Darryl Burling @ Work : 2008SummerRoadTrip

2008 Summer Road Trip Prize Draw Results

dburling — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 02:55:51 GMT

On Wednesday we drew the prize draw for the 2008 summer road trip.

Jeremy took the data, imported it into SQL, did some code to match registrations and invitations to evaluation forms, then write a little function to draw someone from random from the list of entries.

The prize pool was:

Two servers with Windows Vista Ultimate and Home Server
One copy of Windows Vista Ultimate
Two copies of 2007 Office Professional
Five copies of Mindscape Lightspeed
Three copies of Resharper

All winners have been notified via email - a few haven't yet responded, so check the email address you registered under to see if you have an email from Chris. If you didn't win - thanks for coming, and hopefully your name will come up in the future.

The two servers went to Brent from Wellington (pictured) and Colin from Hamilton - congratulations everyone!

Road Trip Code and slides now available

dburling — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 05:43:46 GMT

Many of you have asked about availability of the code and slides from the road trip, and the good news is that they are now up.

Jeremy has the scoop along with instructions to build a VM for yourself.

Enjoy!

End of the road (trip) - Invercargill

dburling — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:06:27 GMT

Today we are in Invercargill. Today is the last day of our Road Trip. Today is kind of a sad day.

We've had a great time driving around the country presenting on Visual Studio 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008. I think those who have come along have enjoyed the road trip too - certainly the feedback we've had has been good. We've had a number of people tell us that this is the best presentation they've ever been to, and the feedback on the evaluation forms has been extremely positive, which is all pretty good in our mind.

Today we went right on through Invercargill to Bluff and had a final meal together as a team. This was a nice (if a little rushed) lunch, in a great location on a great day.

The Invercargill User Group crew did a great job of getting word out about the Road Trip and we had a very respectable number of people come along, which was satisfying for the last event on the trip.

For the last time on our road trip, we sat through the usual banter, although of all the audiences Invercargill seemed the most muted. If audience indication is anything to go by, two people here do .Net development and one person works with Windows Server, however the feedback indicated that they were very happy with the content, so obviously they are just a quiet bunch down here.

We managed to get rid of all our prizes except a few copies of Vista (which will go to the winners of the Servers when they are drawn on March 5). We've got rid of several hundreds of bottles of water, driven over 3,000km's in the Windows Mobile truck, spoken to over 1000 people, endured temperatures between 8 and 32 degrees, hit just one (living) animal (oops), drunk about 30 bottles of coke, sampled coffee in around 15 towns and cities in NZ, taken thousands of photos (I have nearly 900 on my own), recorded about 15 hours of video, heard Chris say "well done, sir" about 45 times and heard JB say "thats not our website, man" eleven times.

I (and I'm sure JB and Chris too) want to say a big thanks to all the user group leaders around the country who put in many hours of their own to make the event happen, and really put in the extra effort to get the word out there and get so many people along. I also want to say a huge thanks to Intergen and Mindscape - without whom this wouldn't have been possible.

Like I said at the beginning - the New Zealand community ROCKS!

Day 11 - Dunedin

dburling — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 13:09:18 GMT

Last night JB and I flew down to meet Chris in Dunedin. In retrospect, we could have gone down this morning, but it translated into a good sleep in this morning, and we are safely in the town we need to be in and not at the mercy of the airlines to get us there under time pressure, so all good. We were also pleased to find that the newer part of the Southern Cross Hotel in Dunedin is much nicer than the old side (so JD - you'll want to remember that).

Jeremy and I scoped out the cafe's around the Octagon this morning, and were very happy to find local cafe served up the best coffee we have encountered yet (outside of Wellington of course). Their Potato Cakes and Pancakes are also pretty good, so if you are in Dunedin, you should check it out - we will be back in the morning.

Dunedin turned on a great day, and a great audience (another record for Dunedin). Our local speaker, Beric Holt was pumped and ready to go (actually, he was extremely relaxed), Chris was also pumped, and particularly so after being called a "Marc Ellis wannabe" in Christchurch.

Tomorrow is the last day of our Road Trip - in Invercargill.

Day 10 - Christchurch

dburling — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 06:56:50 GMT

This morning we woke up in the middle of nowhere, with no mobile coverage, no telephone and lots of distance between us and civilization - a geek's worst nightmare. We were of course in Maruia Springs Thermal Resort in Lewis Pass. Chris is still not feeling very good, but he managed to find a pharmacy, get some drugs and get back into presenting mode in time to present.

Before we got to the convention centre (or town hall) we stopped at Yeeros for a Souvlaki - if you are in Christchurch - it is worth a stop and its only a hundred metres from Cathedral Square.

