Wow, this is easily the most epic event I’ve ever been involved in. If you’re following my twitter feed (@mrandypuppy) you’ll know that I’ve been using words like “awesome”, “cool” and “wow” a lot as well as a bunch of exclamation marks. I’m conscious of it but I keep getting wowed by the experience, and I know this is just the beginning.
So far I’ve experienced:
- Catching a flight from Singapore to Cairo via Dubai with 60+ passengers being Imagine Cup competitors, their mentors and several of my peers. I was told about solutions that teams had come up with and the passion these kids have is inspiring, but with good reason. I mean, when an Indonesian talks for 30 minutes non-stop about a Malaria early detection system they developed, it’s hard to not be engaged.
- Carrying the Cup through Customs at Cairo and being questioned about the mysterious box.
- Today was briefing day – briefings for students, mentors, judges, employees, briefings everywhere. At first I thought it was over the top, but there is so much information to consume that it is totally warranted.
- Tonight was the official opening of the Imagine Cup competition. The highlights were:
- Student parade of the countries, a la the Olympics. Huge response as each team entered and again I was struck by how many countries are represented and how some of them strike me as out of this world – seriously, I never really thought about a team of students from Senegal showing solid innovation, or the inspiring stories of some of the teams just getting here like Palestine and Indonesia.
- Ray Ozzie, Chief Software Architect for Microsoft, telling the students that they truly are the future of creativity in technology because they’re not hampered by previous experience and preconceptions.
- Joe Wilson, the man who makes Imagine Cup happen every year (well, the man, behind the team of awesome dudes and dudettes that make it happen every year) pumping the students up and getting them ready for the competition and having all 445 students on the edge of their seats, hanging on every word.
- The Egyptian student who stood up during the proceedings to thank his government for their support of Imagine Cup and the roar of the crowd in appreciation.
sigh.
Tomorrow – first EPIC day of the competition. All 67 Software Development teams present, as well as Game Development, Embedded Development and other teams – all in action. The logistics to make all this happen are nightmarish, but everyone behind the scenes are positive and upbeat and just making it all happen.
So there is plenty of talk about Google being the best search engine out there, but with some pretty amazing improvements recently made to Live Search, and now particularly the launch of Bing, our new “decision” engine, it’s really time to see if Google really is the best – for you personally. One fun way of doing this is to use this fun little utility that Michael Kordahi wrote (a teammate of mine) called Blind Search.
Basically, you head over to http://blindsearch.fejus.com, enter your search term, and click the search button. The tool goes off and searches for your terms at Google, Bing and Yahoo. You get the three sets of results back – all formatted anonymously so you don’t know which column of results was returned by which search engine. Then you can either “vote” for the search engine that gives you the best, most appropriate results for you personally, or you can simply click on one of the results themselves and head off on your way like you would if you were using the actual search engine.
One really cool thing is that if you’ve been using Google and want to try out Bing, but aren’t quite ready to make the switch (personally I now use Bing as my favoured search provider but hey, you never know), you can actually use Blind Search as your default search provider. Here’s how:
- Head over to http://www.ieaddons.com/en/createsearch.aspx to create your own search provider.
- In the URL box, enter http://blindsearch.fejus.com/?q=TEST.
- In the Name box, enter whatever you want to call it – Blind Search, Taste Test, Trying out my options… you name it.
- Click Install Search Provider.
- When prompted, click Add and you’re done (if you want to make it your default, check the “Make this my default search provider” box before you click Add.
Works incredibly well and really opened my eyes to just how good Bing is; for me personally, the ratio seems to be about two-thirds Bing with most of the remainder Google with the very rare Yahoo. There seem to be some comments about the usefulness of the statistical info – people “gaming” the system, people finding it too easy to determine which column is which when looking at the source, etc. However that’s missing the point of the exercise – it’s more to break the preconception that Google is best. For what I search for, it seems like Bing is indeed best. Maybe that will be the same for others too.
(unfortunately a couple of people decided to try to game the system, so Michael had to take the public statistics down, but hopefully over time, they’ll become relevant and publishable. And full disclaimer, one tried to game it in Google’s favour and another tried to sway it in Bing’s favour)
I love my job. Sorry if you’ve heard me say that before, but I do. And it’s for moments like these. I got to tell the five teams who made it to the Australian Finals of the Imagine Cup that they had indeed succeeded in Round 1 and would be presenting their solutions to a judging panel and general public with a chance to win the opportunity to represent Australia in Cairo, Egypt at the world finals of Imagine Cup.
