I’m spending most of today and tomorrow at the Gnomedex 9.0 conference at the Bell Harbor Conference Center in Seattle.

You can follow my updates about the event on Twitter or FriendFeed.

I’ve come up with the following list of issues:

• What to do about posts.  Should they be moved?  Just left alone?
• How do I get my readers to the new site… leave a note?
• How long will it take for the search engines to notice my new site?
• Will I lose readers?

Why do I ask?  Yes it’s true… I’m moving!

First, I want to give a big thanks to Jeff Julian and anyone else that has helped maintain GeeksWithBlogs for as long as it’s been home to my blog

But lately I’ve felt that I need more control over my host.  And so I’m moving to a new site.

It’s not ready yet.  But the new site will be www.brandonlive.com – I’ll make another post as soon as it’s ready.

I was planning to arrive late this afternoon, but when a friend tipped me off to an 80+ person line at 8AM this morning, I decided to change my plans. 

I have to say that the Best Buy management has been extremely accomodating.  Initially there was a lot of fear about line jumpers and people holding spots for their friends.  After several conversations with the staff and management (including some representation from Best Buy headquarters in Minnesota), we convinced them to take action to ensure the fairness of the line for those of us waiting 12+ hours in the cold.

A bout a half hour ago they handed out cards (including counterfeit proof ink!) with numbers indicating your place in line.  They don’t guarantee a unit for each card, but they won’t let anyone get one who doesn’t have one of these cards.  They’ve also been very proactive about maintaing the organization of the line.  Now, it’s not perfect.  They clearly hadn’t planned ahead for the crowd that they got.  But their willingness to expend effort and time to address our concerns is very encouraging.

I stand at the 133rd spot in line, with a very high level of confidence that I’ll get what I came for.  The rumors are that about 200 total units will be sold at midnight (including some 30 or 40 “core” systems).  And though there have been mumblings about both a shortage and a last-minute special delivery from Microsoft… most below the 150 mark are fairly comfortable at this point. 

Cold… but comfortable.

But today I was pointed to an insanely cool Gadget for Live.com over at http://microsoftgadgets.com/ and I was just astounded at what kinds of awesome plugins people are making for the site!

And what’s even better?  I installed the “Xbox Live Gamercard” gadget (and watch enviously as someone named “Sully” plays Xbox 360 games).  While that gadget is pretty awesome in of itself, the next best part is that the author updated the gadget and I got the update without doing a damn thing.  That’s the beauty of the internet, eh?

I completely cannot wait until Gadgets are available on the desktop (and yes, I know about Konfabulator and have used DesktopX in the past.  But I really think MS Gadgets are going to be big).

Oh, and they’ve smoothed over the process of adding a gadget from the gallery to your Live.com page.  No more cutting and pasting!  Hooray!

Tonight we’ve officially launched the Enterprise editions of Windows Desktop Search and the MSN Search Toolbar.  Unlike the current consumer release, there are 2 seperate installs (one for WDS, one for MSN Toolbar).  Unfortunately, the consumer version won’t be updated right away.  But we’re working hard to deliver a new version for consumers that will upgrade the current “MSN Search Toolbar with WDS” package.  That way everyone can enjoy the latest and greatest we have to offer  

So what’s new in the Enterprise release of WDS?

1)  First and foremost, this new version has been enabled for management via Group Policy and deployment via SMS.
2)  A lot of work was done to make sure that WDS meets the needs of IT administrators at even the largest of companies.
3)  WDS now features light-weight integration with Intranet search services (like SharePoint, or a Google appliance).
4)  This version of WDS can replace the “Search Companion” functionality on Windows XP, and provides UI for advanced search queries.
5)  Lots of bug fixes and improvements all around.

What’s new in the Enterprise release of the MSN Search Toolbar?

1)  The Toolbar is now group-policy enabled just like WDS.
2)  It also features light-weight Intranet search integration.
3)  An enhanced Outlook bar provides optional integration of search results into the Outlook 2003 window if WDS is installed.
4)  Numerous enhancements to tabbed browsing and other functionality.

Both the WDS and MSN Toolbar teams have worked very hard to bring out this release.

There’s a CNET article here and one on Yahoo News here.

Product details here.

What is FolderShare?  It’s a great app that you install on all of your computers and it lets you access all your files via the web!  You can even sync between multiple PCs.

Better yet, if you install Windows Desktop Search on your PC with it, FolderShare will let you search your computers remotely!  Definitely a kick-ass feature, I think

If you don’t know what this is about, here’s a quick summary.  Sony BMG recently began selling about 20 different music albums in the US with what basically amounts to a computer virus on them.  The software comes in 3 parts:

1)  A “rootkit” that affects your Windows installation at the kernel level.  It rewrites the System Service Table and replaces certain kernel function calls with calls to a device driver that Sony installs.

2)  A couple of poorly written device drivers that sit at both ends between your IDE controller and your CD drive.

3) Some “anti-piracy” software that’s supposed to prevent you from making copies of your CDs.

What’s worse, most attempts to manually remove the software can render your system unusable, or cause your system to lose access to its CD drive.

Because the “rootkit“ hides files or directories with a $sys$ prefix in the name, several viruses have already started taking advantage of Sony’s malware.  Also, there are reports that malicious exploits against the online game World of Warcraft that use Sony’s software have started to show up.

Mark Russonivich of SysInternals discovered the infection a couple weeks ago.  Since then the tech news media have been covering the story.  Apparently several lawsuits have been filed against Sony related to this matter.

