Monthly Archives: January 2005

Coordinating part one and part two WSE talks

Just Rambling

I just went through an interesting process with Michael Stiefel who is also presenting on WSE2.0 at the Web Edge conference.

What we are doing is basically a part one and part two talk.

His talk, “Securing Service-Oriented Architecture with Microsoft’s WSE 2.0” is a more advanced version of my part two though it covers a lot of the same ground.

So after talking back and forth about it, I finally decided that I can just literally remove the 2nd half of my presentation. It was hard to do. All of my hard work at trying to learn this stuff so I can explain it – gone. My nature is to want to stay in the room for the entire day and tell people every single thing I know about a topic. But our allotted time is only 50 minutes! So this was the realistic approach. At least Michael’s talk is at the end of the day, so he actually can go long if he needs to. I added the subtitle “laying the groundwork”.

For all of us very independent people I think it’s a good exercise to do something like this. Hopefully it will help me in the future where I always feel like I am being remiss if I am not telling every single detail of my topic.

http://www.AcehAid.org

Sumatran Surfers heavily involved in disaster recovery in Sumatra

Asia

One of the groups that is intimately involved with Aceh Aid at IDEP is the local surf guides from Sumatran Surfariis.

Okay – yes they are adorable and hunky young guys, but that’s not my point. They are part of the amazing effort that is being made in Sumatra. They have been writing about what they are doing and seeing and it’s really interesting reading. Right here.

http://www.AcehAid.org

Web Edge Boston $300 discount ends tomorrow – plus FREE INETA Cabanas, FREE sessions, Free Expo passes

Just Rambling

There is  a LOT going on around the Web Services Edge East Conference that is in Boston from Feb 15 – 17th.

Right now there is still a $300 discount available until Jan 21st.

15% discount to MSDN Subscribers (that’s on the registration page).

There are a TON of special events that are free.

So, you can register for FREE to get an EXPO Pass (normally $50, but free courtesy of Microsoft) which also gets you into the Keynote (Ari Bixhorn from MS and Matt Ackley from EBay are doing keynotes).

Or you can register for that and the FREE tutorials.

All of the above is detailed on the registration page.

The INETA Sponsored Cabana night is free and requires no registration.

If you are in the Boston area, you should DEFINITELY at least take advantage of all of the free events going on!! Stay tuned for more details about the INETA Cabana night (Wed 2/16 6pm – 8pm).

http://www.AcehAid.org

I love Mentoring

Just Rambling

I have a new client that I am doing some mentoring for. I think that I love this more than any other form of billable work.My mentoring clients are mostly companies that are just now getting started with .NET, so with my nearly 3 years of .NET experience and a bizarre memory of many resources (“oh yeah, I remember there was an article on that by so and so last summer”), I can really help VB6 developers leapfrog past a lot of their learning curves for the specific tasks they need to do (including planning and architecting the program).  I really really enjoy doing this. Getting paid for it almost feels like a bonus.

http://www.AcehAid.org

Four chances to win a Tablet PC at the Windows Anywhere (at VSLive) Conference

Tablet

Lora reports that there are 4 tablet pc’s being given away at the Windows Anywhere conference, which is co-located with VSLive in SF Feb 7-10.

The first tablet will be given away at the pre-con.

The second at the end of the first day of sessions (Tuesday)

The thrid at the end of the 2nd day of sessions (Wednesday)

The last at the post-con.

Collect raffle tickets at each of the sessions (including mine, on Wednesday morning!)

Very cool.

http://www.AcehAid.org

.NET Celebrity Auction for Aceh Aid at IDEP – coming VERY SOON!!

Asia

Update 2/10/05: The auction raised an amazing $10,138!!!
Thanks to everyone who bid and helped us promote it.
We will hopefully be having another one soon.

1/23 9AM EST: WE WILL BE LIVE – GO HERE FOR DETAILS and LINK!
[I will put the start date here the moment we are able to and then I will put the link to the auction right here when it goes live, so if you are interested in the auction, bookmark this post!!]

PLEASE SEE STEPHEN FORTE’S BLOG POST REGARDING DETAILS OF THE 30 CONSULTANTS AND UPDATED DETAILS ON HOW THE AUCTION WILL FUNCTION.

30 of the top trainers and consultants in the .NET community will be auctioning off one hour each of their consulting time in a big EBay auction that will start sometime in the next few days (or early next week). Watch this space (and those of the auction items <g> for the date to be announced.

The auction is to benefit Aceh Aid at IDEP who is doing amazing disaster recovery work in Aceh Province Sumatra. All of the money goes DIRECTLY to helping the victims since Aceh Aid at IDEP is a local organization in Sumatra.

You can learn more about what they are doing from the above link, by reading Susi Johnston’s weblog or by filtering on Asia in my own blog. This is the group that Keith Pleas and I have been working with so closely since the Tsunami disaster hit.

Who is in this auction?

Lots of INETA speakers, Regional Directors and Wintellects!!

From Wintellect: Jeffery Richter, John Robbins and Jeff Prosise

A slew of amazingly brilliant RDs: Michele Leroux Bustamante, Jonathan Goodyear, Andrew Brust, Richard Campbell , Kimberly Tripp, Adam Cogan ,Malek Kummou , Jackie Goldstein, Goskin Bakir, Hector M Obregon , Patrick Hynds , Fernando Guerrero , Kate Gregory , Joel Semeniuk , Scott Hanselman , Barry Gervin , Clemens Vasters , Jorge Oblitas , Stephen Forte, John Lam, Edgar Sánchez, Thomas Lee, J. Michael Palermo IV, Vishwas Lele

And if that’s not enough, a few more brilliant stars: Deborah Kurata, Ted Neward and Kathleen Dollard 

This is a wonderful contribution by these people and demonstrates what I love so much about this community.

So open up your hearts (to enable Aceh Aid at IDEP continue with their phenomenal and necessary work – it is still a horror story in Sumatra and we cannot let up), open up your minds (to having access to some of the most talented .NET programmer consultants in the world) and warm up those credit cards!

Also, since there are many more wonderful and brilliant people in our community that I am sure will want to do this too (we just had to limit ourselves for this first one) I hope that we can do more of these in the near future!

How this will work

This will be ONE BIG FAT auction. The top 25 bidders will win. Bids start at $100. The auction will last 10 days. Unlike a typical “multi-item” auction, where the winners would pay the amount of the lowest winning bid, in THIS auction, the TOP bidder will get first pick of consultants and then on down the line. You will pay your winning bid directly to Aceh Aid at IDEP’s PayPal account: acehaid@tides.org.

Due Diligence

Online Donations are made via PayPal donation to acehaid@tides.org. The Tides Foundation is a US-based 501c3 non-profit, permitting tax-deductible contributions and supported by many corporate matching programs. PayPal takes most credit cards. For people who cannot use PayPal , there are other ways to make the payment. Money can be wired directly to Aceh Aid at IDEP or (for the 501c3 payment) checks can be mailed to Tides or money wired directly to them. So don’t worry about not being able to participate. If you can do any of these 4 options, BID BID BID!!!



http://www.AcehAid.org