12-08-2008 Microsoft Tech-Ed SEA Second Day

Collected my green t-shirt today for Blogging Contest 100 early participants.

This t-shirt comes in handy as I realize my t-shirt for wear in hotel room went missing today. Maybe the house keeping has mixed it up with the bedsheet as my t-shirt is white in colour. Waiting for them to check whether they are able to find my t-shirt. Luckily that I have this green hulk t-shirt to wear tonight, else....

Among the sessions attended today:

• TLA321 - Understanding C# Lambda Expressions (by Bikesh Lakmichand)
  --> it showcase samples and demos on using lambda expressions (=> syntax) in C#, use it as needed.
  
• WUX223 - Ultimate Data Visualization Experience with WPF (by Walter Wong)
  --> interesting session, effective presenter, shows you how to leverage the power of WPF, collabrate VS2008 WPF and Expression Blend. Plus, there's freebies up for grab as well.
  
  
• WUX221 - WPF Performance & Best Practices (by Dirk Primbs)
  --> shares on how to optimize apps that use WPF, what are the perf tools you can use and demos on how to use it.
  
  
• Innovative Geeks - Nurturing Entrepreneurship & Leadership for Women in Technology
  --> specially designed event for women in ICt industry, with useful tips for women, sharing life experiences and advices from the well-known women in entrepreneurs.
  
  
• OFC024-ILL - Using Microsoft Office Excel 2007 Spreadsheets for Web Service-Based Calculations and Browser Rendering (by Y-Mi Wong & Patrick Yong)
  --> a lab session that teach you how to publish and work with Excel 2007 Services in MOSS 2007.
  
  
  
• WUX224 - Introducing Silverlight 2 - Media (by Oliver Scheer)
  --> learn how to use Expression Blend and VS to create a WOW websites and UX. also on Silverlight Streaming
  
  

Meet with some of my coursemates as well. Really long long time didn't meet time after graduation...

Huei Sian and me

Shen Long and me

Loo Toon and me

After all the sessions, went back to hotel, drop all the stuff, and heads to Pavilion for dinner. Go to TonyRoma's restaurant for steak feasting.

Strawberry Baiquiri

Roasted Garlic & Rosemary Chicken, Bountiful Beef Ribs

Good night for now... More to go tomorrow!

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.