Malek's Moorish Tales

What is the Sphinks looking at (the credits go to my friend Patrick Hynds for thinking of it)

Very simply put, I got to the conference a little bit late (after Billg was already there, although not yet speaking), and was siddered to see lots of people standing at the entrance gates (on the street) and not able to enter. The gates were closed and the guards at the gates didn't understand what being a speaker meant...

I had to stand in the street until the Keynote ended and Bill Gates left before they let us in...

Well, the trip is great, and overall, this really doesn't suck ...

The MDC is a great information source for Developers. Started last year, the MDC is becoming "The" Microsoft conference in the middle east ...

For those who missed the PDC (Los Angeles, October 2003), this is a great opportunity to have a look at the future with Longhorn, Yukon and Whidbey ... The three products that will change Microsoft technology, and place managed code at the center of every Microsoft product ...

This year, the conference will be opened by Bill Gates himself (for the first time in Middle East).

There are a few of my friends and fellow RDs speaking :

Stephen Forte

Patrick Hynds

Goksin Bakir

Selçuk Uzun

Hossam Khalifa

For myself, I'll be giving 4 sessions. 3 sesions on Office System development (using XML in Word and Excel, InfoPath, and Visual Studio Tools for Office), and a mobility session on developing mobile applications with the compact framework (I will dwell quite a bit on smartphone development, on performance considerations and tips, and I will introduce the new mobility features of Visual Studio Whidbey).

Sitting alone between the walls of a crowded hall

-Empty feeling of loneliness-

People like rocks stare at me,

No compassion, no tolerance.

Then the clock, on the wall, says its word !

I want to escape, but where to ?

The city like a spider has trapped me in its net,

and the walls -frontier of immagination-

A child I want to be,

but the physist says he knows,

to chaos he wants to send me ...

Entropy is the proof, he says

and the clock, on the wall, keeps the beat.

From the distance, far away,

I hear the call of freedom,

the call of the poet,

-heart without remorse-

child to eternity...

And the clock, on the wall, says its last word.

And the clock, on the wall, I'm gonna break it ...

Wichita, Kansas, 1991

A World of neurones,

of atoms and waves.

A World whose color is Brain,

Kindom of ethereal reason,

where the blackboard is throne,

words, empty tools,

heart a machine

swallowing and pucking blood.

A World where the bird is dumb,

the mountain a variety of rock,

the tree a mine of wood.

The song is measured in pitch,

color in wavelength,

fragrance no longer action

but passive result of reaction.

A world were bond are chemical,

attraction a quantity,

time a dimension

and the clock is just a tool...