My good friend and colleague, Matt Hester, is touring the Heartland District. Matt recently relocated from Dallas, TX to Ohio. Now that the dust has settled and the boxes are (mostly) unpacked from Matt’s relocation to Ohio. He wants to meet you and get to know IT professionals from all around Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, Tennessee and beyond. What a better way than with Windows Server 2008 R2, giveaways and food?

Matt will be talking about the many administrative benefits of  Windows Server 2008 R2. He will also talk about his experiences with his recently published book  Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Administration Instant Reference. Matt will bring a couple copies of his book to give away and some other fun stuff, to boot. If you buy a copy of his book, I'm sure he'll be happy to sign it for you, too!

Be sure to attend and learn more of what Windows Server 2008 R2 has to offer! Knowing Matt like I do (he and I started at Microsoft together in 2000), it should be a fun evening.

Tour Dates

• Beachwood, OH on March 24, 2010
• Grand Rapids, MI on March 25, 2010
• Southfield, MI on March 26, 2010
• Louisville, KY on March 29, 2010
• Columbus, OH on April 6, 2010
• Cincinnati, OH on April 7, 2010
• Nashville, TN on April 8, 2010
• Indianapolis, IN on April 13, 2010
• Dayton, OH on April 14, 2010

About Matt
Matt is a seasoned Information Technology Professional Evangelist for Microsoft who has been involved in the IT Pro community for over 15 years. He is a skilled and experienced evangelist, having presented to audiences nationally and internationally. Prior to joining Microsoft Matt was a highly successful Microsoft Certified Trainer for over 8 years. After joining Microsoft, Matt has continued to be heavily involved in IT professional community as an Evangelist. In his role at Microsoft he has presented to audiences as large as 5,000+ and as small as 10. Matt has also published 4 articles for TechNet magazine and runs a successful blog with ~350K page views a month. Matt recently published Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Administration Instant Reference by Sybex.

Do you know who Brian Harry is? Well, other than following the handy link I provided to his blog Brian is a Technical Fellow in the Developer Division (the product group that builds Visual Studio, Expression, the .NET Framework and related technologies and tools) at Microsoft. To paint the right picture, that is a pretty senior technical role in our product groups. More importantly Brian is one of the brains behind out ALM (application lifecycle management) tools, formerly known as Team System. Here is a brief bio on Brian...

Our keynote speaker, Brian Harry, is a Microsoft Technical Fellow working as the Product Unit Manager for Team Foundation Server - a server-based product designed to dramatically improve the productivity, predictability, and agility of software development teams by ensuring that all team members have easy access to the information they need to make the right decisions at the right time.

Brian worked at start up, DaVinci Systems, doing electronic mail software from 1988 to 1992. In 1992 Harry left DaVinci Systems with two others to create One Tree Software. One Tree, was a classic garage-type startup company that developed and sold SourceSafe (the same product that is now Microsoft Visual SourceSafe). One Tree Software was acquired by Microsoft in 1994.

After joining Microsoft, Harry worked in what was then the Tools and Databases division. For a couple of years he worked on SourceSafe and then on Microsoft Repository. In 1996 he and others began working on the problem of improving the approachability of API for the developer masses. Although this started as investigation of ways to extend COM it eventually grew into what we now know as the Microsoft .NET Framework. Harry served as the Development manager for the Common Language Runtime (CLR) and then as the Product Unit Manager through the rest of the V1 and most of the V1.1 product cycle.

Why am I sharing all this background on Brian? Well, he is coming to Chicago, IL for an afternoon presentation (3pm to 6pm) on Thursday, March 4, 2010. He will be at the Clarity Consulting offices at One North Franklin Street, Suite 3400, Chicago, IL 60606.

Register here to attend the event and come here an incredible presenter deliver a great talk on Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010.

I am woefully late in sharing this announcement. But then again I am woefully behind on blogging (I have at least four or five training resources to announce, let alone my normal musings; I blame it on Microsoft's midyear). Hopefully it is better to be late than to skip the announcement altogether. So without further ado, here are our winter event schedule...

