I have been googling myself today (I never said my ego was not super inflated), and stumbled upon an a blog entry talking about the presentation on .Net vs. J2EE I did in Riyadh last month (The entry is in Arabic). There are a few things I think I should correct, as I think the remarks were not ill intended:

• The author claims that I said I would be perfectly neutral. I would have been foolish to claim perfectness in anything. I have only said that I would be as neutral as possible, and precised that I my own personnal choice was very clear, and that I prefered .Net
• The author said that I didn't succeed in being neutral, and that I was too favorable to .Net. I have had many reactions from attendees that were favorable to .Net that said that I was giving J2EE much more credit than it deserves. I believe that when people are there to discuss, we can talk in a serene and calm technical atmosphere.

I will be doing a session on Sql Server Mobile Edition on February 9.

    TechEd Kuala Lumpur is great this year. Yesterday, I presented two sessions, one on the contract First approach to Web Services, and one on mobility. I will be posting my demos here as soon as I get back to Casablanca and package them. I will be doing my "Secure Coding Techniques" session tomorrow.

    It is 3 am here in casablanca, and I have been working non stop for about 33 hours (except for a couple of hours of sleep in front of my laptop screen). I had a disk crash that made me loose a lot of time during the last 2 weeks, and I had to re-download and re-install WebSphere Studio with the Integration Test Environment (the minimum environment I need to show some interop issues between .Net and Websphere, and how to gurantee interop for my architecture session in TechEd Asia in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia). So I took it up starting Tuesday around 6am, and here I am still.

   Boy I am happy I do not have to be using eclipse on a daily basis.

   Finally arrived to Mauritius yesterday night, and the place is very beautiful. Tomorrow, with Lee Mungai, Microsoft Developer Evangelist for West East and Central Africa, we will be doing DevDays.

   I have been warned not to come to Lagos, Nigeria, both from friends before I commited to coming, and after I got here by all the notices saying that one should be careful to an extreme that can simply never be achieved...

   I have not seen much yet (I doubt I will see much at all), but the people I have met so far (hired chauffeur, Hotel bell guy, IT and telephones guys that helped me get connected...) seemed to be nice people.

   Anyway, tomorrow, I will be talking about security in IT, doing a seession on "Defense in Depth" and another one on "Identity management". How weird to have to talk about computer identity while spending a lot of time thinking about identity in general.

   Goksin is here, and hopefully Lee will be arriving soon. Nasser and Gurkan couldn't make it because of visa delays...

   We'll try to be safe, and get out with our heads still in place...

    Tomorrow, I'll be doing 5 sessions back to back. 4 were planned, and one of Steven's sessions (he couldn't make it to Karachi). These sessions are :

1. Mobile Web Development with Microsoft Visual Studio .NET
2. Developing Compact Framework Applications for PocketPC and Smartphone
3. Developing PocketPC Applications for a Semi-Connected Environment
4. Introduction to ADO.Net
5. Developing Performing Mobile Applications with the .Net Compact Framework

   Yesterday, I did my cabaña session at TechEd on "Writing Smartphone applications with the compact framework and the telephony and messaging APIs". I promised I will be posting the slides and code today, but the connectivity (both at the convention center and at the Hyatt) is so unstable I had to upload 3 times with no success. I will catch up as soon as I get back to West Virginia (Sunday). sorry for the delay...

    Monday, some people were expressing some concerns about the concept of the Cabaña sessions (some found it hard to hear the speakers). Even then, many sessions were really great, with a fantastic interaction between speakers / panels and attendees. It got better every day, and the concept is so great I hope it will be maintained for next year (and also generalized to the other International TechEds).

    I had a good time on my session yesterday, and I think a few of the attendees found it informative. If I was to criticize anything about it, I would simply regret that there are no evals for the sessions.

   The lounges are comfy, and give a great intimate atmosphere for discussing and having questions answered by subject mater experts, as well as for making connections with people.

   I am hosting a Birds of a Feather session on Service Orientation, with Clemens Vasters and Scott Hanselman on the panel. The session is a great opportunity for those interested in understanding what Service Orientation is about and how it plays out in the real world, as well as what it means for the developer and for the application architect. The session is scheduled at 8pm in room 14B (rescheduled from Wednesday night).

   The Imagine Cup is organized for the first time in Morocco this year, and the finals will be on Saturday May 8th.

   The event is taking place at the INPT in Rabat (Institut National des Postes et Télécommunications). I will do a keynote on future technologies...

   I think it will be fun being on the jury (if I make it, for I have a chance to spend some time with my daughter this week end)...

