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PDC 2005 is a blast of information

Georgeo Pulikkathara — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 17:41:00 GMT

As many of you know by now, Microsoft has released information about Windows Vista, WPF, Winfx, and a host of other new technologies that we're working on. This is definitely the place to get the latest bits on the betas. While PDC has been sold out for quite some time, we do have some webcasts that are being held live from PDC , and this is a great way to get caught up on what's coming out of Microsoft without having to pay an arm and a leg in conference fees to get this information.

MSDN Webcast: Live from PDC: A Guided Tour of "Indigo" (Level 200)

MSDN Webcast: Live from PDC: Generics in Visual Basic 2005 (Level 200)

Check them out. We'll have more webcasts from PDC available shortly.

Regards,

George, MSDN Webcasts

Randy Choco rides again at TechEd 2005

Georgeo Pulikkathara — Thu, 09 Jun 2005 15:00:00 GMT

I'm sitting here getting ready to do a presentation with Rob Stagno our General Manager of Relationship Marketing up here in Tarrytown, NY for the Direct Marketing Education Foundation(DMEF). I can't think of a better way to relax that do a blog post while I'm waiting for our turn at the podium. I wanted to share these pictrures with you to show you more faces from our Microsoft webcasts team.

After watching the Teched 2005 Podcast team ride around on the Segways Human Transporters during the first half of the week, Randy Choco, who leads our Microsoft Webcasts Team, decided to test-drive the podcasts teams Segways. After working at the webcasts booths, checking on our live simulcasts, and ensuring that the webcasts team is doing okay, Randy take a few minutes to test-drive the Segway. It really is a very cool way to get around. I took these pictures on my Mortorola MPx220, which as a 1.2 Megapixel camera built it. It's not as sharp as my film camera, but it gets the point acorss. I'm always glad to see our team having fun at what we do.

Dr. Joe Hummel Presents Live from TechEd 2005!

Georgeo Pulikkathara — Thu, 09 Jun 2005 14:53:00 GMT

Dr Joe Hummel was presenting his last webcast that’s part of the Modern Software Development Using C# webcast series from the TechEd 2005 Podcast Team Room. Thanks to his many years as a college professor, Dr. Joe was completely unfazed by the folks driving around him on Segways as they got ready for another podcast attack at TechEd 2005. Dr. Hummel’s live webcast from TechEd 2005 was also podcast live at http://www.videoblogcast.net/. Thanks to Pete Grondal, Mike Hall, Paul Mooney, and Kevin Maude, and others for their generosity in sharing their crew quarters with the Microsoft Webcasts team. Guys - we owe you one!

Regards,

George, MSDN Webcasts

Webcasts Booth at TechEd 2005 - Lessons Learned

Georgeo Pulikkathara — Thu, 09 Jun 2005 14:15:00 GMT

This is from Monday morning at the Webcasts pod in the product pavilion. Thanks to Dean Andrews for posting this picture on his blog. My pictures are all on film, so I'm going to be posting them after I get back to Seattle.

It looks like posting offers for a free t-shirt at TechEd really drove the crowds. Some problems that were readily apparent to us were that we gave away 1,300 T-shirts in 2 hours that we were supposed to give away in a week. We didn't get a chance to talk to everyone that came by this morning, and when we did get a chance to talk to you, we became the blog pod as opposed to the webcasts pod we were supposed to be. Therefore, we learned something that day. Blogs are powerful and we need to think through how we use it in the future. We had a awesome turn out at the webcasts booth at TechEd 2005 in terms of folks that stopped by, but also wanted to take the time to talk to everyone, say hello and get some solid feedback on how to improve our program.

We got that chance once we ran out of t-shirts; customers actually came by to thank us, share feedback, and learn more about the program, and to share some very constructive feedback on things we can improve. Our fearless leaders, Randy Choco, Marc Tramonte, and Rob Stagno were all present to listen and to say hello to customers. It was great to talk to everyone at TechEd 2005, and thank you again for the great feedback. We’re going to use it to produce better MSDN Webcasts over the next year before you folks talk to us again at TechEd 2006.

Regards,

George, MSDN Webcasts

Free webcast T-shirts at TechEd 2005

Georgeo Pulikkathara — Wed, 01 Jun 2005 23:22:00 GMT

This is mock-up of the t-shirt. Okay, here's the deal. If you come by the webcasts and virutal labs booth at TechEd and show us that you've done one of the following, we'll give you a free T-shirt. To get your limited edition, classic webcasts t-shirt at TechEd 2005, show us one of the following:

Add your blog to http://msdneventsbloggers.net or http://techneteventsbloggers.net. You can also add it right there at the webcasts booth as well.
Post a comment to this blog post using your TechEd name and we'll give you a T-shirt. You'll need your TechEd badge to get the shirt. You can also add a comment right there at the booth. Basically we're looking for ideas on how we can improve our webcasts prorgram.(yes, we're working on sound and the registration issues now).
Blog about our webcasts and events on your own blog and have your blog post show up on our blogger sites (http://msdneventsbloggers.net or http://techneteventsbloggers.net) and we'll give you a free T-shirt in addition to the free t-shirt you get above for add your blog above.

