July, 2007

Before joining Microsoft, I used to work with many non-for-profits and charitable organizations. There is a huge demand out there for technical help in different capacities - I used to do a host of odd jobs like helping setting up networks, replacing defective video cards, setting up websites and so forth. Trying to find the right organization to work with can be a challenge - sometimes you don't have...

I have exciting news: the Gadget Vs. Gadget Competition has been EXTENDED to August 15, 2007 to allow more submissions. We’ve received a great response however, in order for submissions to be valid all gadgets must be posted on the Windows Live Gallery as indicated in the contest rules (the gadget submission link for the Windows Live Gallery is: http://gallery.live.com/submit.aspx?contestID=16c5186f...

In the next few blog posts, I'll set the stage to explain what the Imagine Cup is all about - then we'll start taking a look at some of the specific Canadian entries. The theme of this year’s Imagine Cup is "Imagine a world where technology enables a better education for all." The first category in this competition is the Technology Solutions . There are three types of technology solutions for students...

If you have been reading blogs by David Crow and Qixing ( or been looking at the news ), you would have heard that we are opening a software development center in Vancouver. In my opinion, this is really great news - there has been a lot of positive traction happening for Canadian developers on the west coast. For example, the DevTeach conference is going to run for the first time in Vancouver on November...

Shortly after James Kovacs and I wrapped up our video interview (see here ), I suggested that he and I cover some of the finer points around agile development in a phone interview. Download MP3 Audio - James Kovacs on Agile Development (12.79 MB - 27 minutes, 37 seconds) About James Kovacs James Kovacs is an independent architect, developer, trainer, and jack-of-all-trades, specializing...

To prepare for the trip to South Korea, I had to go through a bit of research. The first part was figuring out the timezone - the official timezone is GMT/UTC +9. I've worked out an algorithm to help me quickly figure out the time in Toronto and vice-versa: If it's 8:00 AM, add an hour and change the AM to PM. Therefore, 8:00 AM Toronto time is equal to 9:00 PM Korean time - simple enough. Likewise...

Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 has been released today! Here is the link if you want to download the bits . I'd highly recommend the Virtual PC image - if you opt for the full install, you should use a test machine, don't install it on a production machine (although it looks and feels rock solid - it's still beta). I made a really cool discovery on the MSDN website - you can take a look and learn about...

The theme for this year's Imagine Cup is Education - the challenge is "Imagine a world where technology enables a better education for all." (the themes year after year are similar in one way - they challenges students to thing of ways that software can be used in citizenship and improve people's lives). There were hundreds of Canadians that participated in the challenge, so you can imagine the...

My Chat With Dana Epp (MP3) Dana Epp is one of my heroes. I'm a big fan of his blog and have been following his community involvement for the past three years. Earlier today, I got a chance to chat with Dana about security. More specifically, we chatted about how developers can improve their skills and processes around security and secure programming practices. I must admit: When it comes to...

Earlier this week, I met Richard Fung , an undergraduate student from the University of Calgary . Richard is part of a team of developers who submitted an entry for the MSDN Code Awards , which concluded at EnergizeIT 2007 in Toronto. You can check out his team's entry at the following URL: http://msdn.microsoft.com/canada/codeawards5/team_three.aspx In this interview, Richard and I discussed...

This year, I will be travelling to Seoul, South Korea with 9 Canadian finalists as part of the Imagine Cup challenge. I feel very privileged to have been picked to accompany these really talented students to cheer them on! For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Imagine Cup , it is one way we are encouraging young people to apply their imagination, their passion and their creativity to create...

My Chat with Justice Gray (MP3) Earlier today, I called Justice Gray to chat about some of the things developers can do to advance their learning and skills. This conversation was fostered around the Internet meme that has caught fire of late. The meme started with Justice's blog post ( here ) and subsequent blog postings from members of the developer community at-large (you can find a few examples...

Yesterday, I attended an event hosted by the Calgary .NET User Group . Fellow Plumber and agile junkie, James Kovacs delivered a presentation entitled, "Simple Patterns for Simple Problems". Following his presentation, I got a chance to catch up with James and had a discussion with him about agile development in-general. Check it out: Video: A Chat With James Kovacs on Agile Development James Kovacs...

Etienne Tremblay ( MVP profile ) is a senior software architect for EDS Canada with more than 15 years of experience in enterprise application development. His primary focus has been the manufacturing and mining industries and lately configuration management and development tooling. He has developed systems to monitor quality in car manufacturing, claim management systems, mine monitoring systems and...

Charles Wiebe and John Hansen (Ottawa, ON) Silverlight offers designers a new degree of flexibility in creating vivid and exciting graphics for asp.net web pages. These web pages are described in the Silverlight dialect of Xaml (XML) and an excellent WISWIG tool called Expression Blend can be used to create the xaml files. The major issue with Expression Blend is that it creates a static layout of...

A few weeks ago, Richard Campbell dropped by to deliver a presentation to the Calgary .NET User Group . Since Richard is a good friend of mine, I insisted that he visit me in the suburbs of my fine city. Shortly before heading over to venue, Richard and I sat down and had a chat about his career, database development, software development, his latest creation ( Strangeloop Networks ), and his advice...

The news just came out on the wire that our official launch date in Los Angeles for Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008 (formerly codenamed "Orcas"). The Canadian plans have not been ironed out yet, but the moment they are, we'll be posting them here. Our team is really excited - there is a lot of cool stuff included in the release including LINQ, Dynamic Data controls, and...