was just ending though.

The additional good news is that the hotel internet connection is working well this year.

Getting to TechWave 2

There was some hurricane damage at the Orlando airport. What I saw was broken window around the tram that takes you from the terminal to baggage claim. The convention center itself was unharmed, but there's damage in the neighboring areas, such as a downed tree in the parking lot.

Tree down in parking lot of Conference Center

Or damaged signage at the local businesses:

Damage to local signage

Damage to local signage

The folks from the power company doing emergency repairs were also staying at the Conference Center hotel, so one of the sights we got treated to was a huge line of work crews heading out to do repairs:

Power line repair crews heading out

Getting to TechWave

Comared to a lot of the other folks here, I got in pretty easy. My flight wasn't delayed at all, and my shuttle from the airport to the convention center arrived within minutes of my obtaining the ticket. A number of the other people trying to get here had to take alternate flights into Tamp Bay or even Atlanta and then drive in. I've also heard of people having to wait an hour or more for a shuttle from the airport.

If you're going to be flying between California, Nevada, Georgia, Florida, Mass., New York, Conn. make sure you look at Song Airlines. They're operated by Delta, but there are totally unlike any other airline I've ever flown. Each seat has a tv monitor with a personal choice of 24 tv stations, 2 movies or 24 music channels. You can also play games with other passangers in the plane or get real-time flight information. And instead of a limited choice of meals, they provide you with a menu which you get to select from with rather creative choices.