Happy - I'm a PC

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That is where my new t-shirt idea came from. With the number of times McCain said "My friends" (23 by my count), and his off the cuff reference to Obama as "That One" I thought a shirt was appropriate.

OK, I'm not really making a t-shirt, yet, but I could.

Tell your friends, tell your boss (heck, maybe you'll get paid to come). One lucky attendee will walk away with a fully licensed copy of Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Suite.

A Lap Around Visual Studio Team System 2010

In this session you will witness a demo-intensive tour of the upcoming release of Visual Studio Team System. This session will walk-through an example development iteration and highlight some of the advancements, that way you see the new capabilities in context. Expect to see new capabilities being delivered across Team System, including the new Architecture Explorer, architecture layer diagrams, gated check-in, build workflow, branch visualization, historical debugging, test case management and execution, improved work item tracking, and improved support for agile planning. This will be a fast paced, exciting session, filled with demos.

Time and Location

Monday, 13-October, 7:00 PM (networking begins at 6:30 PM)

Microsoft Campus, Building 41, Steptoe Room
http://maps.live.com/?v=2&where1=Microsoft%20Building%2041%2C%20WA&encType=1

In the next release of Visual Studio Team System we will be merging the feature sets of the Development Edition and the Database Edition into a single product. The new product – part of Visual Studio Team System 2010 – will include all of the features in the Development Edition and the Database Edition as well as new capabilities delivering even more value in a single product. This will provide a more complete set of capabilities for building software in today’s data-driven environments.

Bringing these two feature sets together enables you to take advantage of the core tools for application development as well as the necessary tools for database development, including performance profiling, code analysis, code metrics, code coverage, database refactoring, Schema Compare, Data Compare, and more.

If you have VSTS 2008 Development Edition or Database Edition with MSDN Premium you are eligible to get both products through MSDN Downloads. This is an exclusive offer for MSDN Premium subscribers with these products -- we want you to realize the benefit of this merged feature set now.

Beginning October 1, 2008 eligible MSDN subscribers will have access to both the Development Edition and Database Edition through MSDN Subscriber Downloads. This change also applies to customers who purchased Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Developers with MSDN Premium Subscription and Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals with MSDN Premium Subscription, who's subscription is still active.

I'll admit, I love Apple. In fact, I was a die-hard Apple user for many years before making the move to Windows. Apple makes things very elegant and desirable. Their products, their apps, their Web site...I'll bet their trash just looks good (and it probably operates very intuitively).

The fact is, that I'm a Microsoft guy, and have been for the past 10-years. I've owned Mac's - my last one was the last MacBook before the Intel switch. I've owned iPods - in fact I still have one in my car to play my daughter's Disney songs. I also own Windows P.C.s, Zunes, an XBox, and Windows Mobile phones (OK, I'll admit, I wish Windows Mobile was as sexy as the iPhone, but at least I own my phone instead of renting it).

No real point other than...my name is Doug Seven and I'm a P.C. and I'm proud of it.

BillG's Keynote

As I previously mentioned, I built one of the keynote demo's for the TechEd 2008 Developers Conference. Brian Harry presented the demo during the keynote, while I ran a mirror setup back stage. The mirror setup is there in case of a hardware failure; the onstage demo'er can swap to the back up machine at any time. While we had the mirror machine, we never had to use it. Brian did an awesome job.

After the keynote I got a chance to meet BillG, who thanked all of us who built the demos for our hard work. We had a group photo, and for one brief second I thought, "hey, I could pick-pocket Bill Gates right now." Then I figured the risk-reward ratio was way off...does he even carry a wallet? Right after that BillG was quickly whisked away.

You can watch the entire keynote here. You can also see my version of the Visual Studio Team System demo here.

TechEd Online Panel Discussions

I arranged two panel discussions to be recorded for TechEd Online (although I didn't participate in either this year). You can now watch both panel discussions online.

Let's Talk Application Lifecycle Management (ALM)

In this panel discussion you will hear from several Microsoft MVPs with a wide variety of experience in Application Lifecycle Management. With no fear of sharing their opinions and duking it out when necessary, this group of top-notch consultants and trainers will definitely prove to be informative and entertaining. This is a panel you don't want to miss. With Brian Randell, Jeff Levinson, Richard Hundhausen, Chris Menegay, Mike Azocar, Joel Semeniuk, and Steven Borg.

Watch it now: WMV Low | WMV High

Visual Studio Team System Panel - Meet the Team

In this panel discussion you will have the opportunity to hear directly from the team building Visual Studio Team System, including Brian Harry–Technical Fellow. Come and meet the team, and get all your questions answered. With Brian Harry, Peter Provost, Norman Guadagno, Gert Drapers, Habib Heydarian, Neelesh Kamkolkar.

