Tomislav Bronzin [RD&MVP]

Microsoft MIX10 is Starting Today in Vegas!

Today MIX10 - a 3 day Conference will start - it is not exciting for people that are web designers and developers that build the world's most innovative web sites, but also new Azure/Cloud like applications and Windows Phone 7 Series apps.

Nevertheless, it is premium event where experts from Microsoft, but also from other development companies will present their research, ideas, innovations and technology!

This year, INETA Europe (International .NET Association) will have two representatives: Damir Tomicic and Jose Luis Lattore Millas (who participated at MIX10k competition: http://mix10k.visitmix.com/Entry/Details/261), both of them Silverlight experts! So you can get in touch in Vegas.

Probably you heard the saying: "What happens in Vegas, stay in Vegas" - I hope not, because I would like to hear ASAP what is so new and revolutionary!

Windows Phone 7 Series - is it able to compete with iPhone? (II)

What I (whole world) had chance to see in global speech by Steve Ballmer, I would say yes!

I am more skeptic when it comes the question of timing - because - I (even as Windows Mobile/Phone supporter) am using 3rd generation of iPhone (3GS), second one in a row, and I can see that a lot of companies are developing apps for iPhone, but not for WM, or the are developing it after they developed apps for iPhone (last example is Lufthansa and Miles & More).
Why I am skeptic? Because on Windows Marketplace for Mobile I could not find vendors/applications like Skype!
Do you want more to support this? There is iPhone App for MIX10, which btw, starts today on March 15.

What is cool about this? It was written by using C# and MonoTouch from Novell.

What I am happy about - I can name support by partners - HTC, QUALCOMM ... this will actually give life to WP7S platform, I hope soon!

From the technical point of view, I do not like that Windows Mobile Device Center is not working on 64-bit Windows 7 OS!

What I like about WP7S? Finally (after almost 3 years) it supports Silverlight, as well as XNA. I also like the 3-screen model, as well as support for cloud.
It is funny, that first WP7S public presentation on some big MS event will be at MIX10 :-).

I am a little bit worried about rumors that Microsoft will charge for SDK :-(.
Still remains question of OS updates - this is (almost) number 1 request for WM platform, often justified by the "hardware vendor lock". 

Opposite to the opinion of majority people, I think that Windows Phone 7 Series (WP7S) can be also good for the Enterprise environment - because today people "share" their work and public workspace and they do not want to carry two mobile devices.

More about Windows Phones: http://www.microsoft.com/Windowsmobile/en-us/default.mspx

Windows Mobile Marketplace: http://marketplace.windowsphone.com/Default.aspxAbout

WP7S: http://www.windowsphone7series.com/

2. MSForge Codecamp (March 27) in Belgrade, Serbia

I had the fortune to be one of the opening speakers of the 1. MSForge (INETA Europe User Group in Serbia) Codecamp 2009.
It was pleasure to see about 150 people coming not just from all parts of Serbia, but also from Croatia, Romania ...

Again, this year INETA Europe will support as Gold Sponsor 2. Codecamp (March 27) in Belgrade, Serbia.
There will be 5 session about ASP.NET, SQL Server, C#, jQuery, Web Applications, WPF, Silverlight ...

If you are nearby or you are willing to come (and understand Serbian), register at http://codecamp.msforge.net!

Happy International Women's Day (8 March)!

Traditionaly, International Women's Day (IWD, 8 March) is celebrated globaly for the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future.

Fight for women's rights actualy started in 1900's and it was specificaly marked in 1908, when 15.000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights and the first National Women's Day were celebrated in USA 1909.
In 1910, at Second International Women's Conference at Copenhagen famous Clara Zetkin (Leader of the 'Women's Office' for the Social Democratic Party in Germany) came with the idea of an International Women's Day.
The First International Women's Day was celebrated across the Europe in 1911 and next year will be 100. IWD and Global Centenary 1911-2011.

In many countries IWD is a national holiday and today it is truly celebrated globaly and still marks the fight for the women's rights!

I would like to specificaly draw the attention to all Women in Technology to a WIT one-stop shop Web site (http://www.microsoft.com/emea/women/default.mspx), dedicated to the advancement of women in the technology fields. As a thought leader in the IT industry, Microsoft is committed to the ongoing development of female professionals and encouraging new professionals to join the industry. For this reason, Microsoft has provided this site, specifically designed to support women in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) who work with technology.

Happy International Women's Day (8 March)!

How to migrate MySql to Microsoft SQL Server? Easy use SQL Server Migration Assistant!

