B.NET Report

A lot has been happening in B.NET lately, the number of blog postings not really representative of the same. As one can expect, the theme of most of the talks have been focused around VS 2005 and SQL Server 2005. One of the recent highlights was the presentation by Bob Wolf, VP of NetAdvantage. Bob walked us through the new version of Infragistics (3.0) , which targets VS 2005 and .NET 2.0. The underscoring point was the productivity advantages offered by Infragistics and by the underlying VS 2005 and .NET platforms.

With the launch of VS 2005 and SQL Server 2005 in the media, we now can now look forward to a series of exiting events at the community level. So, Wait and Watch!

KolkataNet - DevCon2005

We enjoyed very much in "Developer Conference 2005" on 29th Oct 2005.

Me[Abu], Gautam, and Subratam talked on the stage. This event was primarily on Visual Studio 2005 on which I presented about ASP.NET 2.0 New feature with live demo, Neo had on .NET Framework 2.0 and VSTS with live demo!!!
Subratam presented the session about the Awareness of Security.
Almost 40 energetic developers attended session. At the same time we had Quiz also with some Kits.

This is first full-day event of KolkataNet User Group.

I would like give thanks to Abhishek and Deepak from Microsoft.

In Nov we have planned for "TechQuiz2005" Contest... and next year more will come ...

Tablet PC Session @ CSI Event

There was a Tablet PC session at an Event organized by the students of CSI VSET, on 1st October, 2005. It was a great turnout of about 100 students from Third Year and Final year. I basically gave them an overview on the tablet pc platform and also spoke about how to develop applications in VS.NET to make them INK aware. Later I spoke about the INETA and its Activities, and also about Microsoft Academic Project Program. Over all it was a very interesting session which lasted for about 2.5 hours.

Later that evening - there was one more session on Tablet PC for Mumbai User Group. Intersting to say that Tablet PC really Rocks!! And like always - a Pen (read: Stylus) is mighter than a sword

SQLWiZ 2005 and CodeWarriors 2005 Contest HYD

Microsoft User Group Hyderabad Proudly Presents SQLWiZ 2005 and CodeWarriors 2005


SQLWiZ 2005 is a Technical White paper contest conducted by MUGH to identify and reward the best SQL Brains in India . This is an opportunity for developers, DBAs and architects to brainstorm on architecting, designing and database tuning; and showcase their skills to the technical community by presenting their white papers.

Code Warriors 2005 is a .NET Coding Contest, a developer challenge, that enables software developers all over to develop and exhibit their applications using .NET. Developers are free to adopt some of the best practices in software development or develop their own way, software applications and submit to MUGH for evaluations.


Visit www.mugh.net/techfest for contest rules and other details




Best Wishes,
Managers-MUGH

KolkataNet User Group Meeting - September

Speaker: Robin Roy with Abu Ismail
Topic: SQL Server 2000 - Best Practices for Writing SQL - Query Optimization
Date: 24 Sep 2005
Venue: Digital Avenue

Arround 20 people attended in this User Group Meeting.
In this meeting also we finalized to conduct DevCon 2005.
Also we annouced in our User Group's Home page...
"Shortly we are going to conduct Live Practical Session on NEW TECHNOLOGIES, Visual Studio 2005 (.NET Framework 2.0).
LIVE DEMOS !!!
Docs!!!
Presentations!!!
Other Resources... for all...those who will join..."

Pune Student .NET UG Meet

It was 2nd of September, a late raining Friday evening when I went to Pune for a session on the next day. I catched up with Tejas Shah, the ADE (Academic Developer Evangelist), at his hotel room. We were to decide on the demo's and the PPT for the next day.

After loads of talks and plans, we finally slept at around 1 am. Next day was a huge one. MS was kind enough to book Nehru auditorium for the PUGStudent meet. The agenda for the meet were three sessions

1. OS Internals - Tejas and myself
2. Windows Mobile Programming and RFID - Shrenik Dedhia, MAQSoftware
3. XML and WebServices - Sarang Datye, MVP

We started of at around 1330 hrs, 30 min behind the schedule. The attendance was decent enough with about 150-175 students across Pune. Tejas started off with all the Techie talks about Operating Systems and made a base for the demos which I was to take. He talked about Process Management, Memory Management, Threads, Objects and Handles, etc. I basically gave demos at intervals during Tejas's sessions. My demos included, making a MultiThreaded app in C#.NET, Services for Unix[SFU] (this was real fun to do - made a C program in Windows, Compiled it using GCC in SFU and executed it on Windows using POSIX Subsystem). I also showed various tools from the MS Official Windows Internal curriculum including Process Monitors, Registry Monitors and AutoRun Monitors.

Over all, the first session was very cool one (not cause me and Tejas were doing it), cause students actually did not know that you can host a Unix Subsystem over a Windows one. Basically they were too interested to know more about SFU.

The next one was by Shrenik, one of the Developer from MAQSoftware, who has quite a bit of experience in developing Mobile App for the company. He spoke on the .NET Compact Framework, and demo'd how to go about building an app both for the SmartPhone form factor as well as for the Pocket PC. He also spoke about various applications available in the market for the PocketPC and the SmartPhone

Lastly it was Sarang's turn to speak (Thank god he was the last one - else he would have taken up our time as well). He started with a big "GOOD MORNING" to all the students. :). He spoke on creating a webservice using XML. This was demo'd by not using the IDE interface but using NOTEPAD. Once shown how a XML file looks like, he spoke about how VS.NET IDE helps to do it much faster and in a more efficient way then he would ideally do with a text editor. By the time Sarang was doing his demo, the audi's warning bell rang and Sarang had to rush off with the demos.

In all it was a nice sessions. Offline - we also spoke about the Student Project Program and about Student Champ Program. Infact we tried and identified couple of students who were interested and briefed them about it. We also distributed ARKs 3.0 along with couple of MSDN India Magazines. Tejas distributed (rather awarded) Extreme Edition CDs (VC++.NET, Platform SDK and a licensed Copy of Windows XP SP2) to some students who were enthu enough to answer some questions asked. MAQSoftware, also distributed CDs of various apps (MathEdge, EnglishEdge, TrafficEdge) which it had made for the mobile phone.

Guess there should be more of such session comming up in the next semester.

DOTNETSIG proposes a calendar

Today on Sept 3rd I attended the DOTNET SIG (delhi User Group) meeting after a long time.

•No. of Registered Members: 1342
•No. of Attendees / Session: 15

•Topic / Session:
Commerce Server 2000 - Lalit Khatter
Recent Developments in Microsoft Technology - Abhishek Kant

It had been long that i had attended one and after attending this one I felt being back in action. The one unique thing that happened was though we were scheduled for a BTS 2004 session, we ended up doing a impromptu "Recent Developments in MS Technologies" session. Though the people attending were very less, the level of enthusiasm was extremely high.

