by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2007/10/12 10:31 -04:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2007/10/12/5411869.aspx
Boy, I'll tell you, titles like that make me realize how we're all just a few keypresses away from texting each other!
Okay, it's like this riddle. That will be how I start the post.
Question: What's the difference between baseball and the 31st Internationalization and Unicode Conference?
Answer: If I were playing baseball next week, they'd only give me one spot in the batting order!
Because you see, at the 31st Internationalization and Unicode Conference, I have three talks that I'm doing:
#1 -- Wednesday, November 17th, 2007 (16:10-17:00)
Sorting It All Out: Even More Words on Collation
In a properly globalized product, users will have properly collated data-e.g., in the file system, in a database, in an e-mail address book. How should implementers go about ensuring culturally-correct collation in a product? What are the important linguistic issues of collation, and how do they manifest themselves in technology? This presentation goes beyond the basic tenets of collation in language, and really shows how collation functions are used (using examples from the Win32 API). It will also touch upon best (and worst) practices.
#2 -- Tuesday, November 16th, 2007 (11:30-12:20)
Embedding & Linking & Fallback, Oh My! (Getting the Characters You Want)
Whether using Win32, the .NET Framework, or Windows Presentation Foundation, the battle to make sure that text will always display properly seems like a never-ending one. This talk will review the different technologies used and will discuss the benefits and drawbacks of each. Many of the technical and legal issues that surround the problem of the proper display of Unicode text will also be covered.
#3 -- Tuesday, November 16th, 2007 (14:30-15:20)
Windows Vista Language Support — How Does it All Fit Together?
Pinch hitting for Russ Rolfe!
Microsoft's Windows Vista has 36 localized builds and 50 plus language interface packs (LIP) as well as supports 100's of different languages. The localized builds can come in many flavors -- Starter Edition, Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate. Besides the localized versions of Windows Vista, there is also the support for creating and displaying content in many different languages. This presentation will sort out the different types of and levels of language support that can be found in each of these versions and how they all relate to each other.
For the Serf-watchers, here is the rest of the lineup coming out of the Microsoft spot in the dugout:
| Presenter | Presentation | Time and Date |
| Erik Fortune | Writing Win32 Multilingual Applications Using the Windows Vista MUI Technology | 13:30-15:30 on the 15th |
| Alik Khavin | Internationalization Best Practices for the New Windows Presentation Foundation | 16:00-16:50 on the 16th |
| Murray Sargent III | Mathematical Input Methods | 13:00-13:50 on the 17th |
| Claudia Galvan | Globalizing Hotmail | 14:00-14:50 on the 17th |
There is also a booth that Microsoft will have at the Expo, and some of the groups there have job openings in various globalization-type groups. I'll probably put in some booth time myself, though there are also some presentations I want to see....
Want a photo op? I (a Redmond-based Microsoft employee!) will be doing my presentations on a sparkling clean Mac Book Pro only sometimes running Vista with Office 2007 via Boot Camp 1.4 (and the rest of the time running Mac OS X Tiger with Mac Office 2008 Beta-whatever-the-latest-is). You probably won't see much of the beta product (other than the fact that the .PPTX files created on a Windows platform look great without tweaks!) but I'll do my best to be scintillating. :-)
I expect to talk to a lot of customers, ask a lot of questions, give a lot of answers, hand out a lot of business cards, and I expect that the only time I won't have 1-50 people in front of me will be when I write a few blog posts or go to sleep, and that will be late enough that I doubt anyone will notice. I fully expect to come back hoarse and happy and way too tired for words.
If you are reading this and you happen to see me there?
Walk up to me and Introduce yourself! Tell me what you do and the thing you either hate the most or love the most about the blog. If the answer is cool enough I'll buy you a drink (hint: the "things you hate" are more likely to impress me, though I have gotten a few good "things you love" lately from various random program managers, writers, and patent agents so I know that those can impress me as well if that's what you've got!).
Or if you are nervous then just kind of nod and wave uncertainly and I'll walk up to you and introduce myself. Whatever.
If you are a local but you can't get to the conference itself for financial reasons or whatever, then my time might be a bit more limited to be social, but hit me up via the Contact link and we'll see what we can figure out. There is always the hotel bar, right?
I wonder if OMG conference folks would give me a press pass? Probably not.... :-)
But anyway, see you in San Jose next week!
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