Renat's Middle E@st and Afric@ blog

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Renat Minazhdinov - MSFT — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 04:11:00 GMT

Before Jan 31st: don’t forget to get your discount fot TechEd Middle East (specially for MVPs and UG leads)

Renat Minazhdinov - MSFT — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 10:48:32 GMT

Just a reminder, since I know how quickly time flies… If you’re an MVP or User Group lead - get your 10% off for TechEd Middle East pass and FREE ticket for each 10 teammates registered. Please use this link to get the promo code for your community. And feel free to ping me if any question appears. Hurry, the offer is only for January!

Another option to share your opinion with Microsoft

Renat Minazhdinov - MSFT — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 08:10:19 GMT

We’re piloting another way of receiving constant feedback from you guys. Can you please give the app below a hit and pass this 5 mins survey? Thanks in advance!

Microsoft Innovation Centers – find a local one to get help

Renat Minazhdinov - MSFT — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 06:12:50 GMT

As a program Microsoft Innovation Centers are really cool – they are really there to help students, entrepreneurs, academics, professional software developers, startups, IT professionals, industry organizations and local governments.

And finally they have a new cool website (sorry to say, but it’s not usual for Microsoft web properties) – check this out!

Free soft and resources from Microsoft

Renat Minazhdinov - MSFT — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 06:41:00 GMT

Seems like the time to collect all the free stuff available from Microsoft and share this with the community (who still believes that we’re greedy corp only :)) Please read below and share with your friends -

Free betas and trials at http://MSDN.microsoft.com/evalcenter and http://TechNet.microsoft.com/evalcenter – do you need free Windows 7 for 90 days trial or Windows Server 2008 R2 for free for 180 days? These are the links to go and get the stuff.

Free Express-versions of developer tools - Visual Basic 2010 Express, Visual C# 2010 Express, Visual C++ 2010 Express, Visual Web Developer 2010 Express, Windows Phone Developer Tools, SQL Server 2008 R2 Express, Visual Studio 2008 Express.

Free software for students via www.dreamspark.com - developer and designer tools, servers and applications free for students. Just go there and download.

Free software for students and universities via MSDN Academic Alliance – just check if your' school in there and go to your dean to grab your free copy of Windows 7 and many more :)

Free software for startups and websites via BizSpark and WebsiteSpark – if you’re starting up a techy business or running website just go grab free licenses for production.

Free e-learning – just online courses on latest products. And yes, they are free for some time (while products is still really new or the technology the course is about is really the fundamental one)

Free webcasts – as simple as seminars, but online. Pick your topic and attend. No fee is required and the full interactive experience available even if you have 36Kbits internet connection speed.

Free antivirus – Microsoft Security Essential is simple and effective antivirus free for every Windows users.

Sysinternals – variety of tools for easier and more flexible management of Windows.

P.S. Let’s make this really interactive post – if you know some other resources or soft from Microsoft – leave me a comment here and I’ll update the post.

Test post (ignore or learn about Windows Phone 7 :))

Renat Minazhdinov - MSFT — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 05:40:16 GMT

Check out new videos about Windows Phone 7 on MSDN portal and real devices on Microsoft.com. Also you may want to look some cool WP7 apps demos at Microsoftfeed.com

Have you shared your opinion with Microsoft?

Renat Minazhdinov - MSFT — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 09:20:41 GMT

Microsoft regularly conducts surveys for customers and partners to ask for your open and honest feedback (what we did right or wrong last 6 months). And we’re very much thankful for those who sharing the feedback.

The only only problem that we seems are not able to solve is Junk Email filter which many times was the reason why people didn’t get the invite for survey = couldn't share the feedback.

So just to make sure you and ourselves are not victim of Junk Email folder:

Please check if you have an email from Feedback@e-mail.microsoft.com with subject “Help Microsoft focus on customers and partners” and share your feedback with us!

We value your feedback very much and looking forward to incorporate it in future planning on our work with IT Community!

P.S. The invite for the survey sent to random sample, so you may be not in this shot, but please make sure you put the e-mail address into “safe contacts” list for future surveys. Thanks a lot in advance!

The best New Year gift for an IT geek? TechEd Middle East ticket!

Renat Minazhdinov - MSFT — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 13:35:41 GMT

Tech·Ed Middle East 2011 is going to be bigger and even more exciting. Here's a few of the highlights you can expect:

Double bigger community! Yes, we're aiming for 3000 attendees
Increased content - over 200 technical sessions
Extended Instructor-Labs - more lab sessions and increased facilities
A day of Pre-Conference Seminars (optional, additional fees apply)
An even bigger line-up of international experts and a formal Ask The Experts program
A more extensive Tech·Ed Expo with more Microsoft products in the Technical Learning Centre

And yes, till Dec 31 only the registration fee is only 750$. Do you have a fellow IT guy? This ticket could be really one of the best New Year gifts. Don’t miss the chance!

