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Sean McBreen's WebLog

Structured (and more likely) unstructured thoughts on software development and the New Zealand software market.

Its a Road Trip Audio Summary of .NET/VS2005 and SQL2005

The UK DPE team have done another great thing with the release of their ‘Road Trip’ content. It’s a...

Author: smcbreen Date: 07/08/2005

NZ VSTS Developer Competition - $100K in prizes

We are giving away lots of software to people who enter our VSTS competition – around $100K of it in...

Author: smcbreen Date: 06/09/2005

First Major Corporate Account - Gen-i send 150 to NZ TechEd

Gen-i have committed to sending 120 attendees to TechEd this year. There is a brief article in...

Author: smcbreen Date: 06/08/2005

NZ .NET User Group Videos

I love this – the guys over at our community site www.dot.net.nz have started to host the video’s...

Author: smcbreen Date: 05/30/2005

VSTS Webcasts

These are probably already all over the net but well worth watching if you are interested in VSTS....

Author: smcbreen Date: 05/28/2005

Is Visual Studio Team System for Me?

I’ve been asked this many times over the last few weeks and I though I would put a little flesh...

Author: smcbreen Date: 05/25/2005

Class Designer Updates

There are some cool updates to the class designer in Beta2. Auto layout of elements:...

Author: smcbreen Date: 05/20/2005

The Team Grows – Wellington Based IT Professional Evangelist – Nathan Mercer

Nathan Mercer has joint my team as the IT Professional Evangelist (I’m sure he will call himself...

Author: smcbreen Date: 05/14/2005

The Team Grows – Wellington Based Developer Evangelist – Darryl Burling

Just to show we are gearing up for Longhorn and other exciting technologies coming out soon (watch...

Author: smcbreen Date: 05/14/2005

Getting Started - ASP .NET 2.0 Quickstarts

I was asked the other day where I would look for sample code for ASP .NET 2.0. The obvious answer is...

Author: smcbreen Date: 05/14/2005

Get VSTS, VS2005 and SQL 2005 Beta on DVD

Simple – go here: https://www.microsoft.com/nz/evaluate/products/vs2005.aspx Fill in the form and we...

Author: smcbreen Date: 05/11/2005

TechEd NZ Earlybird Registration goes Live

Go get your earlybird… click here. Let me start by saying that TechEd US sold out 9 weeks before...

Author: smcbreen Date: 05/06/2005

I’m back – well sort of

Sorry for the lack of posting over the last few weeks – I’ve been flat out but also on holiday. I’m...

Author: smcbreen Date: 05/06/2005

Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 – How to get it in NZ

The great thing about Beta 2 is that we allow customers to go live using it – a great local example...

Author: smcbreen Date: 04/18/2005

VS 2005 Product Line-up :: A Picture Says 1,000 Words

We are getting a lot of questions on the Visual Studio 2005 product line-up and I though I would...

Author: smcbreen Date: 04/05/2005

The Register on Windows 2003 SP1 - Get it...

So we have released Windows 2003 SP1 and if you have a server running Windows 2003 then you should...

Author: smcbreen Date: 04/04/2005

Lukas, Connect, HDD Failure and VS2005/VSTS

I’ve been out of contact for a few days (estimation will continue soon) and there are a few items I...

Author: smcbreen Date: 03/31/2005

Clinic 2806: Microsoft Security Guidance Training for Developers

Michael Howard used to work for MSNZ and he has a good post on his Blog about some new security...

Author: smcbreen Date: 03/29/2005

Nigel Parker Joins Team

Nigel Parker has joint my team (Developer and Platform Strategy) as the Auckland based Developer...

Author: smcbreen Date: 03/29/2005

Estimation: Historical evidence of the teams performance

So what if the individual doing the estimate is a star and thinks everyone else is as well – they...

Author: smcbreen Date: 03/21/2005

Estimation: Experience of the person doing the estimate

This is the single most important factor – but also the hardest bit to gain. It’s a classic Catch...

Author: smcbreen Date: 03/20/2005

Software Estimation – Getting it right

Software estimation is hard – and it’s not likely to change in complexity overnight. I’ve seen a...

