Personal
Personal
Since I joined Microsoft Belux last year I've been thinking about moving my blog to MSDN. But ever since I didn't really saw the added value of moving my blog as both sites are using the same platform:
CommunityServer. But since a couple of weeks I've heard a lot of very positive feedback on the recently deployed 2.0 version of
CommunityServer that powers the
MSDN and
TechNet blogger sites. So far the experience is far better than on DonNetJunkies. Today I finally decided to move my blog to
http://blogs.msdn.com/davbosch/. I want to thank
Donny for hosting my blog since August 2004.
So please subscribe to my new blog on the MSDN blogs:
Thanks for reading my blog and I hope you will continue to do so at http://blogs.msdn.com/davbosch/default.aspx!
Find out about Origami:
[Via Steven Bink]
Arlindo Alves recently joined our Belgian DPE team as IT-Pro Evangelist. His first job is definitely a hard one: content owner for the IT-Pro related content on Developer & IT-Pro Days 2006.
To reach out to the Belgian IT-Pro community Arlindo decided to start a blog at http://blogs.technet.com/aralves/default.aspx. Oh, btw it looks he's already enjoying the recent update of CommunityServer, which has quite some fixes I've been told. Even the photo galleries seem to be enabled ...
Anyway, subscribed to the RSS feed!
Thursday night we had the Brussels Geek Dinner. I enjoyed it very much, not only because of the presence of Robert Scoble and his wife Maryam, but also because of the opportunity to meet a number of other Belgian bloggers. Reading their blogs it looks that most of them - if not all - were happy having attended the geek dinner!
Earlier that day Scoble did some talks and interviews on corporate blogging. Robert & Maryam even made it to the national radio StuBru! Check also Tom's blogpost for a more in-depth review of Scoble's first 24 hours in Belgium.
With this some more links to reflections on the geek dinner: DopplerPPC Viking, Luc Van Brakel, Wim Verhaeghen, Joris Poelmans, Jelle Druyts, Smetty, Coolz0r, Maarten Schenk, Druppels, Hamstersoup.com, Liegebeest and Peter.
Earlier this week my friend Damir Tomicic, President of INETA Europe, Member of the INETA Worldwide Council, Microsoft MVP ASP.NET and Microsoft Regional Director, pointed me to the AxCMS.net 2005 Award. Check out the award at http://en.axcms.net/AxCMS_Award_2005.AxCMS. This award represents an opportunity to celebrate the evolution of the AxCMS.net to the driving force behind more than 2000 successfull projects worldwide. Axinom is honoring excellence in web design, creativity, usability and functionality.
The AxCMS.net nominees and winners are selected by Members of AxCMS.net Development Team from the best sites entered through the Call for Entries. Evaluated against four criteria (web design, creativity, usability, functionality), sites undergo a comprehensive process to win the AxCMS.net Award. More info is available at http://en.axcms.net/AxCMS_Award_2005.AxCMS.
I just got it confirmed last night from Maryam: Robert Scoble - Microsoft Geek Blogger - and his wife Maryam will be visiting Belgium on December 7th and 8th!
On December 7th Robert and Maryam will travel from Paris - where Scoble is speaking at Les Blogs 2.0 - to Brussels. Later on they'll travel to London. I also read they will be doing a Geek Dinner in London on December 10th. This got me thinking ... what about a Belgian Geek Dinner Robert?
I see that LVB.NET is organising a geek dinner early October; so I guess he' ll be interested too in joining us. If others are interested to join us, please let me know!
And ... oh yes, Maryam, let the temptation for the Belgian chocolates start!
Not a lot of blogging lately because of an extremely busy schedule the last two weeks. Check below what we (Microsoft Belux) have been planning lately:
The ISV Community Summit will be organized on October 6th in the ICC in Ghent from 9h30 on. In this summit, targeting the Business Decision Makers and Technical Decision Makers of ISVs, we will have three sessions covering:
The Future of the Microsoft Platform for ISVs
ISV's who build on the Microsoft platform should attend this session to get an overall view of Microsoft's platform strategy and future product roadmap, including how ISVs can benefit by incorporating key Microsoft technologies into their products. Included will be a discussion of customer and partner platform momentum, 'hot' technologies for ISVs, and enablement programs to drive success.
The Visual Studio 2005 & SQL Server 2005 Opportunity to ISV's
Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 are a comprehensive data platform and tools ready to help you meet the evolving needs of your organization, ready to deliver more connected solutions faster, ready to efficiently operate the most demanding mission critical applications, and ready to connect your users with the information they need to make better business decisions. In this session you will hear how these tools offer you:
- Increased efficiency through integrated platform and tools that boost developer productivity and team efficiency, enabling organizations to deliver data-driven solutions faster and with greater predictability.
- Better decisions through broader insight into essential business processes and intelligence enabling better decisions faster.
- Operational excellence through a base platform that delivers the security, performance, scalability, and reliability demanded by the distributed, mission-critical systems of modern businesses.
