Almost Lost it All in Freeway Complex Fire</h1> <article> <h1>Almost Lost it All in Freeway Complex Fire</h1> <p>mikev — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:57:00 GMT</p> <p>On Saturday morning, November 15, just after 9:00 am we saw smoke in the distance (maybe 4 - 5 miles) straight behind our home. That was a real concern with the Santa Ana winds are blowing straight at us with gusts over 60 mph. We had our grand kids staying with us and I told them to get their stuff together in case we had to evacuate. I got the pet kennel from the garage for our cats, copied some important files to a portable hard drive and threw into my notebook bag along with some key financial docs, and quickly packed a bag with stuff for a couple of days for my wife and I.</p> <p>At around 9:15 I went out to the hill behind our house. Our neighbor from the house behind us was there too. The smoke was getting really aggressive and coming right at us. Time to back the cars out to the driveway and load up. My wife was just rounding up our last cat when the flames came up the hill in back. They were at least 40 - 50 feet high! We were all out on on the road within a minute or two, I think it was about 9:30. The police were driving through giving evacuation orders as we left.</p> <p>We were ahead of the evacuation crowd and early enough in run of the fire that we missed the traffic problems and blinding smoke. As we were leaving I said we might loose our home and everything in it but at least we are all safe. We drove to our daughter's house about 30 miles away and spent the rest of the day watching the fire storm on TV. At least 9 homes on the street above us were lost and three behind us. We watched as the firemen did their best to defend against the inferno, both on the ground and from water dropping helicopters. We were actually able to see that our home was still there as neighboring homes burned. </p> <p>The fire rapidly spread, destroying several homes on the next ridge (Hidden Hills) down wind from us and jumping the 91 freeway into Anaheim Hills. It was really sad that there was a water pumping problem to the Hidden Hills area - firemen were without water in the hydrants. A lot of people are <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ocregister.com/articles/district-system-water-2232785-officials-yorba">bringing the Yorba Linda Water District to task</a> on this. </p> <p>After four days of burning, it looks like the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ocregister.com/articles/district-system-water-2232785-officials-yorba">Freeway Complex Fire</a> is under control. In Yorba Linda, 113 home were destroyed and 50 were seriously damaged. We were lucky. There is still a huge amount of monitoring and mop-up going on to make sure it is all out. Our home was still there with no structure damage when we returned on Sunday evening. The entire left side of our yard was burned from the hillside in back all the way to the street. Thanks to our next door neighbor who came back to check on Saturday morning and found our waterfall pump and filter burning. He was able to knock down the flames. And, thanks to the Orange County Fire Authority for knocking down the burning at least two more times. I had the opportunity to personally thank them on Monday. Talk about community, this is it. Here are a few <a href="http://mvasoftware.com/media/g/yorba_linda/default.aspx">photos</a>.</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Visual Studio Team System Presentations coming in February</h1> <p>mikev — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:45:00 GMT</p> <p>On February 4th I'll be doing a <a target="_blank" href="http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/geekSpeak/">GeekSpeak</a> web cast on "What you didn't know about VSTS 2008"</p> <p>On February 19th I'll be in San Francisco for the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.msdndevcon.com/Pages/SanFrancisco.aspx">MSDN Developer Conference</a> presenting "A Lap Around VSTS 2010"</p> <p><a target="_blank" href="http://www.msdndevcon.com/Pages/SanFrancisco.aspx"></a></p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Orange County TechDays 2008 - Architecture</h1> <p>mikev — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 18:56:00 GMT</p> <p>TechDays was a hoot. Three days of free content fresh from PDC and a whole lot more. <a target="_blank" href="http://blogs.msdn.com/SoCalDevGal/">Lynn Langit</a> kept everything moving with some social networking for attendee questions in addition to her own presentations. I had a great time helping to organize the architecture track. <a target="_blank" href="http://blogs.msdn.com/dachou/">David Chou</a> presented Microsoft Cloud Services Architecture, I did the Role of an Architect and we finished with an architecture panel discussion moderated by Tim Marshall (Neudesic) and included Patrick Neeman (speakTech), John Miller (CPU2), Curt Peterson (Neudesic), myself, and a last minute guest Mark Hindsbo (Microsoft). </p> <p>Here's my deck from day 3 of Orange County TechDays 2008.</p> <p><a href="http://mvasoftware.com/media/p/89.aspx"></a></p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>The Underground @ PDC</h1> <p>mikev — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 23:17:00 GMT</p> <p>Last week at PDC 2008 there was a lot of great evening activity going on in addition to the daytime sessions. Coolest was the Underground @ PDC. Hosted at the Edison, a club located in the basement of what once was an old Edison power station, the event included a great mix of short technical discussions (Scott Guthrie, Don Box, Chris Sells, and more) food, drink and networking. Thanks to the sponsors including <a href="http://speaktech.com/">speakTech</a>, <a href="http://neudesic.com/">Neudesic</a>, Microsoft, <a href="http://ineta.org">INETA</a> and <a href="http://infragistics.com/">Infragistics</a>, and to Woody Pewitt and Daniel Egan for making it happen. I believe we had about 400 in attendance including a lot of local SoCal user group folks.</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>PDC Follow-up</h1> <p>mikev — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 00:10:00 GMT</p> <p>PDC 2008 finished up last Thursday. I had a very productive time, both attending sessions and networking. Here are some of the session highlights:</p> <ul> <li>Keynote on Day 1 - Windows Azure announcement by Ray Ozzie. The cloud is coming. With Windows Azure, Microsoft is beginning a new chapter of significant change where we will see more organizations using both on-premises and cloud based resources. We’re going to see really expanded SOA resources and will need to sharpen our distributed systems skills and apply some new principles to our development to best take advantage of Windows Azure.</li> <li>A Lap Around Visual Studio Team System 2010 by Cameron Skinner. A lot of great focus on Test and Architecture. Test case management, dealing with “it works on my box” with some really awesome recording capabilities to provide context with the new test runner. The Architecture Explorer allows easy visualization of code, UML diagrams are now first class citizens, and the Layer diagram lets you see and test multi-tier relationships. </li> </ul> <blockquote> <p></p> </blockquote> <ul> <li>NET Framework 4.0 – The Future of C# - Anders Hejlsberg. Declarative, dynamic, concurrent – the classic taxonomies are increasingly overlapping. We’re moving from imperative to declarative programming. Language innovations will fall into four broad categories: <ul> <li>Dynamically typed objects </li> <li>Optional and named parameters</li> <li>Improved COM interoperability</li> <li>Co- and Contra-variance</li> </ul> </li> <li>Deep Dive: Dynamic Languages in Microsoft .NET – Jim Hugunin. The DLR adds a shared dynamic type system, a standard hosting model and support for generating fast dynamic code on top of the CLR. Expressions trees, dynamic dispatch, and call site caching are the key features of the DLR. The DLR is open source to provide language access under MSPL plus availability in the commercial .NET stack.</li> <li>Iron Ruby: The Right Language for the Right Job – John Lam. IronRuby is a new dynamically-typed language for Microsoft .NET that offers more runtime flexibility at the expense of compile-time verification. John provided an introduction to Iron Ruby that demonstrated the interactive benefits. He leveraged a micro-framework named Sinatra to demonstrate several examples.</li> <li>A Lap Around “Oslo” – Vijaye Raji and Douglas Purdy. "Oslo" is the family of new technologies that enable model-driven development and execution of services and applications. So, “Oslo” is the platform for model driven applications. M (as in MVC - the language) is a textual language for building models and DSL’s. “Quadrant” is the tool for interacting with models and DSL’s. The Repository is the database for storing and sharing models.</li> </ul> <blockquote> <p></p> </blockquote> <ul> <li>Architecting Services for Windows Azure – Yousef Khalidi. From design to deployment, building a scalable, highly available service is different from building other kinds of applications. This session discussed the impact that designing for the cloud has on all stages of the service lifecycle, and how the Microsoft cloud platform works for you to meet the scaling and availability goals of your service. This session showed how automation is used to free the developer from dealing with many hardware and networking issues. The session also covered how the cloud services platform is architected to enable a pay-for-use dynamic model.</li> <li>Parallel Programming for Managed Developers with Visual Studio 2010 – Daniel Moth. As Moore’s law continues to mature, processor speeds have leveled out but we’re getting more processors. Our software needs to harness this paradigm change. New .NET APIs, including the Task Parallel Library (TPL) and Parallel LINQ (PLINQ). Also, new features in the debugger will help us to quickly identify concurrency issues and visualize the internal state of our applications.</li> </ul> <blockquote> <p></p> </blockquote> <ul> <li>The Future of Unit Testing, Panel Discussion. Unit testing means different things to different people. To Agile developers, it enables Test Driven Development. To researchers, it enables test generation from static and dynamic analysis. To others, it's a means to test protocols, APIs, and other functionality below the presentation layer. Others still see it as a means to do conformance testing. This panel discussion could have gone on for hours but was great even for the limited time available.