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May 2009 - Posts

• Get Certified!

  With all the turmoil in the job market right now there couldn’t be a better time to get certified.  Certification can be that differentiator with your boss over who stays and who goes, can help you prove your skill set with potential employers and I know of more than one HR department that scans for those letters (MCSA, MCSE, MCITP, etc…) when browsing resumes.  There are a lot of options and offers when it comes to getting certified.  From the Second Shot offer, which allows you to retake an exam if you happen to fail, to the Are You Certifiable challenge, and more there is no end to options. I was talking with Brian Bourne from CMS, a Toronto based consulting and training company, about their MCITP Bootcamp.  One of the big challenges I found when obtaining my Windows 2000 MCSE was getting the knowledge I needed that matched the skills and experience I already had.   The other challenge I had was with time.  Time is always a limiting factor and while it would be great to take two months off to prep for the exams but that never went over well with management.  After talking with Brian for a while that is exactly what the MCITP Bootcamp aims to solve. The 10 Day Boot Camp will prepare qualified Microsoft professionals to earn the Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP): Server Administrator and MCITP: Enterprise Administrator certifications for Server 2008. Students will learn by doing through lectures, demos, labs and solid technical instruction that successfully reduces the 44 day certification to 10 days.  The course takes place in September but space is limited. Tuition includes: · Pre-course reading and exercises · Training, course content, books and hands-on labs · 180 day access to all relevant MeasureUp exams. · All exams needed for certification, along with free ‘Second Shot’ retake voucher for each exam if needed. · All exams are written on-premise during the boot camp. · All meals including breakfast, lunch & dinner · Free Wi-Fi Internet in the training centre I even managed to swing a $500 discount code for the bootcamp from Brian for our lucky readers, simply use the code MS09 when registering.  And if you are a Software Assurance customer you can use your Software Assurance training vouchers against the cost of the course as well.  Find out more here –> MCITP Certification Bootcamp Posted Monday, May 25, 2009 10:31 AM from Canadian IT Professionals | 0 Comments Filed under: Certification, Rodney Buike

• Kai Axford Canadian Security Tour

  Culminis and Microsoft’s User Group Support Services (UGSS) are pleased to announce their co-sponsorship of a 9 User Group tour of Canada, between May 26 and June 18, 2009, by world renowned security expert, Kai Axford (CISSP, MCSE-Security). Kai is a Senior Security Strategist in Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing Group and is based in Dallas, Texas. A ten-year Microsoft veteran, Kai is responsible for discussing and recommending security solutions for both private and public sector organizations. In addition, he conducts Chief Security Officer councils worldwide, taking executive feedback and affecting change within Microsoft’s security products and processes. Kai started with Microsoft in 1999 as a Server Support Engineer and then moved on to become an IT Pro Evangelist, focusing on his peers through the Microsoft TechNet Events program. Kai has delivered more than 300 security presentations on a variety of topics, including digital forensics, security management, incident response, and computer espionage. He is a frequent speaker at security conferences, executive meetings, and business seminars around the world. He is finishing an MBA in Information Assurance and is a member of ISSA, INFRAGARD, ASIS, and the North Texas Electronic Crimes Task Force. He was the recipient of the 2006 “Rising Star” award from the Information Security Executive council. Kai is interested in security management and hopes to become a Chief Security Officer one day. Prior to Microsoft, Kai served as a leader in several real-world operations with the U.S. Army's elite 75th Ranger Regiment. Kai is an outstanding speaker and is in constant demand around the world. So we are very fortunate indeed to be able to provide this opportunity. Following 3 hugely successful previous tours of Canada Kai is back for a 4th time. Kai’s presentation will cover: · Windows 7 Security Tidbits - Windows 7 is coming and the boss is asking you about all those new security features. Perhaps you've heard some buzz about AppLocker? What’s this about DirectAccess connecting securely to your corporate network without a VPN?  What’s up with BitlLocker To Go? In this fun and interactive session, Kai Axford, a Microsoft Senior Security Strategist with Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing team, will demonstrate some of the new security features in Microsoft's newest desktop operating system. Bring your questions and get the scoop on these upcoming Microsoft security technologies! · Understanding and Preventing Insider Threat – Many analysts have stated that the Number One issue facing corporate customers today is the threat of targeted corporate espionage coming from within the organization. Join Kai Axford, a security strategist from the Microsoft Trustworthy Computing team for an entertaining and engaging session, as he shares real stories from the trenches about the risk this threat presents for both you and your customers. He’ll demo the means by which these attacks occur and discuss the mindset of the attackers. Don’t miss the chance to see how this is done! Mississauga - May 26 - https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=138016 Toronto - May 27 - http://www.task.to/events/upcoming.php Winnipeg - May 28 - https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=137944 Montreal - June 2 - http://www.mitpro.ca Quebec -June 4 -http://www.gsiq.org/ Vancouver - June 16 - http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=137335 Edmonton -June 17 - http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=137132 Calgary – June18 - http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=137822   For those who can’t make those events there will also be two LiveMeeting sessions where you will be able to take part in the presentations as well.   Live Meeting SESSION 1 - Windows 7 Security Tidbits (6/9/2009 12:00 PM (CDT)) June 9 6/9/2009 12:00 PM (CDT) https://www.livemeeting.com/lrs/microsoft1/Registration.aspx?pageName=7kt1pnfszjxs6dcc Live Meeting SESSION 2 - Understanding and Preventing Insider Threat June 11 6/11/2009 12:00 PM (CDT) https://www.livemeeting.com/lrs/microsoft1/Registration.aspx?pageName=82ftzmtpd8dcbwg5 Posted Thursday, May 21, 2009 9:32 AM from Canadian IT Professionals | 0 Comments Filed under: Security, Communities, Events, Windows 7, Rodney Buike, Announcement

