So I missed X06.  I missed getting to play with all the games coming out this holiday season...  but Mark Relph, Barnaby Jeans and John Oxley were there.  Mark made this video for Soapbox...

Video: Mark Relph on XBox 360 & XNA

About once every 3 or 4 months I get to go back to our head office which is located just outside Seattle.  It's always a pretty cool experience for a couple of reasons.  The first is that I spent a few summers back in the late 90s interning out at Microsoft and anyone who's ever been an intern can testify, it's an amazing experience.

The other great reason to get out to the mother ship is to meet up with people that have visibility into areas of the business I don't normally get to see.  Working for Microsoft Canada, we are pretty focused on the Canadian subsidiary on a day-to-day basis but some of the best learning experiences is to hear how other people are tackling big challenges around the world and learn from their experiences.

This week the team focused on our Designer tools (Expression) and audiences are meeting up.  I can't wait to see how the products are coming along and show them off back home!

p.s. I'm also kinda hoping to get my hands on a Zune... what do you think the chances are?

This year, i'm happy to announce that Microsoft Canada is playing host to the 8th Annual ACSE Conference.  It's being held on November 18th at our offices in Mississauga.

I hope you get a chance to join us and come by and say hi!  Btw, we have some really cool sessions around Lego Mindstorm, Mobile Devices and Game Creation!  Everyone is welcome! 

http://wiki.acse.net/index.php/8th_Conference

XNA Game Studio Express (http://msdn.microsoft.com/xna) is being demo'd tomorrow at X06.  It's pretty awesome too.  I got a chance to see the demos and i think the attendees will be pretty impressed.  Essentially XNA GSE allows anyone to build games for Windows or XBox 360 without having to buy any special hardware and the tools are all free.  If you're not attending X06, then swing by the Game Camp we have planned where we'll take this new tool through its paces and show you what you need to get started.  Here's the link to register for Game Camp: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032312244&Culture=en-CA

If building games for the Xbox 360 or Windows gets you excited then you have to be at this event.  For the first time, Microsoft will take you through the details of our (soon to be released) XNA Game Studio Express.  If you didn’t already know, anyone can now build interactive, high performance games for Windows or Xbox 360.  We’ll take you through an introduction of XNA and XNA Game Studio Express.  Then we’ll equip you with the skills to start building games ranging from 2-D Arcade to stunning interactive 3-D.

The day starts at 9am so be there. Game On!

Register Now At: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032312244&Culture=en-CA

p.s. It IS a free event and yes, lunch is provided!  How awesome is that?

CanUX 2006 was this weekend: www.canux2006.com   CanUX (pronounced "CAN-UCKS") is a conference dedicated to User Experience. 

It's a pretty cool conference being held in Banff this year.  This year, John Bristowe (http://blogs.msdn.com/jbristowe) Joey Benedek from Microsoft spoke at the conference (John Spoke about Microsoft Expression and Joey spoke about Usability design at Microsoft) but unfortunately I couldn't attend.  I am eagerly awaiting the details and the online posts about the event this week. 

I'll be watching David Crow's (www.davidcrow.ca) blog for details! :) 

Some have posted some photos up to Flickr...
http://flickr.com/search/?q=canux+OR+canux06

Disclaimer: Only useful or interesting to anyone who has to do some data analysis as part of their job...

I got a phone call from a friend in Toronto who was having a tough time doing some data analysis in Excel....  after listening to what she was trying to accomplish, my first question to her was "How have you setup your Pivot Tables?" and she said "What's a Pivot Table?"....

She did not just say "What's a Pivot Table?".... in fact most excel users don't even know what a Pivot Table is.  I urge you to spend a short amount of time trying to understand this because if you spend any time pouring over data in excel, this is one tool you should add to your skillset!

Here's a Wikipedia link to Pivot tables:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pivot_table

A Dynamics Quick Intro to PivotTables:
http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/using/excel_pivot_tables_collins.mspx

In any case, my friend spent approximately 35 hours in excel trying to do something that a Pivot Table ultimately took her 10-20 minutes to accomplish.  That's productivity!  She's now enjoying the rest of her weekend and I get some great content to share with the world...

Have a great weekend!

I'm quite proud of one of our Canadian teams that made it to the Imagine Cup Finals this summer in India.  One of the competitions is a Short Film Competition.  It's important to point out that the theme of this years Imagine Cup is all about improving the health of people through technology.

Check out the short film!

http://www.paperheartfilm.com/

And check out the Imagine Cup website: www.imaginecup.com

We are picking our Software Design Invitational winners over the next couple of weeks so stay tuned!  Submissions are in and round 1 presentations have begun.  The regional finals will be held in Toronto on June 14th where the Canadian finalist will be chosen!

From Alfred Thompson's blog, I found links to these videos.

Brian Scarbeau has done a variety of training across the U.S. and Canada for Computer Science teachers.  He's a great resource for you!

I was looking for some individuals blogs and I thought I'd write my wish list...

If you know of where these are, please let me know so I can update my reader...

1. Bill Gates, I know he's incredibly busy, but it would be pretty cool... Even if his published speaches & articles were RSS (http://www.microsoft.com/billgates)

2. Steve Jobs, Would love to hear his thoughts on trends in other markets (Animation, Television etc.)

3. Harvey Mackay, I've always been a big fan.  I recently emailed his site and apparently they are working on it.

4. Lauren Macdonald, (My High School Computer Science Teacher...)

5. Artificial Intelligence of any kind (New Age Turing Test :)  )

We have 2 co-op students on my team.  I get the feeling they find it hard to believe that I actually was a co-op for Microsoft (Just Like Them!) at one point, not too long ago!

Anyways, this weekend marks 8 years since my first job at Microsoft, so I thought I'd give you (and them) a brief tour...

1998 - I was a Program Manager Intern in the ISA (Internet Security and Acceleration Server Group), Building 28

Click Here To See Building 28

1999 & 2000 - I was a Program Manager Intern in the Embedded Tools Group, Working on Embedded ADO & Embedded C#... Building 32!

Click here To See Building 32

Microsoft just wouldn't be the same without it's amazing co-op students!

Just wanted to let everyone know that MSDN AA (http://www.msdnaa.net) is now available for any student or teacher organization to license.  MSDN AA is not limited to school or department licenses only!  Take a look at the EULA and make sure your covered before subscribing!

Take a look at the new Academic Search site at http://academic.live.com.  It allows you to preview the journals or papers as you search.

Enjoy!

Want the opportunity to test drive Office 12 & Vista Beta releases? 

Check out http://www.microsoft.com/betaexperience

p.s. It's open to other countries other than Canada, but of course I have to call it out! :)

It's not often that you find an academic paper that is entertaining to read...  but John Aycock & Nathan Friess published this one from the University of Calgary.

The paper discusses the future of Spam.  Enjoy!

http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~aycock/papers/sz.pdf