    The coming few weeks are going to be a busy speaking period for me. Starting May 15, I will take a 1 week vaccation, then start a long period of conferences all over the world, and I will not be back for any significant period of time to Morocco until July.

    Right now, I am finishing and polishing my talks and demos, and I'll keep on that for one more week. Then, I will visit my good friend and fellow RD Stephen Forte in NY, before heading to West Virginia for one week vaccation (Visiting my brother and nieces, and like all of my vaccations, I'll be spending part of my time on getting up to date with some of the technologies I have neglected lately).

     My schedule gets then to its cruising speed, with the following events :

• May 23-28, TechEd US :
  • Cabaña session in the Dev Track : "Writing Smartphone applications with .NET Compact Framework and Telephony and Messaging APIs"
  • Birds of a Feather session : "Orientation vs. Object Orientation"
  • I will also be present on the Dev Track Cabaña and the Architecture Cabaña
  • I will be doing some duty at the Visual Studio .Net booth
• June 4-7, DevEssential, Kansas City, Missouri
  • Mobility : Notes from the field
  • Secure Coding Techniques
  • Developing Office System solutions that integrate with business processes
• June 15-17, Pakistan Developer Conference 2004
  • 4 sessions TBD
• June 22-24 (Not confirmed yet), DevDays Mauritius and Réunion

   This year at TechEd, there is an interesting new addition : The Cabañas at the Community Lounge. The idea is to cut the distance between attendees and speakers/experts. Here are a few intersting happenings :

• Meet the Technologist sessions : These are pretty much breakout sessions, but they are more attendee friendly in that they are smaller, and allowing more interaction with the speakers. They range from Chalk Talks to fully preped presentations with demos, in small open Cabañas. Attendees (At most, 30 per session) will have the oportunity to ask questions as the speaker is covering his topic, which, I am sure, will give those sessions a much more intimate atmosphere.
• There will be no speaker lounge at TechEd, and speakers are supposed to simply hung out at the Community Lounge. That will let the attendees find the speakers much more easily and interact much more easily
• There will be a concierge to help attendees find experts that can answer their questions. Many experts both from Microsoft and from the industry will be present in the Community Lounge at specified times, so that attendees can find them easily and discuss their subjects of interest with them.

    If you attend TechEd, don't miss the Community Lounge, it will be a fun and informative experience.

    I will be giving a Meet the Technologist session on "Writing .Net Compact Framework application that use the Telephony and Messaging APIs". If you are interested in mobile device development, come to the session and I will be glad to discuss any questions you may have. I will also be present at the community Lounge pretty much every day.

Hurray for Goksin and his newly invented Just in Time Speaking:

Nairobi airport 12:20PM airplane lands. 1:15PM, grabbing the cab outside of the airport. 1:55 arriving at the Safari Park Hotel. 2:00PM speaking at the Kenya DevDays... What a great guy.

Update : I forgot to add that this comes after Stephen Forte and Patrick Hynds invented JIT Travel (they call it speed travel) last January in Egypt...

   The Microsoft North Africa Developer Conference is great stuff. I am not saying so because I am part of the organizing team, but hey, where can you get this great line up of speakers, and still get in for free (even if you are located somewhere else than north Africa, if you don"t speak french, 30 sessions in english), and if you speak French, 48 sessions (The English language session have simultaneous translation into French), covering pretty much the content of a PDC style conference, for just the cost of T&E...

   If you are in doubt (I wouldn't forgive you if you live in North Africa...), just look at the schedule at http://www.microsoft.com/northafrica/ndc//NDC_agenda.asp and at the speakers list at http://www.microsoft.com/northafrica/ndc//NDC_speakers.asp

   Off course I am doing 4 sessions (Secure Coding techniques, Cryptography in .Net, Compact Framework - I go deep into the telephony API, and an intro to Avalon), but don't come to the conf just for my sessions, there are speakers you wouldn't get a chance at seeing unless you go to some expensive seminar or conference like Clemens Vasters, Scott Hanselmann, Stephen Forte, Ingo Rammer, Sylvain Duford, Yann Faure, Andrew Brust, Eric Groise, Goksin Bakir, and others (sorry for the order and for anyone I have not mentioned) ...

   This confenerence is pretty much the only event still having so much content both on current technologies and future technologies (Whidbey, Yukon and Longhorn are all covered). If you really are not convinced by now, I will see you at some conference somewhere, whre you'll paying a lot to get just the info you could have gotten here for free... It is all up to you...

