Proud to be a part of TechEd SEA 2008..!

I got an golden opportunity to take part in TechEd SEA 2008 as a presenter. Not only me. Prasasnna also participated as a presenter for the 2^nd time.

We landed in Kuala Lumpur on 10^th and we had to participate presenter preparation session on 10^th evening. TechEd started on 11^th and I was surprised to see my picture in the keynote session. They played the Microsoft Learning Case Study which I participated, in the big screen.

There were very good technical sessions in the TechEd and I feel very sorry about not having a TechEd in Sri Lanka for the past 02 years.

I participated in 02 Light & Easy sessions, one talks about the Value of Certification and the other talks about the Value of MCT.

We had fun during presenter party and I came back to Sri Lanka on 15^th Friday.

Hope to fly Malaysia in 2009 to present in TechEd SEA 2009.

Are you attending to TechEd SEA 2008..?

After two (2) consecutive years, we are excited to hear that TechEd SEA 2008, Microsoft's premier and largest annual conference, is back with full force! This year, they are offering opportunity to learn, connect, explore, evaluate, problem-solve and ultimately experience and realize the full potential not only of the technology, but of our own!

There are 19 Sri Lankans already registered to this event to fly to Malaysia, and get most out of Microsoft TechEd SEA 2008. Above all, what is so important for us is, you can see a Sri Lankan doing a Break-Out session in TechEd SEA. Who is that? No one else, he is Prasanna (as you might have already guessed).

Here is what you get this year in TechEd SEA (http://www.microsoft.com/malaysia/techedsea2008/default.mspx ):

• More than 2000 participants from 33 countries
  
• 73 sponsors / exhibitors
  
• 109 of speakers: 49% Microsoft Corp Speakers
  
• 51% Local Speakers
  
• 158 Hands-On Labs
  
• 38 Instructor-Led Labs
  

And also:

• GeekOut Party
  
• Tech·Ed Fest
  
• Women in Technology
  

More importantly:

• Microsoft Learning Pavilion (http://www.microsoft.com/malaysia/techedsea2008/msl.mspx )
  

I'll be attending TehcEd SEA 2008 specially for contributing to Microsoft Learning Pavilion. What is so important about it? If you are attending TechEd SEA, make sure you attend to session "Why get Certified? MS Most Valuable Professional speaks" on 13^th August, 06:00 pm onward. You will be provided lots of valuable information about Microsoft Certification.

See you in Malaysia…!

Microsoft Learning Case Study…!

Finally they have released the Microsoft Learning Case Study to public. Please feel free to see what we have done.

Written Case Study:

http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=4000002017.

Video Case Study:

http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=4e3c9e75-3049-4bbc-ba23-e35315268b48

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6FQg7EkKNU

Proud to be a part of Microsoft Learning Case Study…!

Learning is an integral part of our life. I used to say "Learning never stops..!". Being an IT professional, learning has to be an internal plug-in to your life style. If you spend 1 day without learning any new thing, you will be outdated. This is very close to Charles Davin's theory of evolution.

Microsoft is very committed to provide content on new technologies in order to keep every individual up-to-date. Microsoft Learning is a very aggressive team within Microsoft Corporation. Certification is the only way we can showcase the competency within community. According to a recent survey conducted by IDC, Microsoft Certification helps to increase business market value by up to 40%.

Microsoft wanted to prove IDC's statement by doing a Customer Solution Case Study about Microsoft Learning. I got an golden opportunity to be a key member in this case study and they have release the final version of written case study.

This is the written case study and there is a video case study also which will be released very soon. Guys, it's true. I'm a very good living example of how Microsoft Certification helps us to increase value of our career (which in turn increases the value of the organization).

Case Study

.NET Framework 3.5 Enhancements Training Kit…!

On 21^st April, Microsoft published a preview of the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 Training Kit (currently named the .NET 3.5 Enhancements Training Kit). The preview release contains 06 hands-on-labs for the new features such as Astoria, the Entity Framework and ASP.NET MVC.

Microsoft says, "The .NET 3.5 Enhancements Training kit builds on the success of the Visual Studio 2008 Training Kit which resulted in 70,000 completed downloads since being released in November. These training kits provide a way for developers to grasp the breadth of the entire release, as well as dive deep into a specific technology."

The .NET 3.5 Enhancements Training Kit covers the technologies in the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 release and the out of band releases that are a part of the same wave, namely ASP.NET MVC and the ASP.NET Silverlight controls. Currently, the training kit contains six hands-on labs, made up of the following technologies:

1. ADO.NET Data Services
   
2. ADO.NET Entity Framework
   
3. ASP.NET AJAX History
   
4. ASP.NET Dynamic Data
   
5. ASP.NET MVC
   
6. ASP.NET Silverlight controls
   

All six labs contained within the kit have been tested and validated by customers during 02 .NET 3.5 SP1 training workshops held in Redmond. We will continue to receive customer and field feedback on the labs and incorporate the feedback into future iterations. There will also be new versions of the training kit with additional content, including presentations, demo scripts and screencasts.

http://lostintangent.com/2008/04/16/net-35-enhancements-training-kit/

Source: MVP Communications

From Seattle to Austin, Texas..!

I came to Austin, Texas from Seattle today. It was a 4+ hour journey from Seattle to Austin. Purpose of this visit is to meet our CEO & COO and to brief them about SharePoint.

I stayed in Embassy Suite Hotel which is very near to Gateway shopping complex. I stayed 3 nights there and Marko took me around the Austin city and I saw great University of Texas too. It was a very nice and calm city. I wish I was born there. Only thing came to my mind is Harry Potter. It was so beautiful city.

Thanks Marko, for taking me around the city.

MVP Summit 2008..!

What an amazing/ exciting week it was. One of my dreams came true. The MVP Global Summit 2008 just got over today and it was really exciting event. We got an opportunity to meet product teams at Microsoft. Microsoft proved that they are a company which listens very well to its customers by giving us an opportunity to talk to product teams. They showed us what's going to come next and they collected lots of feedback from us as to how they can improve the quality of their products.

Event started with the key note of Sean founder of Community concept and ended with the keynote of Ray Ozzie-Chief Software Architect and Steve Balmer-Chief Executive Officer in person.

On 16^th night we had our attendee rock night at EMP-Enterprise Music Project, and got an opportunity to see Science Fiction Museum also.

On 17^th evening, we all went to Space Needle and looked at the beautiful city of Seattle. When we came to Seattle, it was 4^o C temperature and it was going down and they were expecting snow today.

Photos:

• Crab Pot Dinner http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/send2joy/MVPSummit2008CrabPotDinner
• MVP Summit Day 1 http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/send2joy/MVPSummit2008
• Microsoft Campus http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/send2joy/MVPSummit2008MicrosoftCampus
• Rock Night http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/send2joy/MVPSummit2008RockNight
• MVP Summit Closing Event http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/send2joy/MVPSummit2008ClosingEvent
• City of Seattle http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/send2joy/MVPSummit2008Seattle