Team One – deCarbonate
Team deCarbonate decided to address environmental sustainability by helping people see the impact of their personal lives and actions through a carbon footprint calculator with mitigation suggestions and additional information aimed at highlighting actions that everyone can do to minimise their impact on the environment in a very real sense.
Team Two – eGreen
A comprehensive and potentially revolutionary system, eGreen seeks to help monitor all parts of the item production supply chain so that consumers know what impact they have on the environment when they buy particular goods. Using RFID tags, a special rating system developed by the eGreen team and web servers and other real world technologies, the system makes people aware of the full extent of the environmental impact of the products they plan to purchase.
Team Three – IWork
IWork is short for Instant Work, and is a system developed by this Canberra-based team to help job seekers find work easily and quickly with very little expenditure, addressing the need around the world of low income people who often need work in very short timeframes. This innovative solution integrates multiple technologies to help people take advantage of new access to things like internet access.
Team Four – Xtreme
Team Xtreme have developed the Fire Location and Managing Environment (FLAME) as a web-driven application that tackles a local issue that extends to the global scape where, worldwide, bushland hazard reduction management needs to be improved. Their solution uses a number of technologies to ease management of bushfires and other bushland issues and used real world situations and collaboration with local fire departments to ensure they met the actual needs found in today’s society.
Team Five – Firefighters
Our second Sydney team, and our second bushfire management system is perhaps unsurprising given the huge risks faced each year in bushfire season in Sydney’s surrounds and particularly in light of the tragedies that occurred earlier this year, it’s actually a great outcome that Imagine Cup enables students to tackle real issues that face can us quite personally.
As I have previously posted, the finals will be held at the North Ryde office of Microsoft Australia and are open to the public to attend – but it’s essential you register so we can make sure you fit in. Also, by registering, you’ll go into the draw to win lucky door prizes (like a Xbox 360 console), so don’t miss out on your own chance to win.
This is your last chance to come along – seats are running out so act now. Send an email to ausic@microsoft.com with your name, phone number and how many people you’re registering for if you’re intending to bring others with you.
The event starts at 6pm, Wednesday 27 May at:
1 Epping Road
North Ryde NSW 2113
I hope to see you there!
COOL! We’re on the final approach for Imagine Cup 2009 and I’m happy to announce that we’ll be holding the local finals for Australia on the evening of the May 27th.
The top teams who have entered the Software Design category go head to head with some incredibly creative and innovative ideas on how to make our world, and our country, a better place.
This year, the finals are open to the public although seats are limited. Come and see the competitors present their solutions to a panel of judges from the industry, media, academia and Microsoft and find out who will be going to Cairo, Egypt to represent Australia at the worldwide finals.
This is a great opportunity for students, teachers and faculty to see why we are so keen about Imagine Cup and how it can help make a difference through technology.
The details:
- Date: 27 May 2009
- Time: 6:00pm start, finishing approximately 9:00pm
- Where: Microsoft Australia office
1 Epping Road
North Ryde, NSW 2113 - Cost: Free to attend
To ensure you’ve got a place, send an email to Australian Imagine Cup with your name, contact phone number in case of emergencies and how many people you’re registering for, if you’re bringing more than just yourself. Note that if you do not register, you may not be admitted to the event if we’re oversubscribed, so don’t miss out.
Hey, I almost forgot, for those who register, you might even get a chance to win some cool lucky door prizes.
Tech•Ed 2009 Australia is just four months away and we’re now looking for speakers. If you’d like to speak at Microsoft’s premier technical conference, held this year on the Gold Coast, you’ll need to get in quick as the tracks will be finalised over the coming weeks.
If you want to know more, Andrew Coates has got all the info, including the rules for submission, what the thirteen tracks are, and even tips for having your submission viewed favourably.
Click here for the skinny.
A quick summary of the tracks:
- Windows Client and Windows Server
- Office System
- Unified Communications
- Web
- Developer Tools and Practices
- Architecture
- SQL and BI
- Security
- SOA and Business Process
- Dynamics
- Mobility
- Azure Services Platform
- Virtualisation
Personally, I would love to see some faculty (and maybe some talented students) putting in some ideas that maybe twist these a bit to make a different outlook on the topic and get developers thinking.
So, if you’re interested, go to Andrew’s blog entry and get the info.
11 June 2009
Star City, Sydney
REMIX AUSTRALIA
Nothing more to be said, really. Remix is Microsoft Australia’s leading conference about what’s on the horizon for both developers and designers and if you’re involved in either of these industries you should seriously consider registering ASAP.
