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EnergizeIT: Coming Soon!

Before I begin, let me show you the official banner for EnergizeIT, the upcoming cross-Canada expo featuring Microsoft’s up-and-coming technologies:

EnergizeIT: Anything is Possible

It’s fine and dandy, but I thought that the image below might better illustrate EnergizeIT’s awesomeness:

A rock concert featuring Princess Leia on Vocals, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker on guitar, Darth Vader on bass and Chewbacca on drums
The Force is strong in this band!
Click the image to see it at full size.

I tried running this suggestion by the legal department, and wouldn’t you know it, they put the kibosh on that idea in no time flat. Leave it to those buzzkills to harsh on my mellow.

But seriously – EnergizeIT is coming soon. It used to be a single-day conference, but we’ve decided, like that awesome band pictured above, to take our show on the road. We, the folks in Microsoft Canada’s Developer and Platform Evangelism group, will be going across Canada and showing off up-and-coming Microsoft tools and technologies including Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Azure and Visual Studio 2010. Yes, the current state of Windows Mobile has me less than pleased, but I’ve been enjoying these other parts of the Microsoft technology stack.

For more about EnergizeIT, I suggest you take a look at this Canadian Developer Connection article written by my friend and fellow Developer Evangelist John Bristowe.

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This is How the Current State of Windows Mobile Makes Me Feel

Sad-looking kid in a Darth Vader mask sitting alone at a fast-food restaurant table.Photo courtesy of Alex Brown Photography.

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Where Should I Hold My “Coffee and Code” Days?

Guy in a cafe using a laptop

From 1998 to 2000, I was self-employed. Lacking the funds to rent office space, I ended up working outside the boundaries of cubicle-land or even anything that looked like an office. I worked out of my kitchen, my business partner Adam’s living room and often by the bar at the old location of the Queen Street cafe known as Tequila Bookworm. Being a gregarious and social guy, I enjoyed working at “The ‘Worm”, mixing work with mingling with both the people who came to the cafe and the people who worked there (which led to a story I call Worst Date Ever, which was actually a lot of fun, even back then).

Today, I’m a Sith Lord – er, Developer Evangelist — at Microsoft. In addition to the cool red lightsaber and the ability to hurl lightning bolts, I also have the benefit of being a remote worker, which means I can choose where I work. I’ve got a nice home office setup and I can go hang out at the Evangelist Corner at the Mississauga office, but neither of these locations puts me anywhere where you can come up and talk to me.

That’s why I plan have a “Coffee and Code” day at least once a week. On these days, I plan to work from a wifi-equipped cafe, where you can walk right up to me and talk.

This brings me to my question: Where should I set up? A better way of putting this question might be “Where should I set up so that it’s convenient for you to drop by and have a word with me?” As long as it’s got wifi and it’s somewhere in Toronto, if it’s at a place that’s convenient for a lot of developers and techies, that’s where I want to be.

If you have any suggestions, please let me know in the comments!

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Me, the Gnu and Microsoft’s Founders

The following photos explain why I probably shouldn’t ever be allowed free roam of the Microsoft Campus. Click any photo to see it at full size.

(For the background story of the gnu, see my entry titled Winning the Gnu.)

Joey deVilla, his stuffed gnu and a cardboard cutout of Microsoft's founders

Joey deVilla, his stuffed gnu and a cardboard cutout of Microsoft's founders

Joey deVilla, his stuffed gnu and a cardboard cutout of Microsoft's founders

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We’ll be in Seattle This Week!

Seattle skyline

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

Starting tonight (Pacific Coast Time), John Bristowe, I, and a few other folks from Microsoft Canada’s De veloper & Platform Evangelism team, will be in Seattle all next week to attend Microsoft’s 8th TechReady conference. TechReady is a Microsoft internal conference where ‘Softies from all over the world gather to get briefed on upcoming releases. The coming months promise a bumper crop of Microsoft goodies – Windows 7, Internet Explorer 8, Visual Studio 2010 and Azure to name a few – so the sessions should be very interesting. (I think I’ll actually be taking a lot of notes during the presentations rather than checking my mail or looking at that video of kittens riding a Roomba.)

We’re going to try to take advantage of this gathering to get some interviews with  some of the big brains at Microsoft from Redmond and all over the world, as well as show you some of the sights and sounds of Seattle. Watch this blog for updates!

Are you in Seattle? Want to catch up? Talk about Microsoft, software development, accordions. Zardoz or anything else? Drop me a line or give me a ring (416-948-6447)!

[Seattle photo by Andrew “papalars” Larsen and licenced under Creative Commons. Click here to see the original.]

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My Inaugural Swearing-In Ceremony

On Tuesday, the day that Barack Obama got sworn in as the 44th President of the United States, my 3-month probationary period at Microsoft also ended and I became a full-fledged Microsoft Developer Evangelist. I figured that if Obama could have a swearing-in ceremony to mark his official entrance into his new job, why couldn’t I?

As luck would have it, I was at the Vancouver Convention Centre to speak at Microsoft’s TechDays conference, where the Microsoft logo was projected onto the waterfall on the second floor. It made a pretty good backdrop for the ceremony, which was conducted by my fellow Developer Evangelist John Bristowe. I swore my oath on a “Techie Crunch” box, a cereal box containing the swag we gave to every attendee:

This magic moment would’ve been lost forever if it weren’t for videographer, blogger and man-about-tech Warren Frey, who was recording interviews for TechVibes and caught it for posterity. Thanks, Warren! I salute you with a filet mignon on a flaming sword!

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Vangroovy Scenery

Hello from Vangroovy! I’m at the Vancouver Convention Center to speak at the Microsoft Techdays Canada conference.

Here’s the Centre, as shown on the web site and postcards. It does look like this in the summer:

Fog-free picture of the Vancouver Convention Center

Here are the photos I took looking out onto the ocean from the Centre this morning:

Vancouver fog

Vancouver fog

Vancouver fog

My hotel is across the street from the Centre, so I didn’t wear a coat today. The doorman looked a bit worried when I passed him, but I said “Don’t worry. Next to last week’s weather in Toronto, this is tropical.”