We'll have two or three desktops at the booth for you to quickly add your blog or post your feedback or comments here. Hope to see you folks at TechEd 2005.

Regards,

George, MSDN Webcasts

P.S. Kevin Marshall from Portland Oregon will get a free t-shirt just for showing up at our booth, since he won the free pass to TechEd 2005. Kevin, We hope to see you next week!

Ken's bug reporting system

Georgeo Pulikkathara — Sun, 29 May 2005 06:02:00 GMT

I like Ken Dyck’s bug reporting system. This has certainly gotten the attention of folks internally wondering how come Ken didn't use the official bug reporting system. Well maybe because he couldn't find it, or maybe he didn’t want to spend an excessive amount of time trying to find out how to do report it and what form to fill out the bug report in, when it was a relative easy fix as Ken states on his blog. I’ve been getting some feedback on things we need to improve on with our webcasts such as audio, registration, and getting downloads and PowerPoint slides. I’ve been forwarding all this feedback to the rest of the team as well as to Live Meeting product teams and the Microsoft Events registration system team to get them to see the issues with our webcast customer experience and hopefully find ways to improve it. If you’ve got feedback to share with us, you can post this to my blog or to Dean Andrews’ TechNet blog and one of us will respond back to you.

George, MSDN Webcasts

Audio problems with MSDN Webcasts

Georgeo Pulikkathara — Mon, 23 May 2005 17:48:00 GMT

As of last week, we've stopped using Internet Audio Broadcast (IAB) in Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2005 until we can get a root cause determination on what's causing the audio problems. We're going back to our previous VOIP vendor Island Nation, until our live Meeting support team can stabilize and resolve the issues with audio quality. We think it's more of faulty hardware issue as we're not seeing this happen anywhere on any other Live Meeting conference centers. I'm told we're getting really close to resolving it, but we've some good stuff coming in the next few months, and don't want you guys to miss out on it due to audio issues. As many of you know, we switched over to Live Meeting 2005 at the end of March. In a way this was meant to make things better:

New and improved Live Meeting attendee and presenter consoles
Webcast downloads
Take advantage of new improved compress of download files via Windows Media Player (10MB versus 100 MB).
Built in VOIP software in Live Meeting 2005 that we can offer customers more value

We hope to get this resolved soon. Stay tuned.

George, MSDN Webcasts

Video Game Development - Learn to write C# the fun way

Georgeo Pulikkathara — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 06:02:00 GMT

Institute of Technology introduces participants to the concepts of video game production in this webcast series. Presenters will demonstrate the key stages in the process of developing the core game engine through the creation of a "top-down shooter"...(read more)

Science and Engineering at Microsoft - Turning Ideas into Reality

Georgeo Pulikkathara — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 05:44:00 GMT

When folks think of Microsoft, they think of the cash cow products such as Office, Windows, and think okay, that's old stuff, but what have they done lately to reallly drive technology innovation? Well, hang on and I'll show you. During the month of May 2005, we have a special series of webast to highlight the academic minds that delve into the hard sciences and engineering research that takes place at Microsoft Research. These are the folks at Microsoft that leave their mark on how we use technology today and how we'll use them tomorrow. Some of you may say, "Hey, I knew that guy when he was teaching at this university, or when we published this whitepaper." Microsoft is very lucky to have these folks here at Microsoft Research, and I'm sure I'll look back and say with pride, I used to work there when he or she was at Microsoft Research.

Regards,

George, MSDN Webcasts

From our Science and Engineering webcast series landing page:

Why did Microsoft make the design decisions it did when designing .NET and the Common Language Runtime? Why did it commit the substantial resources necessary to add support for functional programming languages and other "academic" languages? What kind of thought really goes into creating a security framework, and where do the experiences and knowledge of academia fit in? When Microsoft looks at improving its technologies, who are the kinds of people that play leading roles? (Hint: They are often former academics). Who are the people who are driving this change?

