22 March 2007 in Events & Microsoft & Mindscape | Comments (1)

We are officially done with the Microsoft 2007 Technical Briefings and everything went really well. As promised, it’s time to start posting our presentations, demos and links. If you’re looking for the files from Jeremy Boyd you can grab them from his blog. In a few weeks we will also be making available videos of the three presentations that Mindscape delivered for those wanting to see them again or who could not attend the sessions.

Here are the links from my presentation:

• Expression Web Designer demo
• Microsoft Internet Explorer Web Developer Toolbar Beta 3
• W3C Validators
• W3C Schools for learning more about the standards
• E-Government Web Guidelines
• IEBlog, the official Microsoft IE blog
• ACID 2 test site
• ASP.NET 2.0 CSS Control Adapters

Presentation File:

• Developing Standards Compliant Websites Presentation (2.33MB)

Demonstration Files:

• Table to CSS Migration Example Code

I hope everyone that attended this session found it useful, feel free to post feedback or questions.

- JD

14 March 2007 in Events & Microsoft & Mindscape | Comments (0)

Today we knocked out the Microsoft 2007 Technical Briefing in Wellington. I had a great time, was good to see some familiar faces in my home city. For those reading who attended, just a reminder that code samples and BackgroundMotion will be made available shortly after the Christchurch event. We’ll also be making some further content available as well.

I really appreciated getting feedback from people at the event, it’s great to see people having the courage to approach and just unload what they thought about what I spoke about or to share a story. The visibility isn’t very good from the stage so I don’t often know who actually attended afterwards.

So next week is Christchurch, it’s going to be a blast. It will be the third time we’ve delivered the content so hopefully we’ll have ironed out all the kinks based on earlier feedback. I’m looking forward to it See you there!

- JD

8 March 2007 in .Net & Code & Events & Microsoft & Mindscape | Comments (0)

BackgroundMotion is the website that Mindscape has developed and been showing off in the recent (and future) Microsoft 2007 Technical Briefings. Some people have been asking where they can see this site at the moment so I thought I would clarify that the site is not currently live. It will be available in the near future and I’ll announce that here when it does go live.

Further to this, we are looking to deliver the source code for the website so that everyone can learn about aspects of the system. Following from this there are plans to release video content showing why some design decisions were made and how we implemented them. Should be a great resource for learning from.

It’s been a great opportunity to be creating an awesome system that will be used by real people as well as creating surrounding documentation and content that enables people to learn more about how to do things.

- JD

8 March 2007 in Events & Microsoft & Mindscape | Comments (8)

My Auckland presentations for the Microsoft 2007 Technical Briefing are over and I’m back in Wellington. Overall I thought the event was a resounding success, there were heaps of people buzzing about the new technologies and opportunities available. It was great meeting people that I only really see online as well as meeting some new people there as well.

I’ll be posting the slides, links and extra information for people to download shortly. I’ve decided to delay it slightly so I don’t ruin the surprises for Wellington & Christchurch attendees. Several of the topics covered, especially standards related, can be found in prior blog posts so if you’re interested have a search around

If you’d like me to notify you when I do post something (and you haven’t subscribed to my RSS feed) then send me an email at jd [at] mindscape.co.nz.  Incidentally we got our initial cut of the Mindscape website up while at the event (big ups to Andrew, the third person in our trio).

Thanks to everyone who attended, it was the largest audience I’ve spoken to so I was rather nervous but thankfully nobody threw fruit

Good times,

- JD

5 March 2007 in Events & Microsoft & Mindscape | Comments (2)

Tomorrow I’ll be going to Auckland to deliver a couple of presentations on Wednesday at the Microsoft 2007 Technical Briefing. Next week is Wellington and the week after is Christchurch, it’s going to be good times

I’m delivering sessions about developing standards compliant websites as well as a joint session with Jeremy about extending the reach of your applications. Feel free to come and say hi if you see me about, I like meeting folks who read my blog.