The attending memebers have proposed a calendar till Dec 2005 so as to provide UG members ample time to accomodate the same if they would like to. We look forward to getting your feedback on the same. The calendar is reproduced below:

17 September - 30 September
Session: Nehru Place, ND
HoL: ND, GGN
Session Topic: CS2K2, BTS 2004
HoL Topic: CS2K@, BTS, Sharepoint

24 September
MS, GGN
Session Topic: CS2K2, BTS 2004

1 October

Session: Nehru Place, ND
HoL: ND, GGN
Session Topic: VS 2005, .NET 2.0
VS 2005 & SQL 2005
HoL Topic: New features of .NET 2.0, IDE and ASP.NET 2.0

8 October
NOIDA
Session Topic: VS 2005, .NET 2.0

15 October - 28 October
Session: Nehru Place, ND
HoL: ND, GGN
Session Topic: SQL 2005 New features, Reporting Services. Integration Services
HoL Topic: SQL Sever 2005 Features

22 October
MS, GGN
Session Topic: SQL 2005 New features, Reporting Services. Integration Services

29 October - 11 November
Session: Nehru Place, ND
HoL: ND, GGN
Session Topic: Microsoft Office Programming, Mobile Development in VS 2005
HoL Topic: VSTO and .NET CF

5 November
NOIDA
Session Topic: Microsoft Office Programming, Mobile Development in VS 2005

12 November - 25 November
Session: Nehru Place, ND
HoL: ND, GGN
Session Topic: Patterns and Practices & SOA
HoL Topic: VS 2005 & SQL 2005

19 November
MS GGN
Session Topic: Patterns and Practices & SOA

26 November - 2 December
Session: Nehru Place, ND
HoL: ND, GGN
Session Topic: WinFX
HoL Topic: Indigo and Avalon

3-4 December
??
DEVCON
DEVCON

5 December - 31 December
Session: Nehru Place, ND
HoL: ND, GGN
Session Topic: MS Embedded Platform
HoL Topic: WinCE 5.0

12 December
NOIDA
Session Topic: MS Embedded Platform


Timings:
Sessions: Saturday, 11 AM to 2 PM followed by 2-4 PM social interaction
HoL: Sat and Sun: Whole Day
Weekday: 6-9 PM

NEW Student chapter started in Pune's BVP campus

The new student chapter has been started in Bharati Vidyapeeth's Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Technology, Katraj – Dhankawadi Campus, Pune on 30th July 2005

Mahesh Mitkari and Saurabh (Schamp from MIT)took the introductory session there on Sat 30th July, as” overview of .net framework”

The attendance is about 50+. And total duration of session is about 2 hrs.

Thanks to Mayur and Dev who took the initiative for the session.













mahesh@teknotika.com

B.NET Rocks

I thought to give you the sessions that we did for the Bangalore .NET Usergroup for the past month. It has been really packed sessions ...

UG meeting: 29th July 2005
Session 1
SQL Server 2005 - Service Broker
By - Srinivas Sampath (Microsoft MVP), SCT Software Solutions
Session 2
SQL Server 2005 Tools - Part 1
By - Vinod Kumar (Microsoft MVP), Intel Technology

UG meeting: 22th July 2005

MVC Patters - By Pooran Prasad (Microsoft MVP)

UG Meeting: 15th July 2005
Session 1 : ASP.NET 2.0 New Features - Part II

Speaker: Saravana Kumar (Microsoft MVP), HP India.
Session 2 : SQL SERVER 2005 Partitioning
Speaker: Vinod Kumar (Microsoft MVP), Intel India.

Date: 8th July 2005 Friday
Session 1 : ASP.NET 2.0 New Features
Speaker: Saravana Kumar (Microsoft MVP), HP India.

Session 2 : SQL SERVER 2005 SSIS - Performance, Manageability and Deployment
Speaker: Vinod Kumar (Microsoft MVP), Intel India.

As you can see this it has been fun filled sessions with around 40 people attending each session. I think the TechEd fever is still on and many thanks to all the MVP's who have been part of this till date. As we always say in BDotNet, its your group and it rocks !!!

BDOTNET Rocks!

Now here is something that makes the Bangalore User Group the largest User Group in India from Vinod M Kumar:

Its worth a mention that after TechEd in Bangalore in the month of July (8th, 15th, 22nd, 29th) we have had UG meeting every weeks with 7 sessions. To add to this we even have speakers and topics ready for next week.

Now a UG meet every week is something that is not only outstanding but clearly demonstrates the interest community has in meeting with their peers.

BDOTNET really rocks!

TechEd India 2005 Rocked!

To everyone attending TechEd India 2005 who made it to the Community Stall or read the "Community Times" here is a A VERY BIG THANK YOU..

The success of our community is only possible due to your passion and interest in Technology.

Take a look here behind the scenes on people and faces who make the community dynamic and interesting. Check out what happened when lights dimmed in the speaker halls and everyone left overflowing with technology gyan..

A neat glance at MVPs and people behind the community at TechEd India 2005:
http://www.abhishekkant.net/techedindia2005

Ashwani demonstrating the SFU concepts during the Delhi IT Pros Meet on Interoperability between heterogenous systems in an organisation namely Linux and/or Microsoft. It was very interesting the way Ashwani covered the topic. He started with taking a problem from one of the attendees and went on to solve the problem of multiple sign in using SFU.. the passion really showed when he launched into Programming capabilities supported by Interix (In SFU) that enables UNIX applications to be run on Windows systems :).. Ashwani has promised that there are many more such sessions coming up! We are all game!

Abhishek talking about Wi-Fi networking at Home and Enterprise. Here he is seen actually configuring the IAS server to work with the Linksys WRT54g router to enable 802.1x authentication. All this and more happened at: Pune IT Pro User Group (http://groups.msn.com/puneitpro) on May 21 2005 from 6:00 PM to 8:30 PM.

Anand showcasing enterprise WiFi routers available in the market these days. For the people who deploy WiFi networks this was a must attend session of Pune IT Pro User Group.

Full House at Pune .NET Developers User Group where Dhaval talked on GD+

The "cache" of devices showcased at the Pune IT Pro User Group Session. Devices include - Server and Client Computers, WiFi Routers (Home and Enterprise), WiFi network cards. At the back are the people who bought all this to life (left to right) - Dhaval, Hardik, Abhishek (me), Sarang, Anand and Mahesh

From MVP Sarang Datye:Finally here I am, with an update on the community initiative taken in Kanbay software - Pune.
30th march was "D" day! The Microsoft group in Kanbay comprises of 30 odd developers, out of which 15 were present from the Pune center, during the session.
Following are the details of the session:
Topic: OO features in .NET 2.0 (C#)
Speaker: Sarang Datye (Me - ofcourse)
Duration: 1 1/2 hours
Total Attendance: 15
The session and this kind of an initiative was most appreciated and welcome by the "janta", and we are looking forward to have many more such session in the coming weeks.
Love Live the Community!!! Cheers!!!

