[Event] MSDN UNPLUGGED Dunedin – February 2009

February 2009 MSDN UNPLUGGED Dunedin – Take your Applications to the Cloud and Beyond – PDC, Visual Studio, Azure, Office 14 and Windows 7

Time: Wednesday, 18 February 2009 4:00 p.m – 5:30 p.m.

Welcome Time: 3:45 p.m.

Scenic Circle Southern Cross Hotel
Speight Room
Cnr Princes and High Streets
Dunedin

Click on the Google Maps / Street View for more details on directions.

Click here for more details / register.

Article of Interest – The Cost of Safety

Interesting article from work:

Safety first is the name of the game for many investors right now. And with wild day-to-day swings in the markets and hugely divergent performances by securities within the same asset class, who can blame them?

Tolerance for risk is at extremely low ebb, a development reflected in the fact that yields on risk-free assets are at historic lows?in the case of US Treasury bills at levels not seen since World War II.

Yet this risk-averse behaviour masks one of the paradoxes of investment.

In good economic times, when comfort levels are high, the expected return from risk assets is less favourable. In those times, the cost of our willingness to take a risk is a lower expected return.

Click here to read more.

University of Otago | FREE lunch + Presentation (by Adam Cogan): What Microsoft offer you and your career!

Dear University of Otago *Computer Science* & *Information Science* Students,

You are invited to a FREE lunch + Presentation: *What Microsoft offer you and your career!*

Sponsor: www.ssw.com.au <http://www.ssw.com.au>

Presenter: *Adam Cogan* Chief Architect, B.Bus, MCP, MVP

Adam is one of only three Microsoft Regional Directors in Australia. In this role, he regularly presents in conferences such as TechEd (USA, Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia) and .NET user group around the world. He has been the Microsoft MVP (Visual Studio Team System) since 2005. In addition, He has received Bronze medal of Microsoft Regional Director Program Global Impact Award in 2007.

When:             *Friday 10th October 2008*.
Time:               *12 pm*
Where:              *Commerce 2.07*
Lunch:             Some pizza & drinks provided

*Presentation Topics*
1.    What Microsoft Technology can offer you in your future career
2.    Java VS .NET
3.    Sharpen your sword with C# and .NET 3.5
4.    Why is Windows Server 2008 important
5.    Powerful tools – Visual Studio 2008
6.    Powerful teams – Team Foundation Server
7.    Powerful collaboration – SharePoint
8.    Light up the Web – SilverLight
9.    Whats next – getting a job

Using MSN on iPhone / iPod Touch

Have you got an iPhone / iPod Touch?  Did you know that you can use the device that you have to chat with your friends on MSN?  Its so cool!  You can keep in touch with your friends while you watch your favorite TV show / enjoy the sun outside.  You don’t have to sit in front of your computer anymore!  If this sounds something you want to do, just follow the step by step guide below and you will get connected in no time.

Step 0: Make sure your iPhone / iPod Touch is connected to the Internet.

Step 1: Click on the Safari app:

<click here to read more>

Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 Overview

Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4.0 mark the next generation of developer tools from Microsoft. Designed to address the latest needs of developers, Visual Studio and the .NET Framework deliver key innovations in the following pillars:

• Democratizing Application Lifecycle Management
  Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) crosses many roles within an organization and traditionally not every one of the roles has been an equal player in the process. Visual Studio Team System 2010 continues to build the platform for functional equality and shared commitment across an organization’s ALM process.
• Enabling emerging trends
  Every year the industry develops new technologies and new trends. With Visual Studio 2010, Microsoft delivers tooling and framework support for the latest innovations in application architecture, development and deployment.
• <Click here to read more>

The Script – The Man Who Can’t Be Moved

I’ve been listening to this song (non-stop) over and over again in the last few days……just LOVE it

Twitter is over capacity……

I don’t use twitter very often……so I seldom have the chance to see the picture below:

This is what you will see when Twitter is down!  But……I really like picture

Twitter is down (at the time of this writting) when I really needed it!!!  On a side note……maybe I should twitte more often!

Dot Net User Group Code Camp 2008 – Saturday 1st November, Christchurch

Theme: Keeping It Real

The sessions are designed to showcase .NET related tools and techniques that will be useful to you as a developer, focusing on real-world topics that will be of immediate use.