Did I mention that it is cold and wet down here? The farmers were dancing on the roads on the way to Christchurch because of the rain (or was it because I ran over one of his sheep?). Actually it is so wet that the Avon river is quite high - almost flooding in places. And it is cold - It was 8 degrees on the Canterbury side of Lewis Pass this morning too - chilly.

In spite of the weather, Christchurch turned out a great audience. Over 150 people turned up to catch the Christchurch leg of the 2008 Summer Road Trip. This is better than the Auckland turn out and the second highest turn out of the tour so far - so THANK YOU CHRISTCHURCH!

Tonight we are off home for the weekend - except for Chris who is going Heli-biking (health permitting) - and then we meet up with Chris back in Dunedin on Monday.

If you are in the deep south (Dunedin or Invercargill), you can still register and come along and catch the last leg of the road trip! Actually even if you are in the North Island - maybe the Dunedin or Invercargill leg of the road trip is all the excuse you need to take a holiday down there :-)

Nelson to Christchurch

dburling — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 03:38:35 GMT

Last night we took the ferry to the South Island at 6:15 (give or take 30 minutes for a delay). We it was dark when we got to Picton, which meant we got to take some photos during sunset in the sounds which was pretty cool. When we got to Picton we headed to a motel where we stayed for the night.

This morning we went for breakfast at one of the local cafe's and then headed to sunny Nelson - where it was sunny when we arrived but began raining by the time we left.

The guys have the pack in pretty much sorted now, and for a change the venue was set up properly, so I left them to it and caught up with a friend for lunch.

We had a good turn out in Nelson which was great, and the audience seemed to lap up the session - particularly the spatial querying in SQL Server 2008 - which is not surprising given that SQL Services are based there.

We headed off after the session - Chris wasn't feeling well, so I got behind the wheel. When you head out down the west coast, you'll find that if you are used to driving in the North Island that there are very few vehicles on the road. You may also find that there is lots of road works. We are convinced that there is a link there somewhere. On this one day we encountered more road works than on the entire North Island leg of the tour combined.

On the way to Maruia springs we stopped at the Maruia Falls and took some photos and video. The falls are well known to Chris who took the opportunity to talk about "big waterfalls" again, and also how he has kayaked down them (Chris is the outdoor adventurer among us).

If you've never been to Maruia Springs, its worth an overnight stop. They have no cellular coverage on either network, no phones in the units and a thermal hot spring in the mountains. Its kind of nice and unnerving (for us geeks) all at the same time. No resort area network for us here.

Tomorrow its off to Christchurch as quick as we can to post our blog posts and get back to civilization. We are looking forward to a good turnout in Christchurch, and we know Chris Fairbarn is looking forward to presenting too. See you there!

Wellington done - South Island - Here we come!

dburling — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 08:42:06 GMT

Today the boys did their presentation to our home town of Wellington. It went well and was generally enjoyed by everyone. The Paramount was a fantastic venue and we had heaps of capacity so even though we had hundreds of registrations we didn't need to close it off.

It was great to be home and catch up with lots of the local community again. And of course we had a fantastic Wellington turn out.

One of the very cool things about being complete geeks as we travel around the country is the abundance of technology at our disposal. One of the coolest pieces of technology in our kit is our WWAN Access point provided by the nice folk at Advanced Portable Technology. This little device looks like a chrome plated WiFi access point, but it boasts some very cool features.

It allows us to plug in a PC Card from either Telecom or Vodafone and then provide access to the Internet via WiFi. It also supports failing over from cabled WAN to a 3G card. We've used this in every hotel and motel and presentation so far, and its worked great - where ever we are we have WiFi and Internet access (although it is dependant on the GPRS/3G signal for bandwidth - which isn't always that great).

So here is JB on the Inter-Islander ferry with our Ferry Area Network, and I'm blogging through it right now.

We are looking forward to Nelson tomorrow and Christchurch on Friday (you can still register). If you run your own consulting/contracting and want to be included in our Launch marketing, let me know as we are giving independent IT people an opportunity to be quoted around the three products we are presenting on.

Day 7 - Palmerston North

dburling — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 04:51:00 GMT

Jeremy and Chris are both really looking forward to Wellington tomorrow - it is our home town, and we are expecting the biggest (and best?) audience at a very cool venue - the Paramount Picture Theatre.

Today however, we are in Palmerston North. After breakfast, we headed back down through Dannevirke where we switched drivers (Chris had some phone calls to make) and got some fuel. Then we headed toward Palmerston North, opting to take the Saddle Road so we could visit the wind farm on the way through. The wind farm is pretty cool - the turbines are huge and there is literally no noise that we noticed.

