Now that I’m back from vacation, I got my VS2005 Beta 1 VPC’s up and running. I have two – one for Express (VC#/VB/VWD) and one for the Enterprise Architect. I installed Express because I wanted to see how realistic they are as day-to-day dev tools. So far, I’m pretty impressed. I’m going to use VC# & VWD to build a distributed genealogy data management system with my cousin Dave and my dad. Genealogy is pretty interesting problem domain that can touch on many SOA data management issues such as ownership, publication of reference data and federated identity so I think it will be pretty cool.

Of course, I also installed the full-blown VS2005, primarily to get access to the new modeling tools (i.e. Whitehorse). BTW, there’s a relatively new whitepaper on the System Definition Model (i.e. the meta-model that the Whitehorse app designer, data center designer and deployment designer modellers are based on) available. It was published in late April when I was to busy w/ TechEd prep to notice. The whitepaper describes the SDM meta-model, the SDM core models and partnership opportunities.

In addition to being a history buff and architecture expert, Pat likes to sing – typically parody songs of his own creation. He’s written many, but we actually broke down and got a license for Don McLean’s classic “American Pie“. Pat performed his version – a speculative retrospective titled “Mr. CIO Guy” – at the end of his TechEd Europe architecture track general session. You can watch a streaming version on Channel 9. Lyrics are posted on my MSDN Blog. Major thanks to Breakfast of Champions for getting it encoded so fast and to Jeff for getting it posted so fast.

On a more serious note, we are recording all of Pat’s TechEd sessions for the Architecture Strategy Series. Watch this space for details.