</li> <li>Architecture Without Big Design Up Front – Peter Provost. Microsoft Visual Studio Team System (VSTS), code-name "Rosario" Architecture Edition, introduces new UML designers, use cases, activity diagrams, sequence diagrams that can visualize existing code, layering to enforce dependency rules, and physical designers to visualize, analyze, and refactor your software. The session showed how VSTS extends UML logical views into physical views of our code. We saw how to create relationships from these views to work items and project metrics, how to extend these designers, and how to programmatically transform models into patterns for other domains and disciplines.</li> <li>Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server: How We Use It at Microsoft – Stephanie Saad. This session gave us a detailed look at the present and future of Team Foundation Server (TFS). With close to 14,000 users, 2,000 projects, 33 million files, and over 2 million work items, Microsoft runs one of the largest known installations of TFS. Stephanie talked about internal best practices for version control, branching and merging, work item tracking, metrics, reporting, testing, and integrations with TFS.</li> </ul> <p>In addition to the sessions, networking was great. I had an opportunity to meet up with many of my community and Microsoft friends plus meet a lot of new people. I got to spend some time each day with the VSTS team and really appreciated the opportunity to get to know them better and see what kinds of issues PDC attendees wanted to discuss. Huddled with Doug Seven to work out some details on a new forthcoming VSTS INETA program. Wednesday included a chance to hand out with Scott Guthrie at his open spaces session.</p> <p>Sunday evening included <a href="http://partywithpalermo.com">Party with Palermo</a>. Monday evening was multi-tasking two dinners - the C# and VB team dinner (socialized before everyone sat down to eat) was a great get together (a big thanks to <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/charlie/">Charlie Calvert</a> and <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/vbteam/archive/tags/Lisa+Feigenbaum/default.aspx">Lisa Feigenbaum</a> for making this happen) of community and the development teams including Anders Hejlsberg, Scott Hanselman, Beth Massi, Alan Greiver (YAG). It was then down the street to Roy's for a great dinner with many of the community and DPE folks and community influentials. Tuesday was a jam packed evening including dinner with the VSTS team and the Universal Studios evening hanging out with the <a href="http://accentient.com">Accentient</a> crew and some of the VSTS team. Wendesday was the <a href="http://underground.socalcodecamp.com">http://underground.socalcodecamp.com</a>, a really cool event.<br /><br /> </p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>LA Code Camp a Success</h1> <p>mikev — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 21:15:00 GMT</p> <p>The first LA Code Camp held Oct 25 and 26 at USC was a success. It's been about 5 years since I was last on the campus (USC was a major client for a few years) and there are new buildings sprouting everywhere. I met up with <a href="http://devhawk.net">Harry Pierson</a> (Iron Python PM) on Saturday morning, one of several Microsoft people down early for PDC and really helping to add some great content. Other included <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/charlie/">Charlie Calvert</a> (C# PM), <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/charles_sterling/">Chuck Sterling</a> and <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/granth/">Grant Holiday</a> (VSTS, both from Down Under). Harry was down early to make sure everything he was responsible for at PDC was running well and did his <a href="http://www.socalcodecamp.com/session.aspx?sid=96fe471e-e96d-4c82-bfa4-a2f7d4d88387">Pumping Iron</a> presentation. The Iron Python team just got <a href="http://www.codeplex.com/IronPython/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=17404">Iron Python 2.0 Release Candidate 1</a> out so I did a quick code update to make sure my examples ran on the updated code base. Grant and Chuck did <a href="http://www.socalcodecamp.com/session.aspx?sid=cecb2466-e52e-4bc3-b3af-75640f4340f7">A Lap Around Visual Studio Team System 2010</a> which was a great PDC preview on VSTS and a bit of polish on earlier Rosario previews. My session Sunday morning <a href="http://www.socalcodecamp.com/session.aspx?sid=2151c611-844d-4918-bf8d-af0563677baa">Dynamic Languages and the DLR</a> was kind of a bust because the projector in the class room would randomly shut itself off after a couple of minutes. I finally had to move to a table and present straight from my notebook but by then the time was way short.</p> <p>Overall, the Code Camp was good. The Geek Dinner Saturday night ran smoothly and participation was good, although I was hoping to see a few more. A big thanks to the organization team and sponsors.</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Countdown to PDC</h1> <p>mikev — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 18:38:00 GMT</p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;">PDC is almost here. And, as a warm-up, we have the </span><a href="http://www.socalcodecamp.com/"><span style="font-size:small;color:#0000ff;font-family:Calibri;">LA Code Camp</span></a><span style="font-size:small;"><font face="Calibri"> Saturday and Sunday at USC. There will be over 80 presentations from our local talent, several “out of towners”, and some of the Microsoft product team members down for PDC. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span></font></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;">For PDC, I’m looking forward to some deep involvement in Visual Studio 10 and VSTS, previously code named Rosario.</span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;">Here’s what Dr Dobbs has to say</span></p> <h5 style="margin:10pt 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size:small;"><font color="#243f60"><span style="font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';">Microsoft Unveils Next Version of Visual Studio and .NET Framework</span><span style="font-size:15pt;line-height:115%;font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';"></span></font></span></h5> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#ff6609;"><font face="Verdana"><span class="greenblurb1"><span style="font-size:9pt;line-height:115%;">Includes ALM enhancements </span></span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;line-height:115%;font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';"></span></font></span></p> <p><a target="_blank" href="http://www.ddj.com/windows/210604436"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-fareast-theme-font:major-fareast;"><span style="font-size:small;color:#0000ff;font-family:Times New Roman;">Microsoft</span></span></a><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Times New Roman;"> has provided the first look at the next version of its developer tools and platform, which will be named </span><a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/products/cc948977.aspx"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-fareast-theme-font:major-fareast;"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Times New Roman;">Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4.0</span></span></a><span style="font-size:small;"><font face="Times New Roman">. This includes an in-depth look at how Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) 2010 (code-named "Rosario") will help "democratize" ALM with a unique solution that brings all the members of a development organization into the application development lifecycle, and removes many of the existing barriers to integration. <span style="font-size:9pt;font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';"></span></font></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Times New Roman;">"With Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4.0, we are focused on the core pillars of developer experience, support for the latest platforms spanning client, server, services and devices, targeted experiences for specific application types, and core architecture improvements," said S. "Soma" Somasegar, senior vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft. "These pillars are designed specifically to meet the needs of developers, the teams that drive the application lifecycle from idea to delivery, and the customers that demand the highest quality applications across multiple platforms. You can expect to hear a lot more about Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4.0 in the coming months." </span></p> <p><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Times New Roman;">Here's what Microsoft means by "democratizing" ALM: Much of application development remains siloed throughout the enterprise, leading to decreased productivity and lengthy product development cycles. With VSTS 2010, Microsoft is giving individuals and development organizations an solution that lets them integrate and build and deliver applications. This includes new capabilities that make it easier for all contributors on the software team to participate throughout the lifecycle -- from the core developers and testers to the wider team of project managers, designers, and business analysts. Highlights include: </span></p> <ul> <li style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:normal;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo1;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;tab-stops:list .5in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';">Modeling tools. With VSTS 2010 Architecture, Microsoft will enable both technical and nontechnical users to create and use models to collaborate and to define business and system functionality graphically. The new version supports both Unified Modeling Language and Domain Specific Language support, so development organizations will have the right tool for right job. The new modeling capabilities in VSTS 2010 are a core part of the larger Microsoft modeling platform, which will also include the "Oslo" repository, tools and language. </span></li> <li style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:normal;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo1;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;tab-stops:list .5in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';">Improved efficiency throughout the test cycle. With VSTS 2010, Microsoft