We’re talking Silverlight 3, Azure Services, SketchFlow, Expression Blend, IE8, making SharePoint actually look cool, Virtual Earth, and ASP.NET 4.0, as well as Surface Computing User Experiences, Microsoft and Open Source, S+S and even the Live Messenger Web Toolkit.
At just a couple hundred bucks to attend if you register before May 21, don’t miss your chance to get along to this fantastic opportunity.
Head to the REMIX site for more info.
(almost) Completely ripped off from Andrew Coates’ blog…
We’ve got a few seats left for some more great free training in Sydney next week – 19-21 May, this time on VS2010 and .NET 4.0. If you're interested in attending please email
Shuk Chan.
Day 1
Visual Studio Team System 2010
8:30AM Registration and Breakfast
9:00AM Visual Studio Team System: Modular Training – Modules 0 - 2
9:45AM Break
10:00AM Visual Studio Team System: Modular Training – Modules 3 - 4
10:45AM VSTS Hands-On-Labs
11:45AM Lunch (Provided)
12:45PM Visual Studio Team System: Modular Training – Modules 5 - 7
1:15PM Break
1:30PM Visual Studio Team System: Modular Training – Modules 8 - 10
3:15PM Break
3:30PM Visual Studio Team System: Modular Training – Modules 11 – 12
4:15PM Break
4:30PM VSTS Hands-on-Labs
Day 2
.NET Framework 4.0
8:30AM Breakfast
9:00AM Visual Studio 2010 & .NET Framework 4.0 Overview – Module 1
9:30AM Managed Languages Overview – Module 2
10:00AM Break
10:15AM CLR 4 Overview – Module 3
11:30AM Lunch (Provided)
12:30PM WF/WCF – Module 4
1:45PM Break
2:00PM ADO.NET Data Services v2 – Module 5
3:15PM Hands-on-Labs
Day 3
Visual Studio 2010
8:30AM Breakfast
9:00AM ASP.NET AJAX 4.0 – Module 6
10:15AM Break
10:30AM Project Velocity – Module 7
11:30AM Lunch (Provided)
12:30PM Parallel Computing Overview – Module 8
1:45PM Break
2:00PM Hands-on-Labs
So I’ve been hard at work getting this organised and it’s finally happening. The only scary thing is that the Melbourne day is next Monday! Less than a week away. Which means registrations have to happen in the next few days. Spaces are limited and we’re already 25% registered after only a day so if you’re keen make sure you register soon!
Here’s the goss:
This free technical training day is jam-packed full of information that will help you understand technologies that are used by a large component of the business world and how you can help your students come to grips with them and be prepared as they enter the workforce.
The morning session introduces you to .NET and core programming concepts that can be used as a basis for building teaching content for your own students as well as going into the reasons why it's important to include .NET and C# as part of your curriculum. Over the space of three hours, you'll learn how .NET works and how it can be used to create programming projects for Windows, web browsers, mobile phones and even Xbox consoles.
The afternoon session will cover Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), a new way of creating programs that have innovative user interfaces and experiences and is the same technology used to provide Silverlight on web browsers. The three hours includes an introduction and definition of core WPF concepts and, like the morning session, will include pointers on how to build coursework from what you'll hear on the day. All attendees of the WPF session will receive a copy of WPF-in-a-Box, a complete resource guide to learning and using Windows Presentation Foundation, including hands on labs, links and resources.
In addition to these two technical training sessions and the WPF-in-a-Box kit, Microsoft will also highlight the various programs that are in place to provide you and your students free software and curriculum resources so that you're best armed to gear up to teach programming with Microsoft technologies, and give you some ideas on how to integrate social awareness into the curriculum to inspire and encourage technical innovation in your class attendees.
Places are limited - don't miss out on this opportunity to skill up on .NET and WPF and be prepared to teach these crucially important business development technologies to your students.
When:
- Melbourne, VIC – Monday, March 30th 2009
- Canberra, ACT - Monday, April 20th 2009
- Brisbane, QLD – Tuesday, April 21st 2009
- Sydney, NSW – Thursday, April 23rd 2009
Session Times:
- .NET 9:00am-12:00pm
- WPF 1:00pm-4:00pm
If you’re faculty at a university, TAFE or high school and are interested in attending, please contact me through my blog and I’ll send you the registration details.
