Vegas Vacation Recap, Part 1 – The Venue and the Kids

I took the family to Las Vegas for vacation this year. Due to work schedules and complimentary flight tickets, this occurred in August, by far the hottest (and busiest) time of year. The heat I expected, but candidly, I had no idea it’d be so busy: who the heck goes to Vegas to escape the summer heat of Seattle?

Lots of people, it would seem. We stayed at Circus Circus on the strip; check-in would have taken two hours, if not for “No Wait” check-in. If you stay there, use the service (you have to call their 800 number a day or two before you check in). We got two adjoining rooms (one dark and quiet, one light and noisy) for the five of us.

The Circus is known to be a “kid friendly” hotel, rife with clowns, circus acts and a cool midway (dads: if you’re losing at the craps tables, make yourself feel good by winning a stuffie for your kids). That said, I saw the hotel more as “kid tolerant”; we all know the littles aren’t allowed near the gaming (they can pass through, but must keep moving), but there’s really no other activities to keep them busy.

Well, that’s not entirely fair. There is stuff to do, all at a reasonable cost, with parent supervision. The Circus boasts the Adventuredome, “Five Acres of Indoor Fun”, essentially an indoor theme park with a midway and roller coaster. We did two days at the ‘dome, in air-conditioned comfort. The kids got a little bored after a few hours, so we broke for lunch and naps and returned that evening on those days. I highly recommend the Canyon Blaster (roller coaster); it’s quite a treat: two inverted loops leading in to a corkscrew. Fun, and not as teeth-rattling as the Manhattan Express at New York, New York.

We also did the pool. A lot. For $5 ($2.50 at Target, I’m sure) we procured floating devices and the kids wore themselves out in the warm water. As our three kids are basically transparent, we used sunblock SP-googol to avoid burns.

What the Circus (and Vegas) lacks (well, we didn’t find it) is trusted, reliable and reasonable supervision for the littles so the adults can escape for a few hours. It’s easier to get a call girl to come to the room than a babysitter. We almost considered it. Okay. I’m kidding. It would have been less expensive to drop them off at the brothel 😛

We did our gaming in shifts, and divided and conquered the littles for other walks and magic shows.

Oh. Two words for magic: Lance Burton. See him at the Monte Carlo. Amazing slight-of-hand, tremendous act and very personable. My youngest spent some stage time with him (and about 11 other kids) making a parakeet named Elvis disappear. She still talks about it on a daily basis.

This is part of five articles. While I saw / did enough for ten, these remained a part of my memory by the time I got to the keyboard. Links to all the articles follow:

Vegas Vacation Recap, Part 1 – The Venue and the Kids

Vegas Vacation Recap, Part 2 – The People and the Strip

Vegas Vacation Recap, Part 3 – Sunrise on the Strip

Vegas Vacation Recap, Part 4 – The Pink Chip

Vegas Vacation Recap, Part 5 – I play Craps

Vegas Vacation Recap, Part 2 – The People and the Strip

Vegas is an amazing place to watch people. You’ll see glamorous people, trashy people, silly people, desperate people. You might see all of the above attributes (and more) in a single person over a few hours’ viewing. Somewhere, there are some very busy “Dorian Grey” pictures. “What happens in Vegas”, and all that.

Steve Wynn seems to own everything. He built the Bellagio (great fountains, but very adult, artsy-fartsy and classy: no kids allowed except registered guests) and now has a hotel named “Wynn.” (note the period). Like Trump, he thinks it enough to describe the offering in a single-word sentence that resonates with potential customers. Branding is an amazing thing. Oh, Wired picked up the story on this hotel, “Move Over Pyramids, Wynn’s Here”.

Speaking of Trump (the Donald), I read that he’s breaking ground across the street from Wynn. It looked like a residential tower, but I’d be surprised if it didn’t include hotel / gaming.

Speaking of Trump again; Ivana has lent her name to a high-rise called “Ivana”. See “Wynn.” branding notes above.

Walking the Strip is a treat, if the weather isn’t too hot. Note that one day it was still 107 at 6pm, so walks typically occur between casinos to get out of the heat. The bus runs up and down the strip at all hours of day and night, but it can be full at peak hours. It comes often, so is worth a shot if you’re on a budget.