To answer these questions, MSDN Webcasts presents a series that examines the science, research, and engineering behind Microsoft technologies, with lectures presented by scientists and engineers at Microsoft and Microsoft Research who are responsible for these advances. Microsoft technologies are the result some of the most complex engineering projects ever attempted, and Microsoft has incorporated many advanced concepts from computer science into its products. This webcast series highlights Microsoft scientists and engineers who are influencing the current and next generations of Microsoft technologies. Some of them are specialists, known only within their chosen field; others are well known internationally. Subject matter for these webcast lectures incorporates cutting-edge research for future products, as well as the science in existing products.

Bonus: Attend any live webcast in this series to qualify to win a Portable Media Center (official rules) pre-loaded with our best webcasts.

TechEd 2005 is sold out!!!

Georgeo Pulikkathara — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 21:32:00 GMT

TechEd 2005 sold out last Friday, so if you're going, you're going. If not, well.. it's too late... unless you win a free pass to TechED 2005 in Orlando, FL this June 6, 1-, 2005.

So how do you win a free pass like Kevin Marshall from Portland Oregon? Well registered and attended a live MSDN Webcast that is part of the TechEd 2005 webcast series. These webcasts are designed to udpate you on what you can learn at TechEd.2005. It will help you get up to speed on what's coming from Micrsoft in the next year, so you can plan now for all the cool things you can do with tools and technolgies coming from Microsoft and its partners.

Angela Brobst asked me to remind everyone that there are 3(repeat THREE )passes left...since Kevin has one a pass already. :-)

Kevin - Please be sure and stop by the Microsft Webcasts booth when you get to TechED in Orlando, FL, ask for George (I'll be the funny lookng short, fat, indian guy with three cameras, a hand full of t-shirts for customers, and a big smile for all). Welcome to Microsoft TechEd 2005!

Regards,

George, MSDN Webcasts

Bonus: Attend any live webcast in this series through April and you could win a free pass to Tech·Ed 2005 in Orlando, Florida, (official rules) or a Portable Media Center (official rules).

Why do developers go to conferences?

Georgeo Pulikkathara — Fri, 08 Apr 2005 00:55:00 GMT

Jeremy Mazner writes a great article on his blog as to why developers go to conferences. Certainly worth reading if you get the chance.

Overall Champion Webcast Presenter for the Microsoft ASP.NET Webcast Series - Fritz Onion

Georgeo Pulikkathara — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 18:10:00 GMT

Last October we had a webcast series on ASP.NET. It was a huge success. We have over 240,000 registrations. We had a whopping 40 webcasts structured across Introductory, Intermediate, and Advanced webcasts. If you’ve ever tried to explain a technology to someone who has never used it before, you know how challenging it can be. Fritz delivered 8 webcasts focused on showing novice web developers what all you can do with ASP.NET 2.0. We had a friendly little competition going on to see who the best presenter was for this series. It was based on Most attendees, customer satisfaction scores and how many folks clicked on their online links to show interest in their webcasts. Well, we had some mighty, mighty champions, but the overall winner in all three categories was none other than Fritz Onion.

So here’s Jon Byrum, from the US Developer Team virtually presenting the award to the winner Fritz Onion.

Here’s Fritz Onion after he got the belt. By the Fritz Onion and Plural Sight is going to be at TechEd, so be sure to stop by their PluralSight booth, and say hi. We’ve talked Fritz into bringing the belt with him to TechEd, and hopefully we can get him to do a couple of webcasts from TechEd if possible(wearing the belt of course) J

In the meantime be sure to check out some of Fritz’s webcasts here on MSDN Webcasts

Essential ASP.NET – Explore Configurations to Winforms by Fritz Onion

Microsoft ASP.NET Webcast Series – All the Intro webcasts are by Fritz Onion

How to download MSDN Webcasts in Live Meeting 2005

Georgeo Pulikkathara — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 17:52:00 GMT

Our new live meeting conference center lets you download the webcasts for offline viewing. So if your company doesn't allow streaming media, you can download them and view the offline. If you're on an airplane or waiting someplace, you can whip our your trusty Portable Media Center, or laptop and watch a webcast, build your developer skills and get a better job where they do want to train you and let you watch webcasts.

With the new release of Live Meeting 2005, you can now download webcasts for offline viewing. I know this took us some time, but it's we finally got this working in the product. When you go to view the ondemand webcast in Live Meeting 2005, you’ll see the option to download the webcast recording for offline viewing.

You’ll also see instructions on installing the Live Meeting wrapper. I recommend you install it so you can see the upcoming slides and move around the webcast recording as needed. You’ll need to download, install, and yes, reboot. Sorry about the reboot.

