Last month, Microsoft Cyprus organized the New Efficiency Launch, called Microsoft Momentum 2009, dedicated to both ITPros and Developers. During the event, the popular Cyprus .NET User Group (CDNUG) organized a community area where attendees and community members could reach UG Leads and Microsoft MVPs and network each other. Artemakis Artemiou , Microsoft MVP and INETA Country Lead, together with Bojan Mijuskovic , Community members and my colleague and friend Karl Davies-Barrett , DPE Evangelist

The guys from VB Tips & Tricks did it again ! What ? Yes, they wanted it so hardy they couldn’t resist and now what do we have? A great new online and offline Community dedicated to Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight ! Yes it looks very promising as I see Alessandro Del Sole , Antonio Catucci and Renato Marzaro 100% involved in this !! Good job guys and keep up the good work ! Link to: Home Page di WPF Tips & Tricks

For more information visit http://www.puneusergroup.org/windows-azure-workshop.aspx

Niraj Bhatt , a Connected System Developer MVP, participated in the Cloud App Contest by Microsoft, and won himself a Windows 7 laptop for submitting the best solution in the .NET category for the professional developer audience. As Niraj explains on his blog, the interesting application, created on Windows Azure Platform is EmergencyBloodBank. The two driving factors for this application were to create an application covering all offerings of Azure platform that can help community members to bootstrap

A few countries around the world have a day set aside for giving thanks - and some do it all year long. We stop to give thanks to those who have made us what we are, and those in the past and present who have given us the benefits that we enjoy. From teachers to family, we owe them a lot. I've noticed that several technology specialists, especially those that work with SQL Server, go even further. They practice "Active Thankfulness", where they donate their own time, money and effort to give back

This is the next blog in the continuing series of interviews with top-echelon and renowned professionals. In this blog, I interview Greg Lane, Global Top-Ranking Executive, International Thought Leader, Past Chairman CIPS, Chairman IP3, Director Avanade . Enjoy, Stephen Ibaraki Greg Lane I.S.P., ITCP, IP3P, MBA, is the past Chair of the Canadian Council of Information Technology Professionals (CCITP) of the Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS) and Chair of the CIPS Office of the Executive

Sometimes we forget what MSDN really stands for. And for sure “MS” is not the most important part of the acronym. MS D evelopers N etwork. The Devs4Devs event in South Africa that I had a pleasure to participate today – was an amazing proof that networking of technical community is the key to success (and not only to it). What I liked about the event – is that the majority of questions to presenters were answered by people from the auditorium (not only presenters!). Implication #1 The local experts

Not only the truth, but also the name of the event I participated in Nairobi, Kenya on Nov 25. Emmanuel, Stewart, team thanks a lot for making this happening! What I really liked about the event - is the feeling of a real hunger for information from the community. What I didn’t like – is that I got another prove that we, as Microsoft, are not doing a good job informing out tech guys about the ways of getting information. I heard a lot of these from the audience: “what do you mean I can download it

Mark your calendars! On Wednesday, December 2, 10:00AM PST, we are hosting a Live Meeting presentation for System Center influencers on “Managing the New Mail Infrastructure: What you need to know about System Center for Exchange 2010,” presented by Leslie Kitz, Microsoft Product Manager. Join information is available on the System Center Influencers Program portal . Members of the program will need to log into the Connect site to access the Live Meeting join information. This Live Meeting presentation

This is the next blog in the continuing series of interviews with top-echelon and renowned professionals. In this blog, I interview John Oxley a Leading Multi-Award Winning International Technology Authority and Executive; John talks about growing a strong and capable ICT workforce. Enjoy, Stephen Ibaraki John Oxley is a multiple-award winning, Director of Technical Audience Marketing and ICT Evangelism at Microsoft Canada. In this role, John leads and manages a team of Technical Audience Marketing