MSDN Flash Volume 9, Number 16 - August 16, 2005
I read a great quote last week "If technology doesn't work like magic its probably obsolete".
Recently I have been away in Atlanta for my first MGB.
The first day was long... really long... over 12 hours long. I was blown away by the presentations the demos and the technology displayed! Bill Gates presented on the new digital lifestyle initiative (view his speech from the International Consumer Electronic Show in January)... Windows Vista was launched and we were given 30 great demos in 60 minutes of the new operating system.
We were in the Georgia Dome... this place is huge during a presentation we took a look at it on the newly launched MSN Virtual Earth (some people even think that Frank launched this to the world). The life for the consumer keeps getting better and better. We saw live demos of Xbox 360 being used as and extender for Windows Media Center PC. I met and saw great demo's from Ari Bixhorn on Windows Communications Foundation ("Indigo"), Rick Samona on Developer Security and Michael Leworthy on Visual Studio Team System. All these guys are coming to Tech-Ed in New Zealand so it was great to meet them in person and discuss the upcoming event.
New Zealand had a presence at MGB. We fronted a 7's rugby team joining forces with Australia, Singapore and France (Ross Peat NZ GM for Microsoft is in support 2nd left back row). Brent flew the flag at the event and we made our mark on the APAC shrine. Did I mention that we have talent in this company?
I took a week's holiday in San Francisco on the way home and since then its been head's down for TechEd.
In fact we now have 78 speakers at Tech-Ed New Zealand! I personally have received over 100 direct emails last week from speakers making sure that we are on schedule to deliver all our 128 sessions... including a "Never tried before in New Zealand" style of keynote! See the culmination of this effort here and here.
I know in the past we have thrown some great TechFest parties and this year will be no exception. It is an evening of Kiwiana and Carnival at the St James Theatre with some very special guests. If you know me well you might be able to guess who the guests will be!
Start picking your must see sessions for TechEd... On my list for sure are
. ARC401 - Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server Internals: Architecture, Administration and Security - Michael Leworthy
. DEV202 - Future of games development with Microsoft XNA - Tony Goodhew
. DEV303 - Programming Windows Communications Foundation ("Indigo") - Ari Bixhorn
. ARC404 - Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System: Advanced Project Management and Reporting in Visual Studio 2005 Team System - Prashant Sridharan
. SEC205 - Is That App Really Safe? - Jesper Johansson
And this is just the first day! We really are spoilt for choice this year!
Moving on from Tech-Ed we have launched the Windows Vista Developer Center. And now we're inside the 100-day window of the Visual Studio 2005, SQL Server 2005, and BizTalk 2006 launches. If you are looking for things to do while you count down the days to launch, I have a few suggestions...
There are lots of new downloads on the Visual Studio 2005 site, such as 101 Code Samples, new Starter Kits, and new lessons and topics in the Beginner's Video Series to Visual Studio 2005 Express.
As if releasing and supporting three major products was not enough to keep the MSDN team busy, this November we'll also see the release of a major new platform for the MSDN Web sites. The infrastructure of MSDN has been completely overhauled to run on ASP.NET 2.0. You'll see lots of new features and functionality rolling out in stages following the November 7 launch date.
The switch to ASP.NET 2.0 has given us some amazing boosts in performance and load times. Keep watching MSDN for lots of whitepapers, performance data, and more information about this project and our experiences with ASP.NET 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you like what you read and you aren't already subscribed to the New Zealand MSDN Flash subscribe here.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.