January, 2006

This morning I was interviewed by Ali Moore for a story she is doing to be shown on Business Sunday about corporate blogging.

Pretty normal, huh? I've done a bunch of these kind of interviews in the past for The Bulletin and Computerworld.

What made this different from the others, was that part of the interview took place at my home, with my kids (Emma, Billy) and even my mother in law!. Billy scooped ME about the interview. We then headed to my office for the main interview.

Ali has been speaking to a number of other folks, such as Trevor and Simon, who should all feature in the story about corporate blogging and I think it will be a pretty good story.

So, let me share some of the questions I was asked:

• How did you start blogging and when did your family get involved?
• What makes a blog different from a normal website?
• How does the blog you run at work differ from the one you maintain at home?
• Is it a sales tool?
• Do you regulate your blog content and the comments which come back?
• Microsoft has more than 2,000 bloggers – aren’t those multiple corporate voices confusing?
• Do you view Microsoft through rose coloured glasses on your blog?  Is it all just “rah-rah Microsoft”?
• Why doesn’t every other business do it?
• Are businesses afraid of showing the company “warts n all”?
• What does “Blog Smart” mean?
• So you practice “self-censorship”?  Where do you draw the line?
• Can you get credibility in the blogosphere with self-censorship?
• What about saying negative things about the company and your superiors – do you have to be careful?
• What makes a good blog?
• Have you seen bad blogs? 
• What advice would you give a company like Telstra and where they are going with blogging?
• Do you need corporate approval to start a blog at Microsoft?
• Could it be risky?
• How much have search engines changed the game with blogging?

How did I reply? What did I say? Did I cross the line? Best to wait until the show airs, sometime in February to find out.

[ Currently Playing : Veronica - Elvis Costello - The Very Best Of Elvis Costello [UK] Disc 1 (03:06) ]

Today I headed out with Billy to his new high school to collect his new Tablet PC

When we got it home and fired it up, I was pleasantly surprised - not only did they have all the latest powertoys and the experience packs (tablet experience packs, tablet education packs), Visual Studio 2005 was also installed!

Cool. My 12 Year Old can start cutting code. He had both VB & C# installed. I wonder which way he will lean????

[ Currently Playing : Sulky Girl - Elvis Costello - The Very Best Of Elvis Costello [UK] Disc 1 (06:40) ]

The first MSDN Flash of the year has just gone out. We have a guest editor, Finula Crowe, for this edition. I was off on holidays until this week and Finula kindly stepped in to get this out. Thanks Fin!!!

Ready for Another Great Year? Hey MSDN Flashers, Happy New Year and welcome to our first edition of the MSDN Flash for 2006! It's been a while now since I last took the reins as Guest Editor and since then we've shared a number of activities with you. First up, thanks to everyone who attended our Ready Launch Tour, with the release of Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, SQL Server 2005, and announcing BizTalk Server 2006. It was a pleasure to meet many of you at the Microsoft booth. Much of the feedback you gave us has shown that this suite of products is proving to be as well-received as we'd hoped. If you didn't get a chance to attend the launch, make sure you watch our online Webcasts of the keynote speech and key sessions. There are many other Visual Studio resources available, as well as offers from our launch partners, which you can find on the Ready Launch portal. For sales, licensing and product-related enquiries, contact Arabind Coomaraswamy at Microsoft on +61 2 9870 2372, email v-arcoom@microsoft.com or call the MSDN customer service center on 13 20 58. If you're into gaming and were in Sydney on Thursday, 8 December 05, I'm sure you would have attended Atomic Live. There we launched the Visual Studio Express products which are free to download until 7 November 2006. The team and I spent the day at the Visual Studio 2005 stand talking to developers and gaming enthusiasts. Some of the things we spoke about included: how to develop Web sites using Microsoft tools, how to write cool games; where to have my Web site hosted; how to add AJAX support to ASP.NET; and where to find out about all the cool Microsoft Web Technologies. In the coming weeks, you'll hear announcements about more activities that can help you continue to develop your skills, do more with less and become involved in the Developer community in Australia. One to note is complimentary training being held in Melbourne on Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and Visual Studio 2005. Check out Frank's Blog for more information on this one. Hurry! Places are limited and dates are set for next week. Until next time, happy coding and please let us know what you need by emailing us at ausflash@microsoft.com. Warm Regards, Finula Crowe Product Manager Developer Tools, Australia