• Guest Blogger – Searching with PowerShell

  Sean Kearney has been doing some work with PowerShell as of late and sent in this little write up about searching with PowerShell!  Enjoy, and remember if you have any tips you want to share email us! ------------------------------ A post I threw onto "Energized about Technology" and "Energized Tech". A simpler intro to a small script that can be a function in PowerShell. Today I had to search for something in a Text file.  In PowerShell there's a simple command GET-CONTENT Which lets me simply enough, GET CONTENT from a text file (or files).   I’m going to deal with ONE file right now.  Let’s pick on the WINDOWSUPDATE.LOG, it’s big beefy and full of stuff, and type in GET-CONTENT C:\WINDOWS\WINDOWSUPDATE.LOG Dumps a pile of stuff on the screen. “Yeah impressive!” (I hear everybody in the back) “TYPE Command did that for years”.  True.   But here’s the difference.  I can store the output of ANY Powershell command in a variable of my choosing without any thought.  So. $RESULT=GET-CONTENT C:\WINDOWS\WINDOWSUPDATE.LOG Now here’s where TYPE command loses it’s luster. I can put that in this SCRIPT, and have it match lines that meet content in that logfile and save it as “FINDAGENT.PS1” and run it anytime I want! # FINDAGENT.PS1 # This script will get the content of the WindowsUpdate.LOG file and search it for lines with the word “Agent” anywhere in the file $RESULT=GET-CONTENT C:\WINDOWS\WINDOWSUPDATE.LOG FOREACH ($LINE in $RESULT)           {           # Compare results in that “Object” that are “like” anything contained within the “Quotes”.  The “*” before and after indicate it could be anywhere           if ($line.tostring() –like “*Agent* )                {                # write that output to the Console                write-host ( $line )                }           } # No more script.   All done That will output EVERY line that has the word “Agent” in it when you run the FINDAGENT.PS1 file in a Powershell session.  Now here’s where NOTEPAD and TYPE fall down and cry.   I can take that SAME script and with minimal modification make it a FUNCTION I can call up all the time.   So it took a little longer to write, but I can now have a reusable feature in the system.  And again, not difficult, so we take the script and with the following changes. FUNCTION FILESEARCH ($FILENAME, $CONTENT) { # This script will get the content of the file passed through $FILENAME and search it for lines with the content passed by the user in $CONTENT $RESULT=GET-CONTENT $FILENAME FOREACH ($LINE in $RESULT)           {           # Compare results in that “Object” that are “like” anything contained within the “Quotes”.  The “*” before and after indicate it could be anywhere           if ($line.tostring() –like $CONTENT )                {                # write that output to the Console                write-host ( $line )                }           } # No more function.   All done } Now again save that as FILEFIND.PS1 file and when you want to search things I run this new script, FILEFIND.PS1 which now gives you a new function / feature to run in your PowerShell session called “FILESEARCH”.  To run it just type FILESEARCH C:\Windows\WindowsUpdate.log “*Agent*” And that will give you the same results as the script.  But here’s where Powershell just is so better than sliced bread.  That new script, that easily became a function (Under 10 lines or less) can now be used to search ANY file on the computer.  We can also with minor changes make this same function pipe data to a CSV file or other PowerShell Cmdlets.  With very small tweaks, you can use it to search the registry or WMI even.  I tell you, I love PowerShell.  Once you do something, you don’t have to think too hard to repurpose it. Sean The Energized Tech Sean Kearney Friday Funny Guy fridayfunnyguy@energizeit.ca addthis_pub = 'CDNDPE'; Posted Tuesday, May 19, 2009 9:28 PM from Canadian IT Professionals | 0 Comments Filed under: Windows Client, Guest Bloggers, Windows Server, PowerShell, Rodney Buike

