December, 2010

The Azure Community Promotion was launched in mid Dec and allows the user group (UG) community members to grow their skills while giving back to their UG.  It is open to all user groups and user group members in Canada.  At the center of this promotion is skills growth, giving back and trying something new.   If any UG member takes the initiative to trial azure through the introductory...

Our Apologies for having this one published a later then normal. Been on the road, sick and out of town kind of percolated into a perfect storm causing this delay. There are two critical updates that require your attention as a priority. On this episode I am joined by Dana Epp (from ScorpionSoftware )– Enterprise Security MVP who shares some very interesting insight into this last batch of...

During my session at TechDays Calgary about Cloud for the IT Pro, I “challenged” the Technical audience to get out there and dip their toe into the Platform As A Service world with Windows Azure. The challenge was quite simple: Sign up for the introductory FREE 25 hr trial Register and complete the provisioning process create a new instance and deploy a sample application to staging browse to the application...

I’m still trying to keep it funny and light hearted for a Friday post. I found about about a special 7 day series of Blog posts happening on TechNet on the “Hey Scripting Guy” blog - it’s a little spin on Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carol” called “A Powershell Carol”.   It’s going to run from December the 19th to December the 25th inclusive. It’s a fun Holiday series about a Grumpy Network...

It’s hard to believe my team started TechDays 2010 in Vancouver WAY BACK in September! This has been one long run from planning over a year ago to delivery wrapping up next week in Calgary. I thought I would share some interesting thoughts and lessons learned along the way. Our team sits down after every event and goes through every evaluation comment for each day from each attendee that submits their...

If you are a member of a usergroup (UG) in Canada you already know the value it brings to you: the skills they help you grow and most importantly the connections you make through participation.  The power of the professional network and the UG leaders that selflessly organize the group are a key support pillar in the community and one that we would would love to give you an opportunity to support...

We Microsoft Canada evangelist types love a good cause, and we can’t think of a better cause than feeding people, especially during the holiday season. That’s why we’ve had food drop-off boxes at all TechDays events, including TechDays Winnipeg , which takes place tomorrow and Wednesday. Bring a non-perishable food item to TechDays, and we’ll collect it and give it to Winnipeg Harvest , the local food...

I’ve been attending CloudCamps that have been hosted in the various TechDays cities ( disclaimer: we sponsor the room and AV – events are completely run by CloudCamp organizers) and a very comment topic / thread comes up on issues of Security wen considering adopting Cloud technologies. Outside of the US – the number ONE flag that is thrown down is “The US Patriot Act”. Unfortunately – it is brought...

My good Friend Jeff Alexander over on the other side of the world down under (he’s THE infrastructure evangelist for Australia) posted up this nifty link and tool. It’s part of the big glob of stuff called Springboard, whenever something cool and useful bubbles up I want to make sure you know about it. It really comes down to “How do I know – what I don’t know?” You test yourself to find your blind...