Date with .NET v3.0

Hello!

BDotNETStudent - The Bangalore .NET Student User Group - succesfully coducted Date with .NET v3.0 at RNS Institute of Technology, Bangalore.

About 250 students attended the tech-talks and about 100 students participated in the various technical contests.

The event was inaugurated by Prof.M.R. HOLLA, who also gave an enlightening speech about the youth being used-less and cared-less.

The tech-talk was on XML Web Services by Sharath MS, which was followed by the technical contests, which saw gzood participation from the students.

Ten teams were shortlisted for Technical Paper Presentation and the topics ranged from Bluetooth to Whidbey to WinCE.NET to Speech Recognition, etc.

The Debate saw some great arguments on the topic Open Source vs. Proprietary Software.

On the spot programming had over 25 teams tackling the written prelims round, which had questions on C, C++ and .NET. 7 Teams were shortlisted for the final programming round where finalists had to solve a series of C, C++ and .NET programs.

The IT Quiz prelims had many students thinking and 6 teams were selected for the final round.

The .NETCracker open quiz had a lot of interesting puzzles and brain-teasers for the visitors and at the end of the day the entry with highest number of correct answers won a cash prize.

This was followed by an informal prize distribution on the lawns of RNSIT, where the prize winners got their certificates and cool cash prizes and books.

The day ended with snacks and refreshments, which was arranged at the RNSIT Canteen.

We thank our sponsors - Microsoft, Perot Systems, PSI Data Systems, INETA and RNSIT - for their support to this event.

All in all it was a great Date ... with .NET!

Warm regards,

Sabarish R
Microsoft Student Ambassador,
Manager - BDotNETStudent

I blog at: http://sabarishr.blogspot.com

WinEmbedded Hands-on-Lab - Windows CE 4.2

WinEmbedded UG had its first Hands-on-Lab session on Windows CE 4.2 and Platform Builder, which saw a great reponse from both the professional and student community.

The lab was conducted on May 1st 2005 in the training facility of Microsoft office, Bangalore. Online registration had to be closed 1 week before the lab due to the over-flowing response. The lab accomodated 40 people.

Mr. Anantha Kashyap (eMVP) started off with the fundamentals of embedded computing. After covering the development life-cycle of an embedded OS, Mr. Anantha guided the attendees in building their OS using the Platform Builder IDE. A lab manual was made available to the attendees.

Corporate Campaign of CNUG-IT in Southern Railways on 8th April 2005

On the 8th of April 2005, it was a red day in the history of user groups in India. CNUG-IT hosted its first Corporate Campaign in Southern Railways. Southern Railways is one of the largest railway group in Asia.

CNUG-IT along with the Developer and Evangelism Team of Microsoft hosted the Corporate Campaign in Southern Railway’s Head Office located in Poonamallee High Road. The presentation was done to create awareness of the features of Windows XP and how it was created with important specifications so as to meet the needs of the professional user and the home user.

The presentation was attended by the staff of the IT department including some of the top people of Southern Railway’s IT Team. About 50 people attended the program. The presentation was given by Mr. Ravisankar (IT Pro Evangelist of Microsoft). He spoke about the core features of Windows XP. Some of the points covered at the presentation included

Versions of WindowsConsumer editionBusiness EditionServer EditionsPost Installation RecommendationsTransferring SettingsPersonalizing Windows XPApplication CompatibilityWireless CommunicationsInternet Connection FirewallFeatures of Windows XP SP2?

The attendees showed a lot of interest in the presentation and showed their enthusiasm by raising interesting questions and discussions points. Even a small quiz program was organized as part of the program and the lucky winners walked away with gifts sponsored by Microsoft.

After the presentation by Ravisankar, CNUG-IT gave a presentation on the importance of user groups and how user groups have helped to bring together the administrators and IT Pros of the leading IT Companies in Chennai. The speech and presentation was given by Mr. Ravickumar – President of CNUG-IT.

This was the first part of the campaign program and there are plans to host more events in future covering the features of IT Products of Microsoft in a detailed and phased manner. This will help the staff of Southern Railways to improve their knowledge as well as help them to get the most out of Windows XP.

The program showed that the “Corporate Campaign” is indeed a success and is vital to spreading knowledge and creating awareness of Microsoft’s IT products among the top Corporates in India. Since most of the Corporates have end users, enlightening them will go a long way in creating a successful awareness of Microsoft’s IT Products in India.

We would like to thank Mr. Ramakrishnan and Mr. Loganathan of Southern Railways for their help in organizing this Corporate Campaign as well as thank Mr. Ravisankar for taking his efforts to fly down to Chennai and take the presentation in Southern Railway head quarters.

you can be a part of this excitment by joining the IT Pro User Group of Chennai at: http://groups.msn.com/CNUGITGroup

First UG Meet of the Bangalore IT Pro Community

Audience at the First Bangalore IT Pro UG meet on April 23 2005.
We had more than 30 people attending and the speakers were Sheila Gulati, Abhishek Kant and Anupam Viz. The topics covered were:

- DPE Team and Communities
- Setting up Wireless Network for home and corporate network
- PKI Infrastructure
A lot of freebies (read T-Shirts) were distributed at the event. Food (chips, biscuits and cold drinks) was served during the break.

DevCon 2005 Hyderabad - Exciting new technologies

DEVCON 2005 was a Grand Triumph and Kudos to the MUGH Core Members and the Audience. DevCon 2005 was a great effort from all the core members of MUGH.
I didn’t believe to see the audience sitting in for more than 7 hours, and all the session are very interactive and appealing. Many of audience have given feedback that the event was wonderful and looking similar events in the future. It was a thrilling and challenging experience for me and I love to do that more.

Let me thanks all the Speakers and others, who spare their valuable time with us and make this event a big success. Thanks a lot. :)

Devcon Pictures: http://www.mvpblog.com/devcon/
http://www.abhishekkant.net/devcon2005hyd/

In short, I would say: DevCon 2005 and MUGH Rocks!!! Let us make MUGH a Vibrant Community!!!!

DevCon 2005 by Microsoft User Group, Hyderabad (MUGH) - April 10th, 2005
A full day event focusing on various latest technology topics of Microsoft Product line, featuring Dev Guru's and IT Celebrities of India, from Microsoft Developer Evangelism Team, MS IDC and MS GDCI.These sessions covered the upcoming cutting edge technologies Indigo,
Visual Studio Team System and Whidbey and SQL Server Mobile 2005. Over 500 members registered online with the event and more than 130 members attended and participated in a very interactive way.