• EnergizeIT 2009 is a Wrap!!

  I have to admit that the end of March and all of April was a pretty busy time for the team.  Considering that EnergizeIT 2009 included events in 16 cities from Victoria, BC to St. John’s, Newfoundland in a short six week period – it was a bit of a whirlwind (and a really exciting time)!!  We were able to connect with you and share the Future of the Microsoft Windows-based Platform, show you how you can extend your infrastructure from the Client to the Cloud and increase agility and scalability.  We asked you to bring your old and new machines to Windows 7 InstallFests and experience Windows 7 for yourself - and you did!!  In fact, I think we were all amazed at the variety of hardware people brought to the InstallFests.  From a six year-old notebook with 256MB of RAM  to the latest Quad-Core machines with high-end graphics, as well as few MacBooks, Windows 7 installed on almost all of them.  In fact, we had a 98% success rate with the Windows 7 beta out-of-the box with the only exceptions being machines that needed to upgrade the BIOS to provide ACPI support. Now, EnergizeIT 2009 is a wrap and we look forward to seeing you again at TechDays 2009, which will kick off September 14 in Vancouver.  Rodney provided some insight on the Canadian IT Pro blog regarding what the 40 technical readiness sessions at TechDays 2009 will be covering when he introduced your peers who are helping us to nail down the content for TechDays 2009.  Stay tuned to the blogs for more details on TechDays 2009 in the coming weeks. PowerPoint slide decks and additional resources for the three key EnergizeIT sessions are now available.  You can find the English language resources here while the French language resources are located here.  We are currently finalizing the recordings of the EnergizeIT:The Future of the Microsoft Windows-based Platform and EnergizeIT:From the Client to the Cloud sessions and should have those posted in the next few weeks. Thanks to all of you that came out to attend the various EnergizeIT 2009 events.  We hope that you found them useful and insightful.  We look forward to seeing you in the fall at TechDays 2009. Damir Posted Thursday, May 14, 2009 8:49 AM from Canadian IT Professionals | 0 Comments Filed under: Events, EnergizeIT, #CDNWIN7

