After months of waiting it is here. TechEd North America officially starts tomorrow June 11, but when you get there a day early, there are some nice things going on.
When I landed in Orlando, I immediately got moving to the hotel. No time to laze about, the conference center was already open and getting people through the check in process. Outside of a little confusion at my hotel things went smooth. Considering I am staying at one of the official hotels, there is a free shuttle-bus that shows up in front every 10-15 minutes. Already a good start as now I won’t have to drive all the time, and incur parking fees.
Once at the convention center, there were plenty of friendly people greeting the attendees and pointing us in the direction for check in. The lines there were rather short, and inside of 10 minutes I had my badge and MsTechEd backpack. Being the first time to this conference, I decided to take a little time to get acquainted with my surroundings (something I do at any conference or convention I attend). Outside of a few pre-conference seminars, the only other area open was where check in was. In there, the TechEd store, hands on lab, and Certification testing areas were open to attendees, including a study hall for those that wish to study for their exams.
I did take the time to sit down at a Windows 8 PC, which interestingly enough did not have an internet connection to it. The layout with the tiles is somewhat slick, but I can see it becoming rather confusing the more apps and items you have, as almost everything is displayed in a tile. There are groupings for items such as games, applications etc, and a scroll bar at the bottom of the screen so one can get to the different groupings. Unfortuantely I can see someone like myself who has a large amount of applications having to do a lot of scrolling just to get to them. I did go into the Explorer mode which gave me a familiar desktop, but with no start button (which has been documented from the early betas). Through the familiar file explorer window, you can easily launch a command prompt (with or without admin rights). To get to the control panel, I had to click on the desktop in the left hand pane. Once in the control panel it was familiar as the applets are the same as Windows 7. I do plan on taking more time with Windows 8 while here, and hope to get my hands on a tablet to see the differences.
Tomorrow will start the fun. Keynote, Exam Crams, Sessions, and much more are lined up. Keep an eye here or on my twitter feed for more updates.