Watch it now: WMV Low | WMV High

Sessions

I delivered one session twice at TechEd 2008 Developers and one session (only once) at TechEd 2008 IT Pros. If you attended either conference you will receive DVDs with all of the session recordings, including these. If you didn't attended, you can buy the DVDs once they are available (I'll post a link when I find out what it is).

My Dev week session:

Build Better Software: Tips and Tools to Improve Your Applications - Doug Seven

You want to build better software. You want the applications you build to be better, cheaper, and faster to release. One of the most costly stages of software development is finding and fixing bugs. What if you could find the bugs and fix them nearly immediately? In this session, learn tips and tools you can use with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 to determine code complexity, validate the capabilities of the application, and understand the overall quality of the software you are building. If you want to improve the code you write then don’t miss this session.

This session scored an 8.33 (out of 9) with over 200 people who attended it. This was one of the Top 5 sessions in the Developer Tools & Languages track, and one of the Top 20 session at TechEd 2008 Developers.

My IT Pro week session:

End-to-End Application Lifecycle Management with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System - Doug Seven

Visual Studio Team System is a fully integrated application lifecycle management toolset, enabling teams to work more collaboratively to deliver quality software with fewer obstacles. In this demo intensive session, see how Visual Studio Team System 2008 enables project managers, architects, developers, and testers throughout the application lifecycle. See how Team System enables managing team workflow, system and datacenter modeling, tools to ensure quality from the earliest stages of development, as well as tools to validate applications prior to release.

This session scored an 8.03 (out of 9) with over 80 people who attended it. This was the highest rated session in the Application Development for IT Pros track.

Channel 9

While at TechEd I had a chance to sit down with Dan Fernandez of Channel 9 and spend a few minutes talking about TechEd and Visual Studio Team System codename "Rosario." You can see the interview here.

Doug Seven: Visual Studio Team System 2008 and Rosario

That's it. See you at the next one.

I have been out of town for 3-weeks, and today, being back in town, I filled up the SUV with gas. Somehow, while I was away, regular gas in my neighborhood jumped to $4.41 USD per gallon. Pardon my French, but Holy Crap!

For a long time I have shared my disdain with the oil/gas industry (along with the hotel and airline industries) with anyone who wanted to listen. I hope you are willing to listen.

The Pick Pocket of Our Collective Wallet

After spending $4.41/gallon, I decided to do a little research ^[1].

• Just 5-years ago:
  • The average price of gas in the USA was $1.43.
  • The average price of a barrel of crude oil was $24.00
• Just 1-year ago:
  • The average price of gas in the USA was $3.00 (more than double the price in 2003)
  • The average price of a barrel of crude oil was $67.00 (nearly triple the price in 2003)
• Today:
  • The average price of gas in the USA is $4.16 (more than a 30% increase in 1-year)
  • The average price of a barrel of crude oil was $138.43 (more than a 100% increase in 1-year)

What Does It Cost to Make Gasoline?

A barrel of crude oil is 42-gallons. When refined, this barrel produces approximately 19.5 gallons of gasoline (depending on source, mix, blend, etc.) as well as other usable byproducts. As near as I can tell, an average of 30% of the barrel is used to make gasoline, leaving the remaining 70% for producing other types of products (heating oil, etc.).

Simple math tells me that a barrel of crude oil that costs $24.00 produces 19.5 gallons of gasoline at a raw product cost of $.037. Selling that gallon of gasoline for $1.43 creates a gross profit of $1.06 - nearly 300% (of course I haven't accounted for refinery costs, transportation and storage costs, and taxes, fees, etc.).

Using the same math, a barrel of crude oil that costs $67.00 produces 19.5 gallons of gasoline at a raw product cost of $1.03. Selling that gallon of gasoline for $3.00 creates a gross profit of $1.97 - a profit of about 200%.

A barrel of crude oil that costs $138.00 produces 19.5 gallons of gasoline at a raw product cost of $2.13. Selling that gallon of gasoline for $4.16 creates a gross profit of $2.03 - a profit of about 100%.

Again, I haven't accounted for refinery costs, transportation and storage costs, and taxes, fees, etc.

Awww, Those Poor Oil Magnates

Given this, should we feel bad for the gasoline companies, after all, layman math tells us that they are cutting into their profits as much as 200% from 5-years ago? Probably not.

According to ExxonMobil, their 2007 year end oil and gas resource base stands at 72 billion oil equivalent barrels - enough to sustain current production rates for 14-years. ^[2]

What does that tell me? I am buying gas at today's prices made from oil secured at previous years' (or perhaps decade's)  lower cost; I paid $4.41/gallon for gas that was produced, likely, from crude oil that cost $20-$30 per barrel not the $138.43 per barrel cost of today.