• TechDays 2009 Community Team

  Well you might have heard that TechDays is going to roll across Canada in the Fall of 2009 and while we have 6 of the 7 cities locked we are now starting to focus on content.  And there is a lot of content with 5 tracks each with 8 sessions for a total of 40 sessions over the two days.  So where does it all come from and how do we decide what to add to the agenda? Well a huge help in the decision making process about what to add to the agenda comes from you, via feedback forms at TechDays, emails to the team, comments and suggestions at user group meetings etc…  All that feedback counts and a prime example of that is a lot of people asked “Where is the SharePoint?” at TechDays 2008 so we’ve added that to our agenda for TechDays 2009.  With the tracks locked, the more difficult part is filling those tracks with useful and relevant content.  There is a lot of great content from MMS (Microsoft Management Summit), TechEd, TechReady (our internal training conference) that we leverage but sorting through it all is a challenge and this year we got some help from the community.  We selected five (5) people from across Canada, assigned them as community lead to each of the TechDays tracks and sent them to TechEd to hunt for the best content.  They’ll also go over content from other events such as MMS and recommend content that should be included in each of the tracks. Brad Bird is an IT Professional of 12 years experience. Currently working as an independent consultant associated with Infront Consulting. Brad has more than 8 years under his belt specifically in Windows Networking Administration. Among his specialties are: Windows security, forensics, intrusion prevention and detection, Active Directory implementation, System Center Operations Manager and Data Protection Manager implementation and consulting. Brad will be looking for content related to security and management of Windows environments including System Center, ForeFront and Windows Server 2008 and R2 including Hyper-V.   Bill Brockbank works for Navantis Inc. a Canadian MS Gold Partner, as a Solution Architect with a background in business process management in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and Workflow technologies K2.net, Windows Workflow Foundation and Caparis Workflow. Bill is also a co-founded for the Toronto SharePoint Camp and an active member in the local SharePoint user community. Bill will be on the hunt for the best SharePoint, Exchange and Office Communications Server content as well as anything on the Business Productivity Online Suite, SQL 2008 and anything else that helps you implement, manage and customize a collaborative work environment in your organization.   Daniel Nerenberg is an MCT,MCSE,MCITP, and an independent consultant based in Montreal. Daniel has written and consulted on the topics of Windows Deployment, Application virtualization, and Windows infrastructure. Daniel Also writes regular updates for "The Lazy Admin" Tech guidance website at www.thelazyadmin.com.  Daniel is also a member of the Springboard Technical Experts Panel. Daniel has been tasked with finding the best content around deploying and managing Windows operating systems as well as solving application compatibility issues with ACT 5.5, XP Mode, MED-V as well as, securing the desktop.    François Tanguay is an agile coach and co-founder of nVentive, a new concept where software development teams leverage coaching and guidance packages to build better software. He presently helps large scale institutions achieve their desired results through VSTS, agile processes and software frameworks. For over 10 years, his modeling skills and inventive ideas have guaranteed interesting discussions. With Francois expertise in the development field he was best suited to coming back with the best development related content and has a fairly wide scope of sessions to look at.  From VB6 to .NET migration all the way to Application Lifecycle Management and Visual Studio Team Suite there is a lot of great content that Francois will be bringing back from TechEd.   Miguel Carrasco is Vice President of Technology at Anvil Digital, a software development and marketing company in Winnipeg, Manitoba.  With over 10 years experience in the IT industry, Miguel has been involved in over 100 real world projects ranging from software development, team leadership and organization, creative user experience design, and infrastructure projects.  Miguel has always enjoyed design and the user experience angle of software development.  Miguels mission is to locate the best content with regards to developing applications on the Microsoft platform.  Another rather wide ranging scope with content from developing on Windows 7 to Windows Mobile to the web as well as cloud computing with Microsoft Azure.   Over the next few weeks and months leading up to TechDays Vancouver in September you’ll see blog posts from the community team as to their experiences at TechEd and TechEd Online, why they recommended certain sessions over others and how they helped ensure that TechDays 2009 has the content that ICT professionals in Canada want! addthis_pub = 'CDNDPE'; Posted Wednesday, May 13, 2009 8:46 AM from Canadian IT Professionals | 0 Comments Filed under: Communities, TechDays_ca, Rodney Buike