Professional Developers Conference 2005 in September

Georgeo Pulikkathara — Sun, 03 Apr 2005 20:34:00 GMT

Someone asked me if I wanted to be at PDC 2005 this year. Hmm, Let me think about that. YES!!!! I want to be there! They must think I don’t care to be at these cool events like PDC and TechEd. Truth is I do, as I want to hear what customers are saying about webcasts, and what we can do to make this a better experience for all. Agree the whole registration process can be easier for all. We’re addressing that now.

Actually, saying Anthony Tsim and I were there to work the MSDN Webcasts booth at PDC 2003 in Los Angeles is an understatement. Anthony Tsim and I were at PDC 2003 in Los Angeles during the California fires.

Anthony Tsim and I tried to fly out of the Seattle Tacoma Airport on Sunday, October 26, 2003. Because all the flights were cancelled, Anthony and I decided to rent a mini-van from Avis on way. We also got three other Microsoft employees into the mini-van and headed straight down I-5 to Los, Angeles, California. We had a product manager from Map Point navigating for us, and Andy Boyd (aka The Dodge Viper Fanatic; although I hear he’s now driving a Porsche Boxster!) with us as well one other person, and I can’t remember her name.

Anyway, we drove all Sunday afternoon, Sunday night, and Monday Morning, and we got there at about 10:00 AM. I found the email I wrote from the MSDN Webcasts booth on Monday Morning at 10:47 AM PST. Poor Anthony Tsim got a speeding ticket. We got pulled over Gay Creek, California. I couldn’t find it in Map Point, but I did a search and got the grid coordinates. It’s in Glenn County, California at coordinates Latitude 39.81306 and Longitude 122.18167. Anyway, Anthony was bummed over getting the speeding ticket, so we took it easy for a while, and then started speeding again later. Here’s the email I wrote from the MSDN Webcasts Booth that Monday morning, October 27, 2003 at 10: 40 AM PST. I removed aliases and names and so forth for privacy reasons.

======================

From: Georgeo Pulikkathara
Sent: Monday, October 27, 2003 10:40 AM
Subject: RE: Wildfires have shut down LA airports

I-5 is wide open. Anthony Tsim and I and 3 other ms employees were able to rent a minivan and drive down from Seattle, WA to Los Angeles, CA. It was 1,128 miles and took us 18 hours, and only one speeding ticket for doing 85. We left at 3:30 pm PST from SEATAC and were able to drive without traffic delays throughout the night. We're here now. Thank goodness for MapPoint 2004.

George Pulikkathara, MCSE
Marketing Program Manager, US BMO Webcasts Team

US-BMO Marketing Programs & Infrastructure

Microsoft Corporation

Work: 425-707-6912 Cell: 425-503-6443

Sent: Mon 10/27/2003 7:04 AM
Subject: RE: Wildfires have shut down LA airports

They were completely shut down last night at midnight; I talked to someone who was told by a cop to "turn off your car; you'll be here for at least 6 hours."

======================

So are we going to be at PDC this year? Yes, we are. I hope everyone who can make the time to go will there as well. It's the best way to keep your career on the fast track by knowing what's coming out of Microsoft and its partners before others hear about it. By the way here’s a picture of Bill Steel, MSDN Developer Community Champion and myself in front of the MSDN Webcasts booth in the Ask the Experts pavilion.

Regards,

George, MSDN Webcast

Somasegar’s Goal: ‘Complete Transparency’

Georgeo Pulikkathara — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 17:18:00 GMT

If you don't know who S. “Soma” Somasegar is, now's a good time to learn more about him. Soma's the corporate vice president of the Microsoft Server & Tools Developer Division. Within Microsoft, Soma has been evangelizing the ideas of complete transparency in how we build our products, run our business, and how our teams run their day to day operations. I’ve been evangelizing this for sometime on our Microsoft webcasts team, but it’s great to hear this from our senior Microsoft leadership, as a way to run our business and build better software for our customers.

You’re going to see a new Microsoft in the next few years. One where we have continuous feedback loops, where we get feedback from the community and act upon it to make the product and experience with Microsoft better for partners and customers. You’re also going to be seeing the Developer Tools division listening even more to what you have to say, and trying to address and fix things that customers want to see fixed.

MSDN Webcasts and MSDN Architecture Webcasts is an attempt to put an human face on Microsoft, what Soma calls Complete Transparency. During the month of April, you’re going to see over a 100 hundred live webcasts where we have the Microsoft product development team, industry experts within and outside Microsoft talk openly and candidly about what you can expect in Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005. If you get the chance to attend live, I strongly recommend it. Our product development are some of the brightest folks in the business. Here’s your chance to ask them questions, understand why they designed the software they way they did, and give your feedback on what we can fix or improve. Also be sure to check out Somasegar's WebLog

Regards,

George, MSDN Webcasts

Office: 425-707-6912

georgeop@microsoft.com