vowe en route
by Volker Weber
Just a short update of what is going on at vowe's magic flying circus. Been away from computers for a week now. Must say, it feels really good. :-)
After arriving in Orlando we spent a cold night in Orlando, then hit the road the next morning and headed southsouthwest to the Gulf coast. We had some very nice days on Sanibel Island and are back in Orlando now. Yesterday we hit record low temperatures here, in the 20s, or below zero on the Celsius scale. It's warming up again and we expect to be in the 60s over the weekend. We have had some clouds but also had clear sky and sunshine at least 10 hours a day. Got a nice suntan.
I have been to the Apple store at the Millenia Mall today. Expect an update on vowe's choice soon. :-) First I wanted to call it Schroeder. Which has nothing to do with politics but a lot with Lucy, the iMac. Then I found this too ambigous and went for Woodstock.
I have also seen the new Apple 12" Powerbook. I was lucky to catch it because it arrived just one day prior to my visit. If you plan to buy an iBook, hold it until you have seen this notebook. It does not only look nice in Aluminium, it also is much faster. I am typing this on Charlie, my trusty T-series Thinkpad. Works nicely but I am a bit homesick for Lucy. Once you start working with OS X it is kind of hard to go back to Windows. So I am pretty confident that Lucy will get a sibling. Not this year, but next year in the spring maybe.
Tomorrow Lotusphere kicks off with the Business Partner development day. The Welcome Reception in the evening at the Dolphin beach will sport live pictures from the Super Bowl which will keep at least half of the guests busy. For those folks the party always shuts down too early since it ends at nine when the game is still going on. The shuttle service to the other hotels also ends half an hour later. I wonder why IBM does not fix that. Update: I just learned, IBM has fixed that. There is a bus leaving 15 minutes after the game ends. Whenever that is. If you intend to attend the party, bring an extra sweater. It's cold out there in the evening this year. 2001 and 2002 have been very warm in comparison.
On Monday the show begins with an opening session followed by a press conference that will set the theme for the next week. I expect IBM to show some code on how they want to deliver on the NextGen stuff they started talking about last year. There may also be some real code behind the Next Generation Mail that was shown as a mock-up last year. I also hope that Al will be here. At least I want to say goodbye. It has always been a pleasure talking to him. I am also looking very much forward on meeting the new guy in the hot seat. That should happen Monday latest.
I am not so sure that I will have time to blog from the conference. Need to do some serious press work. But first I need a day to catch up what happened last week. You may help me with a few comments.
Comments
updates? well, all the interesting stuff is mostly on the Turtle´s site and in Ed´s blog.
The Superbowl/shuttle bus issue has been fixed. There WILL be buses AFTER the game, whenever that may be (this from the Discussion at www.online2003.net).
But you´ll probably be clued in on the latest developments starting in 75 minutes.
See you at the ESPN thing!
