After a successful Startup Weekend in Oman in July, we are in the very early stages of discussions to bring a similar event to Dubai.  At this point, there are not many details to share but it’s a great time to get the communities feedback on what...

Most of the talk around IE9 has been on performance and standards support but from the first few hours of trying it out, there are lots of small, neat features I found very useful.  Here are my top 5 simple features in IE9 Beta: 1. Pinning sites...

Last week I had the pleasure of presenting at the SP Jain Center of Management in Dubai Technology Week to a group of MBA students with technology backgrounds. I was very impressed with the level of students at this school; we’re actually working...

You have probably seen ScottGu’s list of new web development technologies ( IIS Developer Express , SQL Server Compact Edition , and ASP.NET Razor ) and possibly the announcement on WebMatrix .  If you haven’t tried WebMatrix yet, I would highly...

Had a great time at Startup Weekend Oman today, met some very enthusiastic entrepreneurs who were looking to launch their own companies. The teams will be presenting the top ideas to the judging panel on Friday, and no matter the outcome I think everyone...

Do you spend a lot of time on Twitter?  Interested in analyzing trends, sources and more detailed information on what’s happening in the twitterverse on your topics?  Check out the latest project from MIX Labs, the Archivist .  Archivist...

After the successful local launch of Visual Studio 2010 in UAE and Qatar, we’re coming to Kuwait. Join us: Date: May 18th Time: 1:45pm – 7:20pm (includes “Robin Hood” movie) Location: Cinescape 360 at 360 Mall , South Surra, Kuwait REGISTER FOR THE PREMIERE

Sekna, our academic programs manager has posted the Imagine Cup Gulf 2010 Regional finals results on the new Microsoft Gulf Community Blog .  1st Place – Kuwait (AUK) – TWTD 2nd Place – Oman (SQU) – Show me the Traffic 3rd Place – Bahrain (University...

Next week is a big week for us: Visual Studio 2010 launch in Dubai on May 2nd and our Imagine Cup Gulf Regional Finals on May 3rd. It’s been a fun year working with all the students and it’s great to see all of their work in the projects that were selected...

I’m happy to announce that we will be hosting our local launch of Visual Studio 2010 in Dubai on May 2nd, 2pm at the Cinestar Cinemas in Mall of the Emirates . “ Visual Studio 2010 premiering at a theatre near you!  Join Microsoft and the local developer...

On April 12th the long awaited Visual Studio 2010 launched .  Hopefully you’ve been using the RC that has been out for a while and was handed out at TechEd Middle East, but now you can get the final version.  Students can access it for free...

Thanks to all the faculty and representatives from higher education in Oman who attended the event today. I’ve posted my presentation below that includes links to all of the relevant programs embedded into the slide deck. Every student that wants to...

We had the pleasure of having Michael Koster with us in Dubai last week and he held an Expression and Silverlight session for the TechiesUAE group at the Microsoft office.  We saw some very cool apps that were built with little to no code all using...

In partneship with the Higher College of Technonolgies in UAE , we'll be hosting the "Digital Lifestyle of a Student" event on Feb 2nd at Abu Dhabi Mens College . If you're a student in the UAE, I would reccommend attending this event if you can to see...

For the 1st time, we are running TechEd in the Middle East ! and I am now officially a TechEd track owner again.  This time it’s right here in Dubai.  If you’re interested in attending, register now for the Super Early Bird Special ($595 USD...

I’ve had several people ask me about the process for how to download software through DreamSpark . It couldn’t be easier. Go to http://www.dreamspark.com Sign in with a LiveID (Remember this can be any email address including your .edu school...

I’m currently reading Presentation Zen which is very good and gives concrete examples of good and bad slides and presentations.  I’m hoping to incorporate some of the techniques into my own presentations this year, so hopefully you’ll see an improvement...

Megalopolis, one of the Game Dev finalists of Imagine Cup 2008 from Germany is now commercially available on the Xbox Live Marketplace. Try out the demo if you have an Xbox, or check out the video . Amazing what students can do these days, the team’s...

What an interesting day. Spent the day at UAE University , one of the largest and most prestigious universities in the UAE meeting some of the professors and getting a tour of the labs there. Dr. Nikolaos Mavridis (who runs the lab) showed me around the...

My 1st blog post in a while and a good time to discuss some of the changes you’ll notice around here. This year I’m going to be focusing a lot more on Academia and what we refer to as the Local Software Economy. Basically this means I’ll spend a lot more...

I'm sure those on the Win7 Beta have seen the messages from your machines, but just in case you didn't, tomorrow is the expiration of the Win7 Beta, it's time to move to the RC. “Starting July 1 st , the Beta will start to reboot every two hours and...

I'm sure most of you have heard of the new Bing search from Microsoft. I've been using it for a while (I've always been fond of the Image search capabilities , infinite scrolling, filtering, and the previews) and I'm pleasantly surprised to say it's been...

We held the first "TechTalk" today at Al Murooj Rotana for Partners who work with Microsoft with sessions on: · Introducing Windows Azure - Anton Delsink · Windows 7 - Wilson Xavier · Web 2.0 - Pooya Darugar · Network Access Protection - Zahid...

I've been spending more time with the web design agencies in Dubai and it's a whole different world than the SOA work I do with the large enterprises, for one thing their offices tend to be much cooler. We speak a lot about Sivlerlight and the power of...

A lot of people have been asking me what the best way is to recieve invitations to our Microsoft Gulf events for developers and to recieve news from us on new technology. We have lots of sources for this, but the best way is to profile yourself and let...