Neno Loje's Treasury: Conferences

Showing posts with label Conferences. Show all posts

Sunday, April 29, 2007

[WinDays 2007] What's in a conference bag?

I've really seen a quite few conferences so far - from small INETA events at local pubs to large-scale Microsoft conference like the PDC in Los Angeles.

But every year I visit the Microsoft WinDays conference [1] in Croatia I'm really impressed.

Why I am impressed, you ask?

Maybe...

... because of the fact that a country with ~ 4.5 million residents organizes a 5-day Microsoft conference with 8 (and at some points 10 parallel tracks) and attracts more attendees than we usually have here in Germany (and the conference is mostly held in Croatian).
... it's held in Opatija [2] where other people (mostly older people, to be honest) go on vacation. Maybe that's the reason why WinDays attracts many international, well-known and top-ranked speakers like Rafal Lukawiecki [3], Damir Tomicic [4] and my Thinktecture fellow Christian Weyer [5].
... WinDays is probably the only Microsoft conference world wide which offers two warm meals every day to its attendees. First around 1 pm, and later at 7 pm.
... that there is a official Microsoft Party every day, accompanied by one or two sponsor parties (you would have loved the HP girls) and the famous Heming Way [6] pub down in the harbor right next to the see where you could find mostly all technicians and Microsoft officials until late in the night (and greet them at the conference at 8 am next morning).
... or was it "just" the conference bag? Indeed, the topic of conference bags doesn't sound too exciting. It has developed to a common for conferences to hand them out, so today a conference without it is unimaginable, but the contents is mostly very boring. Well, not at WinDays!

The conference bag

Yes, that's not the "usual conference crap", but an original, high-quality Samsonite laptop bag! The past two years I had one (got at WinDays 2005 obviously) and I'm very happy with it since it's very robust.

Contents of this year's conference bag

Some highlights (besides the amount of party invitations) include:

Webcam & Headset
4 port USB hub with cup warmer
sun cream (very important since the venue, Opatija, is located directly at the Adriatic see and we had sunny 24 °C)
Survival Kit (containing coffee and juice)
... and more.

The speaker's gift

And the speakers got a handy USB Powered Vacuum cleaner:

The conference shirt

The shirt showing this year's WinDays motive (it's the 7th WinDays).

Summing it up, WinDays 2007 continues the tradition and will certainly remain exceptional: this conference is really different!

Thanks to Luka Abrus [7] & the rest of the WinDays team for organizing it and making it that different.

[1] www.microsoft.com/croatia/windays/english/

[2] http://www.opatija.hr

[3] http://www.projectbotticelli.co.uk/

[4] http://www.tomicic.de

[5] http://www.thinktecture.com/staff/christian

[6] http://www.discoseven.hr/hemingwaygallery/

[7] http://luka.dizzy.hr/

Sunday, November 12, 2006

[TechEd: Developers 2006] Keynote Impressions

Certainly the most interesting statement by Eric Rudder [1] at the TechEd: Developers 2006 keynote [2] in Barcelona, looking from the developer's perspective, was the promise that all Microsoft server products will get web service interfaces. A clear step in the right direction!

Day 1 - Registration

Keynote speaker and 11-year-old MCP (2x) and MVP...

"Arfa Karim from Pakistan, is only 11yrs and Microsoft’s youngest MVP --- hear Arfa talk about how she got into technology and her passion for the subject..."

Office, Vista, and Exchange launched

Eric Rudder hold the keynote

Building Great Applications

".NET is the way to connect"

After all the discussion in the past months about why there is no managed code in Windows Vista and only a sample showing how to use the new API's from .NET, it is an interesting note, that Eric said ".NET is the way to connect": The Microsoft technology No. 1 when it comes to consume (web) services and offer own services to the rest of the world.

Next Step for Web Applications

.NET 3.0 [3] and an updated web site [4] were launched simultaneous

The Keynote Demo

[1] www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/ericr/

[2] www.microsoft.com/emea/msdnshowtime/sessionh.aspx?videoid=333

[3] www.netfx3.com

[4] msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio

Friday, November 10, 2006

[TechEd Developers 2006] Post Conference Material for DEVWD17 Team System Adoption Best Practices

As promised you will find our slides as well as links to the questions that were raised during the session in this post.

