Well Teched EMEA was a success after a few close calls. The scores were much the same as last year despite losing a few of our regular 'stars' like Kim Tripp to the Connections event in Las Vegas at the same time. Now I am gearing up for TechEd South...

I am in the middle of preparing an internal presentation on WPF/Blend and VS and figuring out what developers need to know about the tools. One thing is clear, developers need good business examples showing the benefits of using WPF and blend so they...

A couple of years ago at Teched South Africa I presented a session originally done by the great Jeff Prosise around the provider model in ASP.Net. I remember suggesting that this was not only a neat way to handle membership, roles and whatever in ASP...

Hi Folks. There are a series of local competitions starting around Europe Middle East and Africa (EMEA) for the best Windows Vista Gadgets. Each subisdiary will judge the entries and award their own prizes so you are not in a global pool with a poor...

The TechEd Europe tracks are forming as follows: Security Business Intelligence Mobile Tools and Languages Web Windows (Frameworks and Base Platform, .Net 3.x) Architecture Dynamics SQL Connected Systems (Biztalk etc) Designer Office Infrastructure...

So I have finally joined an Aeroplane syndicate. Charlie came breezing into my home office today with all the manuals for the Grunman Tiger. We started talking and it soon became apparent that we would need a way to book the Tiger in advance. This...

Would you believe it planning has already started for this years TechEd Europe. As I am running the technical content strategy this year I would like to ask you folks for your opinions. I would like to devise a category scheme to help you navigate your...

It turned out that Santa had brought my son some PC games and as his machine was basically in bits on Christmas Eve I started to put it all back together. Unfortunately I was a little too fortified with Christmas Cheer (Camel Valley Sparkling Wine) and...

Well the weather here in Cornwall over Christmas was pretty horrible - no flying during the holiday. Still I was able to build a new machine for my sister (even more demanding than J9) ,check out Laurie’s new box up at the airfield, and wreck my son’s...

I mentioned in my last post that I was rebuilding Laurie’s machine – a good friend and a flight trainer in Perranporth flying club. Laurie frequently does Radio Telephony exams as part of the private pilot’s license. This entails linking two machines...

I have just inadvertently installed Windows Vista on my wife, J9’s, machine. Now this is the machine that I have solemnly promised not to install any Beta version of anything or otherwise mess around with her ‘stuff’. She uses this box for all her Ebay...

After a brief chat with Hans Verbeeck I decided (well Hans suggested) that I mess around with some 'competitive' technology. We chose a small Linux distro (SLAX popcorn). Now the idea is to boot from a memory stick and get the exact same environment on...

At TechEd Europe and TechEd South Africa I talked a little about WPF and the Expression Suite of tools. I mentioned that in future we would be working more closely with Designers. I remember my first Windows app back in well 1989. It was an email application...

Hi Folks. Thanks to everyone who has attended the conference tour on IE7.0 and Vista in EMEA. I promised to include all the code and powerpoints from the session and I will post the zip file here as soon as I can. There is a problem with either my...

I have just returned from Antalya in Turkey for the Most Valued Professional conference for MEA (Middle East and Africa). You folks were great, especially when the power went off and I had to restart my VPC. I used VSTS to show how to do Test Driven...

I have just returned from Antalya in Turkey for the Most Valued Professional conference for MEA (Middle East and Africa). You folks were great, especially when the power went off and I had to restart my VPC. I used VSTS to show how to do Test Driven...

I had a few messages about Janines web site. Well she is wrapping it up. Not enough customers and not enough time to look after it. Now how will I fund the flying lessons?

As editor of the 2007 Office Beta Experience newsletter I am in a privilaged position. One thing I get to do is to interview Microsoft Senior Executives another perk is that I get to turn younger. Here I am in all my glory in the first edition: http:...

You may have read about the new file format in Office 12. It is based on a zip file that contains separate XML ‘parts’. When I first saw this I nearly fell of my chair. Let me explain. A few years ago while working in MCS in New England I worked on...

Hey folks I have a new title. Program Manager for Offfice 12 Evangelism EMEA. Now this does not mean I am abandoning my work in ASP.Net but I have taken on the role for the next version of Office. This involves the being the somewhat grandely named Editor...

Now this may seem a bit bizarre. I live in the UK but all my work is elsewhere in EMEA. That means that I always fly to a meeting or presentation. I make a a flight about 3 times a month on average. Sometimes I am away for 3 weeks at a time. But always...

Links to ASP tour slides and demos...

This video shows how to call code in your databindings to do some funky formatting. Here I have nested a datasources inside a datalist. I show a price as crossed out if there is a sale price. http://davewebster.members.winisp.net/catdetails/catdetails...

This video shows how to create a simple (everything I do is simple) data object to retrieve a generic list of pictures in the ProductImages folder. I use this data object to bind a datalist where we can see the picture itself and its name. http://davewebster...

Hi Folks here is a link to a video of migrating the opening page of www.giftbaskets4u.co.uk In this video I show how to do custom databinding. I create an initial page using a masterpage file. Let me know if there are other things you would like...