Well I really do not know but my partners grandson ( Thomas ) is coming and he is 9 years old and already heavily into Computers and Software Development.

I suppose he is coming to my session but he may find the other session more interesting? who knows find out next Saturday.

p.s. Don't talk about Apple Computers with him - they rate quite low in his opinion.

Remember to register go to http://codecamp.net.nz

Well who better to start with but me!

Trimble, Christchurch

Chris has been an MVP since 1997 and covered both Front Page and IIS with the MVP status. He has been working as a DBA, .NET Developer (ASP.NET and Windows Forms), VB, Delphi and General IT worker for 10+ years. Chris works for Trimble Navigation in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Chris has a blog at http://blog.crowe.co.nz where you can find information on IIS and other technologies

Chris Auld

Intergen, Wellington

Chris Auld is Director, Strategy and Innovation at Intergen and  is one of only two Microsoft regional directors in New Zealand and is a Microsoft MVP (Mobile Application Development). Chris has co-authored several books on internet development technologies and is a regular speaker at industry events around the world.

Mindscape, Wellington

Jeremy (JB) is an experienced solutions architect, developer and consultant with over 7 years experience in the New Zealand market.

Jeremy helped build a strong culture of innovation and applied learning within Intergen during 2001-2006 where he contributed to company growth as well as the development towards a more mature focus, which is exhibited by his role in the development of a new business unit – Support Services in 2006.

Since 2003, Jeremy has played a key role within the New Zealand Microsoft development community, helping develop and grow the role of community reach, and later taking on the role of Microsoft Regional Director which he currently is active in.

Jeremy believes in taking a direct and focused approach to software development, aiming for the critical path and seeing technology as a key enabler towards better efficiency in business. A geek since a young age, Jeremy has a keen eye for opportunities to solve real world problems using software – a skill he has continually applied within the IT field itself, building a number of end user products which help solve specialist problems for technical professionals.

Darryl Burling

Microsoft, Wellington

Darryl is a geek who happens to work for Microsoft as a developer evangelist. This gives him the opportunity to get his head into the next generation developer tools, often before you and help you to understand what these tools can do and how you can use them.  Darryl's tech background is varied including everything from system architecture, design and implementation to development of websites, appliances and mobile applications.

Adam Cogan

SSW, Australia

Adam Cogan is the Chief Architect at SSW, a Microsoft Certified Partner specializing in Office and .NET Solutions. At SSW, Adam has been developing custom solutions for businesses across a range of industries such as Government, banking, insurance and manufacturing since 1990 for clients such as Microsoft, Quicken, and the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation.

Adam runs the Microsoft .NET User Group in Sydney and the software house SSW (http://www.ssw.com.au). Adam is a tireless advocate of MS technologies and speaks regularly at User Groups, Universities and at TechEd in the USA, NZ and Australia. Adam is the chair of the Speaker Bureau of the APAC INETA organization and is actively involved in the regional INETA management process. More recently Adam has been working on the SQL Reporting Services whitepapers for the SQL Server Team.

Edwin Dando

Clarus, Christchurch

Edwin Dando is a PMP and one of NZ's only certified ScrumMasters. He has worked on major projects for Vodafone, Telecom, Government Departments, software development companies and consulting firms and holds a BSc in Computer Science. Edwin is the Managing Director of Clarus - a Chch based IT consulting and contracting company that has adopted Scrum as the preferred project management methodology for software development.

Clarus, Christchurch

Next year will be Bryn’s 20th year in the industry. He has been working with Microsoft products since Windows 286 was hot. After a couple of years working for Microsoft Consulting Services in Auckland, he now works for Clarus a Christchurch based IT Consulting and contracting company. Bryn is a Certified Scrum Master and is involved with the Christchurch .Net development community through his work doing the logistics for the local meetings. Current projects range from process improvement, remediation, WindowsMobile development, through to highly scalable .Net 3.5 Windows Workflow and Windows Communication Framework architecture work. 

Pat Martin

Microsoft, Wellington

Pat joined Microsoft as a development consultant in May 2002. Previously, Pat was an independent contractor over a seven year period, the last four years of which as part of a three man start-up Public Key Encryption company, RPK, based in Auckland, which provided cryptographic algorithms for the Real Networks suite of internet media content products.

