Hi folks,

Well Frank did it so I thought I would as well. Welcome to the new financial year. For me it was a busy FY06 but I’m looking forward to what is planned for this year. So now I’m going to sit down and do my performance review which is out bi-annual process to check how we are doing against out agreed goals. And to help with that I thought a recap of FY06 would be in order. So what did I get up to this last financial year? Yes I’m a bit behind but who cares anyway!

I’m going to break mine down into categories.

Events

• Techready II – This is our internal technical event held twice a year in Seattle. This one was in July 05 and as part of it I took some time off to go back to Massachusetts to visit the family. The weather was great and I got to play some golf while I was there. I prefer the event they hold in the US summer months as I’m an avid golfer so the sticks always go with me!
• Tech˙Ed 2005 - This event occurred in August 2005 and I presented to 2 sessions; one on WSUS and the other on “Internet Safety for Children”. I enjoyed both!
• Ready Launch Tour 2005 – In November we launched SQL Server 2005 and VSTS 2005 and embarked on a tour of the country telling IT Pro’s and Developer’s all about it. I did a Windows Server 2003 R2 session as part of the Business Intelligence track
• Security Seminar – This was held in February 2006 and we changed it a bit this time around by providing a paid for business event and a free community event in each city. I did a session on “Building and Managing a Resilient AD Infrastructure”
• Innovation 2006 – As part of readiness for Windows Vista and Office 2007 we did a 3 city tour and talked about deployment, Imaging and Security. I’m still on the community side of this event with 2 more cities to go.
• SAGE – Victorian IT Symposium – This was a great event and I was glad to be able to present Windows XP SP2 Advanced security technologies. Since this group is mainly UNIX focused they don’t get very much opportunity to really discuss the core technical stuff on Microsoft technologies. I think it was an eye opener for a lot of people that attended on the progress we have made on security.
• National Young IT Conference – As part of our work we do with the Australian Computer Society I was asked to present at the annual conference to Young IT Professionals. This is a great initiative that the ACS is conducting because they are directly addressing the skills shortage in the ICT sector in Australia.
• Premier TechNet Updates – During the year we started to conduct 1 to many technical updates to our premier customers on technologies they find most relevant inside the enterprise. In FY07 we plan to expand these..
• Auscert 2006 – This event was again held at Royal Pines on the Gold Coast and we had a booth again this year. I was in charge of setting up the hardware and answering technical questions on Windows Vista. Jesper was there again this year doing a talk which as per usual was very good.

User Groups

There was lots of activity in the user group space with new Windows groups starting up in Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne and Brisbane. We also started up SharePoint groups in Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra and Melbourne. I presented various sessions at some of these groups including WSUS, Windows Server 2003 R2 and Windows Vista. All out user groups meet monthly now and are growing more each day. Check out the TechNet site for details on a user group in your area.

We also engaged with competitive user groups like SAGE and the Novell User groups. I presented topics on Windows Server 2003 R2 and our interoperability stories.

Presentations

I did lots and lots of presentations during the year on a wide range of technologies. These included: WSUS, Windows Server 2003 R2; Virtual Server 2005; Windows XP SP2; Windows Vista; Security and Internet Safety. Whew! A lot of topics for sure but going forward I’m focusing on Windows Vista and Office 2007.

Miscellaneous

Blog Posts: 155 Not quite up there with Frank but then again he is the Yoda of blogging
Machine Rebuilds: Seems like about a thousand but maybe not quite that much. I’ve installed OS’s on my work machines; my home machines and friends machines! I’ve installed Windows XP Media Centre Edition; Windows XP Professional; Windows XP Tablet PC Edition; Windows Small Business Server 2003; Windows Server 2003 R2; Windows Vista Beta 2 (various builds); Windows Longhorn Server Beta 2 and many many applications!
Frequent Flyer Points: Got lots during the year and burnt some as well.
Renovations: Renovated my house during the year which I recommend nobody does with small children! Go over to my MSN Space for pictures!
Golf: I always tried to find time for a round of golf. Handicap went from 6 to 9 but hey I changed the gold course I play at regularly and bought new clubs! Still getting used to both!

And above all enjoyed myself while I was doing it all!

So what’s up for FY07?

TechReady III
Teched 2006
Security Seminar
Windows Vista and Office 2007 Launch
Exchange 2007
Longhorn Server 2007
Lots of new hardware releases – This one I’m looking forward to..

It was a busy year but then again its always like that at Microsoft..Here’s to more of it in FY07!

Cheers, Jeff