• One broken mirror due to garage pole jumping out at my car while parking: $500
• Vacations to get away from it all: Thousands
• Cost of a house to be within a 10 minute drive of campus: You don't want to know :|
• Seeing year 7 at Microsoft: PRICELESS (well, really not priceless as they do pay me)

1. Running into Bill Gates in the Westin lobby, he smiled at me on his way to the keynote
2. NetFlix demo Chris Anderson & Jim Allchin showed during the keynote (WOW is what I can say, the power of Windows Vista: fast, reliable and the graphics were amazing)
3. Having a customer tell me that Microsoft has made tremendous progess in the community space in the past 2-3 years
4. The fact that Jim Allchin wore jeans during his keynote. That is what I admire about him, he wants to be himself and comfortable. He just shoots from the hip, tells it like it is.
5. Walking away with a list of things Microsoft needs to do better in order to support the community

Tonight should be a busy night. I have a few parties I am attending and then have an early wake-up call tomorrow.

I am suprised by how healthy the food has been at PDC. They have fruit, pretzels, baked chips, raisins, health bars, etc. Not a lot of junk food. You might say PDC is a health nut.

Favorite PDC blog today:

Robert Scoble actually has a lot of good pointers to PDC content, I will give him the Jana Blog prize for today

1. Arriving at LAX around 9:30am
2. Getting a work out in at the gym (if you knew the food that would be available this week, you would see why I wanted to get my workout in).
3. Registration
4. Setting up our booth
5. Cornering Eric Rudder on the escalator to ask him questions
6. Stopping to say 'hi' to familiar faces every 10 feet
7. Kick-off dinner with team

This is my first PDC and I am very excited to be here. There is energy in the air that makes me want to work harder, listen more, engage with customers at a deeper level and swoop in and say "I will fix your problem". While I can't promise the latter, I can surely do the former. I think it is events like this that makes me really look at our community efforts with a critical eye and ask myself "Are we really doing enough?". I think the answer is no. We can always do more. We have some great applications and services in place (chats, forums, RSS, webcasts, newsgroups, gotdotnet, etc) that enable customers to interact with each other, with Microsoft and seek questions/answers. However, I think we need to do a better job as a company of turning that interaction into actionable improvements we can make in our products/services and in the way customers interact with us and other customers. Maybe I can make a difference in this area by being here, I only hope.

Tomorrow, the agenda is to attend the Bill Gates & Jim Allchin keynotes where I am sure topics will center around Windows Vista, SQL Server 2005 and Visual Studio 2005. I think Bill is one of the most compelling speakers I have seen, but Jim is one of the most honest. When you watch Jim, you know he is telling it like it is, no masking it with marketing words.  These should be good sessions and I will try and blog during the day tomorrow. After the morning keynotes, I will be manning the Microsoft.com Communities & Gotdotnet booth.

• Join me in hearing Bill Gate's keynote: Watch It Live

We are here for our customers, but I know I will get as much out of PDC as they will. Customers are very inspiring; I hope I can give as much as I get.

This is Jana Carter signing off from deep in LA (OK, the Westin). Until tomorrow...

My favorite PDC blog of the day:

TinyScreenfuls.com

This blog does a great job of oozing the PDC vibe. It is not necesarrily about a technical talk the blogger attended, but rather about the cool bean bag chairs Channel 9 is offering in their track lounge. This is what we need to do as a company; make our customers feel a part of our environment, make them feel at ease and let them know we work to provide them the applications that make their daily lives better.

1. The display is great. It has great clarity and the size is adequate for viewing photos and using the menus.
2. I like the thumb control that takes you through the menu and controls the volume. I think it is more intuitive and accurate over the iPod.
3. The size and weight are perfect. I use my iRiver every day at the gym, take it on the boat, walk with it, etc.
4. Synching my iRiver is SO easy using Media Player. Media player makes it easy to add, delete, categorize all my songs. The iPod has a long way to go in this area.
5. Amazon.com had some great prices, $30 cheaper than I paid (although I bought mine at Staples).

The Cons:

1. The battery life doesn't seem to be what is advertised. I get about 3-4 hours and it should get about 12 hours. I think I need to tweak the settings to optimze the battery.
2. The shuffle doesn't seem to be random enough. I notice it playing the same songs often.
3. When pressing the off button (on the left side of the device) I accidentally press the controls on the right side of the device. Not the best design.
4. I wish it came with an arm band for when I go running. It only comes with a belt clip (which is sort of flimsy, made of rubber and the clip is about to tear through the rubber).

I would highly recommend the iRiver H10. There is a great user site (you can download the users guide, ask questions in the forums, read reviews, etc), it is called Mystic River.

Let me know what you think of your MP3 player. Gotta love these devices.

Chris Jones is on Channel 9 talking about Windows Vista beta 1. http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=92834#92834

Microsoft has many different product teams; working on many different projects. It is not uncommon to hear people speak about the difficulty partnering with other groups. We each have our own deliverables, deadlines to meet, different customers, etc. I could not partner with every team at this company if I wanted to. However, I just had a great experience.

One of the Program Managers in my group, Ben Martin, and I just came from a meeting with members of the Outlook 12 team. We were discussing future partnerships down the line, what is everyone working on, etc.

I have to say Outlook 12 has some of the best employees I have come across. Not only are they willing to meet with me, but they were very willing to share plans, talk about partnerships, collaborate on ideas, etc. The entire Office team is very busy these days, so to get their time is just a testament to the quality people they have on their team.

OK, so maybe not the most interesting of posts, but I just like to give a shout out when I see good things happening here (thanks Michael, Aaron and Jessica!).

BTW-Outlook as a very nice building. I wonder how I can swing a building like that? Their building also has the best icecream on campus too

Robert Scoble has posted his long awaited video-interview with Jim Allchin, Microsoft's Group Vice President for the Platforms Group. This includes Microsoft® Windows® operating system, Microsoft .NET, the Windows Server System and new media technology.

I was lucky enough to sit with Jim yesterday while he hosted an online chat with our MVPs. This guy means business. He listens, speaks his mind and commits. One of my favorite VPs at this company.

Great interview Scoble & nice camera work