has made a significant investment in testing features and dramatically simplifying the tools required to integrate testing across the life cycle. New features include the ability to eliminate nonreproducible bugs, fast setup and deployment of tests to ensure the highest degree of completeness of test, focused test planning and progress tracking, and ensuring that all code changes are properly tested. </span></li> <li style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:normal;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo1;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;tab-stops:list .5in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';">Improvements in collaboration capabilities. Microsoft has made major investments in the capabilities and scalability of Team Foundation Server (TFS) including significant improvements that allow teams to configure and adopt any flavor of Agile development processes. Teams can track and trace work more easily with richer linking of work items enabling hierarchical work item relationships. In the source code management system, TFS now provides visualization tools for tracking changes across branches and into the production build. VSTS 2010 also introduces workflow-based builds that catch errors before they have a chance to affect the rest of the team or, worse, enter production. Finally, administrators will find dramatically simpler TFS deployment and management. </span></li> </ul> <p><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Times New Roman;">In another move to increase integration across the lifecycle, Microsoft also announced that VSTS 2010 will provide a unified VSTS Development and </span><a target="_blank" href="http://www.ddj.com/windows/210604436"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-fareast-theme-font:major-fareast;"><span style="font-size:small;color:#0000ff;font-family:Times New Roman;">Database</span></span></a><span style="font-size:small;"><font face="Times New Roman"> product. As a benefit to existing Software Assurance (SA) customers, those who currently own Visual Studio Team System 2008 Development Edition or Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition will receive all the following products starting Oct. 1, 2008, for free: <span style="font-size:9pt;font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';"></span></font></span></p> <ul> <li style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:normal;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;tab-stops:list .5in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';">Visual Studio Team System 2008 Development Edition </span></li> <li style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:normal;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;tab-stops:list .5in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';">Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition </span></li> <li style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:normal;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;tab-stops:list .5in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';">Visual Studio 2005 Team System for Software Developers </span></li> <li style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:normal;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;tab-stops:list .5in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';">Visual Studio 2005 Team System for Database Professionals</span></li> </ul> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;"> </span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;">And, don’t forget </span><a href="http://underground.socalcodecamp.com/"><span style="font-size:small;color:#0000ff;font-family:Calibri;">The Underground @ PDC</span></a><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;"> Wednesday night at the Edison.</span></p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>TechDays '08 Coming to Costa Mesa in November</h1> <p>mikev — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 21:04:00 GMT</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Microsoft is doing a <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/acrossamerica/orangecounty.aspx" style="color:blue;text-decoration:underline;text-underline:single;">TechDays</a> event November 11-13 at the Cost Mesa Hilton. November 13 is focused on Architecture and Microsoft has asked me to organize the development architecture track. A key part of that will be an architecture panel discussion in the afternoon. Panel members will include Curt Peterson (Neudesic), John Miller (CPU2), Patrick Neeman (speakTech) and myself. Tim Marshall (Neudesic) will be the moderator. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Patrick Neeman at SoCal .Net Architecture</h1> <p>mikev — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:38:00 GMT</p> <div><span style="font-family:Tahoma;"><span class="Normal"> <p><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Verdana;">The IASA SoCal October Architecture meeting (10/16) is focusing on the importance of User Experience. Patrick Neeman, a colleague and good friend is presenting. Check out his blog <a href="http://www.usabilitycounts.com">http://www.usabilitycounts.com</a>.</span></p> <span></span><span></span> <div class="Section1"> <h3 class="style2"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="style2">How User Experience Ensures You Will Build Products People Will Use</span></span></h3> <span class="Normal"> <p class="style3"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><span style="font-size:small;">User Experience expert Patrick Neeman explains what User Experience is, isn't, and how the goals of User Experience can be used to build products and applications that users will use. During the presentation, Patrick will go through some of the basic processes and why they are important even before you write a line of code.</span></span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> </span></p> <h4 class="style2"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Patrick Neeman</span></h4> </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Patrick Neeman has had many, many job titles (Information Architect, Product Manager, Program Manager, V.P. of Marketing), but now Patrick works for speakTECH, a Microsoft Gold Partner based in Southern California that specializes in MOSS, Custom Development, and Open Social MySpace engagements as a Principal Consultant, User Experience and Product Strategy. He's been working the web for over 13 years -- don't hold that against him.</span> <p> </p> </div> </span></span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><span style="color:#1f497d;"> </span></span></p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Good Stuff Happening with Virtual Earth</h1> <p>mikev — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 06:58:00 GMT</p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;">I recently met with Mark Brown, Program Manager for Virtual Earth, as part of INETA’s new program to work closely with product teams to bring new information to our user groups and their members. Mark has a boat load of new stuff on Virtual Earth that you should take a look at. </span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;">Coming up on Oct 3 is a </span><a target="_blank" href="http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/BB10/"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;">Deep Dive on Virtual Earth</span></a><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;"> web cast on </span><a target="_blank" href="http://channel9.msdn.com/tags/virtual+earth/Default.aspx?wa=wsignin1.0"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;">Channel 9</span></a><span style="font-size:small;"><font face="Calibri">. <span style="color:#2a0f01;line-height:115%;mso-bidi-font-size:9.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:'Segoe UI';">Learn about the next major release of Virtual Earth. Come see the improvements to our parsing and geo-coding engines, clustering, localization, and routing. Hear how the new Virtual Earth Web Services provide server-side support for building location-based applications on desktops and mobile devices.</span><span></span><span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:115%;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;"></span></font></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#2a0f01;line-height:115%;mso-bidi-font-size:9.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:'Segoe UI';"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;">For the new stuff, they have just released version 6.2 AND Virtual Earth Web Services 1.0. From </span><a target="_blank" href="http://blogs.msdn.com/markbrown/"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;">Mark’s blog</span></a><span style="font-size:small;"><font face="Calibri">:</font></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;text-indent:-0.25in;line-height:normal;mso-list:l0 level2 lfo1;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;tab-stops:list 1.0in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Courier New';mso-fareast-font-family:'Courier New';"><span style="mso-list:Ignore;">o<span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">Maps for Mobile Devices</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">. Develop mobile applications with rich imagery optimized specifically for mobile devices, including the iPhone. The new mobile-optimized features are supported in the new Virtual Earth Web Services. </span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;text-indent:-0.25in;line-height:normal;mso-list:l0 level2 lfo1;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;tab-stops:list 1.0in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Courier New';mso-fareast-font-family:'Courier New';"><span style="mso-list:Ignore;">o<span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">Bird’s Eye Views and Bird’s Eye Hybrid</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">. Exclusive to Microsoft, these unique views of real-world locations provide insight into “what it’s like there.” Bird’s eye hybrid adds street names to the bird’s eye maps to provide end users better visual context and orientation. </span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;text-indent:-0.25in;line-height:normal;mso-list:l0 level2 lfo1;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;tab-stops:list 1.0in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Courier New';mso-fareast-font-family:'Courier New';"><span style="mso-list:Ignore;">o<span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">Aerial