TechNet Events Presents Windows Azure, Hyper-V and Windows 7 Deployment
First, we start with our TechNet Events for IT professionals of all types. Get the inside track on new tips, tools and technologies for IT pros. Join your TechNet Events team for a look at Windows Azure™ and learn the basics of this new online service computing platform. Next, we’ll explore how to build a great virtual environment with Windows Server® 2008 R2 and Hyper-V™ version 2.0. We’ll wrap this free, half-day of live learning with a tour of easy deployment strategies for Windows® 7.

Topics include:

• The Next Wave: Windows Azure
• Hyper-V: Tools to Build the Ultimate Virtual Test Network
• Automating Your Windows 7 Deployment with MDT 2010

TechNet Events Schedule

Date	City	Time	Presenter	Location
February 23, 2010	Overland Park, KS	8:30am - 12:00pm	Kevin Remde	Microsoft Office
February 24, 2010	Little Rock, AR	8:30am - 12:00pm	John Weston	Pulaski Technical College
February 25, 2010	Columbus, OH	8:30am - 12:00pm	Matt Hester	Marcus Cinemas Crosswoods
February 25, 2010	Omaha, NE	8:30am - 12:00pm	Kevin Remde	Marcus Midtown Crossing
March 2, 2010	Mason, OH	8:30am - 12:00pm	Matt Hester	Microsoft Office
March 4, 2010	Louisville, KY	8:30am - 12:00pm	Matt Hester	Kentucky International Convention Center
March 4, 2010	Baton Rouge, LA	8:30am - 12:00pm	John Weston	SonLife Radio Building
March 9, 2010	Waukesha, WI	8:30am - 12:00pm	Brian Lewis	Marcus Majestic Brookfield
March 9, 2010	Austin, TX	8:30am - 12:00pm	John Weston	St. Edward's Univ. Prof. Education Center
March 11, 2010	Indianapolis, IN	8:30am - 12:00pm	Brian Lewis	Junior Achievement Center
March 11, 2010	Des Moines, IA	8:30am - 12:00pm	Kevin Remde	Spindustry Training
March 12, 2010	Houston, TX	8:30am - 12:00pm	John Weston	Microsoft Office

MSDN Events Presents Visual Studio 2010, .NET Framework 4.0 and SharePoint Development
Next is our MSDN Events for developers and architects. Join your local MSDN Events team for a lively tour our latest version of Visual Studio and the .NET Framework. We’ll start with an overview the IDE and explore how you can use the latest features to develop great applications in a flash. Next, we’ll look at the newest changes to the .NET Framework and how you can leverage them today. Finally, we end the day by looking at the new tools in Visual Studio that will supercharge your SharePoint development.

Topics include:

• What's new in Visual Studio 2010 
• What's new in .NET Framework 4.0
• SharePoint Development using Visual Studio 2010

MSDN Events Schedule

Date	City	Time	Presenter	Location
February 23, 2010	Overland Park, KS	1:00pm - 4:30pm	Mike Benkovich	Microsoft Office
February 24, 2010	Little Rock, AR	1:00pm - 4:30pm	Chris Koenig	Pulaski Technical College
February 25, 2010	Omaha, NE	1:00pm - 4:30pm	Mike Benkovich	Marcus Midtown Crossing
February 25, 2010	Columbus, OH	1:00pm - 4:30pm	Jeff Blankenburg	Marcus Cinemas Crosswoods
March 2, 2010	Mason, OH	1:00pm - 4:30pm	Jeff Blankenburg	Microsoft Office
March 4, 2010	Baton Rouge, LA	1:00pm - 4:30pm	Zain Naboulsi	SonLife Radio Building
March 4, 2010	Louisville, KY	1:00pm - 4:30pm	Jeff Blankenburg	Kentucky International Convention Center
March 9, 2010	Austin, TX	1:00pm - 4:30pm	Chris Koenig	St. Edward's Univ. Prof. Education Center
March 9, 2010	Waukesha, WI	1:00pm - 4:30pm	Dave Bost	Marcus Majestic Brookfield
March 11, 2010	Des Moines, IA	1:00pm - 4:30pm	Mike Benkovich	Spindustry Training
March 11, 2010s	Indianapolis, IN	1:00pm - 4:30pm	Bill Steele	Junior Achievement Center
March 12, 2010	Houston, TX	1:00pm - 4:30pm	Zain Naboulsi	Microsoft Office

