[I originally posted this as an editorial for the MSDN Flash]
Happy New Year!
As some of you may have spotted, I'm a certified cricket tragic. In fact, I'm writing this from the top deck of the M A Noble stand, waiting for play to start on day 2 of the Sydney test. I've had plenty of time to kill since I started queuing at 4am both today and yesterday and apart from the good-natured and very knowledgeable banter with my fellow tragics, I've been whiling away the hours watching recordings from the Learn Windows Azure event that was held in Redmond and online on December 13 last year.
The event features some of the top technical brains at Microsoft including Scott Guthrie, David Campbell and Mark Russinovich.
We made some interesting announcements at the event including:
There are some great presentations that were recorded at the event itself, as well as a bunch of supporting interviews and webcasts that area available from the event landing page. My favourites so far are:
I've not yet watched, but am very much looking forward to:
Of course, these sessions are all available to watch streamed, but I suggest you do yourself a favour and download them so you can watch them in half the time.
Richard Banks is presenting a Readify Dev Day in Sydney early next month on a topic that I suspect most of us could do with a bit of brushing up on. From their event site:
At the conclusion of this Dev Day, attendees should not only understand the theory of estimating and prioritising a product backlog but would have also experienced the practices themselves so that they can feel ready to directly apply these techniques to their own projects the very next day.
More information and registration details
The Australian and New Zealand SharePoint Conferences are JUST around the corner. These events are organised by a dedicated group of NZ and AUS Community Leaders and MVP’s - Debbie Ireland, Mark Rhodes, Nick Hadlee, Mark Orange, James Milne and Kathy Hughes. Once again, the team are organising SharePoint conferences in Australia (Melbourne 20-21 March 2012) and New Zealand (Auckland 28-29 March 2012).
Deadline for submissions into the technical tracks is 1 December : Please go to www.spevents.co.nz to register.
This track is being revised. The idea is to promote "what SharePoint does", "what cool things we have done with SharePoint" and "what business processes we have improved/ productivity gains etc." - Customers will do shorter (20-30 min) demo based sessions – on things they have done, following a prescribed structure - Business issue, solution, gains, in time, productivity, $, ROI, or something to that effect.
This is an ideal opportunity for partners to work alongside customers to demo stuff, and show what they have helped to do. Note that these DO NOT have to be technical, complex solutions. They can be simple - the objective to help people see what is possible. If you have any ideas please email to debbieireland@envisionit.co.nz
Via Catherine Eibner
On December 2nd- 4th we are holding an Azure Bizspark Start-up Camp in our Brisbane office in the lead up to the launch of our Innovation Centre. This unique opportunity will showcase the potential when Government, Incubators, Universities and Microsoft come together to help Startups.
More details on Catherine's blog.
If you're graphically challenged like me, but you still want to create gorgeous Windows Phone 7 applications, you need to find wither a tame graphic designer/artist or a great source of beautiful art that's designed for the form factor.
The folks at Microsoft Japan have released the Windows Phone Apps Art Gallery, which is "created for developers to freely use the provided materials for their Windows Phone applications".
The good folk at Readify are running a free breakfast briefing on 1 December in the Sydney CBD to give you a lap around the next version of SQL Server, code-named "Denali".
Register on their Eventbrite site.
The folks over at The Code Project have launched a cool contest so you can show off your LightSwitch skills and win prizes in the process.
From their release:
Do you have what it takes to be a LightSwitch Star? Show us your coolest, most productive, LightSwitch business application and you could win a Laptop and other great prizes! Prizes will be issued monthly for two categories: Most Efficient Business Application and Most Ground-breaking Application. Your submission is eligible to win every month! There’s also a grand prize at the end of the contest for each category – an ASUS U31SD-DH31 Laptop! Just answer the questions on the submission template and either create a YouTube video or write an article for CodeProject explaining your application or extension. They’re looking for apps that show off the most productivity in a business as well as apps that use extensions in a unique, innovative way.
Do you have what it takes to be a LightSwitch Star? Show us your coolest, most productive, LightSwitch business application and you could win a Laptop and other great prizes!
Prizes will be issued monthly for two categories: Most Efficient Business Application and Most Ground-breaking Application. Your submission is eligible to win every month! There’s also a grand prize at the end of the contest for each category – an ASUS U31SD-DH31 Laptop!
Just answer the questions on the submission template and either create a YouTube video or write an article for CodeProject explaining your application or extension. They’re looking for apps that show off the most productivity in a business as well as apps that use extensions in a unique, innovative way.
And so it goes on.
For the full scoop, check out their page.
While I was at TechEd last month, I sat down (twice) with Richard Banks and recorded an episode of Talking Shop Down Under about LightSwitch. Richard's been hoarding his TechEd recordings and releasing them slowly. This one came out today.
Check it out.
I thought I was 33% of the way into the SwitchedOn briefings for LightSwitch and Azure, but today I found out that I'm only 25% through. New cities, Wellington and Auckland have been added to the event, and I'm looking forward to seeing my Kiwi mates and having them commiserate with me about our Rugby team. I expect they'll be gentle.
Wellington: 16 November 2011 Register
Auckland: 17 November 2011 Register
I've just finished the first of the SwitchedOn briefings (Adelaide) - we built a LightSwitch application (u:Adelaide, p:Pass@word1) and deployed it on Azure.
I've uploaded the slide decks:
Session 1 - LightSwitch Morning (2.2Mb)
Session 2 - both Azure decks (13.5Mb)
Session 3 - LightSwitch Afternoon (4.9Mb)