11-08-2008 Microsoft Tech-Ed SEA First Day

Today, wake up at 7am, bath and get ready for breakfast at 8am. Start a great day with a full stomach. ^_^.

Walk past Wisma UOA to KL Convention Centre and straight to the Handout Counter to get my cap. Wonder why my other colleagues couldn't get the cap?? The cap looks cool with the words.. "Certified I am. You are not". Maybe is it just for MCP? Some of my colleagues are MCP as well. Wonder why...

Attend the Keynote session at Plenary Hall, Level 1. Some snapshots of the keynote speakers:

Saw Ken Wye, VP, Asia Pacific, Microsoft

Dato' Badlisham Ghazali, CEO Multimedia Development Corporation

Ward Ralston, Group Technical Product Manager, Microsoft

Forgotten his name...

Some of the Wow Thing..

After the keynote session, its lunch time. The lunch this year is better than last year. They also have more rows of food so that people don't cramp up in a lane. Thumbs up for the food, especially the desserts. But this round, the coffee and tea are not auto-served. Need to ask for it from the waiter/waitress.

After lunch, take a visit to the Exhibition Hall for some games, product and services information from participating companies... and some goodies... ^_^ There's some exhibition hall activities like Bingo, Crazy Word Mix, Geeks Face-Off, Hunt the "Fugitive", Speed Typing and many more other activities going on.

First track session starts at 1.30pm and each session is 1.15 hour long with 15 minutes interval break between each session.

I attended 4 sessions from 1.30pm until 7.15pm. Phew.. It was a tiring day, but at the same time an exciting day with lots of new knowledge, latest technologies information to learn.
Some of the sessions that I wanted to attend but are not able to attend due to crash with other session. Anyway, the 4 sessions that I attended are:

• The Real-Estate Architecture Role
  (discussing more on the UX experience and the importance of it, relating to the real estate property, interesting session and great speake -- Aaron Tan Dani)
  
• Developing a Windows Presentation Foundation Application
  (instructor lead lab ILL, not enough time to really go through all of the content, should allocate longer time for ILL)
  
• Building Next Generation Data Access Layers with the ADO.NET Entity Framework
  (more to overview of Entity Framework, see that many people rate this session as Below Expectation, as for me Average)
  
• What's New in Microsoft Visual C# 3.0?
  (ILL, great presenter/instructor, easy to understand lab, worth the time to attend)
  

Bump into Alex, my ex-colleague. ^_^

Going back to hotel around 7.45pm, then walk to Equatorial Hotel for dinner in Kampachi with Ing Chen. Nice dinner served and the food is good. ^_^

Finished dinner near to 10pm, back to hotel room, check some company emails, replying emails and bath. Then blogging until its 1.15am now. Gotta get some rest for Day 2's session.

Good night!

10-8-2008 Going KL for Tech-Ed

Going to KL to attend Tech-Ed SEA which will be held in Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre on 11/8/2008 - 14/8/2008.

Took MAS flight at 12pm to KL and waiting at gate 12. I was assigned seat 27B (last row). Should have requested for a front window seat. Hai... While waiting, saw one of my friend Michael waiting for the same flight as well.

Reached KLIA around 1.10pm and then proceed to hotel. Given a 2 single bed room. Nice room with open door bathroom...

Went for lunch with Ing Chen, Joe and Saw in KLCC (Madam Kwans).

After lunch, walk over to KL Convention Centre to register attendance for Tech-Ed SEA.

Then, next stop, we went to Times Square for some window-shopping and had lunch in Sushi King. Back to hotel around 9pm, selecting which sessions to attend and getting ready for tomorrow's event!

Some of the sessions I'm interested to attend for First Day track:

• Best Practices with the Microsoft Visual C# 3.0 Language Features
• The Future of ASP.Net is Near
• Building Smart Client the Smart Way
• Developing a Windows Presentation Foundation Application (Instructor Lead)
• What's New in Microsoft Visual C# 3.0

Ok, time to say good night.

10-08-2008 Kam Swee's Birthday

It's Kam Swee's birthday on 10th of August. Wishing her a nice birthday celebration and good luck in her studies in Korea. Hope she gets good results and all dreams come true.

2008 Singapore Trip Day 3

The last day of our Singapore trip, and today is also MapleSEA's 3rd Year Anniversary Event held in Suntec City. Early in the morning, after breakfast, we check out from hotel and go to Bugis.

Nothing much to shop as it is still early, so we take MRT to City Hall to go to Suntec City. Planning to go for the MapleSEA event and grab some goodies.

It's so nice to be able to go to the event and get to see all those Maple gamers.

But too bad... when we reach there, there was a huge crowd queuing up waiting for account verification.

Waited for a while, then I give up waiting in the line as we need to go back to Johor at 2:30pm. So we go to the Toy & Comic Convention instead.

There are many types of toys and comics figurines which are very attractive. Some which I know of Master Q, Star Wars, Batman, Mario, Chucky, Naruto...

After that we had lunch in the food court and proceed back to hotel to meet with Irene n Neo to go back to Johor to take flight back Penang. Overall it is fun and enjoyable trip! Looking forward to next trip.

More photos at http://sherlynchew.multiply.com/photos/album/130

2008 Singapore Trip Day 2

Today, wake up at 6am and go for continental breakfast in the hotel.

After that we depart to Mount Faber. Spend around 1 hour there and ride on cable car to Sentosa Island.

We go for the Malaysian Half Price package (6 in 1) which you only need to pay RM66 or 50% of SGD66. As the conversion rate is currently at 2.4, we use RM to pay for the package. The package includes CineBlast, Merlion, Images of Singapore, Sky Tower, Cooler Drinks, Sentosa Special Souvenir.

First, we go for Sky Tower as it is just beside the ticket counter. Sky Tower is Singapore's tallest observatory tower offers panoramic views at 131 metres above sea level across Singapore, Sentosa, Southern Islands, right up to neighboring Malaysia and the Indonesian islands. The Sky Tower has a capacity of 72 in its enclosed, air-conditioned cabin.

Next we go to Images of Singapore experiencing the history, legend, fact and folklore that are creatively interwoven for guests to enjoy. We also receive our Sentosa Special Souvenir there (which was included in the package).

Then we stop for lunch before proceed to the Merlion, the biggest replica of Singapore's most enduring symbol. Standing at 37 metres high, this half-lion, half-fish creature brings you to the depth of the sea as you walk side-by-side with legendary sea dragons and mythical mermaids.

After that we go for CineBlast, Singapore's only state-of-the-art cinema simulation ride. It was a long queue before we got our turn. You can feel the exhilaration of flying to the top of the highest mountain, the stomach-churning thrill of rushing into the deepest valleys, and the gripping excitement of being tossed about by whitewater rapids.

We also go for Luge and Skyride. Part go-cart, part-toboggan, pure excitement – the luge is a fun-filled gravity ride that's safe for all ages. With a unique steering and braking system that allows you to make the ride as leisurely or as exciting as you want.

Luge ride

Skyride

Around evening time, we go to VivoCity for some shopping and dinner. Then we proceed to Orchard Road for shopping and sight seeing as well before heading back to hotel.

More photos at http://sherlynchew.multiply.com/photos/album/129