I will be speaking on Visual Studio for Database Professionals to the Scottish SQL usergroup on the 4th June in Edinburgh. Update The event booking site is now available at http://www.sqlserverfaq.com/?eid=115

On Sunday I bumped into the Dalai Lama in my Hotel. When I say bumped into the Dalai Lama , I mean bumped into a solid wall of Seattle's finest motorcycle cops who were stood in front of the Dalai Lama. He obviously was sad that we did not have time for a chat but I had to head off with Rob Miles to get some food ( …

I am currently attending the Microsoft Connected Systems Divisions , Olso Software Design Review and I am looking at the future and it is so bright it hurts, not to mention the amazing talent in the room , Juval Lowy, Sam Gentile, Brian Loesgen, Brian Noyes, Michele Leroux Bustamante, Roman Kiss, Don Box, Chris …

The details are out the for VBug event I am speaking at, it is going to be at The Castlegate, Melbourne Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 2JQ Hope to see you there.

I am attending a set of "Open Space" sessions, I think the idea of getting people together on like minded topics is great. But the "Philosophy of Open Space" suffers from the same problems of any other "Purist" self help/focus/delivery solutions i.e. it works great if the mediator is strong or in some cases where the …

I at the MVP summit in Seattle and so far have seen the hottest and chilliest days I have seen this year. it has been great to catch up with old friends :) only 20 minutes in and Barry Dorrans is up running loud and true to make the world right with the goodness that is card space (don't ask what the subject actually …

A big thanks to everybody who came to the Server 2008 launch event last week. Andy and myself had a great time presenting to such an enthusiastic crowd. In the end we ran long because of the amount of dialogue around the new features of Server 2008 and I hope everyone went away having got something useful. Now I need …

Microsoft Research have been working on the next generation of compiler optimisation and analysis tools for sometime, if this is your area I recommend looking at the Phoenix Connect Web Site. I saw Jim Hogg ( with a surname like that , how great must this guy be :) ) , present on Phoenix a few years ago and it promises …

I thought it would be useful to keep my links for BizTalk in my blog, I will keep updating this list when new BizTalk items ( or old ones I have missed ) present themselves. Tools BizTalk Server 2006 Best Practices Analyzer V1.1 BizTalk LoadGen 2007 Tool BizTalk Undeploy Tool ESB ESB Guidance ESB Installation - …

Well the IMTC has finished , it was great fun and it was really nice to see so many great presenters presenting on a wide range of great subjects. I managed to see some of the slots but I was busy preparing for my two sessions. Overview of Microsoft Live Labs Volta Well the writing was on the wall as soon as I had …