TechEd 2012–Day 1

Wednesday I caught the following sessions throughout the day:

• DEV211 – What's New in VS2012 with Adam Cogan
• DEV212 – Windows 8 Development with Nick Hodge
• DEV214 – Windows 8 Development Part 2 with David Burela
• DEV215 – .NET 4.5: Just the good stuff with William Tulloch

I ran my first 'ExamCram' session – on Exam 70-599 - Pro: Designing and Developing Windows Phone 7 Applications.

With Windows Phone 8 just around the corner, I wasn't sure if I'd have many takers. As it turns out, I had exactly one person. A high student-teacher ratio!

I was also on the late-shift for helping in hands on labs today, from 5pm – 8pm.

TechEd 2012–Day 0

A few weeks late, but I've finally got around to writing about this year's Microsoft TechEd conference held in September. Tuesday morning, Narelle and I flew up to Brisbane then caught the train down to the Gold Coast.

This year I'd booked accommodation at Island Beach Resort, quite close to the convention centre. It might have 'Resort' in the name, but it's really just some nice apartments.

After checking in, I headed down to the convention centre for registration and then the Technical Learning Guide orientation meeting. Unfortunately this was at the same time as the the first "kick off" session. The meeting was useful as there was a different company organising the hands-on labs this year.

The keynote welcome included some interesting Kinect-inspired performance art, and then a talk (and videos) from Jason Silva. Jason was a very intense presenter – much the same as in his videos. I did like his positive attitude towards the future. His talk was very fast-paced and full-on, such that I think I'm still chewing over the things he said (even a week later).

I happened to see him again as one of the guests on ABC-TV's QandA program about a week after TechEd. To my surprise he said almost exactly the same things, word for word. Not quite as impressed after that.

Heading to TechEd Australia 2012

I'm looking forward to heading off to Microsoft's TechEd 2012 conference on the Gold Coast in a couple of weeks. This year I'll be joined by colleagues Ben and Imran, who will both be first-time attendees.

It promises to be a particularly good year for getting up to speed on new products, with Visual Studio 2012, Windows 8 and Server 2012 hot off the press, and Windows Phone 8 just around the corner.

I'm again working for part of the conference as a Technical Learning Guide assisting in the hands-on labs. I've also been selected to lead an instructor-led lab on "Designing Windows 8 HTML apps in Blend" (Session 'DEV ILL100'), and an exam cram session on 70-599 "Pro: Designing and Developing Windows Phone 7 Applications".

It will also be great to have Narelle along, who be enjoying a few days holiday while I'm busy learning, instructing and cramming.