This may explain the continued growth of ExxonMobil's profit. They are the largest company in the world by revenue standards, at around $400,000,000,000 - yes, that's 11 zero's...400 Billion ^[3]. ExxonMobil's profit over the past 5-years has risen slightly (by percentage) from around 9% in 2003 to 10.4% in 2007. The difference of the 1.4% increase in profit equates to around $5 Billion dollars profit.

The Continued Raping of America

It is amazing to me that a company (and an industry) can steadily increase the cost of its goods and even more so its profits while creating a potential recession in the USA economy (not to mention the global economy). I appreciate capitalism as much as anyone, but I also deeply appreciate community. As members of a community we need to ensure that we are not gaining additional profits at the cost of the overall community. I am not saying that ExxonMobil and others should suddenly become non-profits, or loose money for the good of the community, but I am suggesting that perhaps they should not continue to increase their profits at the cost of the community.

The increase in the consumer price of gasoline of nearly 300% in 5-years is driving up the cost of nearly everything. After filling up with gas today, I went to the grocery store and spent nearly $400 on what would have cost me around $200 a few years ago. Every night on the local news there are "human interest" stories about people who are struggling to pay for gas so that they can get to school or work. I know of people who have had to sell their house and move to less desirable neighborhoods simply to reduce their distance to work because they couldn't afford the commute.

Our country is led, for now, by people with (what seems to me to be at least a bit of) a conflict of interest. The Bush family has a long history in the business of energy and oil. Dick Cheney was, of course, CEO of Halliburton, an energy services company operating largely in oil and gas exploration and production, where he amassed most of his net worth(said to be between $30 and $100 million). When these two entered their current positions, gasoline prices were around $1.30/gallon. As they prepare to leave office, gasoline prices are over $4.00/gallon and show no sign of a plateau.

Where Am I Going?

I am fortunate. I can afford to weather the storm through our current gas prices (at least to some degree). I car pool. I can work from home if I'd like. I don't go on a lot of road trips. While I love my car, I don't need to drive it frequently (I bought it in late 2005 and it has only 24,000 miles on it - about 24 miles a day since I bought the car, or about 8,700 miles per year). Many others I know are not as fortunate. So where am I going with all this?

Perhaps I am going no where. Perhaps I just needed to vent. Perhaps, since I am not an economist, my math is all wrong, and the oil and gas companies are completely justified in raising gasoline prices more than 100% in the past year, and almost 300% in the past 5-years. Perhaps I owe them an apology for this post.

Perhaps a $400 Million retirement package for Lee Raymond, the former CEO of ExxonMobil, is totally acceptable, while others forego their little luxuries in order to pay for gas. Perhaps there is nothing wrong with ExxonMobil handing out $214 Million in bonuses ^[4] while the middle and lower classes struggle to pay for gas to get to school and work, and struggle to pay for the increasing cost of other every day goods. Perhaps it is completely normal that, as we potentially head into a recession in the USA, ExxonMobil reports a 17% increase in year-over-year first quarter profits. Perhaps $11 Billion in profit in the first quarter alone isn't enough for ExxonMobil ^[5]. That's about $36 per person for every man woman and child in the USA, or about $157 per running vehicle in the USA. That is the equivalent of over 100 gallons of gas per running vehicle based on 2003 prices. And that's just the first quarter profits.

[1] http://www.gasbuddy.com/gb_retail_price_chart.aspx?time=60

[2] http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2008_Feb_15/ai_n24264728

[3] http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/34088/000119312508041781/d10k.htm#tx91974_07 

[4] http://www.advfn.com/nyse/StockNews.asp?stocknews=XOM&article=23609512&headline=exxon-mobil-gives-ceo-3-36m-cash-bonus

[5] http://triangle.bizjournals.com/triangle/othercities/dallas/stories/2008/04/28/daily44.html

One of our favorite Visual Studio Team System MVPs, Richard Hundhausen, is taking time to present on a variety of Visual Studio Team System topics during this (almost) full day event on Sunday, June 8th. He's got a five o'clock flight so expect this session to shut down around 2:30p. There's plenty of other stuff you can hop over to on the agenda.

Microsoft Community Summit 2008 ]inbetween[

Orlando Convention Center, June 7 and 8

More info :: http://www.devfish.net/articles/inbetween/default.aspx

The seven white papers are:

1. Communicate and Collaborate with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008
2. Drive Predictability with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008
3. Manage Team Workflow with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008
4. Use Familiar Tools with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008
5. Ensure Quality Early and Often with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008
6. Integrate Frequently with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008
7. Make Real-time Decisions with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008

These white papers have been published on MSDN and will be available to TechEd 2008 USA attendees on a USB key that will be given away on the show floor.

You can find the white papers in DOCX and PDF format here.