Process Template Editor (Tool)
Freeware tool for modifying the Work Item Types and the underlying workflow
Team Foundation Sidekicks & here (Tool)
Freeware tool for administering workspaces, history and status of the Team Foundation Version Control
From VSS to TFS - An Introduction to Team Foundation Server Version Control from a Visual SourceSafe User's Perspective (Article)
Introduction to Team Foundation for Visual SourceSafe Users (MSDN Documentation)
Team System Widgets (Web site)

Additionally here's a copy of the links from the slide deck:

Official Team System Web site
http://msdn.microsoft.com/teamsystem
Rob Caron’s Blog
http://blogs.msdn.com/robcaron/
MSDN Documentation on Visual Studio Team System
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms304624.aspx
Team Foundation Server SDK
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa398956.aspx
Team Foundation Administrator’s Guide
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=2aed0ecc-1552-49f1-abe7-4905155e210a&displaylang=en
Neno’s Web site on VSTS
http://www.dotnet-online.com/teamsystem/
Neno’s Blog (obviously you found that one now...)
http://www.msmvps.com/vstsblog/
Ognjen’s Blog
http://ognjenbajic.com/blog/

Something missing?

You can find more information on Ognjen's blog. If you think something is missing, don't hesitate to contact me.

Your Feedback

Many of you told us though the feedback forms that there were not enough sessions on Team System in general and that you were missing a session which deals with the "first steps" of driving towards a Team Foundation Server deployment in your companies. We clearly heard that and I will pass this on to the TechEd content team.

Need training or support with your adoption process?

In case you are interested I also offer professional training on Team System (either on-site or at various locations in Europe) or individual adoption support.

Technorati-Tags: TechEd-Developers

[TechEd Developers 2006] Post Conference Material for DEVWD17 Team System Adoption Best Practices

As promised you will find our slides as well as links to the questions that were raised during the session in this post.

Process Template Editor (Tool)
Freeware tool for modifying the Work Item Types and the underlying workflow
Team Foundation Sidekicks & here (Tool)
Freeware tool for administering workspaces, history and status of the Team Foundation Version Control
From VSS to TFS - An Introduction to Team Foundation Server Version Control from a Visual SourceSafe User's Perspective (Article)
Introduction to Team Foundation for Visual SourceSafe Users (MSDN Documentation)
Team System Widgets (Web site)

Additionally here's a copy of the links from the slide deck:

Official Team System Web site
http://msdn.microsoft.com/teamsystem
Rob Caron’s Blog
http://blogs.msdn.com/robcaron/
MSDN Documentation on Visual Studio Team System
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms304624.aspx
Team Foundation Server SDK
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa398956.aspx
Team Foundation Administrator’s Guide
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=2aed0ecc-1552-49f1-abe7-4905155e210a&displaylang=en
Neno’s Web site on VSTS
http://www.dotnet-online.com/teamsystem/
Neno’s Blog (obviously you found that one now...)
http://www.msmvps.com/vstsblog/
Ognjen’s Blog
http://ognjenbajic.com/blog/

Something missing?

You can find more information on Ognjen's blog. If you think something is missing, don't hesitate to contact me.

Your Feedback

Need training or support with your adoption process?

In case you are interested I also offer professional training on Team System (either on-site or at various locations in Europe) or individual adoption support.

Nächste Woche: PRIO conference in Baden Baden

Bekanntlich wird gut, was lange währt. Das kann man der prio conference [1], der "ersten durchkomponierten" Entwicklerkonferenz unter Obhut der dotnetpro [2] nur wünschen. Auch alte Bekannte tauchen auf. Ralf Westphal [3] kümmert sich um den Inhalt, den die 17 sorgfältig ausgesuchten Sprecher kundtun sollen. Darunter unter anderem auch Miguel de Icaza [4], der "Erfinder" von mono [5]. Und organisieren tut's das e-Team [6], welches von zahlreichen früheren BASTA sowie Microsoft-Veranstaltungen, wie den MSDN TechTalks [7] und Technical Summits, bekannt sein sollte.

Meine Themen werden sein:

Tag 2, 16. Nov, 13:45 - 15:00
Code bauen: Continuous Integration
Tag 2, 16. Nov, 15:45 - 17:00
Code bewegen: Deployment

Die Lokation ist alles andere als langweilig: das Kurhaus Casino Baden-Baden [8] und am Abend kann man sich dem Glücksspiel hingeben... Ich bin gespannt und freue mich darauf viele bekannte Gesichter dort wiederzutreffen.

