PDC was, for me, a bit too short. I wasn't originally going to attend and had booked travel accordingly. I stumbled into a pass from one of my colleagues; he had a conflict, so lucky me. I feel guilty for taking his pass... but not too much.

Many things were covered at PDC: Azure, Windows 7, Live Services, Visual Studio 2010 and a much, much more. Here are some of my favorite highlights from PDC.

Extreme Makeover: Logo Edition
Remember Year 2000? Not 'cause of the y2k bug, but because Microsoft unveiled Next Generation Windows Services. Shortly after that, Microsoft announced the Microsoft .NET Framework and revealed a logo that captured the colors of Windows, Office, and our Enterprise Server Products. It nicely captured the idea of the .NET-ification of Microsoft products, servers, technologies, and services. In fact, when I started with Microsoft in October 2000, I often joked that I spent as much time telling people what .NET _was_ as I spent telling them what it _wasn't_.

But, as in all things, the .NET logo grow a bit old and stale. New logos and product came (and, in some cases, went), and the old logo started looking a little tarnished. I felt this was especially the case when we unveiled Silverlight. What a sharp logo! And when you put both the aging .NET Logo and the new, engaging Silverlight logo on a slide together, the difference was stark. At least in my mind. Don't get me wrong, it was a great time, very exciting. I loved that old .NET logo, I loved talking about .NET (and still do).

But at PDC2008 I stumbled across something interesting, a card at the .NET Framework kiosk in the Microsoft Pavilion in the Expo Center. A nifty new .NET Logo, one that looks a little bit like the Silverlight logo, sleek and engaging. It was the first of many micro-WOW! moments for me.

Some Windows 7 Highlights
Admittedly the overview in the keynote was brief. And admittedly I chose to go to other breakout sessions (WPF Roadmap was a highlight for me, personally). But what I saw was fairly engaging, some of it especially for folks that write code, demo or present a lot, or who use a laptop.

• Multi-touch support (engaging new way to interact with your computer, using your fingers, a mouse, or what-not)
• VHD Support in Disk Management Utility
• Win+P Monitor Support (built-in support to toggle monitors)
• Default printer switching (set different default printers for different networks; your "work" default and your "home" default)
• Slider control for UAC (level of sensitiveness)

Some Visual Studio 2010 Highlights
I must admit I had to step out briefly for part of this session, but I did pick up a few nuggets that really interested me...

• Enhanced extensibility (ScottGu did a great demo extending XML comments with formatting — and integrating text from Team Foundation Server Work Items)
• IDE shell rebuilt with WPF
• Multi-monitor support

Numerous Other Highlights
There were too many highlights to count, or for me to remember. My colleagues have all blogged extensively about PDC (see the blogroll to the right). A few highlights...

	— a cloud services operating system that provides development, service hosting and service management environment for the Azure Services Platform
	— makes developing loosely coupled cloud-based applications easier
	— a set of building blocks within the Azure Services Platform for handling user data and application resources

Next Steps
PDC, for me, was short (and this post almost too far removed from the event to be relevant; perhaps my wife _is_ right, and I'm too busy), but there are load of videos on Channel 9 for you to watch.

We also have our MSDN Developer Conference (MDC) events coming up in December and January, bringing PDC (and a dozen outstanding local speakers and Microsoft Evangelists) to a city near you. Houston, TX is first up...

Attend a MDC event and you'll have a chance to win a fabulous prize, such as a LEGO Mindstorms robotics kit or a Visual Studio Team Suite with MSDN Premium Subscription. Yup, four lucky people from each event will have a chance to win the big daddy of Microsoft developer tools: Team Suite with MSDN. More details on the SWAG and prizes for MDC coming in a post, soon. I promise.