Totally hijacked from Dave Bost @ The Mind of a Developer Evangelist

On December 12th, the Microsoft Evangelist team on the West Coast is hosting a (virtual) Windows FireStarter event. This is a great chance for developers to learn “straight from the horses mouth” (so to speak) guidance, best practices and tips&tricks for building applications on top of the Windows platform.

They are holding this FireStarter event *LIVE!* in Redmond, but they are also streaming it live online to the rest of the world.

This would be a great opportunity to secure a conference room for the day, post the agenda around your office, and join us live on December 12th. I’ll see if we can also open up an IRC channel or something to carry the communication online during the sessions.

Be sure to register for online participation or if you can happen to be in Redmond on the 12th, you can participate in-person. Seats are limited!

Agenda: (all times are PST)

8:30 – 8:45, Kick off, Mithun Dhar

8:45 – 9:30, Keynote/Why Vista!, Chris Henley

9:30 – 10:45, The Case of the Unexplained, Mark Russinovich

11:00 – 12:15, Building Differentiated UI Applications Using Composite WPF, Glenn Block, Bob Brumfield & David Hill

1:00 – 2:00, Best Practices for Developing for Windows for Windows Standard User, Crispin Cowan

2:00 – 3:00, Windows Security and Bitlocker, Byron Hynes

3:15 – 4:00, (Windows 7 + Windows Server 2008 R2) Teaser Session, Byron Hynes

4:00 – 5:00, Windows for everyone!

I highly encourage you check this out if any of this applies to you, especially Windows 7, Server 2008, Mark Russinovich, AppDev, Security.. any of it!

Also, be sure to check out Dave’s Blog and the Thirsty Developer, by far one of the most consumable podcasts (which just happens to be about development and architecture!)

If you’re one of those folks who likes to bleed themselves, or just stay on the bleeding edge.  You ought to check out TweetDeck v0.20.6b But this more than just this specific update, it is about TweetDeck in general, a guide of its use and also where to pull regular Releases as well as Beta Interim Updates.

For the unfamiliar, TweetDeck is a GUI Interface to manage your Twitter “tweets”.

There are a number of benefits that the client provides over using the web to access Twitter.

This little icon brings up your Tweet window, to allow you to tweet messages.

This little drop down under “Shorten” allows you to choose your favorite web shortener in order to shrink your URL’s.   If you happen to tweet a lot of content in your 140 characters, you may wan to choose something smaller, such as “zi.ma” or “is.gd” as opposed to “tinyurl” which tends to eat up a majority of your characters!

Also this little gem lets you post/upload a picture to TwitPic and have it tweet it for you right there!

This next little item helps you manage your conversations as you see them on Twitter!

What you can do then is click on the “+” on a user and add them to one of your groups!

In all, it’s really that simple to manage out your users, groups and beyond!

Though if it starts to get unbearable in your groups, you can filter with

And that  covers the bulk of it! Enough to get you started and rolling with TweetDeck, Twitter and managing your users and self so you can have a reasonable experience as you grow!

Feel free to follow me if you’re not already on twitter @CXI

Aww yea! Thanks Duncan!

I think it goes without saying, that you need to check this out! (In a stolen verbatim fashion!)

I just noticed that you can also use the coupon code “CyberMondayDeal” to buy VMware Workstation. Using the code today, and today only, will give you 25% reduction. In other words pick up VMware Workstation 6.5.1 for $141.75.

And still a few hours left on this deal, so be sure to either pick up Fusion and/or Workstation while you still can.

Thanks to everyone using these links! My kids can have a decent dinner again

This question gets asked by a lot of people “ooh! Windows7 or Vista! What should I do?!?”

I won’t be the one to make that decision for you.  Infact, I’ll make it harder for you :)

In the season and the spirit of giving, and finally getting around to doing this (I’ve planned to do this for awhile) I’m giving away to a random and wanting participant one or more of the following!

I’ve had these sitting on my bookshelf for some time, and have been meaning to give them away! Will you get them? Do you want them? If you’re located in Chicago-land I could definitely drop them off, but if you’re in Egypt, Italy, Russia or Mumbai I’ll gladly ship them to you.

		Retail	Amazon
	Windows Vista Resource Kit Windows Vista Administrator’s Pocket Consultant Windows Vista Ultimate	$59.99 $29.99 $399.95	$36.55 $18.27 $224.99
		$485.93	$279.81
	Your Cost:		$0.00!

What’s the catch?

I encourage you in the spirit of giving to tell your friends and your friends-friends.  I get my hands on stuff like this all the time and when I don’t give it away at events while talking to people about Technology, It ends up back on my shelf ready for me to give away!

Please do comment on this, comment on here, retweet this on Twitter as well! :)

The more people who are interested and involved, the happily I’ll be that this is going to a good home(s).  (I only have one of each of these at the moment, but if the interest is there, I have a whole closet of other goods, software included!)

Please comment! Please retweet, Digg, Stumblr, etc. Add me @cxi on Twitter too! (Only comments on the blog count though! :))

Every comment, link back, blog post, twitter follow, retweet, digg, etc will give you an entry into the drawing!

Thanks and a happy thanksgiving and other festiveness to all!

(All those certification bound, be sure to check out the Free Testing Archive for free Certs!)

This is a terror event like no other, one which has been prolonged by the use of technology, adhoc and otherwise.    A call out from the users of the service Twitter requested on #mumbai that the Live Media Coverage being broadcast by news networks such as NDTV and CNN-IBN may have made the situation ‘worse’ than ‘better’ by not only letting those “on the street” know what is going on, but also informing those on the inside in the form of Terrorists.

So this situation almost on the flipside.   The Broadcast media apparently making the situation worse (Not to be outdone by a major network broadcasting on-air the room number of a hostage) and the AdHoc (Twittersphere) using this opportunity to spread information that is beneficial to all of those involved.

Such notable ones as:

• The number of tweets about people heading to hospitals to donate blood is astonishing!
• @aadisht: #mumbai Holy Family Hospital has enough blood; please donate elsewhere if you do.
• rockzapper: #mumbai NDTV still showing commando movements. Doesn’t it get it? This can cause a grim situation for police.
• @blogdiva: more numbers to call re Mumbai crisis : US helpline 888-407-4747 Brazilian help line 9820686143 (C) CNN IBN FA 1-613-996-8885
• blogdiva: if you are in Mumbai and want to donate blood, call 922 222 1947 and tell them you want to donate. They’ll get back to you when someone
• CXI Our hearts go out to those suffering in Mumbai, as well as my friends and associations out there being personally impacted.

Never before in history have people had access to so much information, so real time, and so fast and available.  Some may feel that Twitter may be a hindrance to situations going on, however the spread of information by good people wanting to help has never been so prevalent as their ability to reach out and help, especially when times called for it most.

This is hard on everyone, and no one feels it so much as those in Mumbai and with friends and family who live there.  Our hearts are out to you, and may this catastrophe be resolved with no more innocent deaths or bloodshed.

Tomorrow won’t be known as Thanksgiving, but Thanksliving for those who can survive this horrific time and be stronger for it, in light of desperate and terrible situations.

Be safe, and be well.