13-08-2008 Microsoft Tech-Ed SEA Third Day

Yay, today I won the consolation prize in the Bingo activities... and the prize is a T-shirt.

Haven't really see how it looks like, will examine and show you guys tomorrow as today I'm quite tired.

What I did today?

1. Normal usual stuff: Wake up, bath, breakfast
2. Tech-Ed stuff: Attend sessions and labs which I'm interested (8 sessions & labs in total)
3. Additional stuff: Visiting exhibition hall, participating in some games/activities by the booth
4. Nice dinner in Jogoya with Beatrice, Ing Chen and ex-colleague, KK
5. Checking emails and blog

Photos of some pretty gals in the exhibition hall (ignore the guy. )

Sessions & labs attended today:

• SBP031-ILL - Developing Workflow Services (by Nigel Watling)
  --> a lab session on how to build, configure and host a WCF service as well as consume the service from a website. (lab duration too short to finish all the exercise (1.15 hours), suggest a longer time for labs)
  
  
• ARC311 - Dude Where's My Business Logic (BL)? (by Chad Hower)
  --> a room pack with people, just imagine that I need to sit on the floor to attend this. He shares on where we should put the BL, what we are doing wrong and solutions to it.
  
  
• DAT333 - Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Features for Developers (by Bikesh Lakhmichand)
  --> shows some of the new features from SQL Server 2008 to ease developers job.
  
• WUX334 - A Developer Who Hacks Your Application (by Walter Wong)
  --> similar with last year's session on "Hack or Being Hack" session. Demos on how you can actually hack into an application, example: SQL Injection and Cross-site scripting
  
  
• SVR035-ILL - Windows Server 2008: Web and Applications Platform (by Ken Schaefer)
  --> lab session that shows the benefits and major features of IIS 7.0 and
  provide step by step on how to configure an application pool, create a web service, IIS roles management, and many more.
  
  
• DAT335 - Security Enhancements in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 (by II-Sung Lee)
  --> focus on the encryption and decryption, SQL Server 2008 enhancements like Transparent DB Encryption, Extensible Key Management and Auditing
  
  

Today's dinner is superb. Kim Kiat meet us in the hotel and we go to Jogoya in Starhill for buffet dinner. There's varieties of food and far more choice on the desserts.

Beatrice, KK, Ing Chen, Me

Some of the food taken

Back to hotel around 11pm... Quite late and tired, missing t-shirt still not yet found. Will need to check with the housekeeping tomorrow morning before checking out from hotel. Free t-shirt from bingo game comes in handy again. Oops, it's already 2am. Didn't notice that time flies very fast. Need to get some rest now. Good night.

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!