[OT] Blogging Hiatus

I've been taking a bit of a bloggin hiatus the past couple of weeks mostly due to the first code drop of our Compact Framework for S60 going out to some of our Early Access Program members and the MEA MVP Open Days in beautiful Antalya Turkey.

From the R5L side: We've decided to make regular early code drops available to members of our Early Access Program before we ship a public beta of our CF for S60. These early releases are not as tested as a beta but it gives us some real feedback while development is still in progress allowing us to react in good time to customer requirements and feedback. With the first release out the door on Monday we hope to release a new build fresh from the build server oven every two weeks. Reflection support have been my main focus the past couple of weeks and will continue to be so for the next iteration where features not completed in time for this drop will hopefully be finished in time for the next release.

MVP Open Days: On Friday, after a mad dash to Pretoria to pick up my Visa and pick up some clothes from home, I just made my flight to the MEA MVP Open Days in Antalya. The flight there was an connecting flight via Dubai where I had to spend a 12 hour stop-over waiting to the flight to Istanbul. With no Visa for Dubai this had to be spent in the lounge where I quickly found the Irish Village Pub. A good a place as any to spend the time and which certainly made it easier to sleep comfortably without a worry on the ground next to Dunkin Donuts later. Met some South Africans there on their way back home to South Africa after working security duty and clearing landmines in Iraq. Sounds like an interesting and pretty exciting job but I think the health benefits aren't that good. Woke up with a bit of a head-ache but in time to hook up with Mo, our MVP lead, for my connecting flight to Istanbul and onwards to Antalya. We stayed in a magnificent hotel, "The Marmara Antalya" on the Falez cliffs. I had a room on the 22nd floor which had a really stunning view of the Mediterranean.  Adnan stayed one floor below me and this was the view from his room, of course mine was slightly better thanks to the extra floor :P

Met many of the other MEA MVP's for the first time. I didn't get everyone's names but some of the guys I do remember was Coşkun SUNALI (Turkey), without his translation I probably wouldn't have been able to get anything from the bar. Arkadi Frenkel and Asaf Shelly (no blog but a new book coming out soon) from Israel. Asaf drinking tequila and turkish beer with me until way too late at night. Adnan Farooq Hashmi, MVP from Pakistan who spent hours on the airport with me flying back to our respective countries. Mustafa Arafa, Omar Shraim and Bashar Lulu from http://www.dotnetboom.net in Kuwait.  There were many others but at the risk of misspelling names I'll stop there.  Thanks to Çigdem, Mo, Karen, Baransel and Melina for a very well organised event.

On the flight back from Istanbul my seat was double booked. This of course made me do a little skip and dance to the flight attendent as that usually means an upgrade to business class and I've been hoping for one of these upgrades but as my luck would have it business class on this particular flight was full. As was the rest of the plane except for one very uncomfortable seat in the middle of the plane. Try sleeping with someone bopping his leg up and down into you on the one side and a guy reading a newspaper over you on the other. Crap flight. Mental note to self, don't ever forget to do online check-in again. All my incoming flights I've checked in online and with the help of www.seatguru.com always had very good seats.

Now that life is back to a semblance of normality I'll be posting to my blog more often and finish some of my long outstanding list of things to post.