Stop by the nSoftware booth at PDC and register to win a Media Center Extender for XBox kit.

Here I am backstage with Beth (aka 'Sonic' -- you will understand if you see her at the conference).  Beth is a keynote technical specialist.  Also here is Eric C., the keynote technical lead.  This guy and gal are what make PDC keynotes sing. Things go right with our keynotes because of their hours and hours of both advance planning and dedication to making everything work as planned.

Beth has especially been helpful in tracking down one of our keynote primary machines that was 'lost' for a time yesterday in shipping from Redmond to the Los Angeles Convention Center.  Thanks Beth.

It's now about 4 minutes before the BillG and JimAll keynote, and they are cool as cucumbers -- all is well. Time to rock-n-roll.

Scoble, you need to come do a Channel9 video back here with these folks.

They keynote is absolutely going to rock this morning.  There is an *hilarious* video that most everyone in the audience will relate to their teen years.  There are more fantastic demos in this keynote than in years prior with a bunch of serious eye candy developers and designers will love.

Andrew and I will be hanging out in the track lounge after the keynote and this afternoon.  Don't forget to come and ask us a great question to win a Media Center keyboard.

Later on this evening, Sean, Andrew and I will be hosting Geek Drinks (Andrew is buying the first round -- we will see if we can talk him into subsequent rounds.)  Details are on Sean's blog post Update on Geek Dinner (er...drinks!)

Sean Alexander and I are hosting a geek dinner this coming Tuesday, September 13.  If you are interested in attending or suggesting a location leave a comment over on Sean's blog post.

If you haven't already given, let this be your incentive, as it was for Brian...

"I got up last Saturday morning planning to go to the Red Cross web site and make a donation and reading your post pressed me to do it sooner rather than later."

I posted Donate To American Red Cross Hurricane Relief To Enter Raffle for a Copy of Visual Studio 2005 at the very start of a long holiday weekend, so perhaps folks missed.  Based on the stats for this blog, I have about 200 regular readers. I know Media Center users and developers are a passionate bunch of folks, so I'm hoping the community will step up. The math is pretty awesome...

200 Readers X $100 Each = $20,000

Don't miss out on this wonderful opportunity to help the thousands in need.

[Thanks to Brad C. who caught my poor math skills...]

Our Media Center presentation at Professional Developers Conference keeps getting better and better...

I will demonstrating XBox360 + Media Center Extender at my presentation on September 15.  The Meet Me At Professional Developers Conference (PDC) 2005 and Win A Media Center Keyboard has more details on place and time.

Our good friend Ian Dixon joined Robert Scoble et al for a tour of the Microsoft Home in London.  This time he is the interviewee.

Ian Dixon (and others) - Microsoft Home in London, UK

And Ian definitely needs to update his avatar -- doesn't look anything like him, really.

Donate To American Red Cross Hurricane Relief To Enter Raffle for a Copy of Visual Studio 2005

I really love what Ian Dixon is doing -- his show is an invaluable resource for me. I listen to every one he puts out there and if you are a Media Center developer you should as well.  The show notes are quite detailed allowing me to instantly review portions of the show after I have listened to it's entirety.

Ian and I spent about 40 minutes together last week chatting about the SDK, programmatic access to the EPG, the Click To Record API and a host of other things.  This show goes pretty deep into some of the technical details compared to The .NET Show or Channel9 Part I and Part II videos.

So without further adieu...

The Media Center Show #23

Enjoy!

We will be giving away a wireless Media Center Keyboard each day at the Professional Developers Conference 2005.

In order to qualify, you need to...

1. Find me or Andrew Adamyk.
2. Ask a really great question about developing for Media Center.
3. Hand us your business card.

At the end of each day we will randomly pick a winner from the business cards gathered that day.  I'll announce the lucky person on my blog each night and the winner can pick up the keyboard from us the next day if they so desire (except for the last -- we will ship that one).

We will be hanging out at PDC all week so catch us anytime by visiting a Track Lounge or attending the Media Center session.  If you don't want to rely on running into me purely by chance my official schedule is as follows...