Among the whole series of tools for automation of the migration process from Oracle, Sybase, Access and PowerBuilder to SQL Server 2005 & 2008 (including the SQL Azure DB), there is new one: SQL Server Migration Assistant for MySQL.

All of the above mentioned toolkits are designed to simplify the manual process of database migration, and cost and risk associated with migration.
SQL Server Migration Assistant for MySQL will be generally available in the summer of 2010, but you can download Community Technical Preview here: SSMA 2008 for MySQL v1.0 CTP1

Microsoft Innovation Center initiative in Moldova – Face2Face interview with Tomislav Bronzin

I was in Moldova last week (Feb 8-13) to investigate an opportunity to leverage framework and experience from Microsoft Innovation Center’s in Croatia and Slovenia in similar Center of Excellence/Innovation Center in Moldova.

I was stroke by the great enthusiasm of Moldavian people and their willingness to change things and create better life, not just for those people working in IT but to nation as a whole.As an USAID RCI Senior Advisor, I was working with my colleagues in USAID CEED Project and with great support from Microsoft and HP branch office in Moldova to acquire enough data to prepare Feasibility Study and Concept Paper that will be presented at Moldavian ICT Summit Feb 30-31.

My visit was very well accepted by all the institutions and business that I had opportunity to talk with, including representatives from Moldavian Government, donor organizations (beside USAID) like Word Bank, telecom providers like ModTelecom and ModCell, Moldavian ICT Association of private ICT companies, representatives of Academic institutions, Business and Technology incubators as well as with CISCO, as one of the potential private partners (beside Microsoft and HP), etc.

I think that there is enough willingness to be optimistic about this initiative!

Hello MS Community! Vote for PnP track at WinDays 10 Conference!

I am delighted that we have 15 applications for PnP track at WinDays 10 Conference!

Go ahead and vote for your choice here!

P.S. You need to be registred to login to the MS Community Portal to be able to vote!

Good luck to all of the applicants!

MIX: Inspire the world with just 10K! - Entries are accepted till February 15th

So, if you think that you are up-to the challenge, create your application and upload it here: http://mix10k.visitmix.com/Entry/Create

Protect@Work - certified Win7 app that uses WPF, WCF, .NET, VIsual Studio 2010 - But where is business case? Watch it here ...

If you know Croatian, you can watch an interview authored by Jasmina Franjic from Croatian National Television about Protect@Work: http://www.youtube.com/v/bBWpLlqJNfo&hl=en_US&fs=1&

Registration for Developers Bootcamp in Zagreb open! (in Croatian)

If you would like to participate at Developers Bootcamp in Zagreb (February 22.-26.) you can register here: http://bit.ly/bwNlXE.

This is the first trening in Croatia (maybe also in CEE) that has following topics:
a) Visual  Studio 2010 Beta 2
b) .NET Framwork 4.0 (WPF, WCF, WF, ASP.NET, C# & VB)
c) Silverlight 4.0
d) Windows Mobile 6.5
e) Office 2010
f) Microsoft Solution Framework

More info (in English) here: www.developersbootcamp.com

If you would like to invite us to your town/country - we are ready to come!

Who we are?

1. Tomislav Bronzin, Regional Director, MVP & MCT
2. Andrej Radinger, MVP & MCT
3. Dobriša Adamec, MVP
4. Vedran Kaldi, MCT

"Developers Bootcamp": Visual Studio 2010 & .NET Fx 4, Zagreb, February 22.-26.2010

Developers Bootcamp is a 5-day intensive training which introduces attendees to technologies, news and tools supported in new development environment as well as project methodology MSF. Every session consists of theoretical introduction, followed by demos and examples, and concluded with hands-on labs on attendee’s workstations. All HOLs are supervised by Bootcamp trainers. Last day of Bootcamp, attendees will be divided into several functional team sand each team will have a specific task within a large project. Final result/delivery of all teams will be a solution created by Visual Studio 2010, following MSF methodology.

Date: February, 22.- February 26. 2010. Duration: 5 days, 9:00 - 17:00 Early Bird: 30% discount until February 10. 2010 Location: Development Agency Zagreb, Croatia No of participants: 10  Event scope: CEE/SEE Europe Target audience: Developers, solution architects, system analysts. NEW DISCOUNTED PRICE! Price includes: access to the training.

Special 30% discount on Early Bird offer for members of INETA Europe User Groups!

Learn more h e r e (http://www.developersbootcamp.com/)

Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4 Launch posponed!