Imagery</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">. Leverage the impact of high-resolution aerial images from leading imagery providers. </span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;text-indent:-0.25in;line-height:normal;mso-list:l0 level2 lfo1;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;tab-stops:list 1.0in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Courier New';mso-fareast-font-family:'Courier New';"><span style="mso-list:Ignore;">o<span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">3D Imagery</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">. Create more realistic 3D views of buildings and landscapes, featuring denser city models. </span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;text-indent:-0.25in;line-height:normal;mso-list:l0 level2 lfo1;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;tab-stops:list 1.0in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Courier New';mso-fareast-font-family:'Courier New';"><span style="mso-list:Ignore;">o<span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">Geocoding and Reverse Geocoding</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">. Get the most accurate locations around the world through integration of multiple geocoders and datasets with MapView, Reverse IP, and Culture to provide the most relevant and accurate results. And find the closest street address based only on latitude and longitude coordinates from a GPS or other geospatial device. </span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;text-indent:-0.25in;line-height:normal;mso-list:l0 level2 lfo1;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;tab-stops:list 1.0in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Courier New';mso-fareast-font-family:'Courier New';"><span style="mso-list:Ignore;">o<span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">International Geocoding</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">. Your customers can now find international addresses with reverse geocoding, available anywhere Virtual Earth has routing. </span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;text-indent:-0.25in;line-height:normal;mso-list:l0 level2 lfo1;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;tab-stops:list 1.0in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Courier New';mso-fareast-font-family:'Courier New';"><span style="mso-list:Ignore;">o<span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">Localized Directions</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">. Get localized driving or walking directions in 15 languages. </span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;text-indent:-0.25in;line-height:normal;mso-list:l0 level2 lfo1;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;tab-stops:list 1.0in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Courier New';mso-fareast-font-family:'Courier New';"><span style="mso-list:Ignore;">o<span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">Localized Maps</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">. Create better connections with your global customers. Provide localized maps in U.S. English, German, French, Spanish, and Italian in Western Europe. </span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;text-indent:-0.25in;line-height:normal;mso-list:l0 level2 lfo1;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;tab-stops:list 1.0in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Courier New';mso-fareast-font-family:'Courier New';"><span style="mso-list:Ignore;">o<span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">Extended International Parsing Capabilities</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">. Users will experience better match rates for addresses in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Puerto Rico. </span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;text-indent:-0.25in;line-height:normal;mso-list:l0 level2 lfo1;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;tab-stops:list 1.0in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Courier New';mso-fareast-font-family:'Courier New';"><span style="mso-list:Ignore;">o<span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">Expanded Number of Rooftop Views</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">. Provide more detailed maps to help users find locations with rooftop accuracy. Virtual Earth now offers 85 million unique addresses—more than 70 percent of all rooftops in the U.S. </span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;text-indent:-0.25in;line-height:normal;mso-list:l0 level2 lfo1;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;tab-stops:list 1.0in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Courier New';mso-fareast-font-family:'Courier New';"><span style="mso-list:Ignore;">o<span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">Near-Matching Capabilities</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">. using alternate and similar spellings, resulting in a more relevant search experience. </span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;text-indent:-0.25in;line-height:normal;mso-list:l0 level2 lfo1;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;tab-stops:list 1.0in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Courier New';mso-fareast-font-family:'Courier New';"><span style="mso-list:Ignore;">o<span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">Imagery Metadata</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">. Users can now find out the relative age of a given aerial image. This level of detail will help them assess if the imagery is relevant to their needs. </span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;text-indent:-0.25in;line-height:normal;mso-list:l0 level2 lfo1;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;tab-stops:list 1.0in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Courier New';mso-fareast-font-family:'Courier New';"><span style="mso-list:Ignore;">o<span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">New Virtual Earth Web Services</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">. Developers can now take advantage of the new Virtual Earth Web Services API, which offers static map images (.gif, .jpeg, and .png), direct map tile access, one-box search functionality, geocoding, reverse geocoding, and routing. </span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;text-indent:-0.25in;line-height:normal;mso-list:l0 level2 lfo1;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;tab-stops:list 1.0in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Courier New';mso-fareast-font-family:'Courier New';"><span style="mso-list:Ignore;">o<span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">One-Click Directions</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">. From your Virtual Earth Web application, allow your customers to get directions in one click, choosing from route options by shortest time, shortest distance, or traffic flow. With one-click directions, users instantly get directions without having to enter a starting address. </span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;text-indent:-0.25in;line-height:normal;mso-list:l0 level2 lfo1;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;tab-stops:list 1.0in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Courier New';mso-fareast-font-family:'Courier New';"><span style="mso-list:Ignore;">o<span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">Shapes and Shape Layers</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">. Customize and modify pushpins, polylines and polygons, line colors and widths, and transparencies of shapes, as well as add custom icons. </span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;text-indent:-0.25in;line-height:normal;mso-list:l0 level2 lfo1;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;tab-stops:list 1.0in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Courier New';mso-fareast-font-family:'Courier New';"><span style="mso-list:Ignore;">o<span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">Pushpin Clustering</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">. Provide customers the ability to zoom in on a map to better visualize a cluster of points. When many locations exist in a dense area, the pushpins can be clustered or hidden from view at smaller zoom levels. </span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;text-indent:-0.25in;line-height:normal;mso-list:l0 level2 lfo1;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;tab-stops:list 1.0in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Courier New';mso-fareast-font-family:'Courier New';"><span style="mso-list:Ignore;">o<span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">Landmark-Based Routing</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">. Provide customers in the U.S. and Canada with turn-by-turn maps that feature such familiar landmarks as gas stations and fast-food restaurants by name. </span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;text-indent:-0.25in;line-height:normal;mso-list:l0 level2 lfo1;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;tab-stops:list 1.0in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Courier New';mso-fareast-font-family:'Courier New';"><span style="mso-list:Ignore;">o<span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">Driving Directions with Traffic-Based Routing. Provide optimized driving directions with step-by-step instructions. </span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;text-indent:-0.25in;line-height:normal;mso-list:l0 level2 lfo1;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;tab-stops:list 1.0in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Courier New';mso-fareast-font-family:'Courier New';"><span style="mso-list:Ignore;">o<span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">Walking Directions</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">. When traveling on foot, users can now find the most direct route to walk to their destination, ignoring one-way streets, medians, and other detours that pertain to motor vehicles. </span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;text-indent:-0.25in;line-height:normal;mso-list:l0 level2 lfo1;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;tab-stops:list 1.0in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Courier New';mso-fareast-font-family:'Courier New';"><span style="mso-list:Ignore;">o<span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">Multipoint