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Wait, it’s not what you think.  This isn’t some “sour grapes” post where I bitch and complain about not getting awarded the MVP this year.  I’m not tossing Vista out the window for penguin software nor am I going to start abbreviating Microsoft with M$.  It was actually my choice.

Receiving the MVP award is a great honor, and one that has to be earned each year.  I was very proud of having received it for the past four years and appreciated Microsoft recognizing the support I gave the community.  But this past year I’ve been buried with work in my new job and just didn’t have the time to speak and write as much as I should have (as the lack of blog posts here shows).  So this year I didn’t ask to be renewed, preferring instead to step down and make room for some other more deserving folks like Rob Marshall and Chris Hay.

I want to thank my US MVP Lead Ed Hickey for supporting me all those years as well as Akim Boukhelif for supporting me on this side of the big pond.  Best of luck to all of the new MVPs and maybe when my work life settles down I’ll once again be worthy of the MVP title.

Well, the MVP Summit started today and I’m starting to see both blogs and pictures come out.  Sadly, this is the first one since becoming an MVP that I’ve missed.  The distance and expenses of getting to Redmond from London were just too much for me to overcome, to say nothing of the piles of work to do here at BT.  But even though I’ll miss the festivities I’m sure my MVP brethren and sistren (is that a word?) will have a great time and hopefully know that I’ll miss seeing them this year.

I am once again honored to announce that I have received a Microsoft MVP (Visual DeveloperVisual Basic) award for 2008.  Much thanks to Akim and Vicki my new MVP Leads here in the UK.

As I look back to when I made a similar announcement last year I would never have imagined the events that have lead me to where I am today.  My wife and I started 2007 on the losing end of a bitter and expensive custody battle for two children who we felt needed our help.  At the end of March, I wrapped up one of a seemingly endless stream of consulting projects, this one having me travel full-time during the week to Houston while still living in Dallas.  After fifteen years of being an independent consultant, I was ready for something new.  It was just about that time when a friend sent an email that his company was looking for people in London and New York.  I half jokingly asked my wife if she’d want to move to London, to which she fatefully said “Sure, why not”.  That one statement would lead to the end of my consulting practice and me taking a full-time job for a firm who moved my wife and me to London.

Things didn’t go well at first, the adjustment to living in London was a lot harder than I expected and things went bad quickly with the new job.  But things are much better now.  I have a new job that might be one of the most challenging positions I’ve ever had.  We finally found a place to live and managed to get moved in after more than three months of living out of suitcases.  I still miss my family and friends and also my dogs Maggie and Libby.  But since coming to Europe, I’ve been to Spain twice, I’ve driven across the whole of France, and visited Paris twice.

Looking forward to 2008 it’s tough to say what the year will have in store.  My new job is going to have me hopping, but I do have plans for getting more involved with the local developer communities.  I am looking forward to adding Italy, Greece, and maybe Prague or St. Petersburg to my list of adventures.  And I am looking forward to a trip home to see family and friends as well as my fellow MVPs at the MVP Summit in April.  All in all, I think its going to be a very good year.

An observant reader looking at my blog directly and not in their favorite feed reader may have noticed that several months ago the image at the top changed from the skyline of Chicago to that of London.  That’s because in July my wife and I threw all expectations of decent customer service to the wind and relocated to scenic London England.

A side benefit of this move is that for the first time ever I’ll be attending Tech-Ed Europe in Barcelona, Spain.  As with Tech-Ed 2007 in Orlando, I’ll be working at the “Ask The Experts” booth in the Learning Center.  So if you happen to be attending the conference next week stop by and quiz me on Visual Studio 2008, or maybe just teach me to swear in the language of your country!

Going to Tech-Ed ’07?  I’ll be there.  You can find me in the Technical Learning Center (Blue Section) Monday through Thursday showing off Smart Client development in Visual Studio 2005 and “Orcas”.  Stop by and say Hello!

While Windows Vista and Office 2007 are generally available to the public now, Microsoft is hosting launch events all of the USA over the next month.  But last week several MVPs got the opportunity to visit local retailers and give demos and offer advice on Windows and Vista to customers at major retail outlets like Best Buy, Circuit City, Fry’s Electronics, etc.  I volunteered to work at Best Buy #167 in The Woodlands, TX (Just north of Houston).  They had some nice Vista end cap displays including an early look at the new HP TouchSmartPC which drew a lot of attention.  While traffic was light the evenings I worked (the weather in Houston has sucked lately) I am happy to say that I was able to show off Office 2007 to several customers who then decided to buy it.

