Small & Mighty

Next week, SharePoint MVP David Mann will be running a class on SharePoint development in the Philly area. I am planning to stop by a few days next week to see David in action. The man knows WSS inside and out. The course is provide by the Ted Pattison Group so you can rest assure the content is relevant . As a service to my readers, I can provide you with a $400 bucks discount is you email me at danilod-at-microsoft - dot- com. The discount is for the class running next week.

David Mann - SharePoint and the Office System » Blog Archive » SharePoint Training

Last year I attended the Blog Philadelphia conference (Wondering if they are doing in again). I meet some great folks there including the always energetic Alex Hillman. Alex among others is a leader at Independents Hall. Indy Hall is a great place where independent consultants or folks with flexible working situations can got to if they need a place to work from. It's basically a Co Working space. But Indy Hall is more than just a Co Working space. It is more of a community, a brotherhood is you will. I have not gotten the chance to spent a lot of time at IndyHall for a few reasons. First, they are mainly Mac users. Just kidding. Well they are but that is not one of the reasons. I actually felt very welcome the few times I have been there. The real reasons is that I have been out of the scene for a while as I prepared for the arrival of Olivia. Also, we moved to "the burbs" and thus the drive to center city is not as easy as it used to be.

Well that is about to change a bit. Sometime in the next week or so I will stop by IndyHall to join as a member. I don't think I will be there more than a few times per month but I do plan to hang out the more. Why? cause with 3 ladies (wify and 2 daughters) in the house, the distraction levels can get a bit high sometimes. I need a place where I can escape to from time to time. Also the creative energy at Indy Hall is off the charts. I am some to rub off on me.

So here is my current plan for getting out of the house. Once a week, I will take advantage of having to go to class every Tuesdays night and work from school all day Tuesdays. On the Wednesdays when Philly .Net meets or any day I need to cover a night event at the Microsoft 's office in Malvern, I will work from the office. That happens about once every other week. Once per month or so, I will work from IndyHall. The other days I will split them between staying home and going to the local Starbucks. If anyone knows of a Co Working space in the Lower Moreland/ Willow Grove area please let me know. Even if you just have some free space at the office where you don't mind me crashing at let me know.

Since I plan to work from the MS office a few times per month, and the office has a lot of space, I wanted to make some of that space available to others and do the Co Working thing once a month or so. Drop me a email is you are interested. danilod/#/microsoft.com.

Next 3 event I will be at:

May 10th, 2008 - TECHBash

May 17th, 2008 - Philly Code Camp

May 19th, 2008 - Mobility Training NYC 

Hope to see you there!

If you are a fellow geek and live in Northeast Pennsylvania be sure to attend the TECHBash event this Saturday May 10^th at Luzerne County Community College in

. TECHBash is similar to a Code Camp but they also serve the ITPro community. This is the third year that Jason and gang have organized this event. They have put together a great site with all the information you will need to attend.

The event keynote presentation will be delivered by Joe Stagner, Program Manager for Microsoft 's Web Tools and Platform Division.

Attendees will have the opportunity to:

• Enhance technical knowledge with comprehensive and relevant educational content
• Build experience on current and soon-to-be released technologies and products
• Engage with sponsors, presenters, and other technology professionals
• Learn how to get involved with .NET Valley, Northeastern Pennsylvania's Technology User Group
• Leave with software and other swag

My partner in crime Peter has a great post with a video about an internal conference held by Microsoft for its internal employees. The "Mobility Smack Down" session is also held at TechEd every year. Definitely a can't missed session if you are attending.

Mobility is here to stay. Some folks argue that it is no longer as cool as it was a few years back, and that the hesitation from some companies to invest in mobile solutions has lured developers away from mobility to the next cool thing. Well, forgive me but I don't agree. With the introduction of the iPhone by Apple and Android by Google many developers have taken an interest in Mobility once again. Microsoft has made a huge investment in its mobile development platform over the past few years. That investment has made Windows Mobile one of the best development platforms out there for mobile devices today.

So if you have an interest in Mobile development and you live in the east coast you might want to check out these free all day seminar on Windows Mobility Development. Every attendee will get a copy of "Microsoft %C2%AE-Mobile-Development-Handbook-Wigley/dp/0735623589">Microsoft Mobile Development Handbook". We might have a Windows Mobile phone or two to give out as well. The seminars will be delivered by my compadre Joe Healy (aka DevFish) in the South cities and me in the North cities. We might have some local community leaders helping us out as well. These are going to be great events so don't miss out on this great content.

Topics to be covered:

• Intro to Win Mobile
• Tools: Intro/SDK/Emulators/VS2008/Debug/Deploy
• Managed Code: NET CF Managed APIs
• Data Guidance
• Whole new level (for a peek of what I mean, take a look at this)

Tour Dates

I have been away for some weeks now. All my 5 readers should know the reason but in case there is a six reader out there I will fill you in. On March 27th, 2008 at about 10:00 am my wife gave birth to out second daughter Olivia Danorah Diaz (yes I am out number 3 to 1). Thanks to a great benefit from Microsoft , I was able to spend 4 weeks at home enjoy the lack of sleep I mean the new addition to our family. It has been a tremendous blessing to me to have not only one but now two amazing girls. I am very blessed.  

I intentionally stayed away from blogging because I wanted to search for my "blog's voice". I wanted to find the purpose for my blog other than as a Developer Evangelist I should have. There are many reason for why I started this blog but I wanted to find my voice. So I will postings about what I want this blog to be about. If there anything in particular that you would like to see please feel free to contact me danilod@ a small company in redmond.com.