From the monthly archives:

June 2008

Microsoft Fiji naming fiasco – not the first time

June 30, 2008Humour

Having your code name objected to is nothing new. This (possibly hoax) story about Fiji (the island nation) objecting to Microsoft’s use of ‘Fiji’ as a code name is nothing new. Most recently this happened when the Visual FoxPro team were releasing the Sedna Add-ons and received numerous complaints from the inhabitants of Neptune [...]

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Windows LiveWriter update

June 30, 2008Link

The Live team released a new beta of Windows Live Writer a month or so ago (they are calling this one a Preview in some places, an Update in others) and I give it the thumbs up.
I’ve always been impressed with LiveWriter – in fact I think it’s one of the better tools Microsoft has [...]

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Bill Gates interview about finishing up at Microsoft

June 23, 2008Link

There’s a nice little interview with Bill Gates up on Channel 9. The first 8 minutes are the best as Bill covers what a Chief Software Architect should do (summary: ensure different teams work together), and his thoughts on Ray Ozzie (note to self: perhaps I need to give Ray a second chance – I’ve [...]

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Great developers

June 23, 2008Developers

[UPDATE: Fin has posted the full list of responses – great advice there!]
What’s a great developer?
An email went around recently asking a few people what they thought constituted a successful developer.
My first thought was: did you mean successful or were really asking what is a great developer – since we all know a few [...]

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SBTUG: Outsourcing + ASP.NET MVC + Prizes

June 22, 2008Main

This Wed at the Sydney Business & Technology User Group (SBTUG) we’re lucky enough to have Bob McGilvray and Tatham Oddie presenting.
 
When: This Wed 25 June 2008

Time: 6pm (until approx 8:30pm)
Where: Microsoft, North Ryde
Contact: Craig Bailey : 0413 489 388
Cost: Free (Pizza all provided)

Plus:

Prize: Full version of Visual Studio 2008 [...]

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CLARITY: SQL Server 2008

June 15, 2008Clarity

One of the problems we often encounter is information overload. There’s no shortage of great articles, examples, podcasts and webcasts on every conceivable technology. Microsoft’s products are no different.
Thus, the following is comprised of numerous sources easy to find online – there’s no special insight here. Rather, I’ve just simply tried to distill a product [...]

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TECHED: Why crap tracks are great news

June 15, 2008Main

Last week we started seeing some of the TechEd Australia tracks being announced. Web is the first.
There was a little bit of Twitter backlash and the odd blog post noting that the track might be missing an important topic or two. (I’ve deliberately not linked to any of the blogs or Twitter feeds in case [...]

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SBTUG: Recap from last week

June 1, 2008SBTUG

A big thank you to Aaron Saikovski for presenting on Groove and Catherine Eibner for demo-ing the MERGE keyword in SQL 2008.
Andrew Coates and Roger Lawrence looked after us with their usual passion and generosity (and Rog videoed the demo).
In case you didn’t know we post the news (and presentations if possible) on the SBTUG [...]

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