The day I dreaded arrived. The beginning of the 8th marked the inevitable end of the great times. I did not oversleep. My mood was subdued as I rode the shuttle to the Orlando Convention Center for the last time, as I ate my last TechEd 2007 breakfast.
The first thing I did was head back to the Virtual Labs (Client). I didn't want to leave Orlando without going through the Vista Lite Touch Installation (LTI) lab. I did as much as I could before it was time to dash to my first session...ok, so I did more than I could, since I was late.
As I slunk into Windows Vista Gadgets That Talk to My Mobile Phone, I looked up to see a familiar face. It was that guy from yesterday, the one I thought might by Dr. Neil Roodyn! Well, I was too late to see his name on the big screen at the beginning of the presentation, so I whipped out the R2H and prepared to learn something. Alas, I'd goofed with my scheduling once again, because this session was for developers, but I did manage to learn a few things. After seeing www.roodyn.com a few times in the code snippets the speaker displayed on the screen, I knew at last that Dr. Neil was indeed here in the states. I listened harder. After the session ended, I walked up and told Dr. Neil that I'd seen his face on Hugo Ortega's blog, so I just wanted to say hello. He returned my greeting, and I wandered off to let the adults talk. Craig Pringle was there, too, with chocolate-covered coffee beans.
Other sessions I attended:
- Windows Vista Application Compatibility and Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.0 (I really learned a cool thing in that. Of course, I was learning lots of cool things all week!)
- The Life and Times of Ultra-Mobile PC (thank you, Craig, for letting me know about it!)
- Advanced Microsoft Windows Troubleshooting with Sysinternals Process Monitor (I learned what I've been missing by not using this tool!)
Before the last session, I hit the Groove booth to grab info and bug the heck out of the poor blue-shirt standing there. I had a mandate from my boss to bring back useful tidbits about this app, and I tried very hard (just not hard enough to catch the Sunday pre-conference opportunity, but it's a lessson learned) to comply.
Sometime during the day, I tried to finish my Vista Lite Touch Install lab, but the virtual machines bombed on me, even after I changed to a different physical machine. I couldn't even email the lab instructions to myself; thankfully, the red-shirt (instructor) logged in and emailed it to me and the Zero Touch Install instructions, as well.
With long glances back, I boarded the shuttle for the last time and sighed my way back to the hotel. It was over, and I was considering halting all computer purchases and saving for TechEd 2008. I just don't know; this was supposed to be the year I finally got to play with OSX...
It was the end of TechEd, but not the end of the day. I caught rides to Downtown Disney at the request of a friend. As evening approached, I found a rock to sit on and lifted my face to the eastern sky. A crowd gathered in the area, and we watched the Space Shuttle Atlantis rise into the heavens. I'd missed my one other opportunity to catch a gllimpse of a Shuttle, so for me, this was the perfect ending to a week of technological bliss, even if my 6700 wasn't man enough to get a good photo.
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