Thank You, Buffalo

Thanks to all that came out for the first ever Greater Buffalo IT/Dev Day at Daemen College this past Tuesday.  From the conversations I had with folks on-site and the evaluations we collected, I hereby declare “mission accomplished!” 

The event could definitely not have happened without the efforts of David Hockenberry and the volunteers at the Western New York .NET User Group; hopefully, you’ve signed up for their newsletter and will frequent their monthly meetings if you don’t already.  By the way we’re already working on planning the next big event for Western New York!

Thanks too to the sponsors, Telerik, RedGate, Wrox, and Amyuni, and especially PSI Professional Support, Inc. – Greg, Shelley and crew – for not only paying for lunch, but also providing some insight into putting your best foot forward in the the current job market.

For those of you in attendance (or even if you weren’t!), here’s a few links you might be interested in.

The presentation materials can be found at https://tinyurl.com/buffaloitdevday (if they are not all there, they should be shortly).

Windows 7 officially RTMd  on Wednesday!  If you have an MSDN or TechNet subscription, you can access the release on August 6; check here for availability dates.

Expression 3 was announced on Wednesday as well, and is currently available for download via MSDN and TechNet subscriptions.  You can also preorder the software when it becomes available in August, and download a 60-day trial to get started today.

A new Azure SDK is available, the major feature of which is to support multiple web and worker roles in the context of a single service.  Also, as I mentioned, a new portal has been launched (https://windows.azure.com) to give a more streamlined experience to managing your cloud application.  Here’s a snapshot below of my account, with the NerdBytes sample I demonstrated at the event.

Finally, keep your eye out Monday for the launch of Windows Marketplace for Mobile!