Conducted By:
This technical fiesta was conducted by Microsoft User Group Hyderabad (MUGH), in association with Microsoft GDCI, Vasudeva Realtors and Satyam Computers.

Participation:

Professionals: 110+
Students: 25+
Total: 135+

Sessions Conducted
Key Note Speech: Berry Rogers, Microsoft Services IT, Redmond.
VS 2005 Express Products: Janakiram MSV, Academic Evangelist, Microsoft.
Indigo, Connected Systems Framework: Kumar Gaurav Khanna, Developer Evangelist, Microsoft.
Testing in Visual Studio Team System 2005: Pratap J Ladhani, GDCI, Microsoft.
Enhancements in SQL Server Mobile 2005: Sachin Sinha, IDC, Microsoft.
Globalization and Localization in .NET: Deepak Gulati, ISV Evangelist, Microsoft

Participation from companies : Infosys, Cognizant Technologies, Wipro, Keane, Satyam, TCS, Microsoft, Virtusa and InfoTech

Overall feedback:
Some of the objective feedback include: (Collected from feedback forms)1. Excellent, impressive (more than 30 responses)2. Want more sessions, at least 3 in year !!!! (there were more than 5 reponses like this)3. Really Good (more than 23 responses saying this)4. Wanted to share material/slides (10+ responses)5. MUGH is doing very good. Wanted to contribute more to MUGH !!! (at least 10 responses)
Comments of some of the participants:

Ramesh Srinivasan, Cognizant Technologies
Thanks to MUGH for making this event happen this way, this is a great experience and I appreciate DevCon event managers to make everything happend on time with out much schedule deviation.
When I looked at the schedule, I strongly decided to attend Kumar Gaurav Khanna's session on INDIGO. That's a great session on a great technology coming up.

SQL Server Mobile - IDC Team, Microsoft India
This event has exceed our expectation, It's a very good experience for us to address such a large developer community in Dev Con 2005. We look forward to do more sessions on
SQL Server Mobile 2005 with Microsoft User Group, Hyderabad.

Rajesh, Infosys
Sessions are very good and very helpful for Developers to work with emerging Microsoft technologies, especially Indigo and Visual Studio Team System.
I want to contribute more to MUGH as a core member as well. Thanks to MUGH.

Lakshmi S, Virtusa Ltd.
Felt like I have attended Tech-Ed or some MSDN Event. Extremely cutting edge technology sessions and Great speakers. 10 times worth than a sunday @ home :-)
I request MUGH to conduct these kind of events atleast 3 times a year.

Umesh Thota, Student
As the day started we with our hopes high, all done with our arrangements were waiting for clock to strike 10. At 10 it was a marvel an astonishing number of people, both students and developers showed up. in spite of it being a Sunday. It was a feeling of fruits for our hard work. there was an element of fun, which was never planned. i enjoyed every moment of it and hoped the day would never end.


Hindu coverage on DevCon 2005 :

http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=2005040910240400.htm&date=2005/04/09/&prd=th&

Some Blogs:

http://arun.mvpblog.com/2005/04/devcon-2005-by-microsoft-user-group.html
http://geekswithblogs.net/umesh/archive/2005/04/18/36582.aspx
http://weblogs.asp.net/ssadasivuni/archive/2005/03/16/394716.aspx
http://weblogs.asp.net/anjanaram/archive/2005/04/05/397142.aspx

WinEmbedded - Reloaded

There are lots of .NET, IT Pro & SQL user groups all over India but a UG for Windows Embedded and Windows Mobile was definitely missing!

The WinEmbedded UG (http://groups.msn.com/winembedded) is a platform for anybody interested in Microsoft's Embedded & Mobile technologies to interact, share knowledge and learn. WinEmbedded is the embedded and mobile space for both Professionals and Students.



WinEmbedded UG was started in September 2004 by Mr.Pradipta Kumar Sharma (MSFT, Heads the Windows Embedded & Mobile Division in India) .

April 16th 2005, we had the 2nd UG meet at Microsoft GTSC, Bangalore. Mr.Anantha Kashyap (Microsoft eMVP), Wipro Technologies, Bangalore, delivered a session on Windows CE.NET and Mr.DSK Chakravarthy spoke about .NET CF. [Winembedded previous sessions]

The UG will be conducting a Hands-On-Lab on WindowsCE in the 1st week of May 2005. Apart from the UG Meets & Hands-On-Lab, WinEmbedded is also planning on contests with exsiting prizes (sponsored by MSFT).

Newly nominated Microsoft Student Ambassadors - Bangalore

Microsoft India - Academic Team had opened nominations for the title of Microsoft Student Ambassador, in Bangalore. It was a self-nomination process followed-up by an interview with the Microsoft India - Academic Lead, Mr.Chandar Sundaram.

On April 7th 2005, the results of the same were announced. The Bangalore Student Champs were invited to meet Mr.Morris Sim, Senior Director of the Academic Developer Group, Microsoft Corporation. Unfortunately, Mr.Sim had to return to US, the previous night, due to some personal reason. The meeting went on and jointly precided by Mr. Chandar Sundaram and Mr.Kevin D'Souza (ADE, MSFT). After discussing issues like - current student champ activities, availability of software resources to students and if its not wrong to mention, even an ultra-low-cost software developement kit including WinXP & VS2003 was discussed. However it was just an idea and may take time for MSFT to come out with such a kit.


(The Microsoft Student Ambassadors with Mr.Chandar (left extreme) and Mr. Kevin (right extreme)

Towards the end of the meeting, Mr.Kevin D'Souza announced the Microsoft Student Ambassadors - Sabarish R, Ghanashyam S, Sharath M.S, Raghavan, Deepthi Rao and Sunil Jagadish.

PuneITPro UG Meet

It was 9.00 am in the morning of 10th April, 2004. A blissful Sunday, with the sun already out and shining. It was about 60 minutes for the session on Longhorn to start off. So I got ready and reached the Venue by 930 hrs.

Moments later, my cell rings. It was Manik Ahuja, IT Professional Evangelist, Microsoft Bangalore, on the line. He was also close to the venue and was asking me the last minute directions (since it was held at my college :)). Its about 0945 hrs now, and the session was to be started. However, the hall seemed margingly full and I was worried if people would turn up for the session or not. All I could see at that moment, were some students from various colleges across Pune, about 10-12 of them. They were really interested to know about Longhorn.

We (read: Manik and I) setup Manik's laptop and the project by around 0955 hrs. Few more people had come into the "Smart Room" and I was feeling relaxed about the audiance. More minutes pass by, about 1003 in the clock and we start the session. There are about 35 people now in the room.