Date: Saturday 1st November, Christchurch.  9am – 6pm
Location: Trimble Navigation, 11 Birmingham Drive (map)
Cost: Free! (Lunch provided)

To register and for more info, please go to: http://dot.net.nz/Default.aspx?tabid=119

Dunedin .Net User Group Event – 13th of Oct by Adam Cogan

1) Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services – Architecture Overview
SQL Server 2008, the report server has been re-architected to remove the dependency on Internet Information Services and provide better control over memory usage. Get an overview of the Reporting Services 2008 architecture and the impact on installation, upgrade, and reporting services management tools.

2) SharePoint – follow the Yellow Brick Road to Public Web Sites
Come join us for the second session’s topic as we learn how the largest public SharePoint site in Australia got up and running.
Adam Cogan of SSW will share his experience and lessons learnt on this project. Adam will also show you how to “sexify” the look and feel of your site (or “de-SharePointing with style”)

Register Now for the 2009 Microsoft Imagine Cup Competition

Imagine Cup is a competition held by Microsoft every year to encourage the students all around the world to use technologies to solve real world problems.  The competition have a different theme every year, and this year, the theme is:

Imagine a world where technology helps solve the toughest problems facing us today.

Microsoft Technical UNPLUGGED Sessions (Dunedin)

In September and October, Nigel Parker will present MSDN UNPLUGGED sessions created specifically for web focused developers to “get ready” for what is coming next. Nigel will discuss readiness and enhancements with Internet Explorer 8. Nigel will introduce Silverlight 2 and WPF 3.5 for developers focused on service enabled rich client development and then lead into a discussion on cloud based services including WCF, REST and JSON.

Ten ways to increase your programmers’ productivity from ZDNet.co.uk

Maintaining productivity can be a struggle, yet there are a number of ways to remove the obstacles that may be keeping your developers from working at full capacity

Programmers are expensive employees to hire and employ. They make better-than-average salaries compared to other office workers with similar experience and education levels. Needless to say, with the cost of developer time being what it is, it makes sense to take steps to improve the efficiency and productivity of your development staff. Here are 10 tips to help you do just that.

1. Minimise distractions
Most managers are aware that programming is a job that requires long periods of intense concentration. What they don’t realise is they are not doing a very good job at letting their team focus on their work.

<click here to read more>

Two lectures from Randy Pausch

Recently I’ve watched two very inspiring videos from Randy Pausch.  I’ve certainly learnt a lot from his two lectures……and I’ve decided to put it up here to share them with everyone.  Hope he will inspire you too

Q. Who is Randy Pausch

A. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Pausch

Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

Randy Pausch Lecture: Time Management

The newly redesigned MacBook Pro?

Just got this post from cnBeta: http://www.cnbeta.com/articles/63023.htm

Will have to wait till next month to see how accurate its……

Internet Explorer 7 freezes at startup? | How to disable add-ons for IE7

Last Friday I went to a friend’s place to take a look of their computer because they think it have viruses on it.  Their computer wasn’t as bad as I thought……but then again the computer was quite fast; so having a few viruses / Trojans running at the background probably won’t make much difference   I ran a few virus / Trojan scanners on the computer and found a handful of spywares plus a Trojan!

Norah Jones – Seven years

Miłość od pierwszego wejrzenia by Wisława Szymborska

Oboje są przekonani,
że połączyło ich uczucie nagłe.
Piękna jest taka pewność,
ale niepewność piękniejsza.

Sądzą, że skoro nie znali się wcześniej,
nic między nimi nigdy się nie działo,
A co na to ulice, schody, korytarze,
na których mogli się od dawna mijać?

Geeky YouTube video on Kaspersky…

Will It Blend? – iPhone3G

Poor iPhone…

[University of Otago] Firefox’s Proxy Auto Detection Problem in Vista

The ability for web browsers to automatically detect proxy settings is really useful when you have to switch between multiple networks all the time.  With Internet Explorer, proxy settings are being detected in both XP and Vista, but things aren’t going so well with Firefox!  If you are using Vista and Firefox happens to be your default browser, you have to manually configure the proxy settings for it to work on our student network…which is NOT convenient at all!