In addition to those events, I’ll also be working the “Official” launch events in Houston on February 13th, Dallas on February 21st, and Austin on March 1st.  I’ll be in the “Ask the Experts” section, so if you are planning to attend stop by and say hello!

I am honored to say that I have received the Microsoft MVP (Visual DeveloperVisual Basic) award for 2007.  I want to thank Ed Hickey, my MVP lead, for once again considering my efforts in the community worthy of recognition. 

This time last year I mentioned that I had lots of community projects planned.  Some have come to fruition, such as speaking at Tech-Ed and other conferences last year.  A few haven't, or at least not yet.  Such is the life of the working consultant I guess.  But just like last year, I do have some things planned and look forward to another great year.

If you are planning to attend VSLive in Dallas, stop by the Rochester Consulting booth for a chance to win a fully licensed copy of Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite Edition with a 1 year Premium subscription.  That's a $10,000+ prize for some lucky developer.  And don't forget to check out my presentations on Office 2007 for Developers and Mutlithreading in Smart Client apps!  See you there!

It's been a pretty busy year for me in regards to speaking engagements.  I just wrapped up a whirlwind tour speaking at back to back user group conferences, DevLink '06 in Nashville and the Tulsa TechFest in… well… Tulsa.  Unfortunately for me I didn't think to check a globe before agreeing to the two conferences and so I had to break the land speed record getting from Nashville on Friday in time to speak in Tulsa on Saturday.  But all went well, and everybody had a great time. 

 Next up for me is VSLive Dallas on November 14th-17th.  I'm giving these two sessions:

What’s New for Developers in Office 2007 Intermediate
Paul Ballard, Rochester Consulting Partnership, Inc.
2 p.m.
Office 2007 is just around the corner and includes major improvements for writing applications based on the Microsoft Office System. In this talk you'll see how to use and extend the new UI features in Office such as the Ribbon UI, custom task panes, and document information panels. We'll also look under the covers at the new XML document formats and how they can be used to power your application development.

Threading in Windows Forms Intermediate
Paul Ballard, Rochester Consulting Partnership, Inc.
4:30 p.m.
Windows Forms programming poses some unique threading hurdles. Many of those have been overcome in .NET 2.0 with the introduction of the BackgroundWorker component. In this session we’ll look at how to use the BGW to keep your user interface responsive as well as other threading tricks to ensure that your applications make the most of today’s powerful processors.

 Rochester Consulting Partnership, Inc. will also have a booth in the exhibitor space so stop by and say hello if you can. 

For the past four years I’ve enjoyed going to Tech-Ed, Microsoft’s premiere technical education conference.  This might have something to do with the first one I attended combining the fun and craziness of New Orleans with meeting people who would truly become some of my very best friends.  This year however I’m not simply going to be wandering its halls looking for the next Don Box talk.  This year, I’ve gotten involved up to my neck, and so next week is going to be a VERY busy week for me.  Here are a few places you’ll be able to find me.

Tuesday, June 13 5:00pmLounge Area C - “Advanced Outlook Customizations”
I’m giving a very brief demo of how to dig into the guts of Outlook 2003 using Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Microsoft Office to perform more advanced customizations such as creating your own folder home pages, combining standard Outlook views with custom WinForms controls, and how to modify the display of items in an inspector.  If you want to get a quick but deep look into the heart of Outlook 2003, this is the chalk talk to catch!

Thursday, June 15 1:00pm153ABC - “OFC331Creating and Using Outlook Add-Ins in Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Microsoft Office”
Outlook is about more than email. Locked in that single program is the “who”, “when”, and “where” that drives your business. In this session, learn to leverage that information and add the “what” and “why” by building custom add-ins for Outlook using Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office that combine existing information such as contacts and appointments with enterprise data to turn Outlook into a powerful data portal.

Friday, June 16 9:00amBlue Technology Center“Click Once Deep Dive”
This chalk-talk will be a detailed look into the architecture of how Click Once deployment works.  We’ll look at the files and directories created on the web server and how the client machine uses these files to install and update an appliation deployed over the internet.  We’ll also look at changes made to the client machine for both online and offline installations.

Friday, June 16 12:00pm“BOF: Can AJAX/Atlas Do This? Comparing AJAX and Smart Client User Interfaces”
This session is a discussion of the differences between the features available with AJAX/Atlas and those available to Smart Client applications.  This is a Birds-of-a-Feather session setup by INETA and is meant as an open discussion of the topic.  Everyone is welcome no matter which side of the Ethernet cable you prefer to develop applications for.