To start of with, Manik showed an interesting video on Transition in Microsoft, from Windows 1.0 to 3.0 to 95 to 98 to 2000 to XP and then the most awaited Longhorn. This video, actually got the audiance into the groove of the session. Later on, Manik explained the audiance about the 3 pillers of Longhorn, viz. Avalon (the presentation SubSystem), Indigo (the programmers dream) and WinFX (a completely new file system built on top of NTFS). He also explained various facts about installation, which would take only about 15-20 min to install a DNS server. He also explained stuff about IIS 7.0, using a video, which would be shipping in as a feature of Longhorn. He also showed a video, of how you could install the Longhorn Server using the command prompt. So basically there was a lot of Gyan for all the System Admins present out there.

Not to leave some developers behind ( and ofcourse students), the onus came onto me. After Manik's nice and intersting talk about the Servers, I gave a demo about the Longhorn Client. It was actually fun telling people about the SideBar, a complete new Interface, the New Calender and stuff. So basically showed what is there in the Longhorn OS for people to watch out for and what features would it provide for the developers. Laterz, I take a back seat and Manik starts a nice Q&A session. Lots of question get answered, however, someone pops up a question on XAML.

I was planning to show an XAML basesd application which worked fine on my desktop, (Win XP with SP2, November CTP Download for Avalon and Whidbey Beta 1). Manik knew that I had some knowledge about XAML so he directed the question to me. However to my bad luck, the app did not work fine on Sarang's lappie. Not to fall back, I explained the XAML Code to ppl and told them steps on how to go about downloading it from the NET for their XP based machines.

Lastly we winded up the session by 11.30, and Manik was open to all the offline questions. However before winding up, Manik threw a surprise for all the attendies, that PuneITPro would be giving away a cool Grey MSN India t-shirts. It was a great surprise for all of them.

Before I forget, a great thanks to Anand Deodhar sir, for providing PuneITPro all the infrastructure for the session, without whom, the session wouldnt have taken
place.


Me on the talks ;)

Audiance 4

Microsoft Community Alliance - Kanbay Inititative II

Thats more from Pune Diary :)

Indian Microsoft Technology User Groups Rocking!

Indian Microsoft Technology User Groups Rocking!

Dear All,

Please check out the link.
http://www.presidentofindia.nic.in/scripts/eventslatest1.jsp?id=848

Here you can see the our great President's Address at the Microsoft Academic Summit Meet 2005.

Please take part in the discussion about the meet.







Regards,

Mohit Vijay
Microsoft Student Champ,
Manager of Microsoft Jaipur .NET UG
Asst. Manager of Microsoft Jaipur IT Pro UG
Cell: - +91-98291-32502
I blog at: - http://indiamstechug.blogspot.com

Microsoft Community Alliance in Pune - Kanbay Software takes the first initiative.

This one's from Pune's.

http://sarangdatye.blogspot.com/2005/03/microsoft-community-alliance-in-pune.html

Launch of Jaipur IT Pro UG - A News Letter

Jaipur IT Pro User Group
Find, Connect, Stay up to Date

Workshop on Building Resilient Software Systems
A talk by Mr. Vineet Gupta, IT Pro Evangelist, Microsoft Corporation

17th March, 2005
(A revolutionary day for Jaipur IT professionals, professors, and students)

The Jaipur IT Pro UG was launched by Mr. Vineet Gupta, IT pro Evangelist, Microsoft Corporation (India) on 17th March, 2005 at Gyan Vihar School of Engineering and Technology, Mahal Jagatpura, Jaipur. The meet was presided by Dr. Sudhanshu Sharma, Director, Gyan Vihar Universe and Mr. Sunil Sharma, Chairman, Gyan Vihar Universe. Dr. Sudhanshu Sharma and Mr. Sunil Sharma honored Mr. Vineet Gupta by giving him a bouquet and a memento. The meet was started with worship of goddess Saraswati. On this occasion the speakers were Mr. Vineet Gupta (IT Pro Evangelist, Microsoft Corp.) and Mr. Sanjay Garden (Manager Systems, RajComp, Jaipur).
The First Session was taken by Mr. Vineet Gupta who started with the basic concept of this User Group and then move to the concepts of network security. He also demonstrated that how we can break a password and this concept was really extol by students. The whole seminar’s power point presentation has been uploaded on UG by Mr. Vineet Gupta. The persons who could not attend that seminar can take reimbursement from that ppt. He took this guest lecture from 11.30 A.M. to 2.00 P.M.
After the lunch Mr. Sanjay Garden, Manager System, RajComp, Jaipur took session on E-Governance of 1 hour. Mr. Naveen Hemrajani (HOD, Computer Sc. & Engg., GSET) honored the guest. Mr. Sanjay Garden described a project called “JanMitra”, which is appreciated by former US President Bill Clinton, Microsoft President Bill Gates and India’s President Mr. A.P.J.Abdul Kalam.
The meet was a great success with 250 attendees. There was a moment (at 11.45 A.M.) when we had to stop the registrations for Gyan Vihar Students as there was no more space. The response from IT Professionals, Professors and pre-final and final year students was excellent. All the attendees were given a Certificate (from Gyan Vihar Universe, signed by Mr. Vineet Gupta) and a Security kit CD from Microsoft.
The Event was covered by daily local news papers like Dainik Bhaskar, Rajasthan Patrika, Mahaka- Bharat, Dainik-Navjyoti. The event was also covered by Bhaskar TV.
The Credit for the event goes to the team work and efforts made by Volunteers and faculty members of Gyan Vihar Computer Department.
Names of faculty members who worked a lot to make this event successful are:
1. Mr. Naveen Hemrajani, HOD, Computer Sc. & Engg.
2. Mr. Chitradesh Banerjee, Lecturer
3. Mr. Manna Dey, Lecturer
4. Mr. Ajeet Puniya, Lecturer
5. Ms. Varsha Motwani, Lecturer
6. Ms. Garima, Lecturer
7. Mr. S.K. Yadav, Lecturer
I want to express my gratitude to all faculty members and volunteers, who helped me out in this event.

Mohit Vijay,
Microsoft Student champ,
Assistant Manager – Jaipur IT Pro UG
Manager – Jaipur .NET UG
E-mail:- mohitvj2004@yahoo.com
Cell: - +91-98291-32502

DevCon Pune 2005

from the diary of Sarang Datye, MVP:

DevCon was good. The numbers were:
Professionals: 170 including volunteers + faculties)
Students: 194 including faculties and volunteers.
Total: 364 (against an expectation of 300)
The good part about students event was we had some people coming from Nasik and Gujarat. So, looks like people are getting to know about DevCon, INETA and community activities.
The first day we started almost an hour late. One of the speakers got delayed in transit.
The ALLANA institute guys and the volunteers had managed to organize the things at the venue pretty well...though things could still have been better.
We started of with an inauguration ceremony by Dr.
Khedkar (Director of ALLANA Institute of Mgmt
Sciences) and then the MVP's and speakers lighted the traditional lamp.
After that we moved on to our first session, Office 2003 and .NET 2003 - Raj Chaudhuri. Then shot a session on Reflection (Spiritual API's from MS :))) After the second session lunch was served. Soon after lunch Nauzad stepped on the Gas with Deployments consideration in .NET (NTD and ClickOnce). Lastly, Raj sir scored a goal with ASP.NET Security session :))
The second day was pretty much less hectic. We had to swap the 1st and the 2nd session. I and Akila took up the first session on Introduction to Web Services.
Then we moved on to .NET on Non - Windows platform taken up by Raj. Raj managed this session parallely on a dual projection (windows and linux side by side ) After lunch Nauzad went great with OO features in .NET 2.0 and finally I ended the show and the event with a session on "Moving to Visual Basic .NET"
We gave away some books, INETA T-Shirts, some VS.NET Beta DVD's and ARK's.