That’s right - as revealed today in the official Windows Mobile blog, students enrolled in DreamSpark will have the Marketplace registration fee waived, allowing them to build their mobile apps quickly, and bring them to market. Since students often have innovative ideas that can revolutionise the way we look at applications, this is an exciting piece of news. Oh, and did I mention that developers (including students) will earn 70% of the revenue generated from their application sales?
Read all the details about the marketplace from a developer perspective here: Windows® Marketplace for Mobile Developer Strategy Announced!
Remember – DreamSpark gives students (university, TAFE and high school) completely free access to all of Microsoft’s developer and designer tools. Head over to www.dreamspark.com and sign up today if you haven’t already.
Awesome news… :)
Microsoft certifications add cred to your claims when you’re going for a job, so why not give it a go and sit a certification exam for one of the dozens of certifications you’ve got to choose from?
What, you don’t want to spend the dosh on an exam that you may not pass? Well, first up, if you’re someone who knows your stuff, then you’ve probably got a pretty good chance of successfully completing the exam, but if you’re worried, I’ve got a bit of a deal here for you.
I have six free exam vouchers right here on my desk, just dying to be given away to a good home. Each voucher is good for one exam, to be sat any time before April 30, 2009, so well and truly worth it.
To get one, send me a note on the contact form and if you’re one of the first six, I’ll send it out, no questions asked.
Please note that you’ll need to be an Australian resident, and I ask that you only ask for a voucher if you’re seriously thinking about taking an exam, but apart from that, it’s yours.
UPDATE: All of these have been allocated. I'll respond to everyone who contacted me, but I received way more than six, so apologies if you miss out.
Hey guys and gals, I know I’ve been a bit slack about blogging over the past couple of weeks so as a kind of apology I have six copies of the Windows 7 Beta to giveaway.
If you’d like one, simply contact me through the Email link up there on the left and if you’re one of the first six, I’ll ship it out to you directly.
This is the full product – kinda equivalent to Windows Vista Ultimate – and works beautifully. I’ve been running it for the past month without a hitch. The beta will last until August too, so you’ve got plenty of time to check out this next version of Windows before it hits retail.
What are you waiting for – email me now. :)
Imagine Cup is the world’s biggest technology competition for students and you can be a part of it. Check out this week’s podcast which is all about Imagine Cup, including an interview with David Burela, one of the winners of this year’s Imagine Cup. Get to the article directly: MICROSOFT - Imagine Cup
The full podcast feed is available at: My Microsoft Podcast Feed
Check out the latest episode in my Microsoft podcast, an interview of the winners of this year’s Devsta Competition. I just happened to be in Perth when the winners were decided so took the chance to grab a few minutes with them. Check it out at MICROSOFT- Devsta Winnahs! – and remember, you can subscribe to the podcast at My Microsoft Podcast Feed.
(Also, I’m doing a gaming podcast here: MrAndyPuppy's Gaming Podcast as part of my GAMEparents stuff)
I’ve started a couple of podcasts – one focusing in on video games and other forms of multimedia entertainment, and one focusing on the cool stuff I encounter in my job at Microsoft.
The gaming podcast started last week with a great session on Burnout Paradise, Viva Pinata and more and can be found at http://mrandypuppy.podbean.com (or in the iTunes store – still waiting for it to turn up in the Zune Marketplace).
But the great news is that I’ve now got the first podcast up for the Microsoft stuff – the first one is a very brief introduction to Dreamspark, so check it out at http://andrewparsons.podbean.com.
So, some people in my team have been hard at work organising an extra-special trip for one of the top dogs of Microsoft, Mr Steve Ballmer, our one and only CEO. I’ve had a few inklings and yes, attended a planning meeting or two, but finally we’re able to talk about it publicly and officially. So here’s my take:
Steve Ballmer is coming to Sydney Australia on November 6 to talk about the new wave of development that we’re going to be surfing – Software Plus Services. The day is called Liberation Day and not only will there be a meeting in Sydney, but there’s a Live Web Rally to go along with it so that no one misses out.
Take a look now and register to find out what’s got a lot of people in Microsoft pretty darned excited.
Oh, and I should also mention that Steve’s not going to be flying solo. Gianpaolo Carraro and Tim Sneath are both going to be rocking out with a bunch of awesome demos and even more detail about Microsoft’s vision for cloud computing and how the Windows client will be able to leverage it.
This event is going to be directly after PDC, so all the goodness revealed there will be more open to be talked about (unlike the many times I’ve had to say “if you wait a couple of weeks, you may just get the answer to that question”), so check it out.
(I tell you – 3.30pm Sydney time is a much more reasonable time to check in than the usual US originated streams at 2 or 3am)