A glance back on last 12 month in Middle East and Africa

Renat Minazhdinov - MSFT — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 19:06:00 GMT

Time really flashes by - it’s already 1 year I work in Middle East and Africa. Should say that looking back and seeing tangible results - is always a good feeling :) So here is my glance backward…

But a short confession first. I’m working with truly great people in Microsoft MEA DPE team - only 40 people who drive amazing work on ¼ of the globe. And I’m really proud of being a part of such a great team of multi-talented professionals who were and are able to get very impressive results in limited time.

Just to support my words with a few facts about MEA DPE organization and last 12 month results (and this is only my side of business – while DPE covers many more):

We’re in touch with 700 000 members of IT community across Middle East and Africa
We’re regularly communicate with this community through newsletters, blogs and web portals and what’s even more important - locally (in many of 79 MEA countries) and offer unique set of support and free learning opportunities
We launched TechNet and MSDN portals in Arabic, Turkish, Hebrew
We ran The Best Job in the World contest (and it was so much fun :))
We worked with 150+ MVPs across Middle East and Africa

And of course, the beauty of my work is that by job description I should work with the heroes of our time – people who build IT with their own hands. Thank you very much for making my life so busy with tons of interesting things, people, projects and great plans!

P.S. It was my 5th year at Microsoft overall and according to funny internal tradition...

TechEd Middle East 2011 – save the date!

Renat Minazhdinov - MSFT — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 07:38:32 GMT

While Microsoft Open Door will bring some of the great content of TechEd’s to countries across Middle east and Africa, TechEd Middle East is going to be a full-size amazing event where you can explore things you learn at Open Door deeper with the best speakers and experts worldwide. Here are some details from organizers.

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Tech∙Ed Middle East returns to Dubai in 2011, March 8 – 10, for 3 full days of deep technical education, hands-on-learning and opportunities to connect with Microsoft and Community experts one-on-one.

Join the Tech∙Ed Middle East email list and be among the first to receive event announcements and notification when event registration opens.

Why attend Tech∙Ed?

Tech∙Ed provides the most comprehensive technical education across Microsoft’s suite of released, or soon to be released, products, solutions and services. Tech∙Ed is for IT professionals and developers who are involved in implementing, deploying or building solutions using Microsoft technologies.

Arabic Visual Studio 2010 Translation Wiki is released!

Renat Minazhdinov - MSFT — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 19:52:00 GMT

The only thing that I can say is “Wow” and “amazing job!”. Both of those coming from the bottom of my heart. Thanks a lot to great team of Ain Shams University (Egypt), Al-Yamamah University (Saudi Arabia) and Kuwait University (Kuwait).

In the own words from the team:

We are very pleased to let you know that the Visual Studio 2010 documentation in the form of Translation Wiki has been released in Arabic to MSDN Library! It is a combination of human translation and machine translation content. We have worked on this release for very long, as for us in order to ship documentation into Arabic, we first had to make sure that the MSDN Library was bi-di complaint. I am very happy that now the Arabic developers can read Visual Studio documentation in MSDN Library in their native language! This project has been done in close collaboration with local communities, MSDN, and many people in the local offices in the Arabic region. The content has been translated by Ain Shams University (Egypt), Al-Yamamah University (Saudi Arabia) and Kuwait University (Kuwait).

Click here to go to the Arabic MSDN Library

Microsoft Open Door events - sneak peak preview (updated dates)

Renat Minazhdinov - MSFT — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 12:32:00 GMT

In short: 17 cities in 15 countries till the end of 2010 and a few more in 2011. The main idea of Open Door events is to bring the best content of the biggest Microsoft international conferences (like TechEd and PDC) to the doors of local IT Professionals and Developers. Topics like Cloud, Office 2010 and Windows 7 best practices, Windows Phone and Web development and of course a deep look into server infrastructure – all that is going to be there.

Want to join? – save the date below!

Want to join as a speaker? – ping me by e-mail.

