Have you thought about starting a business or have started one in last three years?  If so, you need to know about BizSpark from Microsoft.  This program enables you to obtain software for free to help start your business.  I’m talking about full versions of Visual Studio Team Suite, SQL Server, SharePoint, Windows Server and just about everything you need to get up and running for free.  These are production licenses, not just development licenses.  The catch…you have to meet the following criteria:

• You must be a privately held company
• You must have been in business less than three years
• Your revenues must not exceed USD $1 million dollars

Read about how BizSpark works and if you are interested, please contact me and I will get you signed up.

During the Rocky Mountain Trifecta we discussed IE8 and what was coming.  If you are interested in finding out more information about IE8 and want to drill into details, I recommend the virtual IE8 Firestarter event on March 26th which is available both in person in Redmond and online.  To find out more information visit my teammate Mithun Dhar’s site at http://blogs.msdn.com/mithund/archive/2009/03/13/ie8-firestarter-update-and-registration-links-mar-26th-2009.aspx.

Can’t make it to your Architect Council in person?  We are also webcasting the San Diego version of the event on March 31st.  For more information please visit http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032408787&EventCategory=2&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US.  Please note that all times are Pacific.

I believe I created some confusion today about a couple of events that are coming up.  I have two Architect Council sessions on April 7th in the Microsoft office in Denver.  The content will be similar, but targeted toward two different audiences.

The morning session which runs from 8:30am – 12:00pm is for Microsoft partners.  Information and registration is located at http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032404681&Culture=en-US.

The afternoon session which runs from 12:30am – 4:30pm is for customers.  Information and registration is located at http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032404033&Culture=en-US.

Just a quick follow up for the folks that attended my session today.  The link to get more details and register for the Denver Partner Architect Council is located at http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032404681&Culture=en-US.

Thanks to everyone that attended the Rocky Mountain Tech Trifecta last Saturday.  I know that I had a lot of fun and was very impressed with the work of David and Julie Yack.  I know that Julie put a lot of hard work and heart into this event and it really showed.  She did an amazing job of coordinating the logistics of the event and I know she worked tirelessly to get some great speakers here in Denver.

I had a lot of fun presenting on Internet Explorer 8 and there were some great questions from the audience.  I have posted my slide deck from the session here if you would like to review it.  I know 50 minutes is not very much time to discuss the topic, so I am posting some additional links here if you want to explore further.

• Download IE8
• There is a great series of short videos called Internet Explorer “How Do I”
• You could think about writing a an IE8 Accelerator
• Explore how to light up Web Slices for your web applications
• Dig deeper into the IE7/IE8 compatibility modes and the meta tag to force IE7 rendering
• You can learn more about the IE8 developer tools here and here
• Follow the IE8 team blog

Architect Council  | The Importance of the Client

Over the last couple of years, there has been a lot of innovation around of technologies that make it easier for the end user of an application to interact with systems.  This innovation has been a boon for the end user because it has provided them a more natural interface with systems that span the web, computer, and phone.  However, this has caused the complexity of systems architecture and development to increase.  The focus of this session will be on how to prepare and manage this complexity within your organization.

Facilitated by Microsoft, the premise of this event is to provide an open forum where architects can meet to discuss technologies with their peers.  This forum will provide first-hand experience and best practices that will enable its members to learn from each other and transfer knowledge. Please join us for this great opportunity to learn, share and network with your peers and other company leaders.

EVENT SUMMARY

The Value of the Client – In the past, the choice of how an end user interacts with an application has been dictated by IT and often without regards to the usage.  Recently, as the population has become more tech savvy and are experiencing interactions on the web, computer, and the phone their expectations have increased tremendously.  Many organizations now have to support multiple standards and technologies to accommodate their user base.  We will discuss the opportunities and challenges this presents.

The Changing Face of the Web – The web has changed from a static collection of data to an application platform.  In many cases, JavaScript and AJAX have enhanced the experience to enable more advance application scenarios.  In other cases, the Rich Internet Application using technologies such as Silverlight and Flash can bring the experience to a new level.  In this session we will discuss the web and in particular the investments Microsoft is making in this technology.

Creating Powerful Applications on Computers and Devices – The web has been a boon to application development and deployment, but it doesn’t always fit every scenario.  There are certain classes of applications which provide a better experience when running on a device and utilizing local hardware.  The ubiquity of the mobile device has also extended the expectations of users with anytime/anywhere access. 

