I’ve been a bit quiet lately as I prepared for the Microsoft Ready Launch events here in Australia. I had the priviledge of being asked to join the team to present at the Canberra and Brisbane events.

Unfortunately I didn’t get to spend much time at the community launch event on Wednesday night in Canberra as it was off to rehearsals with the team. Chuck & I eventually called it a night just before midnight. One of the things I was most looking forward to was the opportunity to meet Rob Caron who was in Australia to present at the launch events in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra. Unfortunately he was unable to stay around for the Perth and Brisbane events as he is due to fly back to Redmond on Saturday after spending two weeks here in Oz. Anyone using VSTS will be familiar with the name Rob Caron whose blog is an indispensable resource. Hopefully I can help persuade Rob & his wife to include Queensland on their next trip

My first session for the business launch event on Thursday was a team effort with Rob, Andrew, Chuck and I each playing a different role within the software development lifecycle. The role play went well and I think the audience really appreciated the benefits VSTS offers development teams. My part of the presentation was going well right up until the final part where I tried to show the project portal. For the first time ever, ol’ faithful project portal failed and displayed an error on the screen. Oh well .  Rob later found the cause was an outdated version of Windows Sharepoint Services on the Virtual PC I was using was the cause of the problem.

Chuck and I then teamed up to present the ASP.NET 2.0 later in the afternoon and as is Chuck’s way, we dispensed with the powerpoints and made the session 100% demonstration. Chuck & I both had a ball presenting this session and everything went off without a hitch. Andrew closed out the developer track of the launch event with a great session on smart client development. As the last session of the day, the numbers started to drop off a bit but if you can hang around for it, it is well worth your time.

Anyway, Canberra’s behind us now, Andrew & Joe are off to Perth at the start of next week before I meet up with Andrew & Chuck for the Brisbane event next Friday. If you’re planning on being in Brisbane on 8th Dec, register now and come and join us.

Me and Rob	Chuck and I	Chuck & Andrew