Congrats to Zeeshan Muhammad who is the leader of NED.NET User Group in Pakistan for being awarded as the INETA Middle East/Africa Region’s best volunteer!

Here’s how it went…

I have gotten stuck on something in my WSE2 implementation (read lack of x509 cert on server is a huge pain in the butt). In trying to find someone who has dealt with this problem, I started finding newsgroup posts by SoftwareMaker, and after a bit of research realized that this is actually MSDN Regional Director (with his permission) William Tay. Here’s his awesome blog.

(by way of Hervey) First it was Eric Gunnerson(goin’ to the movies), now Keith Ballinger (to Media Center)? Keith Ballinger? How could it be? Well, I can understand wanting to do something new….I get to all the time! 🙂  It’s just so…hard…to….grok! (hmmm Hervey’s link to Keith’s post seems to be wrong so just go to Hervey’s post for more info…)

Keith is the first person who really got me (and SO many of us) excited about web services.

Keith is the first person from Microsoft that I had personal contact with when Microsoft started their whole community thing. He replied to a question I posted on a newsgroup and I ran into the kitchen to tell my husband “Keith Ballinger actually just replied to a question of mine in a newsgroup!!” My husband was ummm, beyond confused, and just gave up, shrugged his shoulders and said something like “that’s nice, honey.”

But the funniedst thing I have to say about Keith is my surprise the first time we met in person at how young he is. I figured he had to be at least way older than me since he new so much. So it was also my first real eye opener to how much incredible talent Microsoft has reigned in (or maybe that was my eye opener to how old I really am? since now I think young=under 40!)

Thea Burger is happy to discover that there will be a women’s luncheon at the TechEd in South Africa at the end of October. I look forward to hearing what it is like!!

Very exciting news!

Jonathan Goodyear, Doug Seven, Scott Watermasysk and Drew Robbins have just become part of the Microsoft Regional Director program.

My huge congrats to all. This is an excellent group of additions!!

Tim Sneath teases us that he was leaving MIcrosoft U.K. and finally explained it was to go work at Microsoft in Redmond. Hmmm, now I can’t bug Tim about trying to get into TechEd Europe as a speaker….as if that was even a remote possibility anyway. But you can’t blame a girl for trying! 🙂

Tim Ewald really is leaving Microsoft. But he will be working at MindReef  (he already lives in NH) which is quite a coup for them – both MindReef and Tim. MindReef has some serious brainpower there. I only happen to know Dave Seidel (who coincidentally went to a very small and special college with my sister) and Jim Murphy who runs NHDNUG and came to Vermont to speak at one of VTdotNET’s early meetings.

Congrats to all.

Yasser blogged that he is speaking at VS Connections. VS Connections is wrapped up with ASP Connections and SQL Server Connections too at DevConnections in Las Vegas in November. I sure hope his talk isn’t scheduled at the same time as one of mine, so I can go learn!

Although I have given in to the desire to spend a nice fall weekend with my husband and some sorely missed non-geek friends in mid-October, Code Camp II (Oct 15-16th at Microsoft’s Waltham,MA office) is going to be a great event. It is a weekend event – two loooong days filled with so much great content to get you up to speed on a variety of .NET topics. The event is free and there are many well-known speakers presenting.

Here is all the info and how to register!

Steve’s armysteve.com site has become a great resource for other’s on their way to Iraq or who have family going or already over there, that they have started www.ArmyAdvice.com where not only Steve & Michelle can post, but others as well. Awesome!!

Steve’s site (armysteve) is now a subset of that: www.armyadvice.com/armysteve.

All thanks to .Text!