The good news?  Microsoft’s Anti-Spyware (soon to be called “Windows Defender” – sounds like an 80s arcade game to me) will remove the scourge.  And so will the Windows Live Safety Center and the Malicious Software Removal Tool that ships on Windows Update every month or so.

Xbox.com: Will there be any benefits to playing original Xbox games on my Xbox 360 console?

Todd: Absolutely. One of the great things about gaming on Xbox 360 is the satisfaction of knowing that every game will be playable in high definition. We are now proud to reveal that this extends to the original Xbox games as well. Every original Xbox game will be upscaled to 720p and 1080i, and will take advantage of Xbox 360’s anti-aliasing capabilities, delivering a picture that is clearer and crisper than anything available on Xbox.

 

Read the full FAQ here or just jump to the list.

Also, the list of 200+ games is a list of what works now.  But many more games will be added via software updates available through Xbox Live  (and will be free to all X360 owners).  They’ll also be distributed through other means (magazines, downloadable from Xbox.com) for users that don’t hook up their X360 to the internet.

Both Halo and Halo 2 (the original Xbox discs) will run on the Xbox 360, with full multiplayer support,

in 720p with full-screen Anti-Aliasing.

http://www.bungie.net/News/TopStory.aspx?story=h2anniversary&p=5312619

My lust for the Xbox 360 has reached new heights.

The Visual Studio 2005 Express Edition products are now available for free download, and will be for 1 year.  If you download it now your copy will not expire.  They’ve promised 1 year of free downloads, but I’m hoping that after 1 year they’ll decide just to keep them free (heck, I think they should be on the Windows disc to begin with!).

Get them here!

Oh, and SQL Server Express Edition is FREE and will always be free.

You see, I woke up Saturday morning with no voice to speak of (or with!).  Perfect timing, don’t ya think?  I get the chance to spend a day with some of the most interesting people in the Seattle area, and I can hardly talk! 

Mind Camp itself was an absolute success.

Here are just a few of the discussions I took part in:

• Corporate blogging.  Challenges, concerns, fears, goals, and accountability.
• OPML, Tagging, Gada.be
• Podcasting.  How-to, equipment, software, strategies.
• MSN Search, Windows Desktop Search, Live.com
• Linux.  An Ubuntu installation session.
• Lucid dreaming
• Smalltalk and Squeak!
• Mono - .NET on non-Windows platforms.
• Commuter Cars - Futuristic, high-performance, agile electric car that fits in half a lane.  (Keep an eye on these guys!)
• City-wide wireless internet

Other random highlights:

• There was great MSN representation from Brady Forrest, Andy Edmonds, Mike Torres, and Sanaz Ahari.
• I talked Mike into buying a Brandon-phone and jumping to Sprint.  And I’m workin on Brady too
• I met one of the masterminds behind Start.com and Live.com and got a great inside perspective.
• Buzz Bruggerman was showing off ActiveWords as usual, including a new Tablet edition.
• Scoble gave out some Longhorn swag.  Yeah baby!
• Even the food was good!

I’d like to extend my thanks to everyone who made the first Seattle Mind Camp happen.  You not only put together a superb conference, but you pulled it off with brilliant success.  Thanks.

I’ll write more about some of the sessions tomorrow.  At the moment I’m still feeling pretty out of it.  Back to my chicken soup!

I hope they have WiFi.

In this post, Sean from the IE RSS team writes:

Our years of experience in with HTML in Internet Explorer have taught us the long-term pain that results from being too liberal with what you accept from others. Hence, we’ve adopted the following overriding principle for IE 7 and RSS platform in Windows Vista: 

   We will only support feeds that are well-formed XML.

This principle allows us to build a more predictable feed parser. As a platform, it’s important that applications using the platform to consume feeds can rely on the fact that the platform will always be providing information in the way that the publisher intended (trying to guess what a publisher meant to do when there is an error in a feed can be tricky, at best). We also spoke to several people in the RSS and developer community at Gnomedex and at PDC, and they wholeheartedly supported this.

Good stuff!

You’ll define test strategy for your features.  You’ll interact with a team of remote testers.  You’ll build automation systems and tools to help testers and developers.  You’ll be a voice for our users and you’ll have the responsibility of improving the user experience for literally millions of users world-wide. 

We’re looking for SDE/Ts with good communication skills, experience with C++/C#, and a strong understanding of software design.  Bonuses would be an understanding of COM, .NET interop, and 64-bit development.  We’re looking for the best and brightest to improve the Windows Desktop Search platform, content indexing, developer APIs, and cutting-edge UI.  You’ll work with consumer and enterprise users as well as teams throughout Microsoft including Windows, Office, and Windows Live.

If you’re interested, or know someone who is, check out the links below:

SDE/T Position on MS Careers site. (A little outdated, but mostly accurate)

Please submit a resume (for job 139746 or 139744) and we’d also love it if you’d e-mail us (which will help get things moving).

We also have Dev and PM positions that we’re looking to fill.  So if you’re interested in either of those disciplines, let me know!

The latter refers to it as a kind of “Geek slumber party.”

The Mind Camp website has a list of the names of attendees, and mine is among them.  Just a few of the familiar names are Dare Obasanjo, Chris Pirillo, Robert Scoble, Mike Torres, Liz Lawley, Brady Forrest, and of course Ponzi.

A reader noticed via Scoble’s blog that I was attending, and asked if I would accept some questions he’d like me to bring up during the discussions.  I think that’s a great idea.

So if you have a question, concern, or topic that you think should be discussed – post it here!  I’ll check the list periodically during the event via my Pocket PC Phone and after the event I’ll post a wrap-up of what was covered.

It’s a 24-hour event, so give me everything you’ve got!