The new monorail is a big bragging point for Las Vegas. Built and funded without public dollars it is a smooth, air-conditioned ride between the Sahara and the MGM, with stops at Bally’s, Flamingo, Harrah’s, the Convention Center and the Las Vegas Hilton in-between. Three dollars for a single ride, $10 for an all-day pass. The all-day pass is a bit spendy and cannot be shared, so we opted for the “ten rides for $20” package and took two trips en masse during the week.

Of course, Seattle is still fighting for our new monorail system. We keep voting for it, but it keeps not getting built. Amazing that we voted down two sports stadiums, twice, and they got built. Only in Washington.

This is part of five articles. While I saw / did enough for ten, these remained a part of my memory by the time I got to the keyboard. Links to all the articles follow:

Vegas Vacation Recap, Part 1 – The Venue and the Kids

Vegas Vacation Recap, Part 2 – The People and the Strip

Vegas Vacation Recap, Part 3 – Sunrise on the Strip

Vegas Vacation Recap, Part 4 – The Pink Chip

Vegas Vacation Recap, Part 5 – I play Craps

Theatre and DVD: Mind the Gap

The early release of “Sin City“ to DVD sparked a few thoughts for me. Here are some fun facts:

• There will always be a New and Improved release of the DVD you’re just dying to own. I just noticed I have three copies of "Fellowship of the Ring" and two copies of "The Usual Suspects".
• The first DVD released will always be the one with the fewest special features.
• The gap between theatrical release and the first DVD is shrinking (note that "Sin City" is still in theatres at the time of this writing).
• The price of a theatre visit for two now far exceeds purchasing the DVD.

Hollywood et, al. is compressing the gap between theatrical release and the first DVD. My guess is to solve two goals: leverage the ad campaign for the theatrical release and any resulting buzz and for anti-piracy purposes; if the "real" version is available straight away, why burn the bandwidth for a crappy copy?

For those who are infrequent visitors to theatres, the first view of a film may well be in the comfort of our homes, following a visit to CostCo. Granted, there are films for which the grandest of home theatres cannot possibly complete (the "Lord of the Rings" and "Star Wars" sagas come to mind), but what of the rest?

Hollywood is aware of this; there are talks of releasing that "first" DVD at the theatre, with others to follow (presumably near the gift-giving season). Director Rodriguez speaks about the initial DVD release on About.com, citing it is bare bones. Of course, spoilers abound; specifically, spoilerspodcast.com who released the director’s commentary as a podcast to be enjoyed in an MP3 player while watching the movie.

Does this make theatres less relevant? Probably. Who wants to pay for overpriced snacks, be a slave to a schedule, have to arrange child care and more? Perhaps, in the future, theatres will simply be an extension to the marketing campaign for legitimate, downloadable content.

The usual caveats apply; these are just my thoughts.

"Sin City" commentary released as a podcast

"Sin City" commentary released as a podcast. This page also has the printed commentary; many fun facts about the film.

Update: Note that this highlights an interesting development, which I’ll cover more in a future post: the desire for studios to leverage the ad campaign associated with the theatrical release of a film by releasing a “bare bones” DVD soon after the release to the theatres. As we’ve all observed, richer extras can be had by waiting a few months before purchasing a DVD of a favorite film.

Delay for the .XXX domain?

Maybe I’m nuts, but I always thought the .XXX domain had a place on the internet.  Let there be a domain type reserved exclusively for adult-only sites, and let those of us with kids exclude the domain type from our routers.  Give us back WhiteHouse.com and don’t penalize us for inadvertently clicking craiglist.com!  Note: don’t navigate to either of those sites.

Of course, the way the internet grew (I don’t mean how fast; I mean the way it grew virally .. more like mutation), there was chaos and little organization.  I remember when .net domains were “supposed” to be for ISPs and .org domains were “supposed” to be for non-profits.   This all changed when we “ran out” of .com addresses: companies scurried to collect .org and .net, just to protect the body / root name of their domains.  I even recall when the .cc and .tv domain types were introduced in an attempt to give companies an option.  So many domain names and types; so many opportunities to hijack them.

I digress: just wanted to spout.  This post is actually a meme about how ICANN is being encouraged to delay the availability of the .xxx domain (again) by the feds.

Wired: “Feds urge delay for .xxx domain”
SlashDot: “Top Level .xxx Domain Concept Under Scrutiny”

.. and the article on the June 1, 2005 approval from News.com: “Porn-Friendly" ‘.xxx’ domains approved”.

