TechEd Africa 2009, Microsoft’s pinnacle conference that attracted more than 2000 delegates has ended amongst a hive of activity within the Microsoft community. Microsoft sure does know how to get its users and developers excited by the prospect of new software, approaches and company developments!

Attending the conference was an interesting experience and I have to admit that it was extremely difficult to decide on a focus area at TechEd. From a myriad of topic choices, from information security to product overviews, and self-paced hot labs, Tech-Ed offered us a unique perspective into what the future holds for the company.

As mentioned in an earlier post live demos proved to be a problem throughout the conference. While I get the need to do these live demos bandwidth constraints and software problems hindered the impact of the message but in the end we got the information we needed.

I was particularly interested in the discussions around IE8, PHP for Windows, Windows 7 and Silverlight 3. Of them all I must say I think Silverlight is certainly an interesting product worth watching as it allows native developers to create applications relatively easily.

Microsoft is also embracing the future in cloud computing, through the creation of Windows Azure, designed to enable application developers and users with better access and less capital outlay in application development and deployment. I seriously doubt that cloud computing is viable in Africa right now but nonetheless Microsoft feels differently.

While it may have been difficult for me at times to find my place within the TechEd community I can certainly see this community thriving. Microsoft has done a fantastic job at entrenching themselves within the corporate/enterprise market and this is evident by the varying array of delegates at the conference.

It’s that sense of community that made networking relatively easy at TechEd. From the opening party, to the informal gatherings round lunchtime drinks, to the closing party featuring Louise Carver, we’ve certainly had a fantastic time.

So, thanks, TechEd, for giving us the opportunity to explore and evaluate an environment and working atmosphere that has not been our own. I’m not sure if we’re ready to drop Apple and Linux just yet but it’s certainly been a great ride.

A couple weeks back I was contacted by Eben De Wit who is the Microsoft Developer Advisor for the broad developer community in South Africa and was invited to attend Microsoft’s TechEd conference in Durban.

Eben wanted me to attend as a non-Microsoft person in an effort to get some perspective on the Microsoft offering but more importantly he has asked me to blog about my experiences while at TechEd in an honest way – so here goes.

Last night was the start of the conference which saw a two and a half hour Keynote presentation. The format was pretty dynamic and interesting but after two hours it was just too much to take in. The key elements of the Keynote were a focus on:

• The IT Pro
• The Developers
• The End Users
• The Cloud

The reason it was structured in this way was to highlight the new Microsoft offerings to each of these core areas.

What I didn’t like

The Keynote was filled with various live demos, most of which didn’t go as planned and many times the system (Windows 7 based) simply hung.

Seriously, there is no reason to do live demos during a Keynote presentation. They never work, never go according to plan and it’s embarrassing for the presenter when it all goes pear-shaped. As a non-Microsoft person these failed live demos reiterate my position on why I don’t use Microsoft but at the same time I’m not sure how it was received by the 2000 strong delegates in the audience.

I must also admit that I really didn’t like the Bing presentation much. The main reason was because the guy presenting (someone high up in Microsoft SA) kept having a dig at the competitor. I’m not a big fan of competitor bashing and the whole presentation was based around how Bing should be people’s new default home page and how much better it was to Google. Not a good strategy in my opinion.

What I did like

I must say I’m very impressed with the Office and Exchange 2010 offerings. The applications are looking slick, seem very fast and most importantly PowerPoint now has some Keynote coolness which means there’s no longer a need to bore people with bland slides.

In the 2010 ranges all these applications will be available in The Cloud – which essentially means you’ll be able to work on docs, spreadsheets, presentations and email from another computer via the web. This is an interesting move in that Microsoft is now combating the Google Docs effect and it’s going to be interesting to see how this battle pans out.

While I wasn’t particularly wowed by the other applications I have to say that each one that was on show had some really useful functionality that really does enhance the offering.

My take on Microsoft’s offerings

Windows 7 looks great. It was sad that the live demos tarnished Windows 7′s real stability but 7 is certainly a massive step in the right direction. For Apple or Linux users Windows 7 isn’t really ground breaking as we’ve been exposed to this type of functionality for some time but for Windows XP/Vista users this is an earth-shattering release that is going to wow users.

At the end of it all I was left with a strong impression that Microsoft is trying very hard at repositioning the company in all spheres of the market. They’ve invested a lot of money and resources into usability and the applications, while clunky at times, are really much better than any of their predecessors.

There also appears to be a strong drive now to take on Google in a big way. They’ve adapted a lot of the coolness from Apple into their offerings and are competing head on with Google in the fight for enterprise and search market share. Sure, Microsoft own the enterprise space right now but they know that Google are hot on their heals and while Google owns search, Bing is fighting to take some of that control away.

Over the next couple days I’ll be spending some time attending break out sessions that are relevant to me and I’ll post more as I go along.

It turns out the magnificent yacht docked in Cape Town’s harbor is none other than Paul Allen’s smaller yacht called the Tatoosh.