Pat has worked in the IT industry since 1980 and has held various roles during this time, including that of DBA of both Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server installations. Pat managed the ASB Bank FOCIS Oracle data warehouse whilst engaged at the bank as a Data Services specialist.

Pat has delivered both .NET architectural and programming courses throughout New Zealand in addition to Business Intelligence road shows and TechED presentations. He is also our Business Intelligence practice leader in Auckland responsible for Microsoft’s services readiness on SQL Server and Business Intelligence technologies.

Throughout 2005 Pat has been working with the product marketing teams on early adopter programs for SQL Server 2005, SQL Reporting Services and SQL Integration Services.

Nathan Mercer

Microsoft, Wellington

Nathan has been working with Microsoft-based networks since the "good ol' days" of Windows NT 3.x, and has been with Microsoft New Zealand since 2000 as a Systems Engineer, Technology Specialist and now as an IT Pro Technology Advisor. He is responsible for making sure New Zealand’s IT Pro’s are fully briefed on infrastructure-related Microsoft software, including Active Directory, security, systems management, Windows Vista and Windows Server codename "Longhorn". A long-time and well-known contributor to the NZ.comp IT community newsgroup, Nathan’s previous jobs have included consulting for the finance sector in Wellington, focusing on systems management, and being a *nix administrator for an ISP. He was a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) for Clustering, and currently holds both an MCSE and the CISSP security qualification. When not working, Nathan can be found listening to electronic music, skydiving, or mountain biking.

Ivan Porto-Carrero

Xero, Wellington

Ivan is a passionate software developer who has been programming Ruby for the last 2 years and .NET for the last 5 years. He is an active member of the open source community and has contributed to the Castle project and various javascript libraries.

He used to be the user group leader for New Plymouth and now organises the architect chats in Wellington (Lunch with Geeks).

Ivan is currently employed by Xero Ltd.

Intergen, Wellington

Andrew has over 12 years experience in the IT industry and currently works for Intergen as Manager of the Development and Integration team. Prior to working at Intergen Andrew ran his own statistical consultancy business and later a business providing development services to companies in Wellington. A true Jack of all Trades and master of none, Andrew has played around with a wide range of Microsoft technologies and enjoys speaking at IT events.  

Ivan Towleson

ECN Group, Wellington

Ivan Towlson is a software architect for ECN Group, specialising in application integration. He has previously worked in the telecommunications, civil engineering and drug discovery fields.

Mindscape, Wellington

John-Daniel is an experienced software developer and has operated several businesses. He attended Massey University where he earned a Bachelor of Information Science before taking a developer position at a leading New Zealand software organization, Intergen. During this time John-Daniel won several awards for his work both within Intergen and the industry.

In 2006 John-Daniel won ”.Net Blog of the Year” for his personal weblog and the “Technology Guruship” award at Intergen for technical recognition at a national level. He is an active participant in the Wellington technology scene and has a passion for business and software.

John-Daniel believes that to create a great software company you need to create fantastic software solutions to turn customers into “raving fans”.

John-Daniel also serves as the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of Auckland based YouTXT.

Evan Williams

HP, Christchurch

Evan is a software architect working in the consulting and integration arm of the Microsoft practice within HP NZ since he moved to NZ a year ago with my wife and two children.

Previously Evan worked for 8 years in London, Glasgow, Edinburgh - mainly in the financial and consulting industries. Outside of work he plays golf, cricket and bagpipes.

Remember to register go to http://codecamp.net.nz

I have been getting some emails regarding the Microsoft MVP Summit in Seattle Washington, USA which is going to happen in April 2008.

I have been fortunate enough to attend two of these events in the 11 years that I have been awarded a MVP.

But the latest comments from Microsoft have annoyed me.

"

We will issue registration details as soon as we can, probably early in 2008, but I wanted to let you know as soon as possible that the Asia Pacific MVP Award team will not be able to provide  any funding to support Asia Pacific MVPs’ travel to the 2008 MVP Global Summit. Although the change may raise some concerns, with this approach, led and supported by management, all MVPs worldwide receive the same opportunity. Travel support to attend the MVP Global Summit will not be provided by any region going forward.

"

Well I do not agree with this statement, well technically this is true, but the reality is not true.

Why is this not true:

• MVP's who are not from USA have to pay a lot more than USA MVP's to get to the event.