SOA Building Momentum

Developer.com: Services-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is building momentum. The article notes that business leaders, not IT departments must take the lead in SOA deployments. This is in line with my views in my “Services Orientation – the Architecture formally known as SOA” series. Speaking of which: I need to get back to that series. Link for additional chapters.

WiFi "Roguing"

Not that I’ve ever done it, but the practice of “Roguing“ (as in being a rogue; connecting to an available, non-protected WiFi signal) is now considered a legal gray area and could land you in jail.

News.com provides a FAQ on “WiFi mooching and the law”.

Here we are, legislating technology again. Bah. Secure your networks people.

Use 128-bit Wireless Encryption Protocol (WEP) keys. While a WEP key can be hacked (although typically not in the time of the average drive-by rogue), there are other, stronger protocols such as WPA.

For larger organizations, certificates are an option.

If you have a small home network, use a wireless access point or router that allows you to restrict access only to the known MAC addresses of your network cards; this will prevent anyone sitting outside your house (including your neighbors) from connecting to your network.

It’s About the Business, You – The “Wow” Factor (Part 2)

This post continues my previous discussion regarding the “wow” factor and business cases.

Developers
Ask yourselves: what have you done to make a business owner say “wow” today? Meeting a milestone, overcoming a bottleneck or reporting a success are great places to start as delivering on current commitments is vital. But meeting commitments will get you an “attaboy” (and a continuing income stream) at best.

Demonstrating how data acquired from a legacy Line of Business (LOB) silo can be consumed by a desktop application and made accessible to the business audience should get you a “hmm”. “Hmm” from an enlightened business owner could lead to the opportunity for a big “wow” down the road. Some notes:

• Sell the idea as it really should be: an ongoing effort toward enterprise systems integration.
• Select tools with momentum: tools and platforms with community, history and ongoing support.
• Plan incremental success milestones that add business value: it’s important to show tangible progress.
• Plan to minimize impact on the users of the applications: it’s best to work with the back-end plumbing before you introduce change to the desktop.
• Show your work! Expose prototype components that let business owners see data they’d not seen before. Please note: I said data, not more application layers or widgets.
• Continue searching for the “hmm” factor, but be mindful of adding any scope until you can show successes.

Business Owners
Ask yourselves: have you opened your mind to think outside conventional wisdom in solving a ticklish business issue? Have you cultivated an environment in which those with technology knowledge can present you with potential solutions or opportunities?

There are reasons that either (or both) answers could be “no”. One possibility: you’re already fully integrated, and in this case, kudos. Another: you feel you lack the budget for another project. Still another is you may not see a value in integrating back-end data. If the latter two are your reasons, take a careful look at your environment and your data.

A well-planned and well-executed integration will not cost you money; it will make you money. Yes, you’ll have cash outlay, of course, but there is ROI potential in improving both the top and bottom lines.

Your data is valuable, and not just because your applications run on it. Your data has value outside regular business operations. You can mine your own data to:

• Identify business and customer trends.
• Recognize waste and redundancies.
• Uncover process improvement opportunities.
• Reduce business risk.

Further, access to your data has value to others within your organization. If users could see relevant data in fewer interfaces (eliminating “screen hopping”), you have the opportunity to increase productivity and reduce errors through automation and integration.

Next: Integration – The Brainstorming Process.

Applying BizTalk Server 2004 Service Pack 1

No warranties; this is what I did to install the SP on a NEW system (that is, one on which no prior development / implementation had been performed).

Read the ReadmeSP1.htm. That’s why it’s there. In it, you’ll see a reference to KB890673, "Availability of the .NET Framework 1.1 Post-Service Pack 1 XML Web services and XML Messaging hotfix rollup package 8". If the files listed below (located in C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322) match (or are later than) the versions below, you are good to go to apply BTSP1:

Date Time Version Size File name
———————————————————————
02-Dec-2004 21:55 1.1.4322.2051 573,440 System.web.services.dll
02-Dec-2004 21:55 1.1.4322.2051 1,355,776 System.xml.dll

Otherwise, you have to contact MS for the hotfix. Note: Win2kSP1 and subsequent patches have an acceptable version of these files.

The other updates are XML and .NET related (should have been prerequisites for installation):

• Microsoft® Windows® XP Service Pack 2, if you are installing on Windows XP, available at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=39455.
• Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1, Service Pack 1 available at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=39456.
• SQLXML 3.0, Service Pack 2 available at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=39457.
• Microsoft XML 3.0, Service Pack 4 available at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=39458.

Test this on a disposable box first. Hope this saves you some time.