Pooya's place (in the Gulf) : events

Web 2.0 talk at TechTalk

pooyad — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 17:18:00 GMT

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 Tikrity

Unfortunately I had to do my session in 45 minutes as we were running late, but as promised the slides are here for your review. I tried to look at Web 2.0 from a holisitc view, starting with Web 2.0 in the enterprise and then discussing the more well known web facing side for both user experience (AJAX, Silverlight) and the infrastructure (RSS, Live Services, ...)

This will be an ongoing series where you'll have a chance to connect with me and my colleagues from the Developer and Platform group as well as the Consultants who give their real life implementation experience. If you'd like to attend, let me know as these are by invitation events.

Web 2.0 Tech Talk

View more presentations or upload your own. (tags: web 2.0)

Gulf Developers: Profile yourself to receive event invites and news from Microsoft Gulf

pooyad — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 15:30:00 GMT

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 us know what you're interested in.

Go to the Microsoft Profile Center
Sign in with your LiveID
Update "My Personal Information" to make sure that your country is one of the Gulf countries: UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Yemen
Update "My Business Information" to make sure that the "primary role" is correct, select "Developer, Solutions Architect, ..." whatever matches

That's it. You can also manage all of your subscriptions to the TechNet Flash and local Gulf DPE Newsletter from the Subscritption center as well.

I've posted a quick video that walks you through this. Sorry about the audio, I'll try to update it with better sound if I have a chance.

Full Size Video - Developers: Profile yourself for Microsoft Middle East events and news

SOA Day at Microsoft Dubai

pooyad — Thu, 08 May 2008 19:12:00 GMT

I hosted severl of our customers for an "SOA Day" at Microsoft Dubai today. It was an interesting discussion focused around SOA that also touched on specific areas where Microsoft has great technology enablers of SOA, Biztalk, WCF, ... . I'm posting the session slides here for the attendees and anyone who missed today's session. I'll be doing more of these around the region, if you're interested in attending, drop a comment on the blog or send me an email and I will add you to the invite list.

I held 3 sessions:

1. What is SOA, Why SOA - What is it and why are people interested, what is the value

2. Real World SOA - Microsoft's approach to SOA, not top down and not bottom up, but a hybrid model

3. How do you get there - Methodologies and Tools that can help you start on the road to SOA

Java and .NET interoperability session at Egypt Java Developers Conference

pooyad — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 18:49:00 GMT

I had the pleasure of speaking at the 2nd annual Java Developers Conference being held in Cairo (where Microsoft was a gold sponsor) by the Egyptian Java User group. The session was about interoperability, specifically interoperability at the application layer between Java and .NET and the many ways you can achieve interop, but really the one that stands out is web services. Most of my work is done around SOA these days and usually we talk about reusability, but it's also about platform and language indepent implementations that are interoperable, all because of webservices and XML.

This session for about 600 Java developers also gave me the chance to change some perceptions of Microsoft and show off some of our cool new technologies where I focused mainly on the web. After just coming back from MIX, there was no shortage of demos and I only wish I had more time in the session.

The audience was great and asked some good questions, they were very interested but as happens with people who are not in the "Microsoft world" they were'nt aware of many of the new aspects of .NET and the path that Microsoft is on with our work in open source.

Update: In a timely manner, Kirk Allen Evans posts on Java and .NET interoperability from a slightly different angel, pointing out fast infoset and the .NET and Biztalk implementations for JMS. Incidentally, Kirk's blog was the first place I learned what an Architect Evangelist does at Microsoft even before joining the company myself.

MIX08 Steve Ballmer keynote - web developers, web developers, web developers

pooyad — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 00:50:00 GMT

I somehow got a front row seat for the Steve Ballmer keynote; blogging from here right now :)

A funny and interesting keynote session, you have to see it to fully get the title. The audience questions are, as expected, mainly around the proposed Yahoo acquisition but also covered almost every aspect of Microsoft; it's good to see Steve having a great overview of every area we are in (and there are many).

As entertainment before the keynote we got to see Vince Mira, the "15 year old Johnny Cash", what an amazing voice for a 15 year old.

Update: Here is the excerpt from the keynote that spawned the title (Take a look at Jon Udell's post on how to link to excerpts in video streams or create an excerpt with this nifty online tool)

Day 1 at MIX

pooyad — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 22:25:00 GMT

After a long long journey from Dubai, I finally arrived in Las Vegas for the first day of MIX08. A very exciting day for me to see Microsoft make some big announcements around the future of our technologies on the web. Check out the official MIX blog recap of the keynote announcements, for me the Beta of Silverlight 2.0 is the biggest thing. I've been playing around with it for a little while and it's amazing, take a look at ScottGu's 8 part post on Silverlight 2.0, it'll make the power very clear, Silvelight 2.0 = .NET in the browser.

There were some very impressive demos shown in the keynote, the AOL mail client shows how far web applications have come. For another fun one, check out the Hard Rock Memorabilia demo, if you like your iPhone zooming (by the way is it just me or does every attendee at MIX have an iPhone or what?) you'll like this demo.

