Hey there readers, I am heading over to Zambia tomorrow. 

If all goes well, I'll arrive in Lusaka on Saturday morning (Africa time).  This will be my second trip.  While there I will be providing technical training to the local developer team for the SmartCare electronic medical records project.  This is what I do on my vacation.  I also work with a world-wide team of technical volunteers throughout the year providing remote support.

I'll blog as time allows, but I do expect to be busy working with the team as there's much to be done. I'll be back in the US at the end of the month.

SmartCare - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Do you like code puzzles?  Did you know we were throwing out challenges around PDC?  To read how a 15-year old from Hungary solved this week, just check out the blog link below.  Congrats and geek-cred to Niner 'palotasb (Boldizsar)'

Solving Microsoft PDC Hard Hat Challange #4 [updated] at PalotásB. blogja

With all of the work I've been doing to create re-usable DigiGirlz curriculum, I've discovered that we (Microsoft) have a wealth of resources for 'not-yet-programmers' - and most are free.  Because I didn't even know about all of this stuff and I am a developer and a Microsoft employee, I thought it would be fun to help bring the wealth of this information and tools to my SoCal community.  To that end, I am thinking about trying to partner with the local developer user groups to co-host a series of 'Teach-Your-Kid-To-Code' events in SoCal during the holiday months of December and January. 

I am really just kicking around the idea now - there are lots of logistics questions to be sorted out.  I am thinking that the target ages of the kids is from about 8 to 15 years old.

I am inspired by these products and technologies and am looking to include some or all of them in these events:

1) PopFly - it's free, fun - allows creation of HTML pages, Mashups AND Games.  It also has it's own little social network.  Oh, and you can 'mash-out' your mashups to webpages, facebook, etc....Plus there's an awesome wiki, that includes, among other things a very well-written curriculum guide for free.  Don't care for reading?  Well, then you can watch brief screencasts to get you started.

Think this is too simple?  Just check out the Mashup block advanced view - javascript with Intellisense goodness.  Oh, and did I mention that this is FREE and runs in a browser? If you are like me, you'll find that YOU like to play with this as much as your kids do!

2) Next up - all of our free Express developer tools- i.e. Visual C# Express, Visual Web Designer Express and SQL Server 2008 Express and more.  I blogged about them last week.  We've also got code samples and exercises to get started with at 'C Sharp for Sharp Kids' and 'VB for Very Bright Kids'

3) Of course, if you are a regular reader of my blog, then you'll also know about my interest in and work with StoryTelling Alice.  This is a visual programming environment, not developed my Microsoft, rather by a team at Carnegie Mellon.  The effort for this version was led by Caitlin Kelleher and it was her thesis work around creating programming environments that are specific to the interests of middle- and high-school-aged girls.  StoryTelling Alice is free and you get it here.  You can enhance the StoryTelling Alice experience by downloading additional free characters and backgrounds here.

4) Another popular area has been working with Windows Live Services.  In particular kids have been quite interested in working with Live Spaces - blogging, adding gadgets or mashups, etc...Our suite of products is really growing here and I find myself 'discovering' useful tools nearly every month.  Lately, I've become a huge fan of SkyDrive.  Just so easy to use.

Anyway, for this effort, I am thinking that I'll hold a series of 'train-the-trainer' events in late November and early December for .NET developers who'd like to be teachers at these events.  And then I hope to partner with local developer user groups and technical training centers to support as many events as possible over the holiday season. 

What do YOU think?  Is this a crazy idea?  Do you like it?  How can I make it better?  Would you like to work with me on it?  Let me know! 

Today's smile

Try it out - I think you'll like what you see.

