The Space Coast .Net User Group is in the early stages of planning a load fest for Visual Studio 2008 with Joe Healy - MS Developer Evangelist.  The tentative date is Dec. 18th and the first 20 attenddees can bring their laptops and load the product for free.  We're looking for a location right now and since loading software (even free software) is so much fun (sarcasm) - it will hopefully serve alchohol.  Stay Tuned here or to the Space Coast .Net User Group web site.

We've been working on an ongoing issue with BizTalk 2006 at the office.  We've had a two fold problem with SQL Database blocking and our Messga Queues filling up with control messages.  After all of the go-arounds with Microsoft Professional Support Services (PSS), we collected enough data and they were able to reproduce the run-away queues.  They took all of this and produce a hot fix within 3 weeks.  After testing and installationin production, the blocking returned in the database.  But on the good side, the message queues did not fill up again.  So problem partially solved but the fun goes on.  The hot fix solved the problem of what happens when a cache service calls InstanceComplete.  If there is more than one message for the old instance, InstanceComplete gets called more than once causing the second call to fail because the instance had already been terminated by the previous call.  The batch operation is blown and the old caching service instance never gets properly cleaned up.  This old instance still gets control messages from the BizTalk core and since it is not actually running... they accumulate.  They accumulate alot!

So the accumulation no longer takes place... we are still concerned about the blocking.  Our port watcher application that enumerates pesky receive ports that shut down frequently.  When the port watcher calls into the WMI object model to enumerate the receive locations, ISSOConfigStore.GetConfigInfo() gets called.  This then calls ssox_spLookupXp whic reads from the SSO database and is the source of the blocking.  We are running more traces to gather information for PSS.  Stay tuned.

Drove over to Heathrow to the campus of SCC for the 2007 SQL Saturday.  It was a great event and got to meet some of the regulars plus a whole new crowd of DBA geeks.  I got some good information from the sessions but it was an excellent chance to do some networking.  Joe Healy has put up a nice collection of photos from the days events at Live Spaces.  Hung with Ken Tucker [MVP] from the Space Coast .Net User Group and got introduced to some other Enterprise Customers who come to community events.  There seems to be a perception that Enterprise Customers don't participate in the community - it aint so!

The training with Symphic was a good experience.  The SSIS course was excellent and based on the Project REAL implementation.  It was an end to end trip through an SSIS Project designed to buld and maintain a data warehouse / star schema.  It was just what I needed to jump start my efforts at work. 

The evenings were also fine with some opportunities to spend time with my Brother and his girlfriend Tracy.  Thursday Night was ane awesome dinner at Singe Vert - Striped bass served over asparaus rissoto with lobster bisque. The lava cake was almost the source of an international incident.  The gooey center was not so gooey on cake #1 or cake #2.  A skilled application of champagne by our waitress averted an incident.

Pablo came to training and enjoyed the labs.  NYC was quite balmy for October and he had to coll down in the mini-fridge.

I forgot to give a big thank you to Cory Foy for driving over to last month's .Net User Group meeting.  It was the first time I got a good look at Ruby and Rails and I see what the draw is.  It's a powerful tool for some really rapid web site prototyping.  A bit PERL'ish but not too much.

Went out and had dinner with my brother and his girlfriend at Tenga.  An interesting Japanese Resatuarant of my brother's typical style.  Very odd, very low end but some delicious street food style cuisine.

Pablo arrived safely in the luggage and enjoyed a down day on Wednesday.  He mainly slept and watched TV.

The first day of training went well.  We got past the preliminary stuff that I already knew and started digging into the details.  Lokking forward tomorrow.  The facility is on 71 West 23rd and is pretty cool.  It's on the 5th floor of a Free Mason building.  The class size is very small so I am getting to really have a great dialogue with the instructor.  I think Pablo will be ocming to class with me tomorrow.