The list is in chronological order (some dates can change, but slightly):

Beirut, Lebanon, September 29-30 (Done!)
Tripoli, Libya, November 1
Cairo, Egypt, November 2-3 (Done!)
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, November 2-3 (Done!)
Karachi, Pakistan, November 4-5 (Done!)
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, November 7 (Done!)
Lagos, Nigeria, November, 23 & 25
Port Louis, Mauritius, December 1-2
Algiers , Algeria, December 5-6
Tunis, Tunisia, December 8-9
Nairobi, Kenya, December 8
Amman, Jordan, December 15-16
Casablanca, Morocco, December 14-15
Windhoek, Namibia, February 2011
Reunion, February 2011
Dakar, February 2011
Abidjan, Ivory Coast, February 2011

Istanbul, Turkey, February 22-23

more cities will be covered in Jan-Jun 2011 (expanding Open Door events for Turkey and South Africa)

P.S. I can’t tell you for now, but there is going to be The Speaker you don’t want to miss. Stay tuned for who and where :)

Congrats to winners!

Renat Minazhdinov - MSFT — Tue, 04 May 2010 05:56:05 GMT

So, this is the time to say big thank you to all who participated in the “Enter Island": IT’s the best job in the world”. 1500 people from 21 countries. You guys rock!

The official congratulation is here. What I’d like to confess.. I’m a bit jealous to the winners. Should I explain why? Better to show why:

this is the venue of the seminar @ Mauritius. Local team is already working on preparations and it’s going to be a great event.

Congratulations again, guys!

Improving support: “Fix It” with less clicks

Renat Minazhdinov - MSFT — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 13:09:06 GMT

I wrote about FixIt earlier. It was a pretty powerful stuff by that time already. And now it’s even cooler. I love when I can be reasonably lazier as PC User – less clicks to solve issues with all those popping from time to time issues with hard and software.

At a glance view on IT in the world (and MEA)

Renat Minazhdinov - MSFT — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 10:00:22 GMT

So here is an interesting report IT/technology and economy in the World. Can I ask you about a favor regarding this one? Please have a look on Strengths & Weaknesses report for your country and rate how close it is to reality – just drop a comment to this post or send me an e-mail.

But! I’d like to bring you attention to another interesting “report” – this is where the fans of Enter the Island Facebook page came from. So I have a question - are you OK with the place of your country in the list? :)

I know this rating can’t be the same official as the one above, but this for sure should represent how active the IT Community there.

Enter Island: Thanks for a great start!

Renat Minazhdinov - MSFT — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 18:07:06 GMT

Guys, first of all thanks to all of you who joined the fun already!

The reason why we launched this competition on April 1st is.. c’mon how could we miss this day and not to have fun? :) But in the same time, Microsoft can’t tell anything except truth! So we had no other choice but to make this program and of course give out real prizes :)

So 1) this is not a joke 2) we are glad to remind your that the competition will be open till April 30. So it is the right time to invite your friends in – they have a chance to join the fun + vote for you :)

Let me remind you the rules a bit:

There a 2 simple steps to enter the competition (see how-to)
Selection of the 2nd step is up to you – what you’re more comfortable with (Facebook or Codeplex), but note that step #1 is mandatory (we just want to make sure you know that there are free betas and trials on MS.com and even activation keys that you don’t need to ~~google~~ Bing on the web :))
There are going to be 3 winners: most popular authors of FB entry and Codeplex project + 1 FB “artist” selected by an independent jury. well, we did all we can to give a chance to win to everyone in IT! Your move!

So my ask for you is super simple – be creative and prove that you’re a true IT person! Note, that there is a limit for 3 entries per person. So please try to concentrate all your creativity in the limited # of entries!

The only thing that I’d like you not to do is to spam or be irrespective to other participants.

Good luck everyone! And let’s show the world what a great people make IT in Middle East and Africa!

IT’s is The Best Job in the World: Win trip to Mauritius

Renat Minazhdinov - MSFT — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 05:53:29 GMT

First of all, if you clicked the link to this blog today to verify if the e-mail you’ve got is not an April 1st joke – congrats this is not a joke! Microsoft just likes to keep IT Community entertained :)

So to the point..

Today Microsoft Middle East and Africa proudly claims that “IT’s The Best Job in the World” proving this by offering a prize to truly IT people – free trip to Mauritius Island. Any IT person can join! (yes-yes, some restrictions are still there, but check out your self :))

So this is what it’s all about:

You may have seen it on TV - some people really think that sitting on a boring island and blogging about clouds going by is “the best job in the world” (not to mention the risk of being bitten by a jelly fish).

Here at Microsoft however, we are absolutely sure that IT is the best job in the world. And to prove that, we are organizing a boring 3-day seminar on an IT-related topic. But, we can bet that IT people attending this seminar will be really, really thrilled. Why? Because IT is “the best job in the world!” Oh, and did I forget to mention that the seminar will take place this May on the island of Mauritius! Flights and hotels will be arranged by Microsoft for truly IT people.