• “Security Bulletins for the regular IT guy” Podcast – 05/12/2009

  Three guys got together over pints a while ago and talked about how one of the issues facing Technical Professionals today is keeping their systems patched and up to date.  This issue was brought to the forefront at a User Group meeting we were attending (Ottawa Windows Server User Group) where we were holding an “Ask the Microsoft Guy” panel discussion. Over pints at D’Arcy McGee’s, Pierre Roman, Bruce Cowper and I decided we would try to help solve the issue of information overload regarding patching and put together a timely podcast to go live each “Patch Tuesday”. Goals: Use plain English terms and every day language that any Technical professional can understand – minimize “corporate speak”. Breakdown each Security Bulletin with summary information first followed by more details as to the impact an IT Pro would face. Outline mitigation factors in case patches couldn’t be tested or applied in a timely fashion Keep it top 15 minutes OR LESS. this one is critical – Keep It Simple, repeatable and get out of the IT Pros way to get on with their day. Have fun! Well – here is our 3rd attempt. Have a listen directly from the embedded Silverlight player OR subscribe to the specific feed and download it to your iTunes / Zune software. Since we didn’t get any feedback this time around, we’ve stuck with what we’ve got for a format. If you have suggestions on making it better - please pass on your comments. Mail me directly  – rick.claus@microsoft.com Direct Download: Subscribe to the podcast: (so you don't miss an episode)   Disclaimer: This podcast was produced with the best information available to us at the time of recording. Your primary source for all things Security Bulletin related should always be the Microsoft Security Response Center blog. Bulletins discussed for May 12th, 2009: MS09-017. Podcast Participants: Pierre Roman, Bruce Cowper and myself. Additional Technical Show Notes: From Bruce: Use the Microsoft Office Isolated Conversion Environment (MOICE) when opening files from unknown or untrusted sources The Microsoft Office Isolated Conversion Environment (MOICE) will protect Office 2003 installations by more securely opening Word, Excel, and PowerPoint binary format files. To install MOICE, you must have Office 2003 or 2007 Office system installed. To install MOICE, you must have the Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats. The compatibility pack is available as a free download from the Microsoft Download Center: Download the FileFormatConverters.exe package now MOICE requires all updates that are recommended for all Office programs. Visit Microsoft Update to install all recommended updates: http://update.microsoft.com/microsoftupdate/v6/default.aspx?ln=en-us To enable MOICE, change the registered handler for the .ppt, .pot, and .pps file formats. The following table describes the command to enable or to disable MOICE for the .ppt, .pot, and .pps file formats: Command to use to enable MOICE to be the registered handler Command to use to disable MOICE as the registered handler ASSOC .PPT=oice.powerpoint.show ASSOC .ppt=PowerPoint.Show.8 ASSOC .POT=oice.powerpoint.template ASSOC .pot=PowerPoint.Template.8 ASSOC .PPS=oice.powerpoint.slideshow ASSOC .pps=PowerPoint.SlideShow.8 Note On Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, the commands above will need to be run from an elevated command prompt. For more information on MOICE, see Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 935865. Impact of Workaround: Office 2003 and earlier formatted documents that are converted to the 2007 Microsoft Office System Open XML format by MOICE will not retain macro functionality. Additionally, documents with passwords or that are protected with Digital Rights Management cannot be converted. Use Microsoft Office File Block policy to block the opening of Office 2003 and earlier documents from unknown or untrusted sources and locations The following registry scripts can be used to set the File Block policy. Note Modifying the Registry incorrectly can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems resulting from incorrect modification of the Registry can be solved. Modify the Registry at your own risk. For Office 2003 Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\PowerPoint\Security\FileOpenBlock] "BinaryFiles"=dword:00000001 