We got some cool photos there including the one of JB on the left.

Palmerston North turned out a fantastic audience - we had more than 50 people come along which is pretty good considering the user group there is only just getting off the ground. Hopefully I'll see many of these people along on the 4th of March when I'm back for the inaugural Palmerston North .Net User Group meeting (where I'll be presenting).

Tonight Katie (the UG leader in Palmy) is taking us to a Korean restaurant which will be fun, particularly as Chris isn't keen on Korean due to a bad experience once before...

If you are keen to come to Wellington tomorrow, you still have time to register and invite a friend (although you'll want to make sure they turn up too).

Tomorrow, we'll have something special for Wellington techies who want to be involved in our launch a little more too...

UPDATE: Check out JB's Post - we had a groupie following us around!

Day 6 - Napier

dburling — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 05:45:39 GMT

We started the week at 7am by driving from Wellington to Napier. It was pouring rain in Wellington - but the rain eased and cleared once we got through the Waiarapa.

It was funny driving through my home town, Dannevirke, and pointing out one or two features of the town along the way including the bakery next to the Warehouse (which Chris appreciated).

It is hot in Napier, so before the presentation we had time to have a quick lunch at the venue, which had nice food, although at $2 per Mussel, it wasn't cheap (fortunately Chris pays his own way for lunch)...

Over 70 people came along to East Pier to hear Chris, JB and Gerard (the local .Net User Group Leader who did presented on Visual Studio 2008.

Gerard did a great job - he was very relaxed and had a few extra features that he showed along the way which people appreciated.

One thing we are struggling with is keeping to time. The best we've done is only go (only) 15 minutes over. So far this hasn't been a bit problem, and we are trying to address it (we've dropped a demo or two), however, please come along expecting to leave at 4pm.

If you missed it before, and you want to come along to one of these, register and come to one of the remaining locations.

Day 5 - New Plymouth

dburling — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 00:37:30 GMT

The road between Hamilton and New Plymouth was interesting. There is little to no cellular coverage for about an hour and a half - which made us techies feel quite isolated. We particularly felt for the owners of the petrol station at Awakino... We also drove through a bug storm. Jeremy actually thought it was raining - it sounded like it - but there were no clouds in the sky and the "rain" wasn't washing off easily - they were bugs. The car needs cleaning now.

Having said that it was also very nice to not have to drive anywhere this morning, and as we are driving back to Wellington tonight, we are looking forward to being home for the weekend.

We had a good crowd of 34 people turn up for the event which is easily the biggest crowd ever to go to a user group event in New Plymouth.

As Chris had a wedding today, he couldn't be here, but we had arranged a ring-in presenter - Brendan Law who did a great job of filling in for Chris. Brendan flew in and we picked him up from the airport and then dropped him off again afterwards.

On Monday morning we head up to Napier for the next leg of our road trip (which Chris will be back for) and then Palmerston North, Wellington, Nelson and Christchurch.

If you haven't registered for one of these events, do it today, and we'll see you there!

Day 2 - Tauranga

dburling — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 11:28:35 GMT

We made our way from Auckland to Tauranga today. No dramas with the location this time (phew!), and we started making stops and taking photos along the way. We stopped in Paeroa and Waihi to take some photos, grab drinks (you can't not do this in Paeroa) and take a look at the gold mine in Waihi. I've put some of my photos up on the summer road trip website, and we've started blogging there too.

Tauranga was fantastic. No reflection on the fantastic work that the Auckland User Group leaders did, but as JB said, the Aucklanders put up an average attendance. Unlike the Aucklanders, pretty much everyone in Tauranga who had registered actually turned up, meaning we had around 100 people in attendance - Rock on Tauranga!

Once again, the feedback was great. Tomorrow we have a day off which we will spend in Rotorua, then on to Hamilton. Remember you can still register!

Auckland, done, coming your way soon!

dburling — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 11:23:45 GMT

Last night was a bit of an experience. We jumped on the plane in Wellington to come to Auckland for the first leg of he .Net User Group Summer Road Trip trying to tote 30kg of computer equipment, managed switches and a heap of varying cables along with our laptop bags as carry on luggage on the Air New Zealand flight to Auckland. That was two large bags for the computer gear, plus our three other bags (not to mention the checked in luggage). The lesson is, if you can get it past the checkin staff, you can get it on board (in most cases). Remarkably, Chris also has his mountain bike, and decided to wear his helmet on the plane (!!). Interesting experience of other people....

Today started at 5:30 when Chris's alarm went off - he was going to the gym, so I decided to go for a run. Then it was breakfast, some last minute reconfiguring for Jeremy and Chris while I went off to pick up the truck and some goodies (more on that below).