The Future of the Client – The pace of change in client technologies over the past few years has been tremendous and is expected to continue to evolve.  From support of new device types such as tables and walls, to continued improvements in interactions on the web, client, and the phone the client will become more and more important from a technology perspective and more strategic to the organization.

AGENDA

12:15 PM  Arrival

12:30 PM  Lunch and announcements

01:00 PM  The Value of the Client

01:45 PM  The Changing Face of the Web

02:45 PM  Creating Powerful Applications on Computers and Devices

03:45 PM  The Future of the Client

04:15 PM  Raffle and close

SPEAKER BIO

Joe Shirey

Senior Architect, Developer & Platform Evangelism

Microsoft Corporation

http://www.joeshirey.com

Joe Shirey is a Senior Architect Evangelist for Microsoft based in the Denver area. In this role, Joe works closely with customers and the community to help them understand where Microsoft technologies fit into the architecture of their solutions. Prior to joining Microsoft, Joe was a Vice President at Interlink group where he was responsible for service and delivery for Interlink's Denver market. In the past, Joe was a Microsoft Regional Director, a member of the Microsoft Architect Advisory Board, and sat on the .NET Partner Advisory Council. Joe has more than eighteen years of hands-on technical and functional experience in project management, systems analysis, design, development, and implementation. Joe attained his Microsoft Certified Architect award in 2005.

Woody Pewitt

Technology Evangelist, Developer & Platform Evangelism

Microsoft Corporation

http://blog.pewitt.org/

Woody is a Technology Evangelist with Microsoft in Southern California. He gets to work with all kinds of people who are interested in Microsoft development technologies. He is an experienced teacher/trainer and is a part-time instructor at University of California San Diego.

Before joining Microsoft in 2005 he worked for as a Principal Engineer for a Microsoft partner, InterKnowlogy. He has been involved in software and system architecture, code, development and infrastructure reviews and analysis of several fortune 500 companies for salability, security, performance and standards & practices. He is also an accomplished author, having written Microsoft Official Curriculum and has authored several published magazine articles.

Locations

Click on the city name for details and to register

3/24/2009 – Bellevue, WA
3/25/2009 – Mountain View, CA
3/26/2009 – San Francisco, CA
3/31/2009 – San Diego, CA
4/1/2009 – Irvine, CA
4/2/2009 – Los Angeles, CA
4/7/2009 – Denver, CO

In my job I get to talk to a lot of developers about their tools they use – and many of them use some variant of Visual Studio (which isn’t surprising considering my job).  However, what does surprise me is the number of teams that I speak to that are not using the Database Edition of Team System.  There are some very powerful tools in the box that can really help out the DBA (or the developer that becomes the default DBA on many projects).  If you are using Visual Studio and do any database work, these are tools you should know about.

You may not realize it, but recently Microsoft made some changes to the licensing and now when you buy Team System Developer Edition, you also get Database Edition included (definitely an acknowledgement to the developer that is also the DBA). 

My team has recognized that there are many people who could benefit from understanding more about this functionality and has an event to help with this that they are running in Denver, Phoenix, LA, Irvine, and San Diego.  If you are already using Team System Database Edition today, you probably won’t get a ton out of this session, but if you are using Visual Studio Professional or Standard and do a lot with databases, you may want to check it out.  I know that it costs more, but if you can automate and avoid change control problems on a lot of your database tasks it may just pay for itself quite rapidly. 

For more information check out Steven Lange’s post on the event.

Thanks to a number of a really motivated folks in the Colorado community we have a fantastic event coming up in February – the Rocky Mountain Trifecta.  There will be tracks dedicated to .NET development, SQL Server, and Windows Server. 

There are some amazing speakers that will be coming – see Julie Yack’s post on the event.  Go register and pass along the information to your friends that might be interested.

My colleague, Rob Bagby, has announced the dates for his next series of MSDN Events this January.  This series of events focuses on a number of topics from the Professional Developer’s Conference which took place last October.  As I always tell people, Rob is one of the best presenters around and his sessions are always fun and informative.  He does a great job of walking through complex topics in a manner that anyone can understand.  In this series, Rob will be covering:

• What to expect with C# 4.0
• The Silverlight Control Toolkit
• REST with WCF and the WCF REST Starter Kit
• Overview of Windows Azure (“The Cloud OS”) and Azure Services

The following is the schedule for these events (click on the city to register):

• 1/12: Albuquerque
• 1/15: Salt Lake City (morning), Salt Lake City (afternoon repeat)
• 1/26: Colorado Springs
• 1/27: Englewood
• 1/29: Fort Collins

Hope to see you at one of the events.