Routing</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">. Optimize travel schedules and improve driver efficiency by implementing the Virtual Earth trip planner and multipoint routing. </span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;text-indent:-0.25in;line-height:normal;mso-list:l0 level2 lfo1;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;tab-stops:list 1.0in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Courier New';mso-fareast-font-family:'Courier New';"><span style="mso-list:Ignore;">o<span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">Traffic Reports</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">. Avoid time-consuming traffic jams by using traffic reports that overlay the Virtual Earth map with color-coded traffic flow visuals above the roads that they correspond to. NOTE: These traffic overlays are available to licensed customers that implement the client token authentication infrastructure. </span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;text-indent:-0.25in;line-height:normal;mso-list:l0 level2 lfo1;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;tab-stops:list 1.0in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Courier New';mso-fareast-font-family:'Courier New';"><span style="mso-list:Ignore;">o<span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">GeoRSS Feeds</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">. Import shapes, pushpins, and polylines, with GeoRSS feeds, the de facto standard for geographically encoded objects. </span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;text-indent:-0.25in;line-height:normal;mso-list:l0 level2 lfo1;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;tab-stops:list 1.0in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Courier New';mso-fareast-font-family:'Courier New';"><span style="mso-list:Ignore;">o<span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">Weather Integration</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';">. With 3D view, get near real-time weather and cloud formation data.</span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;">There are some really interesting background presentations on Virtual Earth available that you shouldn’t miss. </span><a href="http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Mark+Brown/Behind-The-Maps-UltraCam/"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;">Behind the Maps – UltraCam</span></a><span style="font-size:small;"><font face="Calibri"> gives you a detailed look at the cameras used to photograph map images. Mark travels to Graz, Austria to meet with Michael Gruber who invented the UltraCam aerial camera and<span style="color:#2a0f01;line-height:115%;mso-bidi-font-size:9.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:'Segoe UI';"> Bernhard Reitinger who created our UltraMap software. You'll spend some time getting the details on this camera and software and get an up close look at both.</span></font></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#2a0f01;line-height:115%;mso-bidi-font-size:9.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:'Segoe UI';"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;">Then, join Mark for </span><a target="_blank" href="http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Mark+Brown/Behind-The-Maps-Flying-the-UltraCam/"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;">Behind the Maps – Flying the UltraCam</span></a><span style="font-size:small;"><font face="Calibri"> for a flight over Phildelphia to see how Keystone Aerial Surveys uses the UltraCam to capture Virtual Earth imagery.</font></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;">Finally, get into the rich array of developer tools at </span><a href="http://dev.live.com/virtualearth/default.aspx"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;">http://dev.live.com/virtualearth/default.aspx</span></a><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;"> including:</span></p> <p style="margin:auto 0in auto 0.5in;text-indent:-0.25in;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2;" class="MsoListParagraph"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;"><span style="mso-list:Ignore;">·<span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:'Calibri','sans-serif';mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;">Interactive SDK to get started - Solve real business problems, or create unique mashups. By developing on the Virtual Earth platform, you can develop immersive experiences for desktop or mobile based on high-resolution map detail, aerial imagery, bird’s eye views, and 3D city models. Develop deep functionality with customized content layers and map controls.</span></p> <p style="margin:auto 0in auto 0.5in;text-indent:-0.25in;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2;" class="MsoListParagraph"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;"><span style="mso-list:Ignore;">·<span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:'Calibri','sans-serif';mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;">Virtual Earth Map Control SDK with AJAX - The Virtual Earth map control API lets users make requests via JavaScript to an AJAX map object. The <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb429619.aspx"><span style="color:#0000ff;">Map Control</span></a> enables rich mapping and enterprise-class mashups with an intuitive JavaScript programming model.</span></p> <p style="margin:auto 0in auto 0.5in;text-indent:-0.25in;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2;" class="MsoListParagraph"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;"><span style="mso-list:Ignore;">·<span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:'Calibri','sans-serif';mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;">Virtual Earth Web Services SDK - The new SOAP-based Virtual Earth Web Services provides access to the Virtual Earth platform with a completely developer-defined user interface. The platform supports mobile-optimized static map images, direct map tile access, one-box search, reverse geocoding, and routing.</span></p> <ul> <li> <ul> <li style="margin:0in 0in 2.25pt;vertical-align:top;color:black;line-height:140%;mso-list:l1 level2 lfo2;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height:140%;mso-bidi-font-size:8.0pt;"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;">Use the </span><a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc966793.aspx" id="ctl00_rs1_mainContentContainer_ctl01"><span style="font-size:small;color:#0000ff;font-family:Calibri;">Geocode Service</span></a><span style="font-size:small;"><font face="Calibri"> to match a geographic entity or address to a location on the map, or find a geographic entity or address at a given location.</font></span></span></li> <li style="margin:0in 0in 2.25pt;vertical-align:top;color:black;line-height:140%;mso-list:l1 level2 lfo2;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height:140%;mso-bidi-font-size:8.0pt;"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;">Use the </span><a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc981090.aspx" id="ctl00_rs1_mainContentContainer_ctl02"><span style="font-size:small;color:#0000ff;font-family:Calibri;">Imagery Service</span></a><span style="font-size:small;"><font face="Calibri"> to:</font></span></span> <ul> <li style="margin:0in 0in 2.25pt;vertical-align:top;color:black;line-height:140%;mso-list:l1 level3 lfo2;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height:140%;mso-bidi-font-size:8.0pt;"><span style="font-size:small;"><font face="Calibri">Return a link to a map with a pushpin at a specific location.</font></span></span></li> <li style="margin:0in 0in 2.25pt;vertical-align:top;color:black;line-height:140%;mso-list:l1 level3 lfo2;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height:140%;mso-bidi-font-size:8.0pt;"><span style="font-size:small;"><font face="Calibri">Provide a road map or aerial or bird's eye imagery to your users.</font></span></span></li> </ul> </li> <li style="margin:0in 0in 2.25pt;vertical-align:top;color:black;line-height:140%;mso-list:l1 level2 lfo2;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height:140%;mso-bidi-font-size:8.0pt;"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;">Use the </span><a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc966826.aspx" id="ctl00_rs1_mainContentContainer_ctl03"><span style="font-size:small;color:#0000ff;font-family:Calibri;">Route Service</span></a><span style="font-size:small;"><font face="Calibri"> to:</font></span></span> <ul> <li style="margin:0in 0in 2.25pt;vertical-align:top;color:black;line-height:140%;mso-list:l1 level3 lfo2;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height:140%;mso-bidi-font-size:8.0pt;"><span style="font-size:small;"><font face="Calibri">Get directions that include traffic warnings and route hints between multiple locations.</font></span></span></li> <li style="margin:0in 0in 2.25pt;vertical-align:top;color:black;line-height:140%;mso-list:l1 level3 lfo2;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height:140%;mso-bidi-font-size:8.0pt;"><span style="font-size:small;"><font face="Calibri">Get directions from all major roads to a destination (1-click directions, also referred to as a "party map") and then use the Imagery Service to map those routes.</font></span></span></li> </ul> </li> <li style="margin:0in 0in 2.25pt;vertical-align:top;color:black;line-height:140%;mso-list:l1 level2 lfo2;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height:140%;mso-bidi-font-size:8.0pt;"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;">Use the </span><a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc980849.aspx" id="ctl00_rs1_mainContentContainer_ctl04"><span style="font-size:small;color:#0000ff;font-family:Calibri;">Search Service</span></a><span style="font-size:small;"><font face="Calibri"> to parse a search query that contains a location or keyword (or both), and to return search results.</font></span></span></li> </ul> </li> </ul> <p style="margin:0in 0in 2.25pt;vertical-align:top;color:black;line-height:140%;mso-list:l1 level2 lfo2;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height:140%;mso-bidi-font-size:8.0pt;"><span style="font-size:small;"><font face="Calibri"></font></span></span></p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Microsoft Product Team Meetings</h1> <p>mikev — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 06:54:00 GMT</p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;">In mid September I, along with other INETA NorAm board members, had the pleasure of meeting with several product teams at Microsoft while in Redmond for an INETA board of directors meeting.