Tech Ed US (Day 4)

I couldn’t sleep well last night. My neighbor on the left was talking on her cell phone until midnight and I can hear every damn word through the thin wall. My other neighbor was watching a horror movie. A double impact. Not to mention that the cell phone of my left neighbor  rang and woke me up at 6. Luckily, today is not presentation day.

In the morning, I went to see the Managing Analysis Services 2005 Using Analysis Management Objects (AMO) presentation by Alex Lim. Alex is also a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional. We introduced to each other and talked briefly about South-east Asia. I spent three years in Singapore, so we had a lot in common. I liked the demo code that Alex used for his presentation. For those who are new to Analysis Services 2005, AMO is a .NET-based object library which allows you to manage SSAS programmatically. It is a successor of DSO. Cool stuff, if you ever need it.

I had a great lunch with Brian Welcker to catch up on the latest on RS and beyond. Lately, I haven’t been buried in my book and SSAS, so I’ve neglected RS 2005 a bit. It turns out that there is plenty to learn.

Next, I went to see Developing SQL Server 2005 OLAP Applications with ADO MD.NET presentation by Andrew Brust (another MVP). An excellent presentation! ADO MD.NET is a thin managed wrapper on top of the XMLA protocol. It is what you need to send MDX queries to SSAS from a .NET application.

Finally, I attended the Custom Reporting Services Items presentation by Andrew Bryan (a Product Manager of Dundas Software). These are the same guys who did the RS chart region. I didn’t have time to look at this extensibility area in RS 2005 so I found the presentation useful. It turns out that you can write a custom report item and plug it in RS just like you can do this with ASP.NET. Unfortunately, you cannot re-use existing ASP.NET controls. Writing custom report items could be very useful for ISVs, I suppose.

Next, I went to have a session rehearsal since my presentation is tomorrow. Today is also the Tech Ed Attendee’s party in Universal Studio. I hopped on the bus to see the latest and greatest rides. I didn’t have much time since I wanted to get back to the hotel by 10:30. First, I saw Shrek since it happens to be my favorite movie. I enjoyed very much. The 4D effects were awesome. The idea was that the Lord Farquad is not dead and he’s now a ghost. He kidnaps Fiona and Shrek and Donkey are chasing him with the dragon.

Next, I went to see Twister which simulates a class 5 tornado. Got soaked up pretty well. Next, I saw the Mummy. This was a hell of a intensive roller coaster ride. I thought I would vomit at some point. I wanted to see Men In Black but the wait was one hour! So, I went to see Terminator. I’ve been in Universal about 5 years ago, so I thought they may have upgraded the show. I was the same stuff but nonetheless pretty good.

I went back to the hotel and slept like a baby. Tomorrow is my presentation.