I know, I know. I haven't blogged in weeks. It's that time of year where we at Microsoft perform our career development discussions. With a team of 16 evangelists, I have a lot of discussions to prepare for. In addition, I'm partnering with some colleagues in our US headquarters on the USDPE side session at the MVP Summit. (Side note: MVPs, if you are going to the Summit this year, be sure to attend our side session on Tuesday.)

But I have a very good – and timely – reason to post to the dusty, old blog today. Visual Studio 2010 RC became available last night. You can now download the Release Candidate and continue to provide valuable feedback on the latest revision of the product.

Once you have a change to kick the tires and share feedback, be on the lookout for our Launch events. They'll start taking place in late April and run throughout the month of May. We're looking at five *big* launch events in Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, and Minneapolis. We'll also run at least ten or more "best of"-style events in other cities, like Cincinnati, Nashville, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City, Omaha, Tulsa and Austin. As we won't stop there – we'll keep adding more cities until our event budget runs out.

So, download the RC today and keep and eye on my event site for the latest news on our national launch event tour.

One of the folks on my team, Clint Edmonson, is running a series of events in our North Central District (here's a definition of that term). I am getting this post out a bit late for him – at least for my home-town event, which happened yesterday in St. Louis to a capacity crowd. The room was *full* and the initial feedback has been really great.

Although I missed getting a helpful post out for St. Louis, there is still time to attend the events in Overland Park, KS on February 4th and in Bloomington, MN on February 23rd, both in the local Microsoft office.

Why would you care to attend this event? Well Clint and his colleagues will be delivering three great sessions on on developing as a team, modern design approaches such as model-driven development, and how to turn requirements into design and design into code. Here's the summary of the event and the sessions.

Drive Your Development with Visual Studio 2010
Visual Studio 2010 is the most comprehensive suite of application development tools a software team could ever wish for. But its dazzling array of features can be daunting to say the least. Whether you’re building custom line-of-business applications or the next killer viral internet app you need to understand what’s under the hood and how your team can take advantage of its broad capabilities. Join a team of industry experts for a hands-on discussion of proven techniques for getting the most power and mileage out of this incredible product.

Session 1: Drive Your Process
In our first session we will examine what it takes to establish and support a world class development team using Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010. We will discuss what makes a team great and how to choose a software development methodology to ensure repeatable results. We will reveal best practices to help teams perform at world class levels using Visual Studio 2010.

Session 2: Drive Your Design
In this session, we will take a look at role of design in modern development teams. We will discuss strategies for choosing the right level of design based on the complexity of your projects and best practices for ensuring designs are fully realized. We will also provide an overview of the new UML features provided in Visual Studio 2010 that support model driven development.

Session 3: Drive Your Code
In our last session, we will take a look at how it all comes together. We will walk through the process of turning requirements and designs into code and highlight the powerful tools provided in Visual Studio 2010 to help you create what you can imagine, build on the strengths of your team, and open up new possibilities.

If you live in the Kansas City or Twin Cities areas, try to attend these events. Early buzz is quite good, and you won't be disappointed!

As the banner says, TechEd 2010 in New Orleans is open for registration. And, just as the banner above says, register in the next month and a half and you get a $200 early bird discount. My team is working on some plans around TechEd that you won't want to miss out on and there should be some great technologies discussed at the conference proper.

Check out the agenda and technical tracks and join us for TechEd 2010.

I just uploaded a lot of new events to my events site, including several new MSDN and TechNet events as well as a special event in Nashville happening next week. This special event features a special guest, non other than Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. The event also features highlights from the PDC, and is called MSDN Events Presents: A Lap Around PDC featuring Steve Ballmer. Here's a little bit about this big event.

