What's Rockin' in Singapore

Good news for all - Ray Ozzie will be joining Scott Guthrie on stage as the MIX keynote speaker.

http://www.visitmix.com/blogs/News/423/

More details about MIX: http://www.visitmix.com/ (check out the Scott Guthrie video)

MIX UX, a three-day user experience track that debuts at MIX08, is dedicated to exploring and evolving the practice of user experience. Through unique content delivered by user experience thought-leaders, MIX UX broadens the content choices for designers and creative professionals to include broad and relevant UX topics that are not specifically related to Microsoft products and services.

Each day MIX UX will focus on a particular theme, the sum of which exposes the essence of MIX UX: Discovery, Exploration and Inspiration. It is no coincidence that these qualities are also at the core of designing great products and software.

Discover: A broad look at UX through the visionary minds of Lou Carbone, Dave Armano, and Dan Roam
Explore: An in-depth, practical workshop on user experience in the real world lead by Adaptive Path
Inspire: Microsoft’s new perspective on UX viewed through the eyes of Office and other products.

Find out more here: http://visitmix.com/2008/mixux.aspx

I thought this was an interesting read.  BillG has pledged USD$306million in grants to develop farming in poor countries.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/01/25/davos.main/index.html

"If we are serious about ending extreme hunger and poverty around the world, we must be serious about transforming agriculture for small farmers, most of whom are women," Gates said.

Save the date on 2.22.2008 for this quarter's Partner Tech Day. The worldwide web is fast becoming the "wild wide web" so we'll be spending one whole day talking to you guys about the upcoming technologies Microsoft has that will help you tame it. Here's the agenda:

• Microsoft's Web Platform Strategy
• Silverlight 2.0: Enabling Rich Internet Applications
• ASP.NET 3.5: AJAX out of the Box -- But wait, there's more!
• Microsoft Sync Framework: Data Everywhere, In Sync
• IIS7: What's in it for the developers?

Tune in for more details on how to register!

In case you're interested in test-driving various aspects of VS Team System, a VPC is made available here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c7a809d8-8c9f-439f-8147-948bc6957812&displaylang=en

Additional details on a more reliable and faster download experience available here: http://blogs.msdn.com/briankel/archive/2007/09/06/a-more-reliable-and-faster-download-experience-for-rosario-vs08-vpc-s.aspx