Using your Microsoft Partnership to maximize return on your Sales and Marketing Efforts
Want to realize your full potential as a Microsoft ISV Partner? Learn how to work together with us to touch more customers, create more selling opportunities and drive additional revenue to your business. In addition, you'll find out how Microsoft's ISV strategy can help you to adopt new technologies through early adopter programs and technical support programs. The session will conclude with a Q&A.
If you're an ISV and interested in attending this Community Summit but did not receive an invitation, you can drop me a mail!
The Microsoft Belux Partner Conference will be organized on October 6th in the ICC in Ghent from 13h30 on. This year we wish
- to inform all our partners on our business opportunities together
- to give our partners deep insight how our solutions meet their customer needs
- Showing the added value of certifying for Microsoft Solution Competencies
Register here! More details can be found on http://www.mspartnerconference.be/.
And last but not least: the Belgian Visual Studio 2005, SQL Server 2005 and BizTalk 2006 Launch is scheduled for November 10th in Parc à Mitrailles in Court-Saint-Etienne.
You are expected from 14h for the Keynote of a Microsoft Corporate VP. Guess who? Later that afternoon we cover the newly launched products in technical depth together with some funny stories. There will probably be two Ask-The-Experts booths where all your technical questions on Visual Studio 2005 & SQL Server 2005 will be answered. Today we're still scheduling some great speakers for this event. And in the evening we're planning a party!
I'll keep you updated if the official registration site will be live!
While enjoying my summer holidays I've been re-reading Getting Things Done by David Allen. This book with the substitle "How to achieve stress-free productivity" teaches you how to keep a clear head, relax and organise your thoughts. If you're facing an overwhelming workload than this book is a must-read.
Excellent summaries of what Getting Things Done is all about can be found on Merlin Mann's blog 43 Folders and Wired News. Check also Marc Orchant's blog, the GTD zone on OfficeZealot, Jeff Sandquist's GTD wiki and M Vance GTD wiki for more GTD notes.
If you're interested in David Allen's "stuff" you might want to give Microsoft Office Web Conferencing Service - LiveMeeting - a try for this Microsoft Leadership Forum on August 18 hosted by David Allen. He will do a one-hour session of "GTD Light" and its implications in organizational process. Check out the details and registration for this seminar.
A former colleague of mine, Steven Wilssens, started blogging. Steven is currently working as a Technical Architect and promised to be blogging on the .NET Framework 2.0 fundamentals, the Windows Presentation and Communication Frameworks, Software Configuration Management and technical architectures.
He already has a number of goods posts on different topics like Software Configuration Management, SCM and Team System, Generics and Testing with Visual Studio Team System.
You can find his blog at http://Steven.Wilssens.net/ and the RSS feed at http://steven.wilssens.net/SyndicationService.asmx/GetRss. Subscribed!
Welcome to the blogosphere Steven!
As you might have noticed … not a lot of blogging activity lately due to a very busy schedule. Let me wrap-up.
After solving our Authorization Manager issues at customer site we prepared an interim release of our application ... which should be deployed by now! This iteration took us 3 weeks and no big issues had to be solved.
Almost every night for the last two weeks I've been catching up with the overload of content on the upcoming new beta releases of Visual Studio 2005 and SQL 2005. I managed to go through a lot of presentations and HOL's on both products.
And last Wednesday and Thursday I've been busy backing up all the data of my laptop to DVD. Backing up because Thursday was my last working day at Compuware. Yes, that's right … after 6 years of consultancy on the Microsoft platform I decided to take the red pill. I'm going to Microsoft Belux to be a Developer Evangelist. If you want to know on the role of a Developer Evangelist at Microsoft check out this post by Jeff Sandquist. It describes well what it is all about.
So what will I be doing in the next months? A lot of things as you might have guessed. I list some of them:
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From tomorrow on I'll be closely working together with a number of partners and ISV's who are participating in one of the Ascend programs:
The Ascend Program provides Microsoft industry partners and customers with deep technical training, tools and hands-on labs to accelerate the process of migrating to next-generation technology.
It's my goal to help them as much as possible to successfully build solutions in the 2005 versions of Visual Studio and SQL Server before they get officially released. Hence why building relationships with those customers, partners and Microsoft product teams will be pretty important.
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I'll deliver on site presentations to customers and partners, at industry events and developer communities.
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Together with the rest of the DPE-team (Tom Mertens & Alain Leroy) I will be driving Broad Customer Connection programs in Belgium.
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I'll also do my best to continue blogging and being present at events.
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And of course I'll continue to participate actively in the developer community by partnering with local, influential software developers.
So if you're a developer and interested in partnering with Microsoft or being active in the community, contact me through this blog. More community information can be found on the MSDN Belux site and its community section.
If you're interested in working in at Microsoft Belux check out this page. There is still an open position in our team. So if you're an