Note In order to use 'FileOpenBlock' with Office 2003, all of the latest Office 2003 security updates must be applied. Impact of Workaround: Users who have configured the File Block policy and have not configured a special “exempt directory” as discussed in Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 970980 will be unable to open Office 2003 files or earlier versions in Office 2003 or 2007 Microsoft Office System. How to Undo the Workaround: For Office 2003 Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\PowerPoint\Security\FileOpenBlock] "BinaryFiles"=dword:00000000 Do not open or save Microsoft Office files that you receive from untrusted sources or that you receive unexpectedly from trusted sources. This vulnerability could be exploited when a user opens a specially crafted file. From Pierre As it was mentioned in the podcast, here is some information regarding what’s included in the Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 2. 2007 Microsoft Office suite Service Pack 2 (SP2) gives customers the latest updates for the 2007 Office suite. This service pack includes two main categories of fixes: (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953195) Previously unreleased fixes that were made specifically for this service pack. In addition to general product fixes, these fixes include improvements in stability, in performance, and in security. All the public updates, security updates, cumulative updates, and hotfixes that were released through February 2009. You can find more information about deploying Office at the Office Deployment Support Team Blog.  Also, Rodney Buike gave a great summary of what you need to know about Office 2007 SP2. There are three key changes in Office 2007 with SP2. 1) Interoperability – Office 2007 SP2 adds support for read, write and save capabilities for the ODF 1.1 file format.  There is a great blog post on Working with ODF in Office 2007 SP2 you should check out, as well as these resources for more specific information on what Word, Excel and PowerPoint support. What Word 2007 SP2 supports in the OpenDocument Text (.odt) format: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HA102835631033.aspx?pid=CH100626291033 What Excel 2007 SP2 supports in the OpenDocument Spreadsheet (.ods) format: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/HA102877221033.aspx?pid=CH100648071033 What PowerPoint 2007 SP2 supports in the OpenDocument presentation(.odp) format: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint/HA102877231033.aspx?pid=CH101956361033 2) Performance – Office 2007 SP2 also adds increased performance and reliability to Office client applications and servers.  Outlook 2007 SP2 as an example, includes improved calendaring reliability and performance enhancements which has been a pain for users and administrators.  I’ve noticed a significant improvement in performance since I installed SP2. 3) Converter API – Office 2007 SP2 adds a new API, called the Converter API, which will allow Office developers to include support and conversion options for the ODF 1.1 file format in their Office add-ons and applications. Slipstreaming a service pack in Office is fairly straight forward. Download the standalone installer (290 MB). The filename is office2007sp2-kb953195-fullfile-en-us.exe in the US. Create two folders one called Extract and Updates for example. (This is really up to you.) Move the Office 2007 SP2 installer to the Extract folder. And open a command line window (CMD) and use the following command: CD C:\Extract office2007sp2-kb953195-fullfile-en-us.exe /extract:C:\Updates Agree to the EULA and then close the Installer when completed. Move the contents of the C:\Updates folder to the Updates folder in your Office 2007 install folder structure. If you’re using Office 2003 you can find the step by step for Office 2003 for example in the following KB article. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555215. PodSafe music from PodSafe Music Network @ http://music.podshow.com/. Artist: Derek K Miller, song - “You’re the Big Sky - rock guitar instrumental” IT Pro Team Blog | IT Managers Blog |Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn My Shared Bookmarks addthis_pub = 'CDNDPE'; Posted Tuesday, May 12, 2009 12:57 PM from Canadian IT Professionals | 0 Comments Filed under: Podcast, Rick Claus, Pierre Roman, Security Bulletins Podcast