Oh, I love this so much - here's a sample result, using the Adventure Works sample data and the Analyze Key Influencers for the Purchased Bike attribute.  Note that I've applied a filter to the displayed result set.

http://www.sqlserverdatamining.com/cloud/

I am interested in the Express version of our developer products for a couple of reasons:

1. These products provide a gateway to Microsoft developer technologies for free

2. SmartCare (the project that I personally volunteer for in Zambia) uses SQLExpress

3. These products are really lightweight and will install and run on older and/or more lightweight developer machines

To that end I spent a couple of hours last night installing the following:

1. SQL Server 2008 Express with Advanced Services - this includes SSMS light and SSRS (for local data)

2. Visual C# 2008 Express Edition with SP1

I thought you might save time by reading about my install experience, there are several dependencies and I had to re-boot several times.  I installed on a Sony Vaio TZ130N, dual core with 2 GB RAM.  The laptop runs Vista Business.  First you'll have to download a number of products.  The Microsoft download page describes the dependencies as well.  Here is the install order I followed:

1. Visual C# 2008 Express with SP1 

The development environment is surprisingly rich in this Express product.  I haven't done much production work with WPF and I am happy to see the support for WPF in this product.  It really feels like I am working in the full retail version of Visual Studio 2008 after I launch the WPF Application template and start to play around with it.

2. for SQL Server 2008 Express Advanced Services, you'll need the following (also I installed the sample database AdventureWorks LT from CodePlex)

a. .NET framework v 3.5 SP1 (only needed if an express edition of Visual Studio is NOT installed first)

b. Windows installer v 4.5

c. Windows Powershell

d. SQL2008.AdventureWorks LT DB v2008.zip

Of course, the 'real reason' I've installed all of this is to push SQL Server 2008 Express with Advanced Services to see what limits are included in the product.  I really like the 'slimmed-down' version of SQL Server Management Studio (called light).  Oh, what's this I see? Why it's Intellisense in the query writer!  Cool.  Oh, it's the little things that make me happy :)

Do you use any of our Express products?  Which ones?  Why?  How do you like them?  I'd be interested to know.

For some reason Gary just always makes me smile.  I had dinner with him once, he's really like this is person too, all the time.  His energy level is amazing.  That, if for no other reason, should be a good reason to drink more wine, right?

gary vaynerchuk » A new mission and why we are keeping the wrong score. - my 2 minute take on life

We have a great line-up for September (Live each Wednesday at noon PST to 1 pm) - check it out!  In case you missed it, we have a series page on MSDN, and a show on Channel 9 too :)

9/3/2008 12:00 PM - geekSpeak: REST and Windows Communication Foundation 3.5 with Adnan Masood

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032387085&Culture=en-US

9/10/2008 12:00 PM - geekSpeak: Dynamic Languages and the DLR with Mike Vincent

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032387088&Culture=en-US

9/17/2008 12:00 PM - geekSpeak: Virtual Earth Development with Tyler Davey

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032387125&Culture=en-US

9/24/2008 12:00 PM - geekSpeak: Virtualization for Developers with Stephen Rose

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032387139&Culture=en-US

My colleague, Microsoft Architect Evangelist, David Chou, recently authored a very well-written explanation of this topic for the The Architecture Journal. 

In particular I like his visual summary of authentication considerations.

Strong User Authentication on the Web

Finally, someone who understands my hair challenges :)

Books from Todd Parr

Buy an interesting book and help Katrina Survivors.  The author, Sarah Ford, works on the CodePlex team at Microsoft.
Read her blog to get the full story - link below.

Sara Ford's WebLog : Microsoft Visual Studio Tips Book Helps Hurricane Katrina Survivors Rebuild Lives

Check out this great new webcast series from my DE colleague from Arizona, Rob Bagby.

deCast - Consuming a HI-REST GET Service From Silverlight 2 (Beta 2) | RobBagby | Channel 9

Here's the deck from my presentation tonight to the SoCal .NET Architect's User Group 

BI in SQL Server 2008 for Architects

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 for making the list.

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

**Updated September 3, 2008** 

Here's a video from the event

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 , More pictures (thanks Cigdem!)

Day1: http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=36707&l=f72cc&id=715381297

Day2: http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=36865&l=bd4fa&id=715381297

Cigdem's cool applications (she wrote these just to show at camp!) - the links to the Silverlight applications we showed during Day-1:

California Mosaic: http://www.crocusgirl.com/californiaadventure/

Hangman: http://www.crocusgirl.com/hangRobot/

Picture Puzzle: http://www.crocusgirl.com/picturepuzzle/