Dan Kasun - Techonomics and Government

Today marks the last day of the first month of billing for Azure… and, hopefully, everyone has been following best practices and has been actively monitoring their account and usage. Consumption charges are new to a lot of us… and no one likes surprises...

I'm fresh from the US Public Sector CIO Summit - it was an amazing week and I had some truly enlightening conversations and experiences. Everyone I spoke with had very positive perceptions and feedback on Microsoft’s strategy - but I happened to come...

It’s been just over two months since the release of the Open Government Directive (hereby referred to as “The Directive”), and the state of awareness continues to grow steadily, especially among those of us in the technology community. This isn’t unexpected;...

Well, that was easy. So easy that I spent the rest of the evening playing around with the UI of my App just for fun (yes, I consider that fun). First, Dallas … I thought it would be a little challenging… after all, the idea of engaging services...

Let your voice be heard and spread the word!  The submissions are in and public voting is now open for the Windows Azure Application Development Contest targeted towards State and Local Government agencies.  Click here to vote for the best application...

As mentioned in my previous post, I wanted to test the waters by writing a small app that allowed someone to enter a zip code, find all of their Congressional representatives , then find out the committees they're on, bills they've sponsored, how they...

But it doesn't end there. Aggregating and exposing information is the initial hurdle to compliance with the Open Government Directive ( http://www.whitehouse.gov/open ), and is the basic prerequisite for everything else. But the Open Government Directive...

We're coming to the end of our State & Local Government Azure solution contest - with prized of $2.5k, $5k, and $10k for third, second, and first place, respectively. Note: THE LAST DAY YOU CAN SUBMIT A SOLUTION IS FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5th... and this...

Got into playing with the management API over the weekend, and got wrapped around the axle when it came to getting an API certificate. This post saved me a lot of time and effort: http://www.davidaiken.com/2009/12/21/how-to-create-a-x509-certificate...

Windows Azure billing formally starts today, which means that all US CTP accounts become read-only, and you'll need to convert to commercial accounts. You can find instructions to do so here: http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsazure/archive/2010/01/04/sign...

Well... it's not really news, these offers have been around since PDC... what's new is that we actually broadcast the availability of these programs. Check out the Windows Azure Team Blog for more info: http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsazure/archive/2010...

I had my first crisiscamp "experience" last Saturday at the NPR headquarters in DC - and wanted to share my observations and sentiments: First, I was very impressed with the number of people who attended. Folks were spread out between a few rooms and...

I'm extremely pleased to announce the launch of the US Public Sector Government Developer website ! In my opinion, the timing couldn't be better as the need for information couldn't be greater. The focus on solution development in the Government sector...

I just completed an interview with Ross Kasun, Asst. Superintendent of Summit Schools (and incidental brother), on the topic of social computing and the effect on children and learning. I was the interviewee... was lots of fun (most fun was trying to...

How's that for a provocative subject line? Actually... it's not.  But, sometimes something that really is simple gets overcomplicated... particularly when viewed from multiple perspectives.  Personally, I see that happening with the concept...

April 22-24, Atlantic City, NJ (Sheraton Atlantic City) Register today at: http://www.hlsdevcon.com And book your room (time is running out for the reduced rate!) here: http://www.starwoodmeeting.com/Book/microsoft08 Space is VERY limited...  if...

There are a lot of fantastic uses for Microsoft Surface in the Healthcare industry... some more interesting than others... we'll be discussing and showing some of these at the HLS DevCon on April 22-24 in Atlantic City .  It's FREE - and the content...

Had some requests for my PPT on Web 2.0 in the Enterprise (in this case, specifically the HLS Enterprise presentation that I did at the HLS DevCon last year with Ben Flock). Attached to this post... -Dan

This video was sent to me by Dave Isbitski ( http://blogs.msdn.com/davedev ) a while ago, and I think it does a good job of demonstrating how students (and other 1985-ers) are speaking a different language than the rest of us. For more context, read my...

A little musing on the topic of HealthVault and my previous post... Comments welcome :) -Dan

In my last blog, I discussed my perspective of what "Software + Services" means - to sum it up: coarsely grained business services that are interacted with via client applications (in some cases, multiple types of client applications). ...

I've been having a lot of discussions on Software + Services lately, both inside and outside of Microsoft (nothing lights up a dinner party like some witty tech banter, I always say).  Invariably, I find that merely agreeing on the definition of...

I never thought I'd say this, but I've fallen out of the mainstream - at least in the area of social computing and Internet use. I look around at all of the technology implementations that are serious parts of the everyday lives of a large portion of...