Who's on 'the List'?  From www.nowpublic.com 

" This is our 3rd MostPublic Index, identifying the 20 most influential individuals in Los Angeles. The MostPublic Index is a detailed barometer of whose voices are most heard in the digital landscape as new channels—Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and the like—transform how media is created and spread. Previously, NowPublic identified and announced the 50 MostPublic influencers in New York, as well as those in Silicon Valley...Without further ado, NowPublic proudly presents the MostPublic individuals in Los Angeles:"

1. Jason Calacanis
2. Perez Hilton
3. Wil Wheaton
4. Micki Krimmel
5. Zadi Diaz
6. Dave Bullock
7. Erin Kotecki Vest
8. Zach Behrens
9. Felicia Day
10. Kent Nichols
11. Mark Frauenfelder
12. Alex Albrecht
13. Xeni Jardin
14. Neil Patel
15. Sean Bonner
16. Colleen Wainwright
17. Trent Vanegas
18. Christine Lu
19. Tara Settembre
20. Efren Toscano

Their collection metrics are most interesting (and well-detailed in their blog post around this entry).

Congratulations to TechZulu's Efren Toscano and also to .NET Developer Dave Bullock for making the list.

Most Public Index: Los Angeles | The News is NowPublic.com

We had a rocking good time hosting a bunch of SoCal DigiGirlz at the Microsoft Irvine, CA offices over the last two days.  There we held our first-ever technology camp around the two themes - hands-on experience with visual programming environments (like PopFly, MSRobotics and StoryTelling Alice); and technology career information (from women computer science majors, entrepreneurs [Alexandra from GirlGamer.com] and technology professionals).  Pictured below are just some of the people who made the camp happen - from left to right, Microsoft Developer Evangelist, USC graduate and MS Robotics expert, Lindsay Rutter; Logistics guru and volunteer coordinator, Brittanie Ngo; me; design professional, technical instructor and PopFly Game creator instructor, Gina Johnston; and freelance .NET developer, database instructor Kim Schmidt.  Not pictured is our favorite international developer, Cigdem Patlak, who, among many other things, got her former female developer colleagues in Instanbul and some of Microsoft's product team (from the Expression's team) in Redmond to send welcome pictures to our local DigiGirlz.  We made a little video about this, check it out at the bottom of this post.

We used a Windows Live Space to record information about our event and I will upload all of the classfiles (power point slides) to the associated SkyDrive, so you can grab those files if you'd like.  Here's the URL: http://digigirlz.spaces.live.com/

In addition to all the cool classes and information, we were so proud to be able to show the girls the brand new MS Surface that we just received into our Irvine office last week.  Thanks so much to our own Cindy Palmer for coming on the weekend before DigiGirlz to set up and test the MS Surface. Big thanks also to Microsoft's Woody Pewitt, who, as usual, just dropped by on Friday to help with some critical parts of the classroom set up and ended up staying all day to make sure it was all done correctly.

Also thanks to New Horizons Computer Learning Center of Anaheim for imaging and loaning us laptops for the event.

We were particularly excited to share a pilot program with our camp attendees.  For the first time ever, we extended our DreamSpark program beyond the college level.  All camp attendees were personally invited to participate in this program.  This is a pilot offered only in Southern California at this time.

Thanks also to the many, many volunteers from the Microsoft Southern California offices who did everything from make name badges, to act as hall monitors, to act as proctors in our hands-on-classes, and much more.  We had literally dozens of volunteers and together our team created a great experience for the girls who attended.

Check out more pictures from the event via the link below.  Also, our friends at TechZulu stopped by today and we'll post that video as soon as we can (we'll link it here).

Microsoft DigiGirlz 2008 - Irvine, CA - a set on Flickr

Aside from that, there are quite a few of us 'SQL-types' on Twitter.

Check out this list from 'StatisticsIO' (what a SQL-like nickname!), otherwise known as Jason Massie

 http://statisticsio.com/Home/tabid/36/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/217/Cool-SQL-People-that-I-Follow-on-Twitter.aspx

What are you reading these days?  Here's what I am 'up to':

I am really enjoying this book, for it's balance of theory and practical application.  Now, it does use Java for it's examples, although I generally code in C#, I find enough similarity between the two languages that the Java examples are still quite useful for me.

I do think we all need to start paying attention to this topic - to that end here are some links that you might find useful:

PLINQ webcast by Daniel Moth - http://www.microsoft.com/uk/msdn/nuggets/nugget/292/Parallel-LINQ-PLINQ.aspx

About PLINQ on MSDN Ch9 - http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/Going+Deep/Joe-Duffy-and-Igor-Ostrovsky-Parallel-LINQ-under-the-hood/

Anders and Joe Duffy on MSDN Ch9 - http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/Going+Deep/Programming-in-the-Age-of-Concurrency-Anders-Hejlsberg-and-Joe-Duffy-Concurrent-Programming-with/

Parallel Computing on MSDN - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/concurrency/default.aspx

Order this book - Amazon.com: The Art of Multiprocessor Programming: Maurice Herlihy, Nir Shavit: Books

If you are attending PDC08, there are already 4 announced sessions on parallel computing:

Check out this cool team blog for connected systems.  Among other useful bits of info, the team is sponsoring a WCF screencast series.  This is kind of like the popular ASP.NET 'How Do I?' 15-minute-or-less screencast series, in that it's quick, useful and straight-to-the-point.  In the first installment, Aaron Skonnard, from Pluralsight, takes you through the steps to create and test a basic WCF service from scratch.

The .NET Endpoint : Screencast - Creating your First WCF Service

This is what I'm reading this week.  VPL, CCR, Arbiter.Choice...I actually can't put this book down.  Where was this stuff when I was going to school?  The only question is which types of robots I'll soon be purchasing.