Author: smcbreen Date: 03/18/2005

Effective Application Delivery - It's easy

At the highest level I feel that delivering applications that are maintainable, reflect user needs...

Author: smcbreen Date: 03/18/2005

FREE - Technical Training – MS Connect Registration Open

The registration tool for our Microsoft Connect event is now live. See this post for details on the...

Author: smcbreen Date: 03/15/2005

Developer and IT Pro Content overview for MS Connection (April) event

We’re almost ready to start registration for this event and I thought I might give some early...

Author: smcbreen Date: 03/01/2005

More on MapPoint Web Service

Over the last week I’ve had a couple of additional enquiries on the MapPoint Web Service. This is a...

Author: smcbreen Date: 03/01/2005

Demo: Visual Studio Web Developer

Once again about 15 minutes to do a demo. ASP .NET 2.0 is such a great product that showing it off...

Author: smcbreen Date: 02/25/2005

Demo: SQL Server Reporting Services – If you work with SQL you need to use this.

So many people don’t seam to be aware of the great [SQL Server Reporting Services] functionality...

Author: smcbreen Date: 02/24/2005

Artificial Eyes on the way - 2010

I'm not a big one for just linking to articles but over on the Register there is an interesting...

Author: smcbreen Date: 02/24/2005

Demo: Visual Studio 2005 IDE

So given that I had about 15 minutes I tried to touch on a number of areas. Point I wanted to make...

Author: smcbreen Date: 02/23/2005

Object Relational Mapping Tools for .NET

With ObjectSpaces being delayed I still get many customers asking about where to get ORM tools for...

Author: smcbreen Date: 02/23/2005

NZ MapPoint WebService – goes LIVE

New Zealand is now included in the MapPoint WebService – with 100% map coverage. More on the...

Author: smcbreen Date: 02/19/2005

Virtual PC – get it, it rocks!

I simply could not even start to get ready for the demo’s on Monday without the help of Virtual PC...

Author: smcbreen Date: 02/19/2005

Can I make the products work?

On Monday I’m doing a set of presentations (across two hours) to a customer on several of our...

Author: smcbreen Date: 02/19/2005

Hey Sean where’d you go?

It’s been a busy past few weeks. I was in Australia at the start of the week for a Microsoft ANZ...

Author: smcbreen Date: 02/19/2005

Starting with .NET: What about beginners – Starting off

If you like to learn though looking on-line at web-sites then I would suggest these as a few great...

Author: smcbreen Date: 02/11/2005

Just starting out with .NET – ‘What about beginners’

A customer sent me this mail recently: Hey Sean It's great getting the MSDN Flash every couple of...

Author: smcbreen Date: 02/10/2005

Want to be work at Microsoft NZ’s – I’m hiring

I though I might follow my Australian college’s lead and advertise here in my blog… Within the...

Author: smcbreen Date: 02/09/2005

The Age of Spiritual Machines

I’ve just finished reading the bulk of Ray Kurzwell’s book and it’s been pretty interesting. The...

Author: smcbreen Date: 02/08/2005

Software that’s Free… And helps you learn

I've been asked recently about where to find some good sample apps. Their are a whole host of great...

Author: smcbreen Date: 02/07/2005

Our next major NZ Technical Event – Save the dates

We are in the final stages of planning our next NZ technical event covering content for Architect,...

Author: smcbreen Date: 02/04/2005

So what was it that the Developer and Platform Strategy team did again?

Simply put the team is interested in three core things: Helping customers to adopt our technology...

Author: smcbreen Date: 02/03/2005

MSDN Flash

I've just finished the MSDN Flash that will be sent out to (4,500+) developers in NZ today. Covered...

Author: smcbreen Date: 02/03/2005

Who am I/what do I do?

I work for Microsoft New Zealand as the Developer and Platform Evangelism lead. I also have a cross...

Author: smcbreen Date: 02/03/2005

The first post...

Well I’ve toyed with the idea of starting a blog for some time now. A couple of people in my team...

Author: smcbreen Date: 02/03/2005

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