So, if you are an IT specialist (doesn't matter if you do development or administration, Microsoft, Linux, Cisco, PHP or Silverlight) you are invited!

Check out http://www.microsoft.com/middleeast/enterisland to learn everything about the "Enter Island" competition!

Questions? Welcome with comments here :) or my e-mail renatmin at microsoft dot com!

Good luck and hope to see your pictures from Mauritius this May!

Security: real-world vs. cyberspace

Renat Minazhdinov - MSFT — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 09:01:36 GMT

For some reasons not connected to work I thought about security much this week. Leaving the sad story of real-world security aside, let’s focus on cyber security for a moment. This isn’t pinky either. Especially here in MEA (remember picture of most infected countries from last sec report?)

Anyway, the point of the post was to ask you to keep safe and take care. To make the long story short - read and apply MS10-018 Out-of-Band IE Security Bulletin now. There are some attacks using it, so you shouldn’t keep yourself vulnerable when the cure is already available. Remember Conficker worm? It was a month (!!) after update was ready and available before active exploit appeared on the web - so only systems not updated for a month were at risk.. You don’t want stay at risk intentionally, right?

Btw, the principle about installing updates is fair across the industry. 2 days ago Apple patched 92 vulnerabilities, a third of them critical, in a record update to its Leopard and Snow Leopard operating systems. Security Update 2010-002 plugged 92 holes in the client and server editions of Mac OS X 10.5 and Mac OS X 10.6, breaking a record that has stood since March 2008 . (took from here)

So stay safe!

Windows Phone 7 for Developers

Renat Minazhdinov - MSFT — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 09:29:42 GMT

Planning to earn some more money with your application for mobile devices? Looks like it is the time to check out what Windows 7 Phone Series can offer to you.

Firstly, an interesting fact – did you know that 90% of the code could be reused in versions of your app for PC, Windows Phone and Xbox? (prooflink) So save your time – learn this :)

This Training Kit will serve as a jumpstart into the new Windows Phone world taking you in a step-by-step approach explaining the tools to use and some key concepts when programming to Windows Phone.

Free Silverlight learning course

Renat Minazhdinov - MSFT — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 12:48:26 GMT

Ok, super quick 2 “yes-no” questions, my friends..

Is your boss willing to pay for your learning at professional IT-courses?
Does your boss expect that you stay top-notch professional and be better than other professionals available on the market?

The more I travel and see the impact of financial crisis on the IT-industry, the more that there in almost no exceptions from “1. No, never again. 2. Yes, of course”

I’m really glad that my colleagues in Redmond understand the market conditions and (which is more important) understand needs of the IT-community. That’s why we see more and more FREE courses on latest technologies. I wrote earlier about many free learning resources (and other free stuff from MS) and I glad to add another one to it…

Channel 9 is offering a free Silverlight 4 Training Kit. The training kit includes a whitepaper explaining all of the new Silverlight 4 features, several hands-on-labs that explain the features, and a 8 unit course for building business applications with Silverlight 4.

So my suggestion is simple - get the bits (for free) –> get trained (for free) –> get paid (well, here you need to invest some of your time :))

Emirates Airline – from passenger and IT perspective

Renat Minazhdinov - MSFT — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 14:46:46 GMT

What a coincidence - I arrived this morning from NY by Emirates flight and the first e-mail that I found in my inbox was about Emirates Airline video is published on TechNet Edge!

So have to say 2 things here:

1) From my passenger’s subjective perspective and experience – great job, Emirates! it was a nice flight (as usually)

2) From IT perspective – looking forward for you sharing more news about Win7 deployment with the community! Great work on the pilot and a lot of learning for all colleagues across the region.

P.S. You might have seen this video at TechEd Middle East, btw, but at TechNet Edge is a bit longer version

Share your feedback with Microsoft team

Renat Minazhdinov - MSFT — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:14:09 GMT

Hi there!

Twice a year we are conducting survey among our users and customers – so called Global Relationship Survey. And this is not a type of survey that everybody just fills and the results go nowhere. *All* Microsoft planns further activities based on feedback we are getting from you.

It’s not hard to find examples of what was done because local IT community asked for that:

TechEd Middle East
localization of TechNet and MSDN portals into Arabic, Hebrew, Turkish
Supporting more local community initiatives (events, usergroups etc.)

All this was done because we heard through last surveys that you need more relevant and locally delivered information from Microsoft.

So my kindest request to you - please share your feedback!