What are you reading?

Programming Microsoft® Robotics Studio

The Professional Developer's Conference (Oct 27-30, 2008) is already my favorite public, Microsoft technical event because of it's pure geekiness - I mean where else will you find sessions like "Parallel Programming for C++ Developers in the Next Version of Microsoft Visual Studio" or "Concurrency Runtime Deep Dive: How to Harvest Multicore Computing Resources" and get to hear presenters like Don (Box) and Anders (Hejlsberg)?  Oh and there's this new Open Space thing being run by ubergeek himself, Jason.

All this goodness in my town and now fun contests too.  Hey, why don't YOU enter one of these contests?

PDC2008 | Social | Contests

We running our first-ever DigiGirlz technology day camp at the Microsoft Irvine offices (map below) next Monday and Tuesday (August 18 and 19) from 9am to 5pm each day.

3 Irvine Plz, Irvine, CA 92614

The camp is completely free for REGISTERED girls form 12-17 years old.  At the camp we'll have hands-on-activities with the latest and greatest technologies, and career information for high-school-aged girls. We do have some last minute openings, so if you are (or know of) a girl who you think would like to attend here are the registration instructions:

NEW REGISTRANTS:

· Visit https://microsoft.crgevents.com/DigiGirlzCamp2008/Register/Login/RegCode.aspx

· Enter IRVINE into the registration code field.  NOTE: The camp has not reached capacity; this registration code will allow you to register!

· Be sure to complete each page and click the Continue button at the bottom of each page.  Click the Finish button at the bottom of the Summary page to complete the process.

· The DigiGirlz registration center will email you the required permission forms with instructions on sending them back.  You will not be fully approved to attend the camp until these forms are completed.

Really, I wouldn't lie about something like this...it's a good Karma thing!

Well, I don't watch TV, so I've got to have a vice or two, right?  What's your social network 'vice' these days anyway?

Are you watching?  It's all on Silverlight.

2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games | Free Online Videos, Olympic Event | NBC Olympics

My colleague, Zain, has a great blog post with links on the what/why/when/where/how of SQL Server 2008 - enjoy!.  And, yes, if you are wondering, I am spending day and night working on my SQL Server 2008 BI book these days.  The intent is get this thing draft complete by August 31.

Is This Thing On? : SQL Server 2008 RTM!!!! Yeah Baby!!!!!

Function composition is beautiful - thanks, Jason, for pointing me to this one.

Did it with .NET - YAPES: Problem Six

I've just returned from a trip to Seattle.  Many of you have asked, "What are you doing there?"  So, here you go....

The overall purpose of the trip was technical readiness.  To that end I (mostly) attended a MS-internal conference called TechReady.  Nearly all sessions are presented by the product group and are delivered at deep, technical level.  Many sessions focus on future technologies.  Of course, I LOVED this.  The entire conference is private.  So, no, I can not release any information.  However, I can tell you that you should PAY ATTENTION around the time of PDC (session list) .  Better yet, if you can attend PDC, you won't be sorry.  Here's more PDC Buzz.

In addition to TR, I had the good fortune to be invited to a session at the Microsoft Research Faculty Summit held in Redmond by MSR.  There I spoke with a panel, representing women academics in computing.  I was invited because I've been accepted to speak on my Africa (personal volunteer work for SmartCare - electronic medical records collection system) work at the Grace Hopper conference in October in Keystone, CO.  It was quite an honor to meet Telle Whitney there.  She is the CEO of the Anita Borg Institute and chairs the GHC.

I am wearing my iGive Microsoft limited-edition shirt in the picture with her.  Asli and I launched iGive for a couple of reasons:

1) We were tired of getting ugly, man-sized swag at each conference

2) We wanted a cool-looking shirt that showed how much we (Microsoft) cared.  To get the shirt you must donate to a selected charity that benefits women and kids.

To that end, she and I ran the third iteration of the iGive program at TR7.  The recipient charity was the MONA Foundation.  Because this group has both financial and infrastructure needs, we are distributing shirts for money or technical volunteering time (web programming, etc..).  If you wish to volunteer, pls ping me and I'll connect you to Jason Ward from the MS VS-team.  He is leading the technical volunteers for this project.

We have also gained approval for running iGive at GHC and PDC.  It was great to see how many men wanted shirts for their daughters!

While at the MSR Faculty summit, I met with a group from MSR that is taking a look at StoryTelling Alice.  As part of my work with Microsoft DigiGirlz, I have been asked to advise on a global curriculum repository for them.  I have been investigating various visual programming environments - StoryTelling Alice, PopFly, OpenSim for SecondLife, MS Robotics (RoboChamps) and more.  The group at MSR asked me to write a synopsis of my work and submit it for presentation at next year's MS Academic Days Conference (April 2009).  This conference is actually held on a cruise ship!

This month I am leading a group to implement the first-ever DigiGirlz camp (in SoCal) based on the visual programming theme.  On the plane home from Seattle, I bumped into one of the co-leads, Cindy Palmer, who had been in Seattle for MS-Surface training.  It is quite possible that the SoCal DigiGirlz will be the first to see the new surface for our Irvine, CA MTC!

Oh, and I won't be neglecting my SoCal Developers this month either.  I am scheduled to speak at 3 UGs this month.  LA.NET on Monday, Aug 4; OC SQL (new UG!) on Thursday, Aug 14; SoCal Architects on Thursday, Aug 21.  For a complete list of all SoCal UGs, see this link.

Also Glen and I will be resuming our weekly Channel9 / MSDN geekSpeak shows, starting Wednesday August 6th.

And, oh yeah, I've got a a book to finish too. :)

And, for extra credit, who took this picture?