Mobile Messaging...

Microsoft has recently published a white paper on their mobile messaging strategy with the catchy title of "Mobile Messaging with Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 2 and Windows Mobile 5.0 Messaging and Security Feature Pack". It is a better read that the title suggests ;-)

Use IM to ask Encarta...

This is just so freaken cool! Chris Sells just posted about this:

If you add encarta@conversagent.com to your MSN IM contacts list, you can ask it questions, e.g.

What is the size of Mexico?
When was Leonardo da Vinci born?
How many calories are there in an orange?
I want to see the map of Italy.
When was Abraham Lincoln born?
Solve 2x^2+7x=5

Transactions in .NET 2.0...

Here is a good article that discusses the new System.Transactions available in .NET 2.0. I think it is really exciting to see that transactions are becoming a first class citizen in .NET, with appropriate plumbing provided by the runtime. Enterprise Services previously just meant there were too many compromises, such as having to inherit from ServicedComponent. Now we have a much more flexible and perfomant means to manage transactions. Nice :-)

Couran Cove Island Resort...

This past weekend, our Brisbane office had our Christmas function at the Couran Cove Island Resort – it was great as our partner / wife / husband / significant other / friend and children were also included – a very nice touch. This was organised by our Social Club who arranged the boat to the island, put us all up for the night, sorted out babysitters for the kids, and had a very enjoyable dinner and drinks put on – it was awesome!

The resort was really nice, it was huge! I liked how there were no cars and the only real transport was by bicycle. The facilities offered were all really nice and the place seemed well looked after.

I did think that a number of the services offered there seemed a little overpriced, given that the rooms were not exactly cheap; I prefer the types of resorts where you pay a little more up front and then everything is provided, so you are not stressing about all the little activities as they add up really quickly.

The biggest let down of the place was the service; it was farcical. We ordered lunch on both the Saturday and the Sunday – and the result was the same. Each persons food came out at different time. In fact on the Sunday, three of us had finished eating before the last person's meal was served! At the bar, the same with the drinks, two served, then 10 minutes later the latter two – these were not complex drinks – the two glasses of lemonade arrived last. The advised room check-out was 10:30am, but between 10:00 and 10:30am we had two people come to do servicing before the allotted time. The first had even let themselves into the room before we could get to the door to answer it – aaarrrggghhh! And finally, for the ferry ride home all the staff got on the ferry before the resort passengers and took up the majority of the seating inside so that families were unable to sit together – they should have got on second so the paying guests had seating priority.

So in summary, great location, nice facilities and an excellent night out; all let down by absolutely crap service.