Community Roundtable Meeting with “Soma” at MSFT India IDC, Hyderabad

Somasegar a.k.a. “Soma”, Microsoft's Corporate VP for developer division, visited MSFT Indian IDC, and a community meeting was organized with Hyderabad community members on March 10th 2005. The Meeting for filled with Hyderabad MVP’s, Community Stars and active participants of Mugh.net

Very Interesting discussions happened on various topics, including unfilled gaps in the Patterns & Practices, Practical issues faced by the enterprise developers, Future release features on Whidbey, comparisons with J2EE, Smart clients etc

Also, a light weight discussion occurred on the question “Is Microsoft sidelining VB.NET with C#?!” To which somasegar clearly denied, but also admitted lots of internal developments at Microsoft is now done using C#. In my personal opinion, this question would have been valid only if MSFT has abandoned VB6. It’s clearly visible that MSFT has taken lot’s of pain to migrate VB6 Users to a more robust language. Also I’m pretty sure MSFT can never sideline VB community, which has the large developer base on earth.

Though the session was time constrained, The Meeting ended with a group photo sessions.

Somasegar has blogged this event at http://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/archive/2005/03/13/395068.aspx

Also,Sudhakar and
Anjana has blogged this event.

A photo with roundtable participants

The symbolic cake of the B.NET Bash.. Check out the technologies adorning the cake - C#, Longhorn, ADO.NET. BCL etc. Check out the happy people in the middle of the cake.

The serpentine queues at BDotNet Bash 2005. The enthusiasm at the event can be seen here with attendees lining up for the snacks in the break.

TFG SMS-THank God it was Friday with SMS

We had a fanatastic session on patch managment at ITPRO delhi and in fact it turned out to be Remote infrastructure managment Session. Not just the scope of the Session was covered but the discussions lengthened beyond the scope.

Following topics and Tools where covered in theory as well as hands on

MBSA- microsoft baseline security Analyser
SUS - Software Update Service
Windows update Catalogue
and last but not least SMS

Usage of Active directory w.r.t GP and then using SUS for downloading the Patches amd doing their manamgent across the Desktops in LAN/WAN environment is a techinique very handy.

Note Make sure we dont select all languages when checking for patch updates
(I made this wonderful mistake and consumed lot of time)


SMS was awesome..somthing I wrote and leart last summer with other tools in this arena..making Advertisements,Packages , collections and what not...doing inventory managment without any trouble is a noteowrthy point

How much has gone into these SMS pratcices needs to be understood when I came across the a new feature Setting SMS sites in hirarchical order and make communication possible by saving much of the band width ..

What best can we have in security with Security Modes,Accounts,groups and Object level Securty in SMS ..

we can have the mixed mode of usage where SMS 2.0 along side SMS2003 with SP4.

We can have multilingualgal SMS sites in the same herarchy


As vineeet pointed out We cant straight jump any organisatiuob to the SMS 2003
but the IT maturity needs to be seen first whether the OU has set such standard that it can use SMS to the best..For example if the OU doesn't use AD features very well or the size of OU is too small it would be of no use to start using SMS2003

After this session I feel today I can manage a Network of 1000s of Desktops from my Home.. :):):):):)

IT PRO Delhi - Security & Patch Management

Brief Agenda
10 am – 11 am: Discussion on Usergroup charter
11 am – 1 pm: Hands-on Lab on Patch Management
2 pm – 5 pm: Repeat of morning session

When and Where

Date: Fri, 4th March, 2005
Venue:
Microsoft Corporation
Great Eastern Center
70, Nehru Place
New Delhi – 110019

Registration

Step 1: Join the Usergroup: http://groups.msn.com/ITDelhiUG/join
Step 2: Book a slot (morning / afternoon): http://groups.msn.com/ITDelhiUG/lab4thmarchpatchmanagement.msnw
(limited seats, availability on first come, first-serve basis)

Upcoming Workshops

4th March - Security & Patch Management (Vineet Gupta )
1st April - Interoperating with Unix ( Ashwani Sharma + Vineet Gupta)
13th May - Biztalk session (Aman Gupta)

Sinhgad .net Club launched

The new .net club is launched in the Pune's one of the reputed campus (Sinhgad campus), Called "Sinhgad .net Club" for the students of the Sinhgad institutes. ( http://www.sinhgad.edu )

The Club online URL is http://groups.msn.com/SinhgadDotnetClub

The launch event is held in the presence of Dr. Patwardhan (Director STE society), Mr. Jignesh Desai and Mr. Dhaval Faria as chief guest from INETA and Mahesh Mitkari (Ineta volunteer and Founder Manager of club) on the 21st Feb, 2005 in the Seminar hall of STES. About 120+ students from TE and BE attended the workshop. During the program Mr. Mahesh Mitkari explains the idea behind forming this club and about INETA, MS and their activities for students.

After the formal inauguration ceremony a full day workshop was arrange by the club for the students. As first part of this workshop we cover following topics



Introduction to .net :- by Mr. Jignesh Desai

Introduction to ASP.NET

and Building web applications using ASP.NET : - by Mr. Jignesh Desai

Introduction Compact framework and

Mobile development in .net : - by Mr. Dhaval Faria



The second part of this workshop is reserved for the Hand-on-labs by Akila Manian [MVP], Sarang Datye [MVP] and Dhaval Faria [MS Community star]. And club is going to arrange it in first week of March which is limited for the first 100 students and we got the response on the day itself many students registered for the workshop.

The MS ARK CDs was distributed to the attendees.

The students from SCOE MS. Samreen and MS. Divya, Mr. Amlendu, Mr. Jitendra, take the efforts to form the club and arrange the event successfully.

Mahesh Mitkari
mahesh.mitkari@gmail.com

What's latest @ CNUG

The student chapter of CNUG was launched yesterday. We had a two day event at PEC and approx 300 students from around 6 colleges were invited.