A Lap Around PDC featuring Steve Ballmer
Join us as we bring the “highlights” from the PDC09 conference to you! At this special event we will cover the latest Microsoft technologies and exciting announcements from PDC09 and deliver 16 sessions presented by Microsoft evangelists as well as several local partners, MVPs and Community Leaders. The keynote will be delivered by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, and will cover Microsoft’s three screens and the cloud strategy.

Microsoft is releasing more than 25 products and frameworks over the next six months, more than at any other time. Our goal is to get you up to speed on what is coming, and how it can help you do more with what you have. The sessions will cover multiple technologies such as Microsoft® Windows® Azure™, Visual Studio® 2010, .NET 4, Silverlight™ 4, SharePoint Server® 2010, SQL Server® 2008 R2, Windows® 7, and Windows Server® 2008 R2.

During the event, we encourage you to network with your peers and chat one-on-one with the speakers at the “Ask the Experts” area to get all of your questions answered. You can also visit the Customer Showcase area to see how customers are using the latest technologies in real world applications, and the amazing results they are seeing. We will also showcase the latest Windows powered gadgets and mobile devices in the Customer Showcase area.

If seeing isn’t enough, we will also have a fully staffed Hands-On-Lab area packed with PCs, labs you can practice with, and expert staff to help you learn the new tools.

We will be hosting the event at Vanderbilt University Student Life Center in Nashville, TN. Specific information about event parking and shuttle service will be posted on the registration site and emailed to you prior to the event as well. Every attendee will receive a Visual Studio 2010 Beta2 DVD, a T-shirt and have a chance to win a prize at the end of the day.

I'll be sharing more details on the rest of the events coming soon. We hope to see you at our events when they visit a city near you!

Next up in the architect webcast series is Michele Leroux Bustamante speaking on Securing REST-Based Services with Access Control Service.

Securing REST-Based Services with Access Control Service
The Access Control Service (ACS), part of Windows Azure platform AppFabric, makes it easy to secure REST-based services using a simple set of standard protocols. In addition to enabling secure calls to REST-based services from any client, the ACS uniquely makes it possible to secure calls from client-side script, and enables federation scenarios with REST-based services. This webcast will provide a tour of ACS features and demonstrate scenarios where the ACS can be employed to secure REST-based WCF services and other web resources. You’ll learn how to configure ACS, learn how to request a token from the ACS, and learn how applications and services can authorize access based on the ACS token.

Event Details
December 22, 2009 at 11:00am – 12:30pm PST
Event ID 1032435379
Register Here

About Michele Leroux Bustamante
Michele Leroux Bustamante brings a well-rounded skill set to the IDesign, including expertise not just in architecture and technology but also in interoperability, management, and operations. Michele is not only an IDesign Chief Architect, she is also Microsoft Regional Director for San Diego, Microsoft MVP for Connected Systems and a BEA Technical Director. In addition, Michele is a member of the board of directors for the International Association of Software Architects (IASA). With over 15 years of experience designing enterprise systems, prior to IDesign Michele has held senior executive positions at several corporations. She has assembled and organized software development teams from the ground up, implemented processes for all aspects of the software development lifecycle, and facilitated many successful large-scale enterprise application deployments, including capital fund raising, sales, and business development efforts. Michele specializes in training, mentoring and high-end architecture consulting services focusing on Web services, scalable and secure architecture design for .NET, federated security scenarios, web services, interoperability and globalization architecture. She participates in Software Design Reviews for products in the Microsoft roadmap, including WCF and CardSpace. During the Beta 1 phase Michele participated in prototyping elements of the CardSpace technology for the product team. Michele has been advisor to University of California, San Diego Extension since 1994, establishing several successful certificate programs. Michele is a member of the International .NET Speakers Association (INETA); a frequent conference presenter at major technology conferences such as Tech Ed, PDC, SD and Dev Connections. Michele is the conference chair for SD’s Web Services/SOA and Web Development tracks; and she regularly publishes in several technology journals. Michele’s latest book is Learning WCF (O’Reilly, 2007). Visit her book blog at www.thatindigogirl.com or her main blog at www.dasblonde.net.