I did a quick search on www.zuji.co.nz for the following potential prices MVP's would pay to get to the summit and back home - just for the flights:

• An MVP from Los Angeles - Approx Price is 216 NZD to 450 NZD
• An MVP from Maimi, Florida - Approx Price is 460 NZD to 800 NZD
• An MVP from Christchurch, New Zealand (me) - Approx Price is 1900 NZD to 2600 NZD

Well 216 NZD compared to 1900 NZD is not actually fair for a KIWI to get to the Summit compared to a Los Angeles resident - Since there is no provision to support MVP's getting to the summit the individual from New Zealand has to pay almost 10 x the price of a Los Angeles resident. It would take a Los Angeles resident about 3.5 hours to fly to Seattle, but from Christchurch, New Zealand would take about 20 hours.  So who is really paying here!

I believe that Microsoft is actually directly or indirectly limiting the Summit to USA residents based on not helping supporting anyone get to the summit.

How many people do they really expect to pay 1000's of dollars to get there. The last summit I went to was unfortunately a bit of a hour by hour event since the IIS Development team (I am an IIS MVP) had no sessions arranged for us and they made it up on the day.

Microsoft at the end of the day make a large bucket of money per minute but are not that interested in supporting the community that supports them, unless you happen to live in the USA.

I know some people will totally disagree with me, but would you pay close on $2000-$3000 to get to the Summit?

A Code Camp for the mainland! 

 1: private string Message = "Welcome";

 2: private string Register = ", please register today!";

 3: private string Name = "Guest"; 

 4:  

 5: Console.WriteLine(String.Format("{0} {1} {2}", Message, Name, Register);

Trimble Navigation, 11 Birmingham Drive, Addington, Christchurch. Map Here  ( that is where I work )

Speakers are confirmed and sessions are close to finalised. View speaker details here.

You can view a list of sessions here

Most sessions at Boot Camp are 55 minutes in duration and will be held in one room. If we have enough speakers and topics then we have space for a 2nd stream - this is looking very much a possibility.....

The following is a tentative list of topics we would like to see covered. Once we have a final list of speakers we will be able to narrow this down a little.

• .Net Framework 3.5
• C# 3, VB 9, Dynamic Runtime & Languages
• ASP.Net, ASP.Net Futures, SilverLight
• LINQ, ADO Entities
• Windows Server 2008, IIS 7 ( It will be me presenting this session ), SQL 2008
• Architecture, Methodolgies, Patterns & Practices
  

If you are in Christchurch the weekend of November 3rd & 4th ( if not then why not! ) then drop in and participate ( this is a free event put on by the Christchurch .NET Users Group and a number of volunteers )

Please REGISTER your interest now - we need to have at least 130-150 people - just a hint - there are free prizes that you do not want to miss on the days.

We are talking products that can cost $1000s of dollars - and USD $ as well not that it means as much as it use to but these are YOURS to KEEP if you are the lucky winners.....

Registration NOW OPEN! Please complete the form below. We will email more details of Boot Camp as they come to hand.

As Boot Camp is a free event and our funding is limited, we ask that you only register if you are sure you are coming. If you do change your mind later and have to cancel, that's fine too, but please let us know via email to christchurch@dot.net.nz.

Contact Details: If you have any questions, suggestions or want to offer sponsorship, please contact us at christchurch@dot.net.nz.

WE WANT YOU - Register at www.codecamp.net.nz

Be one of the first to take a look at all the changes coming in the newly redesigned Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) version 7.0. In this webcast, we focus on new troubleshooting features, provide a breakdown of architecture and security improvements, and describe the new IIS 7 configuration system. We walk through demonstrations that showcase IIS delegation administration control to non-administrators and new diagnostics tools. We also discuss the entirely new UI and configuration system.

Presenter: Mai-lan Tomsen Bukovec, Principal Group Program Manager, Microsoft Corporation

What’s New in Microsoft Internet Information Services 7.0 for IT Professionals

Tuesday, October 02, 2007 11:30 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada)

• THAT IS IN 30 MINUTES OF THIS POST

Well I did not expect it - I have been re-awarded for the 11th consecutive year in a row, this all started way back in 1997.

										Unknown
1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007

I really appreciate the award as I do try to help people and it is nice to help people who are having problems, although through this blog I can not help everyone I do try to help some especially if it has an impact for the larger community.

I am quite interested how many IIS MVP's have been re-awarded and how many are new? If you are an existing IIS MVP or a new IIS MVP please introduce yourself to me as I would love to get to know you.....