</span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;">In our product team meetings, we shared our overall plan </span><a href="http://mvasoftware.com/blogs/mikev_weblog/archive/2008/09/21/ineta-programs-for-supporting-user-groups.aspx"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;">INETA Programs for MSFT FY 09</span></a><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;"> including speakers bureau, regional speakers, virtual presentations and INETA Live as well as regular communications through our newsletter. We will be adding product focus to our newsletters. Also, a common thread for INETA and the product teams is one of measurement.</span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal;"><span style="font-size:small;"><font face="Calibri">C#, VB .NET </font></span></b></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;">We have some recent experience working with Charlie Calvert and Lisa Feigenbaum and their user group road show a few months back. The feedback was good and we want to build on that experience. We’re exploring several other ways to work together including leveraging more content produced by the team for INETA presentation.</span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal;"><span style="font-size:small;"><font face="Calibri">VSX </font></span></b></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;">The VSX team covers Visual Studio extensibility, ecosystem and the SDK. They are opening up to a much broader audience, and doing it big as evidenced by the recent VSX Developer Conference in Redmond. We can effectively work together by helping them get their message and content out to community influencials to leverage evangelism.</span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:small;"><font face="Calibri"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal;">Visual Studio Team System </b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal;"><span style="font-size:10pt;line-height:115%;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';"></span></b></font></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;">Visual Studio Team System is growing rapidly in the Application Lifecycle Management space and has a lot of new material coming in the not too distant future. We are discussing some ways to work together to more effectively reach both developers and key decision makers.</span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal;"><span style="font-size:small;"><font face="Calibri">ASP.NET </font></span></b></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;">Other INETA board members met with the ASP.NET team. Again our programs were well received. The team has several areas they will explore to work closely with INETA on.</span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal;"><span style="font-size:small;"><font face="Calibri">Iron Python, DLR </font></span></b></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;">IronPython 2.0 is getting close to release so they will soon have a lot to talk about. Where INETA can help the most is evangelizing through community influentials in the .NET community. Harry Pierson is very open to setting up monthly Live Meeting discussions with key influencers.</span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal;"><span style="font-size:small;"><font face="Calibri">Iron Ruby, Dynamic Languages & Silverlight </font></span></b></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;">The dynamic languages team is small and resources limited so they have to work in innovative ways for product evangelism. Iron Ruby has two distinct marketing objectives – moving Ruby developers to .NET and moving .NET developers to Iron Ruby. INETA can help with the later by reaching to our user groups. The dynamic language teams have a lot to say, we can help them get it out.</span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal;"><span style="font-size:small;"><font face="Calibri">Virtual Earth </font></span></b></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;">Mark Brown has some exciting new releases with Virtual Earth where INETA can play an important role. Just released is Virtual Earth Web Service. Mark has a VE Deep Dive web cast on Oct 3<sup>rd</sup> so we’re jumping in to help with a special newsletter focused on VE. </span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal;"><span style="font-size:small;"><font face="Calibri">Patterns and Practices </font></span></b></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:small;"><font face="Calibri">I didn’t personally have the opportunity to meet with this group but others did and they were well received. The group has an objective of extending awareness and reach among architects and developers. INETA can help by getting content and information out to influential user group members for presentation and demonstration.</font></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:small;"><font face="Calibri"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal;"></b></font></span></p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>INETA Programs for Supporting User Groups</h1> <p>mikev — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 16:43:00 GMT</p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';">One of my major responsibilities, as Treasurer for INETA, is to prepare our annual budget submission to Microsoft. INETA is a volunteer organization that depends on funding from various sources in order to provide services to our user groups. As you may know, Microsoft is our biggest single funding source. Here are our programs for the new Microsoft fiscal year began July 1. The programs are intended to significantly extend our reach to the broader development community with meaningful, quality programs, speakers and content.</span></p> <p> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width:353.25pt;border-collapse:collapse;mso-border-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-themecolor:background1;mso-yfti-tbllook:1184;mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;mso-border-insideh:.5pt solid white;mso-border-insideh-themecolor:background1;mso-border-insidev:.5pt solid white;mso-border-insidev-themecolor:background1;" class="MsoTableGrid"> <tr style="height:12.95pt;mso-yfti-irow:0;mso-yfti-firstrow:yes;"> <td colspan="2" style="padding-right:5.4pt;padding-left:5.4pt;padding-bottom:0in;width:353.25pt;padding-top:0in;height:12.95pt;background-color:transparent;mso-border-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-themecolor:background1;border:white 1pt solid;"> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt;line-height:normal;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:'Times New Roman';"><strong>Speakers Bureau INETA Noram</strong></span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.95pt;mso-yfti-irow:1;mso-row-margin-left:35.05pt;"> <td style="border-right:#d4d0c8;border-top:#d4d0c8;border-left:#d4d0c8;border-bottom:white 1pt solid;background-color:transparent;mso-cell-special:placeholder;mso-border-bottom-themecolor:background1;"> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;"> </span></p> </td> <td style="border-right:white 1pt solid;padding-right:5.4pt;border-top:#d4d0c8;padding-left:5.4pt;padding-bottom:0in;border-left:white 1pt solid;width:318.2pt;padding-top:0in;border-bottom:white 1pt solid;height:12.95pt;background-color:transparent;mso-border-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-themecolor:background1;mso-border-top-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-top-themecolor:background1;"> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt;line-height:normal;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:'Times New Roman';">Building on the very successful existing program we are proposing to maintain the allocation of 2 speakers per user group in a 12 month period.</span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.95pt;mso-yfti-irow:2;"> <td colspan="2" style="border-right:white 1pt solid;padding-right:5.4pt;border-top:#d4d0c8;padding-left:5.4pt;padding-bottom:0in;border-left:white 1pt solid;width:353.25pt;padding-top:0in;border-bottom:white 1pt solid;height:12.95pt;background-color:transparent;mso-border-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-themecolor:background1;mso-border-top-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-top-themecolor:background1;"> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt;line-height:normal;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:'Times New Roman';"><strong>Speakers Bureau, Regional</strong></span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.95pt;mso-yfti-irow:3;mso-row-margin-left:35.05pt;"> <td style="border-right:#d4d0c8;border-top:#d4d0c8;border-left:#d4d0c8;border-bottom:white 1pt solid;background-color:transparent;mso-cell-special:placeholder;mso-border-bottom-themecolor:background1;"> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;"> </span></p> </td> <td style="border-right:white 1pt solid;padding-right:5.4pt;border-top:#d4d0c8;padding-left:5.4pt;padding-bottom:0in;border-left:white 1pt solid;width:318.2pt;padding-top:0in;border-bottom:white 1pt solid;height:12.95pt;background-color:transparent;mso-border-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-themecolor:background1;mso-border-top-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-top-themecolor:background1;"> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt;line-height:normal;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:'Times New Roman';">Working in conjunction with CodeZone and the MVP program we are adding regional speakers, offering greater benefits to our user groups and building a broader team of speaker talent.