I have just received confirmation I will be doing two "Meet the Technologist" sessions at TechEd in San Diego (May 24-27) :

1.Designing and writing interoperable Services: the Contract First approach

2.Writing Compact Framework applications for SmartPhones that take advantage of telephony and messaging APIs

If you are at TechEd, check out my sessions. If you have not registered yet, click the techEd button below to register. If you can't be there, I will be blogging about the event here...

    When my friend and rock star speaker John Alexander told me that there was a conference on .Net in Kansas City in june, I didn't take a second before I wanted to be there ... So I return to the midwest as a conference speaker, after I left it when I was still a student 13 years ago.

   As some may know, I have spent a few years in Wichita, Kansas during my university years, and driving the 3 hours I needed to get to KC was a weekend habit (Actualy, I used to drive to Lawrence, KS to visit some friends at Kansas University on saturdays, and usually party out there, before heading to KC in the morning to spend my day over at Worlds of Fun and Oceans of Fun). But since I left Wichita in 1991, I have never been to any part of the Great Plains (except for about a week in Chicago in the 1996 - or was it 97 ?) ...

   Last week, one of my greatest friends (I call her my sister) that I have lost contact with for the last 12 years found me through google ... Off course lots of things happen in such a long time, and I am very happy to be able to see her.

    So, somehow, the midwest is calling ...

    Si le temps n'est pas encore venu pour que je puisse donner tous les détails, je ne reste pas moins très content de recevoir un cartain nombre de mes amis Regional Directors à Casablanca pour une conférence dont la taille et le type de contenu constituent une première au Maroc.

    De certain de ces amis, j'ai déjà parlé dans des entrées de ce même blog, et sont parmis les experts les plus renomées mondialement dans leurs domaines respectifs, comme Clemens Vasters, Scott Hanselman, Stephen Forte, Andrew Brust, Sylvain Duford, Yann Faure, Goksin Bakir et d'autres... Je suis très impatient de les retrouver, et événtuellment de leur faire visiter mon pays qui, dans mon opinion au moins, est l'un des plus beaux du monde.

    Les Développeurs du Maroc auront donc une opportunité unique de retrouver ces experts et de profiter de leurs savoir et de leurs expérience ... J'en dirais plus dès que cette information devient publique (et officielle) ...

   If there is anything all of us speakers at the MDC04 in Cairo agree upon, it is how wonderful the attendees were : very warm, very interesting participation and questions, and an amazing show of appreciation at the closing session. Big thanks to all of them, they really made us all love Egypt even more (if that is possible) than we already did ...

I have promissed to have my slides and demos online by saturday, and since I just got home and haven't had time yet to really package and comment my demos, I am still going to update all the info by tomorrow. For now, here are links to download the slides and the demos "As is" :

http://www.arrabeta.com/malek/Compact%20Framework_final.ppt

http://www.arrabeta.com/malek/Compact%20Framework%20Demos.zip

   Today, I did my 3 Office 2003 developer Sessions at MDC, all in a row.  Tomorrow I will be doing a Compact Framework session (I will cover PocketPC and SmartPhone development and I will touch on SPOT).

   This afternoon, I started with Infopath, followed with XML in Word and Excel (including Smart Tag Lists, Smart Docs using the MOSTL XML Lists, and finished with Visual Studio Tools for Office 2003). I have attached the slides (I still will revise then, and pack the demos, then I will post the apdated version) ...

XML in Word and Excel.ppt (805 KB)

Infopath.ppt (1.13 MB) Visual Studio Tools.ppt (1.79 MB)

Visual Studio Tools.ppt (1.79 MB)

The MDC is a great information source for Developers. Started last year, the MDC is becoming "The" Microsoft conference in the middle east ...

For those who missed the PDC (Los Angeles, October 2003), this is a great opportunity to have a look at the future with Longhorn, Yukon and Whidbey ... The three products that will change Microsoft technology, and place managed code at the center of every Microsoft product ...

This year, the conference will be opened by Bill Gates himself (for the first time in Middle East).

There are a few of my friends and fellow RDs speaking :

Stephen Forte

Patrick Hynds

Goksin Bakir

Selçuk Uzun

Hossam Khalifa

For myself, I'll be giving 4 sessions. 3 sesions on Office System development (using XML in Word and Excel, InfoPath, and Visual Studio Tools for Office), and a mobility session on developing mobile applications with the compact framework (I will dwell quite a bit on smartphone development, on performance considerations and tips, and I will introduce the new mobility features of Visual Studio Whidbey).