October 2004 - Posts

• Geek talk at 2 am

  OK, I'll admit to it. We are kinda geeky. After dancing our legs off at the TechEd farewell party, we lounged around outside and chatted -  about Agile Methodologies, COM+, corporate stupidity, the practicalities of webservices in the South Afrian context of poor bandwidth and so forth. What will I remember about TechEd? Kaylash and Danny went to extra-ordinary lenghths to promote the communities. Danny wore his SAArchitect shirt and cap during the close off key note! The Chalk and Talk sessions were really great (I think we should organise regular ones in our local communities) and that as IT professionals we should be aware of each others worlds. I sat in on a session that Carlos and Evan held on AD and ADAM. I learnt about Auth Man - now I will have to do the research. It sounds as if we can stop breaking our heads about authorisation inside our applications (or app DB's) and start using this great tool. It was also great to see my husband in action. Evan, I am proud of you! After the three hectic TechEd days, I can only say that I am very impressed with the organisation of the event, the dedication of MS and the sponsors to the communities and with the MVP's willingness to share their in-depth knowledge of their respective specialities. A very special congrats to Ruari on his demo of ASP.net. You had us all eating from your hand! Well done, but now we owe you a party since you missed out on the fun preparing for your excellent presentation. I finally met all the SADeveloper leads. Roaan's presence as active SAArchitect member was very welcome. At least I was not alone. Thanx Roaan! Chad, I'll will definitely start posting on Project Firefly. It was great seeing what you are doing, especially around usability. I think I will call on you to do a talk on it soon for the architect community, maybe even invite the SADeveloper guys along as well. TechEd will definitely see me again, even if I have to borrow the money! Thanks Kaylash and Danny for the opportunity you gave me to attend. It is more deeply appreciated than you will ever know. MS rocks!   Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it! Posted Oct 30 2004, 09:37 PM by tina with 1 comment(s)

• My file extension

  Yip, I took the test as well. At least I am not boring  ;-) Which File Extension are You? For those of you who know me, is this true?   Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it! Posted Oct 26 2004, 04:46 PM by tina with 1 comment(s)

• TechEd is a party

  OK, so we went to bed at 4 am! I firmly believe that I am fine, except that my body is not agreeing with me. My knees hurt, my skin ache and I hope those pics don't make it to the communities!   Last night's beach party was a blast, regardless of the poor turn out. Come on Geeks! We are allowed to party as a larger group! The beach balls were a great idea. I got kicked (accidentally), hit in the face by balls (only sometimes accidentally) and I still had fun.   The only reason people gave me for leaving early, is that there was not enough women. Gee, more often than not companies send the men to TechEd and not the women. Change that and the parties will *really* rock! Aparently my large and loud presence was not enough :-(   On to the more serious stuff. The Chalk and Talk sessions led by the MVP's are really worth attending. The groups are smaller, there are some really knowledgable people around and the discussions are lively. Team System looks awesome. Ahmed did a great job of running us through TS. I think it should have been at least two sessions. There was not nearly enough time to show all and to have a Q&A five minutes.   The communities have really grown the last two days. I hope that at least some of the guys will get involved and gain the advantage of being part of  SADeveloper and SAArchitect. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it! Posted Oct 26 2004, 09:46 AM by tina with 1 comment(s)

• Building a Community

  Gee, I thought this whole community thing would be easier! Sure, the guys are eager to participate, but it takes time and energy. I struggle to find the time that I really want to put into the effort of a collaboration project between SAArchitect.net and SADeveloper.net. I forgot that I wanted to create a poll for a name for our project. I still haven't found a way to publish the templates and, and, and... There is so much I want to do and that I want others to do. There just is not enough time. Hopefully at TechEd we can sort out some of the issues.   Ah, TechEd! I can not wait. It is a pity I cannot clone myself. There are so many sessions I want to attend. I think I'll end up in the Chalk and Talk sessions mostly though. I will even attend one of my darling husband's sessions. Software and Infrastructure are moving closer to each other and I think it is time that I learn a lot more about Active Directory and ADAM. It is a pity there is not more on architecture, but I am sure this will change in the future. Microsoft is really publishing a lot around architecture lately. I visit the architecture site on a daily basis. One more thing that there is not enough time for...   Well, it is seven days till TechEd. Hubby and I will drive up to Sun City with my new car. It is going to be a blast, starting off with the women's lunch and then meeting up with everyone I “met” either through the communities or IM. Only one thing bothers me. If we are having the parties at the pool, should I take extra dry clothes along?  Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it! Posted Oct 17 2004, 09:52 PM by tina with 1 comment(s)

• My new baby

  No more car troubles! I picked up my new baby on Saturday morning - a pitch black Toyota Verso. This is a veritable Mom's taxi. I can now cart the kids and their friends around. I still miss my old car - I think I will miss stalling in peak hour traffic - NOT  :) ! Anyway, last night we had Ruari, Coral and the kids over for a braai. Ruari and I were supposed to go through some training that he is going to do for me. My darling husband spoilt all the plans by making his excellent cocktails. The result was that we never even had the food that was so lovingly prepared and we all fell asleep trying to watch a movie. At least I did not have to cook today...     Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it! Posted Oct 10 2004, 09:07 PM by tina with no comments

• Bad Mood leave

  I want to propose a new form of leave. It should be reserved for those days when you just KNOW you are going to get totally ticked off by something really small.   This leave should be seperate from annual leave and should be seen as a way of “Keeping the Peace”. Yikes - I needed this today. Probably because I truely relaxed this past weekend. I went camping with SADev - took all the kiddies along.   It was a blast and maybe that is why I flipped my lid when I missed two of the three smokebreaks. The first one I forgot about because I was on a roll and the third one I missed because I was in a review! Remember that I work for a company that treat us like children! So I could not even get my nicotine fix. :(     Oh and my car broke down in peak traffic. So the good news is that the bad things did happen and the rest of the week should be wonderful.   In the mean time I will put all my excess energy into getting the Collaboration effort on SAArchitect moving forward. I want this to work! It will be such a great feeling to see something happen in the architecture realm. Come on Guys and Girls! Get involved. This is your opportunity to put SA developers and architects on the map. Currently we are voting for the projects. It is the last boring bit before we jump in and have fun.   Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it! Posted Oct 04 2004, 10:40 PM by tina with 2 comment(s)