[1] www.prio-conference.de

[2] www.dotnetpro.de

[3] www.ralfw.de

[4] de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Icaza

[5] www.mono-project.com

[6] www.event-team.com

[7] www.techtalk.ms

[8] www.kurhaus-baden-baden.de

[TechEd: Developers 2006] Post Conference Material for DEV001 DEMO: Adopting ClickOnce for Real World Applications

In the official slide deck you will find a book recommendation as well as a set of interesting link around ClickOnce technology. Unfortunately there were technical difficulties during the session that did not allow me to switch back to the slides, but you can download them from here.

More Information on ClickOnce

Here is a copy of the "Resources" slide:

Book: Smart Client Deployment with ClickOnce: Deploying Windows Forms Applications with ClickOnce (by Brian Noyes)
http://www.amazon.com/Smart-Client-Deployment-ClickOnce-Applications/dp/0321197690/sr=11-1/qid=1162897770/ref=sr_11_1/104-8815193-2511962
Official ClickOnce Web site
http://msdn.microsoft.com/clickonce/
Official ClickOnce Team Blog
http://blogs.msdn.com/clickonce/
MSDN Smart Client Developer Center
http://msdn.microsoft.com/smartclient/
My Web site on ClickOnce
http://www.dotnet-online.com/clickonce/
My Blog (okay, you found that one right now...)
http://www.dotnetjunkies.com/weblog/nenoloje/

And a new one:

And, very important, a great source on ClickOnce security issues (thanks Dominick):
http://www.leastprivilege.com/BewareBeAwareOfClickOnceDefaultSettings.aspx

Windows Installer

Additionally there's a great comparison between ClickOnce and Windows Installer by Michael Sanford available in the MSDN Library.

You're feedback was heard!

I passed on your feedback to do two sessions out of the topic so that there is enough room for advanced topics as scalability and reliability to the TechEd team.

-Neno

Technorati-Tags: TechEd-Developers

Wednesday, November 1, 2006

Barcelona - TechEd: here we come

Next week the TechEd Developers 2006 [1] takes place in Barcelona [2] and I will be holding one "Demo Extravaganza" (DEMO) on ClickOnce technology and two Whiteboard Discussion (WD) sessions on Team Foundation Server best practices together with my Team System MVP colleague [3] Ognjen Bajic [4].

Demo Extravaganzas are similar to regular breakout sessions, but there is one big difference: there is only one slide allowed. The introduction slide with the name of the speaker. From that moment on the complete talk is a demo with chances for the audience to interact. Usually these kind of sessions are quite high-level, but in my case I discovered that this is not really the case for the whole 75 minutes, so I'm quite excited how the audience will react. :-)

Whiteboard Discussions you might already be familiar with. They are held in pretty small rooms (max. 60 people) to allow discussions. No one (not even the speaker) is allowed to dominate in terms of speaking time. It usually starts of by asking the audience about their questions in respect to the session title and from this the agenda gets generated on the fly and the speakers will try to make a story out of it and answer as the questions to maximize the benefit for the attendees.

Here are the session abstracts:

DEVWD17 Team System Adoption Best Practices

Neno Loje, Ognjen Bajic

Thu Nov 9 09:00 - 10:15 , Thu Nov 9 15:45 - 17:00

It's a common mistake to think that installing the Team System products is enough to get started and unleash the full power. In fact Team System gets really useful and unfolds its effectiveness by being customized and tweaked to the needs of your organization. Since this is vastly an individual task this session covers the top 10 customizations from the consulting experience of the speaker such as Continuous Integration, enabling rich formatting in the description field for work items, writing a comfortable work item quick entry tool.
Neno Loje will host this whiteboard discussion jointly with his fellow Team System MVP Ognjen Bajic.

DEV001 DEMO: Adopting ClickOnce for Real World Applications

Neno Loje

Wed Nov 8 13:30 - 14:45

Do you think installations must result in heavy headaches? ClickOnce solves a lot of the typical problems by enabling .NET applications to be installed and transparently updated over a server. After a quick overview of what ClickOnce is and how it works we will drill down into the details and cover a number of common real world scenarios: bootstrapping, servicing updates for 5000+ users, scalability, reliability, different versions for different users (or groups) and many more. Make sure to come to this session if you have a WinForms application that you need to deploy or where you want to simplify the current deployment solution.

Additionally you can meet Ognjen [4] and me [5] at the Ask-The-Experts (ATE) booth at the following times:

Wednesday, 8 November 2006 16:30 - 17:00
Friday, 10 November 2006 10:15 - 10:45

And also make sure to step by the newtelligence AG [6] booth in the exhibition hall if you are interested in high-quality Team System training [7] and consulting. You will find me there occasionally as well. :-)