Registration has opened today for MIX10! The venue is different (Mandalay Bay), but the city (Las Vegas) and the conversation (72 hours of conversation exploring the art and technology that helps designers and developers craft compelling user experiences) remain the same. The event will be March 15-17, 2010, with pre-con workshops on March 14. (Is it really almost 2010???)

Some quick details – registration opens today and the early-bird discount runs through January 15, 2010. (I still can't believe 2010 is just around the corner...) The discount this year is $600 off the conference registration fee _plus_ a free night at the Mandalay Bay. That means if you register before the early bird deadline, you can attend MIX10 for $795. After 1/15...? The rate jumps to $1,395.

I had the pleasure to attend MIX08, and I can vouch that it was a great experience. Check out the MIX10 site and see if you can make out out.

My colleagues in the Chicagoland area are hosting a series of events on the testing tools that are now a part of Visual Studio featuring Ram Cherla, a Principal Program Manager in the Visual Studio Test Tools Business, a growing part of the Developer Division at Microsoft. Ram is very passionate about building a well-integrated set of tools and technologies that enable developers build, test and ship quality software.

Ram will be visiting Chicago and Milwaukee to provide a deeper dive into the innovative new capabilities being introduced in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate, Visual Studio Test Elements and Test and Lab Management products. The events he will be headlining will feature presentations appropriate for developers, architects, and quality assurance analysts. People who attend the events will have the opportunity to see the upcoming testing products included in Visual Studio 2010 as well as interact directly with the Redmond team responsible for designing, building and delivering the new testing products. The sessions will cover a broad range of topics, including Software Quality Assurance (SQA), historical debugging, the new manual test runner, test impact analysis and test lab management.

The events feature a full day of sessions, starting at 8:30am local time and wrapping up around 4:30pm local (or Zulu for you military-types). The agenda will cover an overall walkthrough of the new features, a brief discussion on the product transition (I'm working on a blog post for that), as well as a deep dive into the new QA features – Coded UI Testing, Manual Test Runner, Lab Management and more – followed by a discussion on migration and integration options for other QA tools on the market. The team will close with a raffle for books and a new Zune HD.

There are three events in this short series.

• Milwaukee, WI – Monday, December 14, 2009
• Downers Grove, IL – Wednesday, December 16, 2009
• Chicago, IL – Thursday, December 17, 2009

If you live in the Chicagoland area or in Milwaukee, and you are responsible for producing quality software (yes, I'm looking at you Mr. Developer Guy; this isn't just for the guys and gals in QA, you know!), you should check out one of these events.

Two of the folks on my team, Jeff Brand and Mike Benkovich, are planning a small series of events in our North Central geography (see the Glossary of Terms). The event will be called "Building Rich Internet Applications with Silverlight and WCF RIA Services".

What?
These events will run from 8:30am until 12:30pm, a solid half day where they will walk developers through the creation of business-focused applications leveraging the power of Silverlight and WCF RIA Services. Using both Visual Studio and Expression Blend, Jeff and Mike will show attendees how applications can be quickly built that are cross-platform and cross-browser. Some of the topics they will cover include rich UI design, creating open web services, client and server validation, rapid prototyping, data binding, and more.

Where and When?
The first event is in Omaha, NE (two events in three months; YES!) on Thursday, January 29, 2010 (can you believe it is 2010 already???) starting at 8:30am.

Sogeti USA
14301 FNB Parkway, Suite 206
Omaha, NE 68154
Register Here

The second event is in Minneapolis, MN on Wednesday, February 3, 2010 (yup, still 2010) also starting at 8:30am.

Microsoft Corporation
8300 Norman Center Drive, Suite 950
Bloomington, MN 55437
Register Here

Why?
Because it's new tech and Jeff and Mike are excellent presenters.

Well look at this… The Silverlight Team has launched their own podcast. The first episode of the podcast is on IIS7 Media Services 3.0 featuring Silverlight Senior Product Manager David Sayed and IIS Senior Program Manager Chris Knowlton. This is the tech that powers Smooth Streaming for those that didn't know (like me).

They offer two formats: enhanced (with pictures and stuff) and MP3 (just for audio players). They don't have a feed for just the podcast that I have found as of yet.