Microsoft DevDays 2011– I’ll be there - Init

<body> <h1>Microsoft DevDays 2011– I’ll be there</h1> <p> </p> <p>This year, I’ll be at the annual <a href="http://www.devdays.nl" target="_blank">Microsoft DevDays in The Netherlands</a> where you can ask me anything on web development. My base of operation at the conference will be somewhere in the ‘Ask-the-Experts’ area. Though you may also find me hanging around in the Community Lounge. </p> <p>But if time permits, I seriously hope to find some time to go some sessions too. With many interesting sessions running in parallel and with limited time, it’s important to have some criteria up front to make a decision where to go, and what to skip. These criteria usually involve: speaker (good) and topic (interesting). That’s nice and easy, but how do know if a speaker is any good, and if the topic is interesting? Hopefully, some tips below may help in that respect.</p> <p>First, I set a goal for my self. What is it that I want to take away from the conference? Do I have a current project or a future one in mind? Is a certain problem bugging me that needs to be resolved? That makes the topic more important than the speaker. On the other hand, I also like to be surprised. It can soon get boring and a waste of time to attend a session on a subject that you are very familiair with already. With a conference like TechEd I always learn most from the IT Pro sessions, because that’s an area that I usually only follow from afar. And you learn about stuff you hardly knew existed. Granted, it’s also stuff that’s not readily applicable in my own daily work. </p> <p>Anyway, being interested in web development, and already trying to keep track of most stuff Microsoft pushes out. Here’s a list of sessions I’d like to attend on <strong>Day 1</strong>:</p> <p>1. 09:15 - 10:45  <strong>The Keynote</strong> (<a href="http://www.techdays.nl/SessieDetails.aspx?cid=1595" target="_blank">link</a>). Especially Rob Miles can put a smile on my face, but I’m not sure what his role will be as he’s only mentioned as a speaker and not his topic.</p> <p> <p>2. 13:30 - 14:45  <strong>Windows Azure AppFabric: Building, Managing, and Connecting High-Density, Multi-Tenant Cloud Applications</strong> (<a href="http://www.techdays.nl/SessieDetails.aspx?cid=1524" target="_blank">link</a>). It’s quite a long title, but both the topic and speaker are interesting. The timeslot is difficult in that there are quite a few interesting sessions going on at the same time. Fallback-sessions, in case I can’t find the room (yes, that happens <img style="border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none" class="wlEmoticon wlEmoticon-winkingsmile" alt="Knipogende emoticon" src="http://todotnet.com/image.axd?picture=Windows-Live-Writer/Microsoft-DevDays-2011-Ill-be-there/1D5C9642/wlEmoticon-winkingsmile.png" /> ) or it’s too crowded would be: <strong>Unlocking the Secrets of REST with WCF</strong> (<a href="http://www.techdays.nl/SessieDetails.aspx?cid=1300" target="_blank">link</a>) and <strong>This Costs What? Estimating Costs in the Azure Cloud</strong> (<a href="http://www.techdays.nl/SessieDetails.aspx?cid=1296" target="_blank">link</a>).</p> <p>3. 15:05 - 16:20  <strong>Taking Control of your World with the .NET Micro Framework</strong> (<a href="http://www.techdays.nl/SessieDetails.aspx?cid=1427" target="_blank">link</a>). Again with Rob Miles, just for the fun of it. </p> <p>4. 16:30 - 17:45  This slot is again a challenge as several topics interest me, like <strong>What's New in Silverlight 5 </strong>(<a href="http://www.techdays.nl/SessieDetails.aspx?cid=1614" target="_blank">link</a>), <strong>Test Driving ASP.NET MVC </strong>(<a href="http://www.techdays.nl/SessieDetails.aspx?cid=1304" target="_blank">link</a>) but being really into C#, I should probably not miss <strong>Behind the Scenes of 10 C# Language Features</strong> by Bart De Smet (<a href="http://www.techdays.nl/SessieDetails.aspx?cid=1426" target="_blank">link</a>).</p> </body>