I’ll queue up a few more posts while away…

- JD

16 February 2007 in .Net & Events & Microsoft & Windows | Comments (7)

Many of you will be starting to see more and more people talking about Windows Vista now it’s come out in the retail market. I’ve been using it for quite some time and it has really grown on me, I strongly suggest you grab a copy and start using it today

Anyway, that aside, you may be questioning which version you need? Given the audience of my blog, I’d suggest Ultimate. It has some kick ass features that make doing development work a lot more enjoyable as well as things such as Windows Ultimate Extras. However, ultimate also comes with the biggest price tag so how can you get it a bit cheaper? You can come along to the Microsoft 2007 Technical Briefing event in Auckland/Wellington/Christchurch.

The cost is $199 to attend and you get to select either a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate or Office 2007 for yourself. Great sessions and software, what more could you want?

One of the coolest Ultimate Extras is DreamScene which allows a video to play as your desktop “image”. It’s really cool, Jeremy and Andrew have been loving it too.

- JD

P.S. Disclaimer, I’m speaking at this event so I’m taking the opportunity to pimp it as well as show it’s a great offer to get software

6 September 2006 in Events & Microsoft | Comments (0)

Recently I’ve been involved with setting up the SharePoint User Group (with Chan, OJ, and Microsoft). Here’s the run down on the first meeting next week. You’re all invited so go on – RSVP

With the growing interest in the Microsoft SharePoint technologies space fueled by the upcoming release of Windows SharePoint Services v3 and Office SharePoint Server 2007 there is a new SharePoint User Group starting up in Wellington.

The purpose of this user group is to encourage knowledge sharing, personal development, identification of opportunities and input into best practice techniques related to Microsoft SharePoint technologies and directions.

The next meeting is on Wednesday 13th September at Microsoft with Microsoft presenting the vision and direction of SharePoint followed by a group discussion about what people want from the User Group over some beer and pizza.

Time: 6pm

Venue: Microsoft Wellington, Level 12, Mobil on the Park, Lambton Quay

Admission: Free

If you are keen to come along please RSVP to marko@intergen.co.nz

24 August 2006 in .Net & Code & Events & Intergen & Windows | Comments (3)

First off, it was fantastic. I’ve only been to TechEd twice but Microsoft put on a great event. Everything went unbelievably smoothly and the atmosphere was really good. We arrived on Sunday afternoon and everything was already humming.

I managed to attend quite a few sessions and all of them had great speakers.

One thing that I didn’t expect, but was happily surprised about, was that the Live initiative really is shaping up to be a compelling offering across the board. My earlier reservations have been quashed and I’m looking forward to the further development of the Live platform over the next six months. I guess the key message I would share about this is that perhaps while the live.com portal might not be your kettle of fish, the other services really are quite compelling.

Speaking of Live, the Web in general was well discussed. Rowan Simpson from TradeMe presented a few times and was an excellent speaker. I think he added some balance to the event – making it clear the back end doesn’t matter if you don’t solve a problem for your end users in an easy to use manner. Congratulations to them on achieving 1 billion page views per month as well, that’s impressive.

Office 2007 was represented very well at TechEd. I attended several sessions about Office and picked up a few things. The whole stack of Office, Vista and Live is going to be compelling.

Intergen, where I work, was running the hands on labs again this year which is always enjoyable and a great way to meet other people attending TechEd. Hopefully everyone tried them out and learnt a lot.

TechFest was a heap of fun. It was similar to last years event however that was great considering the success of last year. This was another great place to meet other people in the industry but, sadly, we couldn’t convince any of the ladies at TechFest that were near to jump up on my shoulders for The Feelers however I was pleased to see more representation of woman in technology at TechEd this year . Some of us ended up at Globe and had a great time there until the wee hours (as well as meeting even more great folks).

Then last night we had the mad dash to the airport. As much as I love TechEd it’s just long enough to make me appreciate being back in my own bed I’m sure everyone else had a great time.

This post is quite a quick brain dump of my thoughts, I’ll probably follow up over the next few days with this I remember as being useful or cool

- JD