For those who don’t know the Microsoft co-founder’s yacht has been here since October 15th and had I not seen the two helicopters parked on the deck (see pic below) then we might have missed this fantastic sight.

Paul Allen paid no less than $100 million for the 92m long Tatoosh and it features:-

• Five decks
• a master suite, a saloon and other rooms on the top deck
• a saloon with a French limestone fireplace, a dining area, staterooms and a ladies’ powder room on the main deck
• a lobster tank
• a shaded 1.8m deep swimming pool
• a movie theater
• facilities to transport two helicopters on the top two decks (see pic below)
• a custom Hinckley powerboat about 12m
• a Hinckley sailboat of about 12m

Paul also owns the Octopus which is the larger of his two yachts at 126m long. This makes the Octopus the second largest super yacht that is not owned by a head of state.

If you’d like to see all the pics I took of the Tatoosh (including a few shots of the great view of Table Mountain for all my Jo’burg friends) then click here for the full set on Flickr.

Here are the release notes for this version:

• Fixed = iCal bug message saying “no data was added to iCal” thanks to Jon Milan.
• Added = London timezone support thanks to Ryan Hunt.
• Added = West Coast USA timezone support thanks to Ryan Hunt.
• Added = Tallinn timezone support thanks to Ryan Hunt.
• Added = Asia/Muscat timezone support thanks to Steve.
• Tests = Now confirmed to work on Leopard 10.5.1, 10.5.2, 10.5.3 and 10.5.4
• Tests = Now confirmed to work on all Apple computers.

Installing

If you’ve never installed this fix before then please read the detailed installation instructions found over here. If you’re upgrading from a previous version please read the detailed upgrade notes below.

Upgrading from version 1.1

1. Delete the folder /Applications/iCalFix/ in Finder.

2. Download this Upgrade Script to your computer and extract the contents from the ZIP file. The folder contains a Shell script (install.sh) which sets everything up for you.

3. Right-click on the install.sh file, select Open With and then click on Other.

4. Click on Applications –> Utilities –> Terminal. If you can’t select Terminal from the Open dialog then select All Applications from drop-down list below.

5. Terminal will open up and the install script will run. When you see the message “Installation Complete.” you can close Terminal.

6. You can now check if the bug fix was installed correctly by navigating to /Applications/iCalFix/ in Finder. If you see two files installed in that folder then installation was successful.

7. Done. Sit back and enjoy.

While we’ve found many a work-around to get email up and running using Apple Mail there remains this irritating bug that prevents Exchange iCal events from syncing correctly with Apple iCal.

The reason this bug exists is because Exchange doesn’t use standard compliant timezone information while Apple does and as a result iCal can’t figure out what the correct timezone is from Exchange iCal invitations. Here’s a quick example of the South African timezone differences between the two.

Exchange uses this format:
(GMT+02.00) Harare/Pretoria

While iCal uses this:
Africa/Johannesburg

This means that when a meeting request comes in from a Windows PC, iCal can’t read data beyond the GMT+02.00 and it simply adds on 2 hours to the event. So a meeting sent from Exchange, scheduled for 14:00 actually appears in iCal as 16:00. We’ve missed many a meeting as a result!

Over the last few months I’ve spent countless hours trying to find a fix but no one has managed to get this issue resolved – not even Apple. I’ve now resorted to creating my own bug fix which I’m releasing publicly this morning.

How this bug fix works

The install script downloads all the necessary files from my server and installs both an AppleScript and Shell script to a folder called iCalFix in your Applications folder.

The AppleScript is then assigned to a Mail Rule and runs whenever an iCal invitation is received. The AppleScript downloads the iCal file to a temporary location and the Shell script then runs on the temp file and replaces any incorrect timezone information.

Once completed the new iCal event is then imported to iCal with all the new timezone data in place. The beauty of this fix is that you don’t need to edit any of the package files for iCal and even your original iCal invitations are left untouched. This means that you can upgrade iCal at a later stage and you should be safe from any data corruption.

Installation

1. Download this Install Script to your computer and extract the contents from the ZIP file. The folder contains a Shell script (install.sh) which sets everything up for you.

2. Right-click on the install.sh file, select Open With and then click on Other.

3. Click on Applications –> Utilities –> Terminal. If you can’t select Terminal from the Open dialog then select All Applications from drop-down list below.

4. Terminal will open up and the install script will run. When you see the message “Installation Complete.” you can close Terminal.

5. You can now check if the bug fix was installed correctly by navigating to /Applications/iCalFix/ in Finder. If you see two files installed in that folder then installation was successful.

Setting up the Mail Rule

The last step before you can begin using this fix is to setup an email rule that calls the AppleScript file. Click on Mail –> Preferences –> Rules and create a new rule that looks identical to the one below.

If you’d like to read detailed instructions on setting up this particular Mail Rule then make sure you read the readme.txt file located in the Install Script package.

All done!

After completing the above steps any new iCal invitations sent from an Exchange server will automatically be converted to the right formats and you will never have an excuse to be 2 hours late for a meeting again!