For anyone who couldn't make it to MIX, you can catch the recording of the sessions here: http://sessions.visitmix.com/

Kuwait Community Open Day on Feb 16th

pooyad — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 16:15:00 GMT

For those in Kuwait, mark your calendars for Saturday Februrary 16th. DotNetBoom and Pro Rangers will be hosting a Community Open Day covering the latest Microsoft technologies. Amr El Garhy and Anton will be there for sure with the communities, with Anton presenting a session on web testing; check out the full agenda. I will try my best to make it there as well. I'm very happy to see a full session on Popfly presented by Fadi, I still think this is the coolest product we make and I recently gave an interview about it to Gulf News.

So hopefully I'll see you there.

And don't forget you have a chance to win an Xbox 360 :)

Gulf eCommerce Forum talk

pooyad — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 01:38:00 GMT

I'll be presenting at the Gulf eCommerce Forum tomorrow in Bahrain. My session is on Connected Commerce, going beyond the traditional eCommerce and looking at multi-channel distribution, data analysis for real time marketing decisions and all of the new user experiences available for eCommerce interactions.

I've posted the presentation below as I only have 30 minutes to talk and there is way too much to cover. I get to briefly highlight Commerce Server 2007, which Anton keeps reminding me is one of our most under-heralded products.

MSDN Roadshow: Software + Services Presentation

pooyad — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 16:26:00 GMT

Some people have requested my presentation from the MSDN Roadshow on Software plus Services. Please find it below.

Resources:

http://www.codeplex.com/LitwareHR (Litware on Codeplex)

http://www.codeplex.com/LitwareHR/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=6113 (Litware Smart Client)

We will be publishing all the sldies from all the sessions in the Roadshow on the main event site once the roadshow is complete (stay tuned).

MSDN and TechNet Roadshow - Will be in kuwait in 2 days

pooyad — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 15:40:00 GMT

If you haven't signed up already, there's still time. My session is right after lunch on Software + Services.

There's a lot of travel coming up this week, Kuwait on the 14th, Oman on the 17th and Bahrain on the 19th. Hope to see you at one of the venues.

World party at teched emea (Wed Nov 7th)

pooyad — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 16:39:16 GMT

Please join me and Anton along with the other attendees from TechEd Barcelona at the World Party on Wednesday November 7th. If you are going to TechEd, please drop me a note and we can connect. I'll be working at the "Ask the Experts" area most of the time when not sneaking out to attend sessions.

World Party: https://www.mseventseurope.com/teched/07/Developers/news/Pages/World%20Party.aspx

VENUE: Salon Postale

TIME OF DINNER: 18:45 - 20:30

Official MSDN Roadshow invite .... See you there

pooyad — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 14:52:00 GMT

The TechNet and MSDN Roadshow proudly presents the “Gaining Insight Tour 2007”.

This tour, coming to Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman, is packed with live demonstrations and technical content on upcoming and much anticipated solutions from Microsoft.

Get a sneak peek into technologies that include Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008, .Net, Silverlight, Virtualization and more. You will also be among the first to see us unveil the new Unified Communications technologies from Microsoft – a solution that will revolutionize the way people communicate and collaborate in the workplace.

If you’re an IT Professional or a Developer looking to gain insight and an edge over others, then you’ve got no excuse to miss out on this event! You may even walk away as the lucky winner of the new X-box 360 Elite! Register Now.

Where and when

Kuwait City Movenpick Nov 14^th

Muscat Shangri La Nov 17^th

Manama Sheraton Nov 19^th

Doha Intercon Dec 9^th

Register to attend this year's MSDN Roadshow

pooyad — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 16:53:00 GMT

You can already sign up to attend this year's MSDN Roadshow.

See my last post for the dates and cities. make sure you choose your city and track (Developer vs. Technical) in the registration process, I almost missed it during my registration.

Look for the official invitation with the finalized agenda and schedule in your inbox in a few days. If you're not already on the MSDN mailing list and receiving the local gulf MSDN newsletter, you can sign up here.

MSDN Roadshow time again

pooyad — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 15:04:00 GMT

It's time for another MSDN Roadshow. I had a great time last year presenting in all the countries and now have the opportunity to do it even better this year. Last year I presented on Service Oriented Architecture, this year I will be presenting on the concept of Software + Services. Should be a lot of fun; I'm looking forward to visiting all the countries and seeing everyone.

It will be a packed show with Anton delviering sessions on Visual Studio Team System, Amr showing everyone the amazing power of .NET 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008 plus sessions from the rest of the team. Look for some great updates on the 3 major products we're launching soon: Visual Studio 2008, Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server.

I'll put up the link to the official page once it's up but for now check the schedule below to see when we're coming to a city near you:

Nov 14th - Kuwait
Nov 17th - Oman
Nov 19th - Bahrain

Dec 9th - Qatar

There will also be a big 2 day event in Dubai on Dec 4th and 5th, more details to come on this later.

Geeks II: SOA presentation

pooyad — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 16:50:00 GMT

Geeks II was a great success and thanks to everyone who attended, the best part for us is to get to interact with the developer community in our region. You can see some of the coverage of the event already.

I've had some requests for the SOA presentation that I did at Geeks II last week, so I've posted it along with this entry. For those of you that attended the Architect Forum preceding Geeks II, you'll recognize the first part of the presentation on how to get started with SOA. The second part differed as I focused on the concrete steps a developer should take on how to actually implement the services since the audience was more developer than architect.

update: all presentations from Geeks II are now posted