Paul Ballard's Weblog

Posts Tagged ‘Community News’

I attended a TechNet event today called “Technologies to Change Your Business:  How Customers Are Implementing Tomorrow’s Strategies Today”.  It was primarily geared around Microsoft’s virtualization stories and SQL Server 2008, but I attended to see if Steve Ballmer was going to drop any news about Microsoft’s Cloud Services.  After his keynote, there was a question and answer session where a question was asked that led to the presenter talking about Apple’s “cult like following” for its products such as iPhone.  This was Steve Ballmer’s reply:

Currently 97% of people run our software.  I don’t know if that qualifies as a cult but we’re pretty happy with our numbers.

Well said sir, well said.

First published on my new blog at www.sleepdeprivedmind.com.

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!

I’m very happy to announce that our first pre-Beta release of the SharePoint Forms Based Authentication features that the Community Kit for SharePoint Internet/Extranet edition has been working on is available for download on CodePlex.  This solution builds on many of the things I created for the version on my website but adds significant improvents in management of users and roles.  This solution also gives administrators the ability to approve/deny membership before the user is added to the MembershipProvider database.  We still have more to do but we wanted to get this work out into the hands of the public so we can get any feedback you might have as early as possible.

I want to thank everybody who downloaded the source code for the project I created around Forms Based Authentication with SharePoint.  The work of the CKS:IEE team supercedes this project in terms of functionality and usability and so I won’t be offering any further support of the version I created myself.  Basically you’re better off using the CKS version as it will continue to grow in functionality and be more stable over time.

This was a group effort and so along with my relatively minor contribution you can thank Zac Smith, Edin Kapic, Brendon Schwartz, and Stacey Draper for making FBA easier and more useful in SharePoint.

In my prevous life as Editor for TheServerSide.NET, one of my favorite duties was to come up with ideas for .NET humor.  This took the form of several cartoons, "Top 10" lists, and one April Fool's news post that got MASSIVE linkage.  Unfortunately though, when a new humor item came out it tended to replace what was there and so prior cartoons where gone forever. 

But now TheServerSide.NET has re-released those cartoons and top 10 lists at http://www.theserverside.net/tt/cartoons/TalesFromTheServerSide.tss.  Here are the ones that I can personally take some amount of credit for.

1. Top 10 Things to be Thankful for in .NET
2. Web Services are Taking Over The World
3. The Joys of Test Driven Development 
4. Tragedy on the Information Superhighway 
5. SOAThe Only Tool You'll Ever Need
6. Unraveling the Mystery of the CTPs
7. High Anxiety
8. The Unusual SuspectsReformed
9. You Might Be A .NET Geek If…
10. Top 10 Names NOT Chosen For Windows Vista
11. MSDN Subscription PricingDecisions, Decisions
12. BizTalk Server 2006 Blasts Off… Sorta

 The actual cartoons were drawn by Chris Moujaes and the flash for the Top 10 Lists were created by webmaster extraordinaire Nuno Teixeira.

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!

Many of you may have seen the recent game of blog tag going on called "5 Things…".  I got tagged by David Walker from Tulsa and so here are some things about me that you probaby don't already know.

1. I was born in Xenia, OH.  Weather fans may remember this as the site of the worst tornado disaster in history.  More than 30 people died, over 1100 people were injured, and over 1000 homes were destroyed by an F5 tornado on April 3 of 1974.  My family however had moved from our home there to the suburbs of Tampa, FL only 2 months before.  The high school my brother attended, the stores my father had owned, and even our house were all flattened.  Talk about dodging a bullet!
2. Along with my various Microsoft certifications, I have a few other that are considerably more interesting.  For example, I have a US Sailing Keelboat certification for up to 44' yachts and have sailed 30'-40' yachts on the Chesapeake Bay, Tampa Bay, San Diego Bay, and Lake Michigan.  Now that I live in Texas, I don't get much of a chance to sail but I still love it and dream of sailing the Caribbean when I retire (or sooner).  I also have a PADI Open Water diver certification.  I haven't done a lot of diving though, but I do have a picture of me getting an underwater kiss face-mashing from a dolphin in Cozumel.
3. I am a graduate of numerous programs from Landmark Education, including the Landmark Forum.  For those of you who haven't heard of Landmark Education, they offer an amazing educational series that opens your eyes to new possibilities for your life.  My current career as a .NET nerd is a direct result of what I learned about myself in these programs. 
4. I met my current wife Susan in a chat room on Match.com.  She mistook me for somebody else she was talking to and started up a conversation.  I read her profile where she listed one of her favorite activities was sailing.  I immediately went back to the chat screen and typed "You like sailing?  Will you marry me?"  The rest as they say, is history.
5. While I travel extensively for conferences and work, I don't like to fly.  What this means is that I have traveled on every major route that Amtrak has, from Boston to Seattle and everywhere in between.  In June of last year, I put 3500 miles on my car in less than seven days.  I live in Dallas and can be in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Orlando, Chicago, and even as far as Seattle and New York in a weekend.  I will admit, I have been known to exceed the highway speed limit. 

