On Monday, Nick and I flew out to San Francisco to attend AMD’s Premiere Event announcing their quad-core Opteron processor. With Intel’s quad-core hardware and now AMD moving full speed ahead - the era of quad-core processing is here!

Prior to the event, we met up with Featured Community members Michael Reyes, John Obeto, and Carlos Echenique to attend a blogger meet-up with some folks from AMD. Michael is from the website HardwareGeeks , John owns and runs the website SmallBizVista, and Carlos runs the website PlanetAMD64. I also had the huge pleasure of meeting Alessandro Perilli from the website Virtualization.info. Alessandro is one of the leading bloggers in blogging on virtualization technology on the web.

At the blogger meet-up, we were all surprised by a visit from AMD’s CEO Hector Ruiz.

At the Herbst International Exhibit Hall, AMD had several demo stations set up for folks to play with quad-core PCs. Nick had a chance to play Midway’s upcoming game Stranglehold powered by AMD’s Phenom quad-core processor. AMD had several different demo stations including one demoing some very impressive video-editing capabilities.

Later, we were all bused over to the Letterman Digital Arts Center for the launch event. The Letterman Digital Arts Center was created by George Lucas and LucasFilm on the grounds of the Presidio. The Letterman Digital Arts Center houses many of the LucasFilm divisions (such as ILM) and is a state-of-the-art digital entertainment facility. When arriving, we knew right away we were at a LucasFilm facility as we were greeted by some familiar faces:

We then made our way into the Letterman Digital Arts Center where we were directed into their 298-seat, state-of-the-art, THX-certified screening room equipped for digital projection. It was a very impressive theater room. The event kicked off with AMD’s Hector Ruiz announcing the Opteron quad-core processor and then introducing LucasFilm producer Rick McCallum to talk about LucasFilm’s partnership with AMD.

Rick showcased a really neat video of the special effects ILM did for the movie Transformers. Take a look at the video:

Video: AMD Barcelona Launch: ILM Video

Overall, I shot over 9GB of HD video footage from the event. Using Windows Movie Maker, I spliced the video into segments and uploaded the special effects video above to Soapbox. If I had a quad-core processor, editing and rendering video such as my HD footage would be quite a bit faster and more efficient. Quad-core processors will offer quite a bit of advantage to Windows Vista users as they hit the market as they will enable the user to do much more with digital video, sound, and even games.

Special thanks to AMD for having us out for the event.

Microsoft has recently published an “Events and Errors Message Center” on TechNet. It is a bit like EventId.net, but you can search on more fields than Event ID and Source (note that non-Microsoft products aren’t included in the Microsoft offering).

The basic search allows for selection of a Microsoft product, and a search string. The advanced search adds a Version field for the selected product, an Event ID field, an Event Source field, a File name, and Language. The product list isn’t yet all that comprehensive with only 18 entries (and some duplicates or products that could be further filtered by version), but I hope to see it grow to encompass more products and more versions (Vista is not listed yet, for example). It would also be cool if the capability to annotate specific events was made available to users, much like can be done at EventId.net. Another idea that would be nice to see is that as products are developed / maintained / updated, part of the process would involve documenting the events and their meaning, in the same database that the Events and Errors Message Center interfaces with. Perhaps QA and other groups could even add their own annotations to specific events - what caused the problem, how the problem was resolved, etc.

Hopefully, the Events and Errors Message Center keeps improving. Along similar lines, it would be nice to see the DLL Help Database get some attention - several times I have hoped to see Vista files appear but have been disappointed.

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Hi all,

For those of you who missed some of the actions and announcements at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference regarding key technologies and tools including SoftGrid, Windows Partner Solutions, Windows Vista Hardware Assessment and Windows Business Value Assessment Tool, read on…

Baldwin

Interview with Heartland Technology Solutions at WPC 2007

On Day 3 of the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2007 (WPC)  in Denver, I caught up with IT veterans from the Heartland Technology Solutions (HTS) in Harlan, Iowa - CEO, Arlin Sorensen and Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Larry Hedin.  Here’s what they have to say about what’s they’ve seen at WPC.

Baldwin: “Arlin, it’s good seeing you and Larry again.  A few months ago, I met you and a few peer group members of the Heartland Technology Group (HTG) during a series of product and technology review meetings on Microsoft’s Redmond Campus.  Can you tell us a bit more about the Heartland Technology Group (HTG), how it started and what the charter is?”

Arlin: “Sure. Back in 2001, I recognized that there was a general lack of peer groups for Microsoft partners that serve the SMB space in the United States and Canada.  As technology continued to morph and change, we knew that we couldn’t figure out everything on our own, so I decided to launch the first HTG peer group that same year.  The HTG peer group is an open community where technology leaders would share their own daily real world experience with those having the same challenges.  Better yet, they are all coming from non-competing markets so there are no worries and concerns about competition.  Through sharing of best practices in business and technologies implementation, we are able to stay ahead of the rapidly changing industry.  That’s how we are able to grow and grow - we are now at close to 100 company members.”

Baldwin: “Very interesting.  You certainly have a great group of technology leaders.  I always enjoy meeting them and tapping their insights.”

Baldwin: “Larry, as part of the Worldwide Partner Conference partner panel, what was your impression about the solutions and technologies that Microsoft has rolled out at this conference?  What impressed you the most?”

Larry: “Baldwin, there are two things that are very impressive - SoftGrid and Windows Partner Solutions.  SoftGrid application virtualization has really become affordable for my customers.  As part of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP), SoftGrid really helps reducing deployment time down to a minimum.  It takes care of tough apps - apps that conflict with other line-of-business apps previously without SoftGrid.  It is really awesome to see how energized my sales force are when they discuss SoftGrid and MDOP with our customer base.  These technologies give partners like us greater leverage and help remove deployment roadblocks for Windows Vista.”

Larry: “I am also very impressed with the assessment tools rolled out this week as part of the Windows Partner Solutions program.  The Windows Vista Hardware Assessment tool is a great tool that helps my sales force quickly assess the existing PCs of my customer base and determine if they are ready for Windows Vista and Office 2007 migration. It is easy to learn and use and, most importantly, it helps accelerate my business!  Another great tool is the Windows Vista Business Value Assessment Tool (may require partners log-in).  It enables partners like us to sell the business value of Windows Vista.  Without the data-centric intelligence provided by this tool, it’s much harder to sell.  This tool is straightforward and the customization to specific market and company size is a great addition.  We can now build our sales process around the use of these assessment tools and the results they generate.  Partners should definitely download these free tools and see how they can help accelerate their sales.

Baldwin: “Arlin, what would you say would be another technology that our customers and partners should keep an eye one?”

Arlin: “Partners here are seeing and hearing the buzz about Software plus Service and how this will offer great business to us.  We too are getting ourselves prepared to get more involved in the Managed Services side of the IT business.”

Baldwin: “Arlin, Larry, on behalf of our Windows Vista Team blog audience, I’d like to thank you for your time today.  Thanks for your insights and hope you enjoy the rest of the event.”

Arlin and Larry: “Thanks for having us.”

Hi all, For those of you who missed some of the actions and announcements at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference regarding key technologies and tools including SoftGrid, Windows Partner Solutions, Windows Vista Hardware Assessment and Windows Business Read More……(read more)