Day 1, we had sessions on .NET and on Day 2 we had Hands-on labs on .NET, ASP.NET and Webservices. We had a pretty decent pullout and people were pretty enthusiastic, particularly about the labs. Ashwani and Tejas from MS were here for the event. Hope CNUG Student chapter gets rolling now on.

UG CORE MEET - DELHI

Well we are gearing for ITPro meet in Delhi so a high time to get the things in order.
Lots of things in agenda but still the milestones need to be marked on this highway.

MoreOver the coordination is a big challenge in Delhi as we span across from Gurgaon - Haryana till ghaziabad UP through the corridors of Delhi(3 states 4 NCRs).

So meeting up to face the challenge we will be there at South Extension Barista at 6 Pm sharp on Wednesday ,23rd Feb 2005.

For any details please do call me up 9818197061 (veeru)

MSDN @ Campus Report

Hi!

I am Sunil Jagadish, Assistant Manager of BDotNETStudent. Further to Sabarish's post about MSDN @ Campus, I would like to present a report on the same.

MSDN @ Campus was a technical event held at National Institute of Technology (NITK) (formerly REC – Regional Engineering College), Surathkal and Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT), Manipal, aimed at providing a launch-pad for students interested in .NET, Windows Embedded and Windows Mobile technologies. The event was organized by The Bangalore.NET Student (BDotNETStudent) user group in association with Microsoft India.

The technical sessions that were covered included - Next Generation Computing with .NET, Common Language Runtime Internals, Developing Applications in .NET, XML Webservices and Embedded Computing with WinCE and XP Embedded.

Number of attendees in NITK: 200+
Number of attendees in MIT: 190+

• The Head of the Dept. of Computer Science at NITK voluntarily came up with the idea of including .NET as an elective subject for students of any branch in their engineering course.

• The Heads of the Department of Computer Science and Information Science at MIT expressed their interest in Microsoft technologies and their close interaction with Microsoft as one of the Academic Partners.

• Various resources including books on C# and Visual Basic.NET, MSDN India Magazines and development tools like Visual Sudio 2005 Beta DVDs, VS 2005 Express Editions etc were presented to both the institutions.

• The students who attended the sessions came up with a lot of queries for the speakers and showed special interest in Webservices and Windows CE.

• All the attendees were given .NET Academic Resource Kits, VS 2005 Express Editions, Windows Mobile Development Kit and ASP.NET Webmatrix CDs.

• Adding taste to technology – Samosas and Tea/Coffee was also arranged

We are planning to cover more places in Karnataka.

msdn @ campus

Microsoft and BDotNETStudent

presents

msdn @ campus

An exclusive introductory session to Microsoft .NET and Windows Embedded

- Bangalore & Mangalore -

..........................................

Bangalore: 5th February 2005

Venue: MSRIT

Time: 10:00 AM

.

Mangalore: 12th February 2005

Venue 1: National Institute of Technology, Surathkal (REC)

Time: 8:30 AM

.

Venue 2: Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal

Time: 3:00 PM

ASP.NET Caching & TDD grace BDOTNET UG Meet

3 Feb: It was a special UG meet this time, because BDotNet was privileged to have Alexi Vorontsov, co-author of Test-Driven Development in Microsoft.NET, speak about the principles of Test Driven Development. Alexei, a great speaker I must say, started off on the basic philosophy of unit testing and explained why test driven or "test first" development could produce software of better quality and more amenable to changes in requirements. Owen Rogers and Alexei then demoed TDD in action by showing how Nunit framework could be used for writing and executing unit tests, taking the example of a simple Stack class. Alexei was also more than happy to take up questions the attendees had on test driven development.

Saravana, took the other session, Caching in ASP.NET. It was a good, informative session explaining in detail all the modes of caching that ASP.NET 1.1 provides. The session was accompanied by a lot of simple, easy to understand code samples. Saravana also explained various 'under the hood' details of caching. The session ended by a discussion on SQL Dependency implementation and a mention about Whidbey's caching improvements.

SQL Server BI day in Bangalore

Jan 22, Saturday:

Let me take this opportunity to say a couple of words about our UG and then talk about the event. SQLBang is a SQL Server SIG (Special Interest Group). We are recognized by the PASS (Professional Association of SQL Server) and INETA (International .NET Association). This is a unique and special opportunity for us in a way. This group primarily concentrates on SQL Server initiatives. With the start of the year our goal was to start with a Bang. And yes, we did it. We had our first big Event SQL Server BI Day.

The concept of SQL Server BI day was to get industry experts from the BI arena right to the UG stage. And this was quite tough to find. And to help us get the best to our Usergroup we asked INETA for help. This is where we met Dr. Nitin Paranjape (MD of Maestros (Mediline) and INETA Speaker). He is a prolific writer, trainer and orator. He is a Certified Information Systems Auditor. He has written over 750 articles in popular weekly column called ‘TechForum’ for “Express Computers” magazine. He has conducted more than 500 knowledge transfer sessions covering 6000+ professionals on various technical and medical topics. We had Dr. Nitin deliver a introduction session on OLAP and how it works in the present day ...

Our next focus was to get a speaker from the next generation technologies. This is where we had to ping Microsoft for help. And to our surprise we found Dr. Nat Natarajan (Technical Program Manager at Microsoft), he is responsible for driving Business Intelligence (BI) ISV ecosystem strategy and enabling Microsoft ISV partners in this space. Nat Natarajan has over 10 years experience in the IT industry with the last 6 years being at Microsoft. And this was a boon trip for us from an Usergroups perspective.

The session had a strength of around 120-140 people. The registrations started at around 1:30 at the Microsoft Center near Airport Road. And we had the speakers ready to start their sessions ... At sharp 2:00 we had Dr.Nitin start his talk. Nitin started the session with understanding the OLAP world, how it works, how we generate reports, analyzing reports, extensive use of how Excel can be used to generate amazing useful reports. During the presentation he mentions "Learn Excel and then learn OLAP :)" Nevertheless this introductory session on the basics of OLAP went for around 2 hours. It had to be restricted as Dr. Nitin had to fly back to Mumbai. Thanks INETA to facilitate the same.

We had a quick break and then we started the second session. This was from Dr. Nat Natrajan. Nat started his introduction to SQL Server 2005 BI features and how it can be mapped. He gave a feel of Reporting Services,Analytical services and performance management and how effectively this is being managed in the SQL Server 2005 world. He also took the opportunity to talk on the T-SQL Enhancements and the extensibility features of SQL Server 2005. DTS a.k.a SSIS was one of the hot topics and many questions did come up during the session. Even though 2 hours is too small of a window to talk even one feature completely, Nat did his best is making the audience realize to what is in store in the next upcoming version of SQL Server. To keep it short and sweet - "Yukon rocks!!!"