Two top Microsoft Developer Division Executives: Scott Guthrie and “Soma” Somasegar - announced today (December 12) that official launch of Microsoft flagship development tool Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 platform will be moved from March 22 further and that Microsoft is planing to extend the beta period by adding another interim checkpoint release, a Release Candidate with a broad “go live” license, which will be publicly available in the February 2010 timeframe.

I and my friends are speaking at TechEd Europe in Berlin: Wednesday 11/11 | 13:30-14:45 | Paris 1 - Hall 7-1c

I will be at TechEd Europe till Friday, and I will deliver following session:

CLI308 Windows 7 Taskbar: New User Interface for Your Application
Wed 11/11 | 13:30-14:45 | Paris 1 - Hall 7-1c

Session summary:
Windows 7 Taskbar is great new addition to the Windows user interface that replaces Quick Launch and Traybar from the previous versions of the Windows OS. Usually operating system API is accessed by native code, but we show how you can use managed code wrappers like Windows Vista Bridge or Window 7 Interoperability Pack to access it directly from the .NET language. Learn how you can manipulate Taskbar buttons and application ID, create jump lists, destination and tasks, integrate thumbnail toolbars, add overlay icons and progress icons, create custom thumbnail and peak and build custom switchers (MDI/TDI).

Also, I invite you to attend sessions that will be delivered by my good friend and Mobile Dev Expert, MVP Andrej Radinger:

MOB303 Adding Life and Intelligence to Windows Mobile 6.5 Applications
Mon 11/9 | 10:45-12:00 | New York 2 - Hall 7-1a
MOB04-IS Building and Integrating Mobile Solutions into Existing Microsoft Dynamics ERP Systems
Thu 11/12 | 15:15-16:30 | Interactive Theatre 4 - Green
MOB403 Microsoft SQL Server Compact Edition Ultimate Performance Tuning
Wed 11/11 | 15:45-17:00 | New York 2 - Hall 7-1a

When we are not speaking, find as at Community Area! I will be at INETA Europe Booth/Pod (read here more: http://bit.ly/9hBOq), Microsoft Regional Director and MVP Booth/Pod, as well at TLC area of Windows Client Development!

See you there!

Is Code Camp time around Europe!

And I am participating on one today (October 21) in Belgrade Serbia!

More info here: http://codecamp.msforge.net/

I will speak at the keynote of this event and I brought one of the legend of the Microsoft Community, first Microsoft Regional Director for Croatia: Arian Stipic!
Arian Stipic is a leged and he was my mentor, so I was pleased when he was invited to speak at this conference!
He was not just my teacher that has helped me enter magic wrold of development on Microsoft Platform, but also he guided me to become one of the Europen .NET Developers Community Leader.

Big thank you, Arian!

If someone asks me to explain what CodeCamp’s are, I always can quote my good friend and MVP Vladan Strigo: CodeCade is based on 6 principles:

1. By and For the Developer Community
   Code Camps are about the developer community at large. They are meant to be a place for developers to come and learn from their peers. Topics are always based on community interest and never determined by anyone other than the community.
2. Always Free
   Code Camps are always free for attendees.
3. Community Developed Material
   The success of the Code Camps is that they are based on community content. All content that is delivered is original. All presentation content must be provided completely (including code) without any restriction. If you have content you don't want to share or provide to attendees then the Code Camp is not the place for you.
   
4. No Fluff only Code
   Code Camps are about showing the code. Refer to rule #1 if you have any questions on this.
5. Community Ownership
   The most important element of the Code Camp is always the developer community. All are welcome to attend and speak and do so without expectation of payment or any other compensation other than their participation in the community.
6. Never occur during work hours
   We need to understand that many times people can't leave work for a day or two to attend training or even seminars. The beauty of the Code Camp is that they always occur on weekends

Microsoft Vizija, Skopje, FYR Macedonia

I and several other MVP's, speakers and trainers had great time at Microsoft Vizija that was held from October 8th to October 9th.

I had two sessions:

View here: presentations from tbronzin.

There were more than 500 attendees that attended one of the 3 parallel tracks: IT Pro, Development and Solutions. Also, each night there were opportunities for networking on great parties that was organized by Microsoft.

I want to say big THANK YOU to the organizers (Microsoft Office in Skopje, Microsoft Community, INETA Europe Chapter FYR Macedonia, PASS, Culminis/GITCA) and all MVP's that was very pleasant and showed great hospitality!
Thank you to MVP's: Daniel Joskovski, Vladimir Meloski, Aleksandar Talev, Boban Stojanovski, Community Leaders: Dejan Dimitrovski, Dejan Anevski and all others...!

I would go to this conference anytime! See you there next year!