Tell us:

what we can do better for you as a technical professional (I know there is always a room for improvement :))
what we did good over the last year – we need to know if we are moving in the right direction supporting local IT Communities

The survey will be sent from e-mail @satisfaction.ipsos.com – please make sure you have this address in the white list. I really don’t want some spam filter to block your ability to share your feedback with Microsoft.

Said this, of course you’re more than welcome to share your feedback “of cycle” and not through a survey, but directly with me or IT Community collaboration the team! To be honest it’s our pleasure and the job in the same time – making sure that Microsoft as corporation hears the voice of IT Pro community and the best members of the community (yes, I mean you, 100% sincerely :))

The start of really great week with TechEd

Renat Minazhdinov - MSFT — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 08:43:22 GMT

Why I do love TechEd? Not because of content – can read it all online and watch webcast or “how-do-I” videos. But TechEd is a great chance to really meet with the cream of the cream of Technical Community. And here in Dubai this is super special experience since you can meet with people who you won’t probably meet on other events or even “TechEd”s. 1500 attendees from 40+ countries joined us here today. And I’m super glad that I saw a lot of familiar faces and already had a chance to put some new faces next to e-mail aliases and twitter nicknames :)

TechEd Middle East – 1 week to go

Renat Minazhdinov - MSFT — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 12:22:54 GMT

The same time next week we will be opening doors of the first in history TechEd Middle East. Knowing how much effort and passion the team here in Dubai and across MEA invested into TechEd – it will be a great experience for attendees.

Be ready for some surprises for and interesting announcements. Such great speakers as Eric Rudder (the man responsible for overall Technology Strategy of Microsoft), Walid Abu-Hadba (the man responsible for all Developer and Platform evangelism), S. Somasegar (the father of Microsoft developers’ tools)

So, looking forward to see some of you next week at this great event!

P.S. If you still hesitating on attendance, stop doing it and go register now - still some seats available. And according to many requests from the community we extended the 15% discount (use 52F42DC3 promo-code while registering)

Attending MVP Summit? Get in touch with TechNet and MSDN team

Renat Minazhdinov - MSFT — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 05:27:32 GMT

See the message from my colleagues from Redmond. I’d personally recommend to get in touch with them to make sure that TechNet and MSDN help you as MVPs to share your knowledge..

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The Server and Tools Online Group will have two sessions during the MVP summit during the month of February, 2010 in the Hyatt hotel located in downtown Bellevue Washington. We are interested in hearing feedback from international MVPs and encourage you to sign up for the STO sessions. Below is a breakdown of the days in which STO will present as well as the different session topics we will cover. When signing up for the STO sessions you can search for the session named as indicated below. At the STO sessions, our International Site Management team, based in Redmond, will be available to assist you with questions and guidance to the topic tables. We are also available to hear your comments and observations.

Again we are excited to meet you and we look forward to your insightful feedback.

Day 1 – Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Session Names:

· Part 1: MSDN and TechNet Town Hall – Enabling community contribution

· Part 2: MSDN, TechNet and MS Answers – Detailed Q/A and MVP feedback

Part 1 Details: 12pm – 2pm (Speakers and Introduction)

Vision and Strategy FY10 and beyond
Overview and execution of roadmap
Demo of MSDN relaunch
Demo of TN2.0
Enabling the community on MSDN and TechNet
How does MSDN and TechNet enhance community contribution and what additions are coming to the site (specifically targeting Videos and wiki)
What contribution methods don’t exist that should and get feedback on how best to drive participation targeting the following.

Part 2 Details: 2pm – 4pm (Breakout Sessions and Tables)

· Each of the tables below will have an International focus as well and we encourage you to ask questions and provide feedback

Product Feedback Lifecycle - Connect
Wiki
Blogs
Videos
Possible other topics: Forums and Community Translation Forum

Day 2 – Friday, February 19, 2010

Session Name:

· Part 1: MSDN and TechNet Town Hall - Enabling community contribution

· Part 2: MSDN, TechNet and MS Answers – Detailed Q/A and MVP feedback

Part 1 Details: 1pm – 3pm (Speakers and Introduction)

Vision and Strategy FY10 and beyond
Overview and execution of roadmap
Demo of MSDN relaunch
Demo of TN2.0
Enabling the community on MSDN and TechNet
How does MSDN and TechNet enhance community contribution and what additions are coming to the site (specifically targeting Videos and wiki)
What contribution methods don’t exist that should and get feedback on how best to drive participation targeting the following.

Part 2 Details: 3pm – 5pm (Breakout Sessions and Tables)

Each of the tables below will have an International focus as well and we encourage you to ask questions and provide feedback
Product Feedback Lifecycle - Connect
Wiki
Blogs
Videos
Possible other topics: Forums and Community Translation Forum