Dr. Nitin in Action:

Dr. Nat's Presentation:

And to add spice, excitement and more fun. I distributed some goodies at the event. We had short quizzes and lots of take-aways. Before I conclude I also wanted to add we are thrilled to conduct and see responses for such events. This has given me enough energy to have more sessions like this in the future too. Incidentally, Jan 22 also marks the second anniversary day for Bangalore .NET Usergroup (BDotNet). Hold on guys. We will celebrate it in a big way :) ...

Windows Services for UNIX Session by Gaurav Daga

---- Services for UNIX

January 6th 2005 we had a nice UG session (www.mugh.net) on Windows SFU by Gaurav Daga. It is really nice and good stuff for the IT people and students...... Even though the crowd is around 35+, it was an interactive and useful session.

Many people told me that the session was very useful ….Gaurav also covered about the Interix (a windows subsystem for compiling and running unix applications), Interix Tools and Utilities. Interix tools help us a lot in easy application migration and scripts from UNIX to Windows.

The session was very informative and after the session, I thought.... Wow.... Is Windows seamlessly interoperate with UNIX to this extent? !!!

I would say: SFU is the core thing in the Microsoft’s UNIX migration strategy and allows enterprises to deploy Windows based solutions in existing UNIX based environments.

Windows Services for UNIX 3.5 also includes more than 300 UNIX utilities and tools that behave as they would on UNIX systems, plus a software development kit (SDK) that supports more than 1,900 UNIX APIs and migration tools, including make, rcs, yacc, lex, cc, c89, nm, strip, gbd, as well as the gcc, g++, and g77 compilers.

Here the poster: UG Session on Microsoft Windows Services For Unix

Microsoft Windows Services for UNIX (SFU) 3.5 allows Windows–based and UNIX–based computers to share data, security credentials, and scripts. Windows Services for UNIX enables Windows and UNIX clients and servers to share network resources, integrates account management, simplifies cross-platform management, and provides a full UNIX scripting and application execution environment that runs natively on Windows.

For more info:

White Paper: Introduction to Windows Services for UNIX 3.5

Windows Services for UNIX 3.5 New Features Guide

White Paper: Windows Services for UNIX 3.5
Frequently Asked Questions

Whats up Bangalore?

Hi,

This is Sabarish from the Bangalore .NET Student User Group. Like CnugStudent - even we are in the midst of a 'Student Champ Recruitment Drive' although it hasnt really been very succesful (so far) here because our final exams are in progress. But we should see the drive getting some results when colleges reopen in February.

Similarly it is real bad timing for us with regard to the Imagine Cup 2005 - thanks to our exams we aren't able to concentrate on IC 2005 and not many students are taking active part in it here in Karnataka - atleast until February - but by then it might be too late for some invitationals.

Last semester (from August to December '04) BDotNETStudent conducted a lot of activities including our big event - The Date with .NET v2.0! We have lots of exciting events planned for next semester (starting February) - and I will post about them soon. Like Sriram is planning a trip to Coimbatore - we are planning a trip to Mangalore/Manipal to deliver sessions at some of the top colleges in Karnataka (NITK, Surathkal; MIT, Manipal, etc..) All of us are very excited about this!

Oh and before I forget - our first anniversary is coming up on January 31st!! We are planning on having a blast!! (most probably along with our parent UG - BDotNET - who also have their anniversary around the same time)

This blog is a great forum for all of us UG leaders to see what the others are doing and exchange ideas and ultimately ensure that the community at large benefits. I think this blog has a very apt title, because Indian Microsoft UGs sure do Rock!!

Student Champ drive over. Now, its time for the Imagine Cup

The most difficult aspect of blogging is the 'getting started' part. I'm yet to see a good 'first post', so let me just dive right in.

I run the Chennai .NET Student User Group which is one of the largest in India with over 1100 members. I have a techie blog which I update frequently.

For the past 2-3 weeks, we (the Tamil Nadu student champs) have been in the midst of a 'Student Champ Recruitment Drive'. The goal was to go out and get as many new student champs as possible from colleges where we don't have any student champs yet. This drive has proved a resounding success - our numbers have almost doubled.

Yesterday, I was at the Chennai Student Champ meeting with all the new champs and the conference room,usually half empty, could barely contain all the people in it. The air-conditioner definitely couldn't handle it. Instead of freezing as usual, all of us were fanning ourselves. I guess we all have to make a few sacrifices with the new additions to the family.

If you're from a college in Tamil Nadu and your college doesn't have a student champ yet, you should consider being a student champ. All you need is passion. Being a geek helps too.:-)


We launched the Imagine Cup drive yesterday with the objective and going out and getting people to sign up for the Imagine Cup. We already have over a 1000 registrations from India but the goal is to make that number closer to 10,000. If you're a student who loves technology, head on over to http://imagine.thespoke.net and press the big red button.

The next month or so should be quite exciting as we have a lot of activities lined up in Tamil Nadu. In particular, I'm very excited about travelling to Coimbatore in the first week of February for a big event there.

A roundtable meet with Gaurav Daga, Program Manager, SFU

Last week, MVPs in Bangalore got an opportunity to meet Gaurav Daga, Program Manager of SFU (Services for Unix). Till then, I was not really aware of what SFU really was and where it could be used. Gaurav gave a good presentation of SFU, covering both the benefits from the IT pro and the developer perspectives. The session basically dealt with version 3.5 of SFU, the latest and the greatest version so far. Of the many features of SFU, what appealed to me most is Interix, a windows subsystem for compiling and running unix applications, giving unix application developers an easy migration path to windows and thereby leverage the best of Windows and .NET functionality.

The session was very informative and though SFU does not apply to the kind of applications I am developing currently, it was good to understand it from the technology enthusiast's viewpoint. I am therefore looking forward to more such interactions.

For more information on SFU, visit here.

DNUGHs is now one year old

DNUGHS celebrations happened today at the Chip Auditorium from 2:30 to 4:30.A detailed agenda is also included.


Chief Guest: Mr.Vineeth Madhusudan, Groups Manager-SIT.
Guest of Honor: Mr.Abhishek Mathur, Development Manager-SIT.
Other Guests: Mr.Janakiram, Academic Evangelist.
Mr. Mark D’Souza, Developer Lead.
Mr.Vipin.S, Test lead.
Mr.Ambaprasad.

Agenda:

2:30-2:45 DNUGHS: Past Present & Future (Introductions Goals and achievements)
2:45-3:00 Chief Guest talks and Cake Cutting Ceremony.
3:00-4:00 Tech Talk -Express Editions(Mr.Janakiram).
4:00-4:30 “Raffle”: A contest of Talents (a goodies giveaway).
4:30-5:30 Xbox Community Launch.

I would like to thank Mr.Abhishek kant,Mr.Janakiram,Mr.Vineeth,Mr.Abhishek M for the support and for making this event a success.

But above all Thank you Microsoft.