• Announcing the Ignite IT Awards Winners!

  Last year, we announced the Ignite IT Awards. Its purpose is to recognize and reward the efforts of Canadian IT professionals and software developers. Today, we are happy to announce that we have selected the winners of this year’s awards: 2009 Winner of the Ignite IT Award for IT Professionals The Community Caregiver Portal Solution by Navantis - Social Networking in Action 2009 Winner of the Ignite IT Award for Developers AgilePlanner for Digital Tabletop: A Tabletop-Based Project Planning Tool for Distributed Teams To read more about the winning submissions, please check out the Ignite IT Awards. If you missed out on the awards program this year, stay tuned for more details about how you can participate next time! Submissions will be accepting once again starting in the fall! Subscribe to the TechNet Flash or MSDN Flash to stay on top of the latest programs like Ignite IT Awards happening in the technical Canadian community. Many thanks to everyone who took the time to submit an entry and congratulations (once again) to our winners! Posted Monday, May 11, 2009 8:20 AM from Canadian IT Professionals | 0 Comments Filed under: Rick Claus, IgniteIT

• The 7th City for TechDays Canada 2009 – Halifax or Edmonton?

  Note: To be completely transparent – I am pulling for Halifax on this one. :-) I was born in Fredericton, grew up in Saint John and have a particular soft spot for “out east” or “down home” when it comes to this question. A couple of weeks ago, my colleagues and I were swinging through the Atlantic Region with a whirlwind tour of 5 cities over 4 days as part of EnergizeIT. We took the opportunity to meet with as many people as possible during the structured events in the evenings, but we also went out of our way to hold informal/unstructured “meet and greet” events like ”CoffeeAndCode” in each location.  View Full Album The method to our Madness was really to get out, be accessible and make some new connections as well as keeping up the existing ones. We don’t get the opportunity to get out East as much as we’d like to – we have to take advantage of every trip down that way that we can. Not surprisingly, one conversation topic that came up a lot was “Why doesn’t Microsoft care about <insert: Halifax, St. John’s, Moncton, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Atlantic Provinces> and why don’t you come down this way more often?”. You know what? We do care, but like everyone else – we have constraints on two resources: Resources and Money. If you’ve followed this blog or know my team – we’re 7 people that cover all of Canada and our mission is to make a difference in the Canadian ICT community by being the face to Microsoft – connecting and LISTENING to you – all of you. Remember those constraints? Well, 7 people have a budget we are able to allocate to travel and expenses – and it’s stretched pretty darn thin over the course of the year. This means we have to make choices whenever we plan “what we do” and “where we do it”. This brings me to the title of this post - “7th City for TechDays 2009 – Halifax or Edmonton?”. A quick bit of review for those not familiar with what is TechDays in Canada. TechDays was our first “Paid For” event that my team produced in Canada last year. It’s goal was to provide Technical Training to multiple geographies in Canada based on the best of the best content pulled from TechEd, Mix’08, TechReady (internal technical training exclusive to MS) and PDC. It was delivered by Microsoft employees AS WELL AS local Technical Experts (76 of them across Canada) focusing on current technologies and current issues you are facing today in your work environments. This was about as FAR AWAY from marketing as you could get and was designed to hit the sweet-spot depth of content level for 80% of the technical audience who would be attending. I said “Paid for” event – but it was setup internally to be a cost recovery conference with a modest cost of $500 for 2 days of sessions (with an early bird price of 50% off). So in a nutshell, we were bringing the best 40 sessions of technical content to a city near you where you had an a-la-carte selection of 8 sessions over two days with 5 tracks of sessions to choose from. How was it received by last years attendees – phenomenally well, exceeding our expectations. There is no way we could not do this again this year – so we are, but with a slight twist. We’ve made all the cities 2 day cities and we’re going to most likely keep the price the same as last year ($500 for two days with a 50% savings in the form of an early bird rate). The full price and early bird discount is still not 100% official, but it is definitely looking like it is going to be in the same range as last year. We’ve booked venues in 6 of the 7 cities. Vancouver (9/14&15/2009) and Toronto (9/29&30/2009) are up first for the month of September, with Montreal (12/2&3/2009), Ottawa (12/9&10/2009) and Winnipeg (12/15&16/2009) taking the month of December. Smack in the middle of November is Calgary (11/17&18/2009) and one UNKNOWN city on the 25th and 26th.  The challenge – where should it be? The cool part – You decide!  Your choice is either: -> The Atlantic Region with it taking place in Halifax (11/25&26/2009) -> Another Western Region city with it taking place in Edmonton (11/25&26/2009) How are we measuring interest in either of these two choices? You have to send my colleague Damir Bersinic an email indicating how many people at your place of work are willing to commit to coming out and registering for one of these two cities? Remember – this is a Technical Training Conference that was designed from the ground up to give you the skills you need to be successful in your job. Either you, your boss or others on your team need to send in an email of support for either the Halifax OR Edmonton location of the November 25th&26th open slot. It has to be in by MAY 15th in order to count. The city that shows the most support by email by May 15th will become the 7th confirmed city for Techdays 2009. <Atlantic region bias> Hey Atlantic Canada – I’m talking to you. We’re BEHIND the level of support already expressed by Edmonton. If Halifax is going to be an option – we need to get the vote out! Click here to send Damir an email asking for the 7th city to be Halifax. </Atlantic region bias> I’m very excited to be part of the team that is putting TechDays on in Canada once again – it was an absolute blast last year. We’re getting more community involvement with content selection this year and we’re already deep in planning stages to make it a bigger success then last year. We are aiming to have the updated TechDays website up and online in June with a complete listing of tracks, sessions, dates, speakers and all sorts of resources live for you to see as well as registration for TechDays Canada 2009. IT Pro Team Blog | IT Managers Blog |Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn My Shared Bookmarks Posted Monday, May 04, 2009 11:38 AM from Canadian IT Professionals | 0 Comments Filed under: TechDays_ca, Rick Claus, Announcement