I suggest that you test this fix out by sending an iCal event from an Exchange server to see if all is working correctly. If the fix isn’t working for you then your exchange server is probably using a different timezone format and you’ll need to read the section in the readme.txt file on customising timezone support for your country.

Caveats

• NB: Make sure you open the readme.txt file in the Install Script folder. This readme file contains important information which isn’t included in this post.
• This fix has only been tested on Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.1 and 10.5.2 and there is no guarantee that it will work on previous or future versions.
• We’ve only been able to test this fix on three MacBook Pros and while it worked on all three YMMV. We’ve now tested it on about 10 Macs now and it has worked on every one we’ve tested thus far.
• Before installing or running this fix make sure you backup your iCal first. In iCal click File –> Back up iCal… and save a backed up version to your computer.
• When you recieve an Apple iCal invitation there is a message that pops up in iCal saying that “no data was added to iCal” but when you click OK the iCal event is loaded to iCal anyway. I’m not sure why this happens with iCal but I’m working on a fix for that.
• I can’t provide support. If you want help in setting up a unique timezone regular expression then I’ll assist with that but any other queries I cant’t respond to – I just don’t have the time, sorry.

These browsers are able to run on Linux all thanks to the Open Source implementation of the Windows API called Wine which acts as a compatibility layer for running Windows programs. It has been very useful in the past for checking websites for compatibility across the different browsers and I’ve long hoped for a Mac OS X derivative…

Finally it seems some clever person has ported this application to Mac and it’s quite aptly called ies4osx.

Installing ies4osx was relatively simple and as with the Linux derivative it requires a Darwin-based installation of Wine called Darwine. Once everything has been installed you simply open up the browser you want to test on and the results are just awesome.

ies4osx runs off Apple’s X11 implementation and is able to install Internet Explorer versions 5, 5.5, 6.0 (SP1) and 7.0 BETA but it remains a little buggy. The stability issues all relate to the Wine implementation as I had similar stability issues using ies4linux. This is a great step for Apple users and now I can finally uninstall that dual-boot Windows XP from my MacBook Pro.

On Wednesday I had a meeting with Rutger-Jan van Spaandonk who is the executive director and shareholder of the Core Group. In case you don’t know Core Group are the official distributors for Apple, Nintendo and Tom Tom in South Africa.

RJ is an interesting man and he gave us a full status quo of where his products are placed in the SA market which was fascinating. What was more interesting though was when he told Gregor, Carly and myself that Microsoft owns a small stake in Apple Inc.

The big Apple vs. Microsoft war seems rather pointless after news of this so I decided I wanted to quantify this statement with some facts.

Turns out that at the 1997 Macworld Expo, Steve Jobs announced that Apple would be entering into partnership with Microsoft. Included in this was a five-year commitment from Microsoft to release Microsoft Office for Macintosh as well as an investment of 150,000 shares of Apple Series A, nonvoting, convertible preferred stock worth $150 million.

Steve had this to say to the audience.

If we want to move forward and see Apple healthy and prospering again, we have to let go of a few things here. We have to let go of this notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose. We have to embrace a notion that for Apple to win, Apple has to do a really good job. And if others are going to help us that’s great, because we need all the help we can get, and if we screw up and we don’t do a good job, it’s not somebody else’s fault, it’s our fault. So I think that is a very important perspective. If we want Microsoft Office on the Mac, we better treat the company that puts it out with a little bit of gratitude; we like their software.

Microsoft found themselves in a monopolisation legal battle and Bill Gates recognised that if Apple failed Microsoft would have no case that there were other, alternative operating systems available to consumers. It was a win-win situation for both companies.

The 150,000 shares were convertible by Microsoft after August 5, 2000 into shares of the company’s common stock at a conversion price of $8.25 per share. During 2000, 74,250 shares of preferred stock were converted to 9 million shares and in 2001 the remaining 75,750 preferred shares were converted into 9.2 million of Apple’s common stock. All 18.2 million shares were sold by Microsoft in 2003.

Currently, Microsoft owns about 0.0046% of Apple through a Private Capital Management fund and Apple owns about 0.39% of itself the same way so whether Microsoft ever held any power in the company is questionable at best.

Two interesting items came up which I’d like to share with you. The first is a quote made by Bill Gates when he invited bloggers and industry leaders up to Redmond to discuss Microsoft’s outreach to its communities via the upcoming MIX07 conference. In the original post from Molly.com she is hounding Bill about various issues that relate to Web Standards and what Microsoft are doing about it. Bill’s response:

Who has done more implementation of Web standards than Microsoft?

If you’re a developer you’ll realise just how pathetic this quote is as we are forever developing for two extremes, Web Standards and Internet Explorer. As Molly says Microsoft were inventive and the leaders when they pioneered Internet Explorer but when they hit version 6 something went horribly wrong. It’s a good piece and worth the read.

The second item is a resource aimed at any developer/designer/website owner and provides a great Web Standards Checklist to work off. There are many factors when trying to get your website compliant and this is a great place to start.