</span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.95pt;mso-yfti-irow:4;"> <td colspan="2" style="border-right:white 1pt solid;padding-right:5.4pt;border-top:#d4d0c8;padding-left:5.4pt;padding-bottom:0in;border-left:white 1pt solid;width:353.25pt;padding-top:0in;border-bottom:white 1pt solid;height:12.95pt;background-color:transparent;mso-border-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-themecolor:background1;mso-border-top-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-top-themecolor:background1;"> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt;line-height:normal;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:'Times New Roman';"><strong>Virtual Speakers and User Groups</strong></span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.95pt;mso-yfti-irow:5;mso-row-margin-left:35.05pt;"> <td style="border-right:#d4d0c8;border-top:#d4d0c8;border-left:#d4d0c8;border-bottom:white 1pt solid;background-color:transparent;mso-cell-special:placeholder;mso-border-bottom-themecolor:background1;"> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;"> </span></p> </td> <td style="border-right:white 1pt solid;padding-right:5.4pt;border-top:#d4d0c8;padding-left:5.4pt;padding-bottom:0in;border-left:white 1pt solid;width:318.2pt;padding-top:0in;border-bottom:white 1pt solid;height:12.95pt;background-color:transparent;mso-border-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-themecolor:background1;mso-border-top-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-top-themecolor:background1;"> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt;line-height:normal;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:'Times New Roman';">Virtual speakers and user groups will allow us to significantly broaden our reach to a wider audience leveraging our speaker and INETA Live asset base.</span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.95pt;mso-yfti-irow:6;"> <td colspan="2" style="border-right:white 1pt solid;padding-right:5.4pt;border-top:#d4d0c8;padding-left:5.4pt;padding-bottom:0in;border-left:white 1pt solid;width:353.25pt;padding-top:0in;border-bottom:white 1pt solid;height:12.95pt;background-color:transparent;mso-border-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-themecolor:background1;mso-border-top-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-top-themecolor:background1;"> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt;line-height:normal;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:'Times New Roman';"><strong>INETA Website</strong></span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.95pt;mso-yfti-irow:7;mso-row-margin-left:35.05pt;"> <td style="border-right:#d4d0c8;border-top:#d4d0c8;border-left:#d4d0c8;border-bottom:white 1pt solid;background-color:transparent;mso-cell-special:placeholder;mso-border-bottom-themecolor:background1;"> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;"> </span></p> </td> <td style="border-right:white 1pt solid;padding-right:5.4pt;border-top:#d4d0c8;padding-left:5.4pt;padding-bottom:0in;border-left:white 1pt solid;width:318.2pt;padding-top:0in;border-bottom:white 1pt solid;height:12.95pt;background-color:transparent;mso-border-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-themecolor:background1;mso-border-top-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-top-themecolor:background1;"> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt;line-height:normal;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:'Times New Roman';">With the release of INETA’s new website, this program leverages delivery of content and social interaction to continue growing a vibrant community.</span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.95pt;mso-yfti-irow:8;"> <td colspan="2" style="border-right:white 1pt solid;padding-right:5.4pt;border-top:#d4d0c8;padding-left:5.4pt;padding-bottom:0in;border-left:white 1pt solid;width:353.25pt;padding-top:0in;border-bottom:white 1pt solid;height:12.95pt;background-color:transparent;mso-border-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-themecolor:background1;mso-border-top-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-top-themecolor:background1;"> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt;line-height:normal;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:'Times New Roman';"><strong>INETA Live</strong></span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.95pt;mso-yfti-irow:9;mso-row-margin-left:35.05pt;"> <td style="border-right:#d4d0c8;border-top:#d4d0c8;border-left:#d4d0c8;border-bottom:white 1pt solid;background-color:transparent;mso-cell-special:placeholder;mso-border-bottom-themecolor:background1;"> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;"> </span></p> </td> <td style="border-right:white 1pt solid;padding-right:5.4pt;border-top:#d4d0c8;padding-left:5.4pt;padding-bottom:0in;border-left:white 1pt solid;width:318.2pt;padding-top:0in;border-bottom:white 1pt solid;height:12.95pt;background-color:transparent;mso-border-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-themecolor:background1;mso-border-top-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-top-themecolor:background1;"> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt;line-height:normal;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:'Times New Roman';">INETA Live has become a tool that allows us to highlight the efforts of our multiple project teams, under one strong brand to market to the community. During the next year, we will be expanding our participation outside of the core Live team to greatly increase our content.</span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.95pt;mso-yfti-irow:10;"> <td colspan="2" style="border-right:white 1pt solid;padding-right:5.4pt;border-top:#d4d0c8;padding-left:5.4pt;padding-bottom:0in;border-left:white 1pt solid;width:353.25pt;padding-top:0in;border-bottom:white 1pt solid;height:12.95pt;background-color:transparent;mso-border-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-themecolor:background1;mso-border-top-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-top-themecolor:background1;"> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt;line-height:normal;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:'Times New Roman';"><strong>Community Champions</strong></span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.95pt;mso-yfti-irow:11;mso-row-margin-left:35.05pt;"> <td style="border-right:#d4d0c8;border-top:#d4d0c8;border-left:#d4d0c8;border-bottom:white 1pt solid;background-color:transparent;mso-cell-special:placeholder;mso-border-bottom-themecolor:background1;"> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;"> </span></p> </td> <td style="border-right:white 1pt solid;padding-right:5.4pt;border-top:#d4d0c8;padding-left:5.4pt;padding-bottom:0in;border-left:white 1pt solid;width:318.2pt;padding-top:0in;border-bottom:white 1pt solid;height:12.95pt;background-color:transparent;mso-border-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-themecolor:background1;mso-border-top-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-top-themecolor:background1;"> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt;line-height:normal;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:'Times New Roman';">This program specifically recognizes the leadership effort that it takes to run a successful user group community.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>It provides recognition and reward to user group leaders for their excellent efforts.</span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.95pt;mso-yfti-irow:12;"> <td colspan="2" style="border-right:white 1pt solid;padding-right:5.4pt;border-top:#d4d0c8;padding-left:5.4pt;padding-bottom:0in;border-left:white 1pt solid;width:353.25pt;padding-top:0in;border-bottom:white 1pt solid;height:12.95pt;background-color:transparent;mso-border-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-themecolor:background1;mso-border-top-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-top-themecolor:background1;"> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt;line-height:normal;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:'Times New Roman';"><strong>INETA Authors</strong></span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.95pt;mso-yfti-irow:13;mso-row-margin-left:35.05pt;"> <td style="border-right:#d4d0c8;border-top:#d4d0c8;border-left:#d4d0c8;border-bottom:white 1pt solid;background-color:transparent;mso-cell-special:placeholder;mso-border-bottom-themecolor:background1;"> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;"> </span></p> </td> <td style="border-right:white 1pt solid;padding-right:5.4pt;border-top:#d4d0c8;padding-left:5.4pt;padding-bottom:0in;border-left:white 1pt solid;width:318.2pt;padding-top:0in;border-bottom:white 1pt solid;height:12.95pt;background-color:transparent;mso-border-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-themecolor:background1;mso-border-top-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-top-themecolor:background1;"> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt;line-height:normal;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:'Times New Roman';">This new program facilitates authoring opportunities for INETA members with book and magazine publishers.</span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.95pt;mso-yfti-irow:14;"> <td colspan="2" style="border-right:white 1pt solid;padding-right:5.4pt;border-top:#d4d0c8;padding-left:5.4pt;padding-bottom:0in;border-left:white 1pt solid;width:353.25pt;padding-top:0in;border-bottom:white 1pt solid;height:12.95pt;background-color:transparent;mso-border-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-themecolor:background1;mso-border-top-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-top-themecolor:background1;"> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt;line-height:normal;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:'Times New Roman';"><strong>Community Outreach</strong></span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.95pt;mso-yfti-irow:15;mso-row-margin-left:35.05pt;"> <td style="border-right:#d4d0c8;border-top:#d4d0c8;border-left:#d4d0c8;border-bottom:white 1pt solid;background-color:transparent;mso-cell-special:placeholder;mso-border-bottom-themecolor:background1;"> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;"> </span></p> </td> <td style="border-right:white 1pt solid;padding-right:5.4pt;border-top:#d4d0c8;padding-left:5.4pt;padding-bottom:0in;border-left:white 1pt solid;width:318.2pt;padding-top:0in;border-bottom:white 1pt solid;height:12.95pt;background-color:transparent;mso-border-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-themecolor:background1;mso-border-top-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-top-themecolor:background1;"> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt;line-height:normal;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:'Times New Roman';">The Community Outreach program is all about extending the reach of existing INETA and CodeZone audiences and increasing numbers. It is focused on building awareness and membership participation in existing user group programs within the developer community.