Auckland was not without its dramas. We had a mix up in the bookings, which mean't the location wasn't booked as we understood it was, but we managed to work it out - the show must go on. With 300 people registered, we had to make it work..

The presentation and most of the demos went well (just one problem) and the feedback was fantastic.

Alex did a great job presenting on Visual Studio 2008 during the event, and Jacqui was also great as MC. Chris and Jeremy had some good banter going, which the audience enjoyed. We did go a little over time (actually a lot over time) but most people didn't seem to mind.

We also were privileged to have a couple of extra Microsofties in attendance today (thanks Nigel), as well as Rose - the MVP lead from MS Australia, and even one or two members of the press.

If you are in the other locations, don't forget that registrations are still open, so register today for your town and go into the draw for one of the two grunty demo machines we are using...

Another reason to come along, is that we have loads of spot prizes. We have copies of Office 2007, Windows Vista Ultimate, Gears of War (for PC - beat the xboxers at their game), Project Gotham Racing 4 (for XBox 360) and a heap of T-Shirts. We really don't want to be carting all this stuff around, so we are keen to get rid of it - help us by coming along and winning it :-)

Tomorrow we are off to Tauranga... better get some sleep.

2008 Summer Road trip - here we come

dburling — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 07:44:17 GMT

Hold on - we're heading your way! The content is prepped, the rehearsal is done, we are on our way!

On Monday the .Net User Groups kick off their summer road trip in Auckland. I'm tagging along, so after Auckland we head down the country until we get to Invercargill. Full details, including locations are in this post. If you haven't registered for the event in your town yet, you can still do so (except Auckland) by registering here. Don't forget that by registering and filling in an eval form on the day you go into the draw to win one of two very nice machines.

Jeremy and Chris have been busy rehearsing the presentation, and have now done it to a few audiences of various sizes.

We've taken some feedback on board for the presentation and made refinements - although the overwhelming feedback has been fantastic.

There are over 1350 people registered for the road trip, with some locations registrations exceeding the anticipated numbers. However, we've got lots of space - all locations are larger than the number of people we anticipated, so we don't expect space issues.

We've also got some water bottles on hand so you can grab one of those on the way in (thanks to Intergen). Not only that but we've got software to give away as well as (hopefully) some T-Shirts.

If you want to track us, you can watch our blogs. You can also follow me via twitter (which has an RSS feed too) which I'll be updating regularly.

If you are blogging about the 2008 Summer Road Trip, please tag your post with "2008SummerRoadTrip" so we can see what you say!

I hope you'll join us, and I look forward to seeing you on the road!

Summer Road trip - Auckland is full

dburling — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 04:04:42 GMT

Just an update - if you are trying to register for the Auckland leg of the 2008 Summer Road trip, it is now full - so we have closed registrations.

If you are in one of the other locations - we still have room, so register today to go in to win one of the nice home servers.

We've also got some software and T-Shirts to give away.

The show kicks off Monday, so see you there!

Home Server Draw - Hardware specs

dburling — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 06:03:00 GMT

I thought I'd put up the details of the specs of the boxes we will be using and giving away at the end of the Summer Road Trip.

To re-iterate - if you want to win this - you'll need to register and turn up and fill in an eval form on the day to be in the draw to win one of these puppies...

Gigabyte GA-MA68SM-S2 AM2 Motherboard (*Onboard DVI and VGA ports *4xDDR2 800 slots* PCI-Ex16 slot *2xPCI *4x SATAII *1 PCI-E x1 *RAID 0,1,0+1,5 *GbE *8ch ALC888 audio *IEEE1394)
AMD Athlon 64 x2 Dual Core 6400+
4x 2Gb DDR2-800 A-Data RAM (8 Gb total)
2x Western Digital Caviar SE 500Gb SATA II (16Mb Cache) HDD
BENQ SATA DVD RW
Silverstone SG01 SFF Case - Black
EZ Cool 500W PSU (*20+4 pin connector *2 SATA *6 x 4-pin Molex *2 FDD *8 pin 12V connector *No PCI-E connector *500W *120mm fan for quiet operation)

Also, the product team at Microsoft have agreed to throw in a copy of Vista Ultimate and Windows Home server with these machines (thanks guys!).

At the end of the road trip we will do a prize draw for two of these machines from the evaluation forms we collect. We will then check to make sure the form is matched to a registration, and then contact the winners via email. Judges decisions will be final, etc, and the prize will be drawn by either Chris or Jeremy (i.e. by the .Net User Group).

Full details of where and when we will be coming to a town near you is contained in my previous post. Don't forget to register here.

*UPDATE* - note that there is no keyboard, monitor or mouse included with this.