So that's it for me.  I'll tag some others when I have more time to investigate who has and has not already gotten bit.

While I was editor for TheServerSide.NET, one of the more fun things I got to do was to write up humorous (hopefully) articles and cartoons.  I've been missing that lately so I've decided to cut loose here in blogland.  So here now are my predictions for 2007.  Read and be amazed. 

This is a Feature?
The new data visualization features in Excel 2007 will enable household budgets all over the country to highlight in vivid gradients and cute little icons that the amount of money we're paying for online services like NetFlix, iTunes, etc. is quickly surpassing the amount of our mortgage payment.

AJAX 2.0
Following in the footsteps of Google Suggest (a website for people who know they want to search for something but are so stupid they need suggestions about what), Google Corporation releases GoogleDrive.com, a web site that will download a small executable and run it inside any browser to show you how much disk space you have available.  This new site, while as completely useless as GoogleSuggest will usher in a new rush to develop executables that can be embedded into the browser thereby further enhancing the Web 2.0 user experience.  Not wanting to be left behind, Microsoft will re-release ActiveX under a new name and software development everywhere will take another giant step backwards.

iAngst
Looking to tap into the mental pysche of today's youth, Microsoft releases a Zune that wirelessly seeks out other Zunes and removes any songs that don't involve whining about parents, unprotected sex with "da biotches", and those not using the word "delicious" at least once.  Sadly, this Zune won't work with Vista either.

Sure it's easier, but I miss Clippy
Power Office users, unhappy with the new Ribbon interface, create a complex petition document asking Microsoft to remove the Ribbon.  Ironically, the document includes 3-dimensional smart art, XML data visualizations, and SharePoint sychronization and takes only 20 minues to create.

Now turn your head and cough
Digital Rights Management goes to new extremes as Media Center 12 is released requiring biometric DNA verification before it will play a single track from your 20 year old "Men at Work" CD.  Fortunately internet porn downloaders see the DNA requirement as a "non-issue".

Data, Data Everywhere…And Not A Stop To Think
As Language Integrated Query, and it's DLINQ and XLINQ cousins become a reality, the line between code and data blurs into invisibility allowing Microsoft to acheive Ultimate Demoware Nirvana. Now developers can more easily inject both data and query logic directly to the user interface of any .NET Application.  VB.NET is renamed Access.NET.

Just Add A Really Hot Cup of Tea
As Intel and AMD release quad core processors, creating multithreaded applications finally goes mainstream.  Later in the year, an enterprise developer for a Fortune 1000 company, working on a quad core system with 4 Gigs of RAM and a physics coprocessor inadvertantly develops a cold fusion reactor while trying to write a VB.NET application using the BackgroundWorker component.

Express This!
Microsoft's attempts to move into the more creative side of software development with it's Expression line of applications backfires badly when loyal developers who were previously responsible for building attractive large scale web and Windows based applications refuse to purchase any Expression SKU, instead demanding that the products be included in their @$#%((@$$# MSDN subscription like all of the other Microsoft development tools.  Microsoft does however sell a half a dozen copies to some former Mac owners whose spouse forced them to buy a PC this time so they could use Office 2007.

I'm a PC Bitch!
Apple continues it's "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" line of commercials causing Microsoft to eventually retaliate with its own version.  In Microsoft's version, the smarmy Mac guy receives a vicious beat down by a stronger, better looking, more secure PC running Windows Vista!  Mac sales plummet back to the basement where they belong.

 So?  What do you see in our collective future?

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!