</span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.95pt;mso-yfti-irow:16;"> <td colspan="2" style="border-right:white 1pt solid;padding-right:5.4pt;border-top:#d4d0c8;padding-left:5.4pt;padding-bottom:0in;border-left:white 1pt solid;width:353.25pt;padding-top:0in;border-bottom:white 1pt solid;height:12.95pt;background-color:transparent;mso-border-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-themecolor:background1;mso-border-top-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-top-themecolor:background1;"> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt;line-height:normal;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:'Times New Roman';"><strong>Continuing Programs</strong></span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.95pt;mso-yfti-irow:17;mso-row-margin-left:35.05pt;mso-yfti-lastrow:yes;"> <td style="background-color:transparent;mso-cell-special:placeholder;border:#d4d0c8;padding:0in;"> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;"> </span></p> </td> <td style="border-right:white 1pt solid;padding-right:5.4pt;border-top:#d4d0c8;padding-left:5.4pt;padding-bottom:0in;border-left:white 1pt solid;width:318.2pt;padding-top:0in;border-bottom:white 1pt solid;height:12.95pt;background-color:transparent;mso-border-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-themecolor:background1;mso-border-top-alt:solid white .5pt;mso-border-top-themecolor:background1;"> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt;line-height:normal;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:'Times New Roman';">Newsletter user group recognition, membership mentor programs facilitate helping us stay in contact and extend our membership reach.</span></p> </td> </tr> </table> </p> <p> </p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>MSDN Webcast: geekSpeak on Wednesday September 10</h1> <p>mikev — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 01:14:00 GMT</p> <p><span style="font-family:Verdana;">On Sepember 10, I'll be doing a <a target="_blank" href="http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032387088&EventCategory=4&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US">geekSpeak webcast on Dynamic Languages and the DLR</a>. The web cast starts at 12:00 noon Pacific time. The link above will take you to online registration. Hope you can join us.</span></p> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" id="table1"> <tr> <td colspan="2" class="eventInfo"><b><span id="eventInfo_lblEventDescHeading">Event Overview</span></b> </td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"> <div class="eventdetails"><span id="eventInfo_lblEventDescription"> <p><span style="font-family:Verdana;">The geekSpeak webcast series brings you industry experts in a "talk-radio" format hosted by developer evangelists from Microsoft. These experts share their knowledge and experience about a particular developer technology, and they are ready to answer your questions in real time during the webcast. In this geekSpeak, Mike Vincent explains how dynamic languages like Iron Python and Iron Ruby running on the Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR) give you new options when choosing the best tool for the job. Mike addresses the advantages you can gain from using dynamic languages, when and where you should consider dynamic languages, and what is important from the architect's view, the developer's view, and the business case view. Your hosts for this geekSpeak are <a target="_blank" href="http://blogs.msdn.com/glengordon">Glen Gordon </a>and <a target="_blank" href="http://blogs.msdn.com/peterlau">Peter Laudati</a>. <br /><br />To ask a question in advance of the live webcast, or for post-show resources, be sure to visit the <a target="_blank" href="http://blogs.msdn.com/geekSpeak">geekSpeak blog</a>. <br /><br /><b>Guest Presenter: </b>Mike Vincent, President, MVA Software<br /><br />Mike Vincent is a solutions architect based in Orange County, California providing clients with software architecture, application lifecycle management and development services, primarily focusing on Microsoft .NET technology. He has been in the software business for over 20 years in addition to engineering and marketing management positions. He founded both the IASA SoCal Chapter and the Orange County C# Developers group and is Treasurer of INETA NorAm.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Verdana;">View other sessions from: <a target="_blank" href="http://www.microsoft.com/events/series/geekSpeak.aspx">geekSpeak: Join a Discussion Like No Other</a>.<br /> </span></p> </span></div> </td> </tr> </table> <p> </p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>More User Group Presentations on Dynamic Languages</h1> <p>mikev — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 17:03:00 GMT</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Last Tuesday I presented my continually evolving “Dynamic Languages and the DLR” at the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.sandiegodotnet.com/">San Diego .NET Users Group</a>. I have unit tests written in Iron Python running in NUnit as part of the presentation.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">This week, on Wednesday September 3 I’ll be at <a target="_blank" href="http://www.socaldotnet.org">So Cal .NET</a> in Buena Park. Download the <a target="_blank" href="http://mvasoftware.com/media/p/47.aspx">updated presentation</a> and <a target="_blank" href="http://mvasoftware.com/media/p/66.aspx">code</a>.</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>LA Code Camp</h1> <p>mikev — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 15:23:00 GMT</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.socalcodecamp.com"></a></p> <p><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;">Coming up October 25 and 26 is the first <a target="_blank" href="http://www.socalcodecamp.com">LA Code Camp</a>. It’ll be held at the USC campus. This is the weekend just before PDC so we may see some of the Microsoft product teams attending. I’m again doing my continuous evolving dynamic languages presentation. Currently there are 47 sessions registered. Plan on joining us for a great weekend of content and community.</span></p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Central Coast Code Camp</h1> <p>mikev — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 19:31:00 GMT</p> <p><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;">Coming up September 27 and 28 is the Central Coast Code Camp in San Luis Obispo. Again this year, it will be held at the Embassy Suites hotel. Check the </span><a target="_blank" href="http://www.centralcoastcodecamp.com/"><span style="font-size:small;color:#800080;font-family:Calibri;">Central Coast Code Camp</span></a><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;"> web site for details. Looks like about 35 sessions registered thus far. I’ll be doing my dynamic languages presentation. Several people are planning to take the Amtrac train, going up on Friday and coming back to SoCal on Monday.</span></p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Architect & IASA Connections</h1> <p>mikev — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 19:27:00 GMT</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="color:#000000;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.iasaconnections.com"></a></span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="color:#000000;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';">Architect & IASA Connections</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="color:#000000;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';">October 6 - 8 San Francisco, CA</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';">Don’t miss this unique event for IT & Software Architects that will impact how you think, design & innovate – and help guide you as a professional architect. The conference offers over 70 in-depth sessions from industry experts including lots of great architecture advice for your WCF, Workflow and WPF applications. The first 100 attendees will receive Visual Studio 2008 Professional & IASA Membership. Visit </span><a target="_blank" href="http://www.iasaconnections.com/" style="color:blue;text-decoration:underline;text-underline:single;"><span style="font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';">www.IASAConnections.com</span></a><span style="font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';"> or call 800-438-6720</span></p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Lynn Langit at SoCal .NET Architecture 8/21/08</h1> <p>mikev — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 19:23:00 GMT</p> <h2><span style="font-family:'Tahoma','sans-serif';">SQL Server 2008 BI Architecture</span></h2> <p><span style="font-family:Tahoma,sans-serif;">In this demo-filled session, Lynn explained architectural considerations around implementation of OLAP cubes and Data Mining models using the SQL Server 2008 product stack. Here she demonstrated SSAS, SSIS and SSRS. Her talk included research for her new book, along with lessons learned from the real world (from her previous practice as BI architect).</span><span style="font-family:Tahoma,sans-serif;"> </span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Tahoma,sans-serif;">Here’s Lynn’s </span><a target="_blank" href="http://blogs.msdn.com/socaldevgal/archive/2008/08/22/bi-in-sql-server-2008-for-architects.aspx" style="color:blue;text-decoration:underline;text-underline:single;"><span style="font-family:Tahoma,sans-serif;">slide deck</span></a><span style="font-family:Tahoma,sans-serif;"> from her presentation.</span></p> <h3><span style="font-family:Tahoma,sans-serif;">Lynn Langit</span></h3> <p><span style="font-family:Tahoma,sans-serif;">Lynn Langit is a developer evangelist for Microsoft. She blogs at <a target="_blank" href="http://blogs.msdn.com/SoCalDevGal">http://blogs.msdn.com/SoCalDevGal</a>. In addition to presenting information about new .NET developer technologies, such as WCF, LINQ and Silverlight, Lynn speaks about SQL Server Data Warehousing and Data Mining. She also speaks about SharePoint. Lynn leads the local DigiGirlz days and camps – these are free events for high-school-aged girls. As part of this effort, Lynn advises on curriculum using non -traditional developer tools such as PopFly and StoryTelling Alice. She has been a Microsoft Certified Trainer for 9 years and holds these certifications: MCP, MCT, MCSD, MCSE, MCDBA, MCITP (SQL Admin/Dev/BI) and MSF. In April 2007 Lynn published “Foundations of SQL Server </span></p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> </main></body></html>