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We’re in the homestretch now. Sessions attended:

• MSG281 Designing a High Availability Exchange 2003 Solution
• MSG384 Deploying, Configuring and Extending Exchange Edge Services
• MSG386 Advanced Anti-Spam with Exchange 2003: Real-World Examples
• WIN337 Best Practices in Managing Windows Platform via Script (Part 1)
• WIN338 Best Practices in Managing Windows Platform via Script (Part 2)

At MSG384, Max said it was the first time they were showing the proposed interface for Edge Services. They were only screenshots but they look great. I expect that the Edge interface is going to be the new interface for Exchange at some point. The MMC interface is probably the one thing I really hate about Exchange right now, so any progress in moving to a new interface is appreciated. Exchange 2003 gave us an improved console, but it still is an incredibly tedious way to move around. Edge helps by moving from a console focused on objects to one focused on tasks. Can’t wait.

During one part of the demo, I saw “Kodiak” flash up on the screen briefly before Max scrolled down, so obviously the decision to drop the Kodiak code name for the Exchange follow-on product happened fairly recently. I think this is good news. I really don’t want to wait two or more years to see some of these improvements coming to Exchange, so the announcement that they will come in pieces is welcome.

The two script sessions were excellent as well. A lot of demos and example code. In the second session they started with a simple script and continually enhanced and extended it through the session. Watching a script get created in this manner helps with retention and understanding. I really need to be making more use of WMI in my admin scripts.

After the sessions, it was back to the hotel and then off to Sea World. I met up with some of the other bloggers and hung out with them most of the evening. It was a small group, but it was fun to match faces to blogs. There were long lines for food, so a big chunk of the evening was spent waiting to eat, but I still managed to see the city form the Sky Tower, catch the dolphin and Shamu shows, feed a dolphin, pet some bat rays (didn’t Batman have one of those on his utility belt?), watch the penguins, and ride the Wild Arctic ride. Not bad. Overall, a fun event.

Of course, the worst part of the day was yet to come… packing! I didn’t get to bed until at least 1:30. Thankfully I left enough room in my bags for swag. I can’t imagine what the people with the bean bag chairs are going to do. The airport is going to be bad enough today with it being a holiday, without some guy lugging furniture through security. They are going to have to check them, and I can just see the scene in the luggage area at their destination as thousands of pellets come rolling down the conveyor.

I must have been half asleep when I entered my flight info into Outlook. turns out my flight is at 2:10 PM not 12:10 PM, so I will be able to take the bus from the convention center to the airport. I wound up subtracting two hours from the departure (which was already in San Diego time) and adding two hours to the arrival . So now my eight hour flight is down to four hours! I thought that seemed way too long.

I just realized that buses won’t start running to the airport tomorrow until noon. Since I’m on a 12:15 flight, I think I’d be cutting it a bit too close. Looks like I’ll be leaving earlier than I thought and on my own dime to boot! Oh well, it saves me having to haul my luggage down to the convention center. I’ll probably head down for breakfast in the morning and wrap things up before returning to the hotel for checkout. I could have found a later flight, but I hate getting home in the middle of the night.

Latest additions to the pile o’ swag:

• Rumble in the Jungle t-shirt
• Stress reliever lion and tiger to go with the rhino, from NetIQ

That’s all. I’m pretty swagged out. I try not to overdo it. I know it may not seem that way, but unless I have some interest in a product or a vendor, I hate to waste their time and my time just to get some trinket.

Hump Day, always the low energy point for me at these conferences. The first couple days you’re pumped up to be at the show, and the last couple days you’re pumped up because you get to go home. Wednesday is the interference point between those waves. Visions of high school and college physics pop into my head.

Anyway…. I attended these sessions on Wednesday:

• MSGC09 Customizing Outlook Web Access 2003 (Cabana session)
• WIN336 Addressing Common Windows Terminal Server Pain Points
• MSG382 Performance Tuning for Exchange 2003
• WIN396 Deploying Windows XP SP2: Learnings for Early Adopters

The Cabana session as excellent. This was presented by Karim Batthish, the person who helped me with my OWA question. Excellent session. They had so many people that they scheduled another session, upgrading it to a full-blown presentation in one of the breakout rooms. The process isn’t easy… a lot of special URLs, registry hacks, and CSS pages, but for the most part you can get done what you need. Saw some interesting use of OWA components as web parts which gave me some ideas. Now if only we could have received a copy of the Hello Kitty OWA theme. You know you want to read your email in hot pink with little hearts and a blinking kitty. Don’t you?

The Terminal Server (TS) session was interesting, but we’ve delayed deploying 2003 with TS due to licensing costs. I know it was wishful thinking, but it’d be nice if they’d address the most painful of pain points: the requirement to have a CAL. I’d love to roll out TS for students, but the costs for the blanket license for external users (which students qualify as) is still too expensive, even at our academic rates.

The other two sessions were OK, but pretty much a rehash of two other sessions I attended. I know some crossover is unavoidable, but it was excessive here, especially for the SP2 session.

I skipped the last sessions of the day so I could head back to the hotel and rest/nap for a bit. I’ve been walking to and form the convention center the last couple days, skipping the bus. It only takes 10 minutes to walk up to the hotel, the weather has been great, and I’ll be honest here, I really need the exercise.

The Wednesday night event was the Rumble in the Jungle at the Zoo. It only takes 10-15 minutes to get to the zoo from the conference, so that was a nice start to the evening. I remember riding the bus for 45+ minutes to the IT Pro event last year in Dallas, so that was a plus (although the event in Dallas was fun, just a ways out).

I hopped on the first bus tour that was going out since I figured (correctly) you wouldn’t be able to see much after sunset. A lot of the animals were sleeping or otherwise out of sight, but it was still enjoyable. I’ve only been to zoo once before, so I’d like to come back and spend the day seeing it in more detail. The koalas were already asleep, but as I was walking away from the bus loading area, I saw a golf cart zip by with some keepers and a koala heading back, so at least I was able to see one.

Food was pretty good, especially the salmon, but I was disappointed to find that they had some different food over in a different section that I would have liked to have tried. We received the obligatory t-shirt and an 8×10 of the photo they snapped of each of us as we arrived.

After taking an aerial tour of the zoo on the tram, it was time for the concert with… Jessica Simpson. Aside from the fact that she is attractive and most of the people there were guys, I’m not sure how they came to select her for the show. We wouldn’t seem to be her target demographic. But the show was entertaining, and now I can say I’ve been to a Jessica Simpson concert. I heard the attendance at the event was 1500+, so that is probably as intimate a concert as you can get with her.

Afterwards I did some shopping at the gift shops and headed back to the hotel.