September 13

2:30 - 5:30 PM
Track Lounge (Presentation)

September 14

2:30 - 6:15 PM
Track Lounge (Presentation)

7:00 - 11:30 PM
The PDC Party at Universal Studios

September 15

11:30 AM - 12:45 PM
Room 501 ABC
PRS322 - Windows Vista Media Center: Developing for the 10-Foot Interface

5:30 - 9:00 PM
Ask The Experts

September 16

8:30 AM - 11:30 AM
Track Lounge (Presentation)

Hope to see you at PDC...!

Total Raised So Far: $1,323

Update: Through the generous gift from one of the MVPs and a fellow Microsoft employee I can sweeten this offer.  We now have a copy of Windows XP Professional, Office Professional Edition 2003 and Visual Studio 2003 to raffle in addition to Visual Studio 2005.  Instead of one lucky winner we will have four.

Ed Bott, Newsgator, Thomas Hawk, Microsoft and a great discussion during our team lunch today made me want to do *something* to help in the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.

The result: I'm going to raffle off a single copy of Visual Studio 2005.

Here is how you enter...

1) Visit https://give.redcross.org/.

2) Donate a minimum of US $100 (One Hundred US Dollars) towards 'Hurricane 2005 Relief'.

3) Forward to me the email confirmation you receive from the American Red Cross.

FAQ

• The email confirmation from the American Red Cross does not contain any credit card information -- it's only your name, address, donation amount, time stamp and two tracking numbers.
• Unless you state otherwise when you forward the email confirmation I will post your first and last name in updates to this post to recognize your contribution.
• The email confirmation from the American Red Cross includes a link which can help you identify whether or not your company has a matching gifts program, and give you some details on how to leverage.
• Raffle entries will be accepted through September 30, 2005 11:59 PM.
• I don't know the ship schedule for Visual Studio 2005.  The software will be delivered to you sometime the first week of October or when it becomes available in the retail / reseller channel, whichever comes last.

Contributors

• Greg Duncan http://coolthingoftheday.blogspot.com
• Brian Lakstins http://www.balconsulting.net/DasBlog/default.aspx
• Steven Ackerman http://spaces.msn.com/members/sjackerman
• Paolo Hutchison
• Stephen Carroll

• Robert Jordan

Our design team is probably the most humble group of folks I've ever met.  They just won a Communication Arts Interactive Annual award for their work on Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 and have yet to tell a soul as far as I can tell.  Shame on them -- this is really cool news.

http://www.commarts.com/ca/interactive/cai05/35_ia05.html

Communication Arts is the leading trade journal for visual communications. It's the largest design magazine in the world and showcases the top work in graphic design, advertising, illustration, photography and interactive design.

Charlie: Shut up, the camera adds 10 pounds
John: Oh, so how many cameras are actually on you?

Lights, camera, action...

Join myself, John Canning and Michael Creasy in the Microsoft Studios with Robert Hess for The .NET Show featuring Windows XP Media Center Edition.  We have some great demos of the Media Center user interface, third party extensibility applications and code walkthroughs by Michael. This show is a great primer if you've been wondering about your developer opporuntities on the Media Center platform

Be sure to check out the hilarious 'Diversionary Tactics' clip in between the show segments. You'll never look at the Channel9 Guy the same way again.

It turns out I'm the top ranked 'Charlie Owen' at Google, Yahoo, MSN and many other search engines...

• http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Charlie+Owen
• http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=Charlie+Owen&FORM=QBHP
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• http://a9.com/Charlie%20Owen
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• http://search.aol.com/aolcom/search?invocationType=topsearchbox.webhome&query=Charlie+Owen
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• http://www.search.com/search?tag=se.fd.box.main.search&q=Charlie+Owen
• http://www.business.com/search/rslt_default.asp?type=web&query=Charlie+Owen&vt=all
• http://web.ask.com/web?q=Charlie+Owen&qsrc=0&o=0

I haven't yet decided if this is a good or bad thing for my career.  I'm leaning towards good -- what's your take?