[ Currently Playing : Sorry - Madonna - Confessions on a Dance Floor (04:43) ]

I got asked a question this week about resources for ASP.NET. This is a FAQ, so let's preserve it

asp.net developer center on msdn

web developer center on msdn australia

“official” asp.net v2 site 

msdn article on the asp.net 2.0 provider model

 Scott Guthrie on How to add a Login, Roles and Profile system to an ASP.NET 2.0 app in only 24 lines of code

 Scott Guthrie on ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

[ Currently Playing : How High - Madonna - Confessions on a Dance Floor (04:40) ]

Ah Code Camp.

By all accounts, it was a wonderful get together last year in Wagga. and the boys are getting ready to do it all again April 23rd/24th 2006.

Mitch has put out a call to speakers. More info on the official Code Camp Oz site

---

From: peter@stanski.com [mailto:peter@stanski.com] On Behalf Of Mitch Denny
Sent: Wednesday, 18 January 2006 3:39 PM
To: dotnet@stanski.com
Subject: [aus-dotnet] Code Camp Oz II: Request for Speakers!
Importance: High

It's time to get the speakers and presentations lined up for Code Camp Oz - Return to Wagga. If you are keen to present this year, please send an email to speakers@codecampoz.com with details. The main categories of presentations we're after is listed below but if you have anything that you think others would love that doesn't quite fit these, let us know anyway.

• Developer Productivity; we are particular interested in TFS, unit testing, source code management, and sessions on agile or other development methodologies. We would also like to see some mobility sessions offered.
• Server Application Development; we are particularly interested in sessions on SQL Server, BizTalk, and SharePoint.
• The Business of Software Development; we are particularly interested in consulting advice, project management, industry accreditation and certification discussions and debates.
• Futures; we are particular interested in sessions on WPF, WCF, WWF, Sparkle and the Expressions suite of tools, IIS 7.0 and Windows Vista.

There are a couple of important notes:

• As this is a free event, speakers (and all attendees) need to arrange their own transport and accomodation for the event.
• As we may try to record this event for those who can’t make it, speakers need to be OK for their sessions to be recorded.
• Sessions must fit in a fifty five (55) minute window. Sessions are scheduled at one (1) hour intervals. please make sure you are succinct in what you are presenting.

Thats all folks! Get those submissions to us as fast as possible so Greg and I will start putting together the final schedule. Please note that as the length of the event is limited we won’t be able to accept all submissions.

- Mitch

[ Currently Playing : Cigarettes Will Kill You - Ben Lee - Breathing Tornados (03:50) ]

I saw a few posts flying around last week about myheritage.com (via Sanaz, Michael Coates, Robert Scoble, Channel9), so I thought I would try it out.

I used 2 different photos and got 2 different results! What a surprise

The first one matched me with the Dalai Lama - hmmmm

The second matched me with infamous criminal hacker (and fellow 1963 baby) Kevin Mitnick

And I was hoping of getting the match of Johnny Depp wearing a Hat, which Scoble scored

[ Currently Playing : They Don't Want Music - Black Eyed Peas - Monkey Business (06:47) ]

What's a conference without any flair these days - a lame one that's for sure.  Well Mix06 isn't going to be a lame conference. Infact, it is going to rock, and it has flair that rocks too.

Have a look at this mixed collection:

mix06

[ Currently Playing : Audio Delite at Low Fidelity - Black Eyed Peas - Monkey Business (05:29) ]