On Monday the 6th of April Microsoft Australia organized the SDC Open Day 2009 event (SDC stands for [Microsoft] Software Development Centre, part of the Microsoft Services (Australia).

For over six years, Microsoft Australia’s Solutions Development Centre has been successfully delivering complex custom-developed applications for customers. We follow a set of processes that have enabled us to build high-performing teams delivering quality solutions. At the SDC Open Day we talked about how we have achieved this success, sharing our processes and techniques with an audience of software development professionals.

In the presentations below we provide an overview of the SDC, a day in the life for the team and details on how we approach each of the key disciplines in an SDC project team.

Together with few others like Tom Hollander, Prasadi de Silva (they are Microsoft so they don’t really count), , Bruce, Sarah from DevTest and Simon and Emma from Avanade we were invited to do talks on different aspects of the software development process in the SDC from Project Management, Development, Testing to Setup and Deployment.

The videos from the day are all published now. The fifth one in the list is my presentation however I can’t seem to be able to play it as I continuously get an error.

It’s public now that as of the 15th of May I’ve resigned from the position of Senior Consultant in Readify.

I’ve worked with some of the best minds in the industry from Darren, Mitch, PaulG and PaulS (who is still Temporarily Offline), Philip, Damian, Tatham, Francois (who’s now enjoying his trip around the world), Aymeric and lots, lots more.

I’ve worked with some great people from outside Readify like Tom Hollander, Rocky Heckman, Bruce McLeod, to mention only a few..

I think this was the best, coolest and most enjoyable job I’ve ever had, with involvement in various projects from fixing simple (sometimes crappy) VB.Net apps to technical lead of large projects, performance reviews and improvements, security reviews and guidance, threat modelling new or existing systems, architecture and design of new systems, architecture reviews, complete or partial refactoring and rewrites of applications, mentoring, guidance, training, talking, presenting or attending loads of conferences, whinging, crying (not really) and contesting or challenging technical decisions (most of the times offering alternatives), building awesome relationships with my teams and my customers (oh, well, at least that’s what I believe I did )

Even more I also received an MVP award in Development Security.

I’ve loved my position and the people I’ve been working with.

But now it’s time to move on to a new challenge and a new role. I’ve accepted a new role as a (full-time) Solutions Architect and 2IC with Class Financial Systems. More or less I’m going back into financial systems where most of my background and experience was before I’ve joined Readify.

I’ll have a great new set of challenges from leading a new team to delivering a new project from zero to hero (or great success). I kind of started to forget what it means to be part of a project form end to end. I’ll also try to use this opportunity to learn, apply, present and (cross-fingers) be approved as a Microsoft Certified Architect: Solutions.

I truly hope I’ll keep in good contact with all Readify, Microsoft, friends and partners and I hope to see most of you at user groups, TechEd, CodeCamp, MVP Summit and other conferences.

CodeCampOz is again on this year in the good old same Wagga-Wagga.

Mitch just announced the dates for this year’s CodeCampOz: 04th of April to 05th of April.

Attendance is free and we are open for registrations.

I’ll see you all there.

It’s official: Just minutes ago Steve Balmer declared that Windows 7 Beta is available now for download. For now it will be available to MSDN subscribers only.

Head now to MSDN and get your own copy.

Feedback can be provided on the Microsoft TechNet Forums in the newly created Windows 7 Beta forums.

The installation package for Windows 7 Beta x86 is just 2.4Gb. I’ve just started my download …

The best discount for your next exam can be obtained via Andrew Coates who has 15 vouchers for free MCP exams.

If you’ve missed his offer I then have another offer for you: 10% off your next Microsoft exam and a free re-take (if God forbidden you fail the first attempt).

To get your 10% discount head over to http://www.learnandcertify.com/, click on “Get My Exam Offer Voucher code today” and enter the MVP Certification Promotion Code: AUD68E69 to receive the voucher code for your next exam. (Offer valid for Australia only.)

Please also drop me an email once you do the exam so I can congratulate you.

(all the other Terms and Conditions and legal small print will apply)

Happy New Year everyone. I hope the Christmas & New Year break was good for you and Santa brought you loads of presents.

Santa was a bit late for me but it arrived on the 2nd of January with an MVP Award.

So I’m officially a “Developer Security MVP” (in the Developer Tools category).

My thanks go to Rob Farley from LobsterPot for nominating me, the great Readify Team for their continuous support and to Adam Cogan for challenging and inspiring me.

Well, TechEd is done (and dusted) and now I’m back to my normal life. Go to work in the morning to some customer, come back home in the evening, spend some quality time with family, browse the net a bit, code a bit, do a bit of support and maybe enjoy tv a bit. So life is pretty well defined.

However I started to realize how much my digital side life has changed lately. Not sure if it’s in better or worse but it has changed. Got a bunch of new gadgets, got a new backup plan, got a new Internet connection and just about to do some legal changes to our online shops.

So, here are some of the details:

New Gadgets

1. NAS: After having several failures with my hard-drives I’ve decided backup is a high priority so I went out and invested in a D-Link DNS 323 Network Storage Enclosure. I’ve plugged in one Samsung 750Gb HDD (I plan to plug in a second one soon) and started to get my backups running. I have to say I love the NAS enclosure. Small and very quiet. I just didn’t find yet a good software to backup all my machines. The default software that comes with this NAS is Memeo but this is really bad. My machines now simply stay trashing the HDDs all the time. I had to disable the service to be able to do anything with my machine. I’m still trying to find a good backup software. Please let me know if you can recommend one.
2. Bluetooth hands-free: At TechEd I’ve received a cute hand-free + wireless headset Jabra BT3030. I’ve connected it to my mobile and it works a treat. Superb quality, easy controls of calls and music, great battery, cute looking. My only comment is that it does not make any noise/vibration if you get a call so if you don’t hear your mobile or you don’t have the earphones plugged in you don’t know you receive a call so you miss it. If you are looking for a hands-free I highly recommend this. My only comment is that when you plug-in the default earplugs you feel like you are swimming in a fish-bowl. It’s supposed to part of the “noise-reduction”.
3. Mouse: As part of making it to the State finals of the Demos Happen Here I’ve received a Microsoft Wireless Notebook Presenter Mouse 8000 (that’s a mouthful of name). I’ve just connected it and feel nice and smooth. The only problem is my Bluetooth drivers on the laptop are very flaky so I have a feeling this won’t work for too long.
4. Laptop Battery: I have a beautiful but power-hungry Dell M65. I used to use a 9 cell battery that (when new) was giving me a good 3.5 hours of power. Almost 18 months after it was purchased the power dropped suddenly to about 40 minutes so I knew I had to get a new one. Best place is of course eBay. Original Dell OEM part from Hong-Kong for $87AUD delivered. I feels good to be back to 3.5 hours running on battery. I can go through most of my meetings unplugged. Oh yes …

New backup plan

Well, it’s not there yet. I’ve got the NAS device, some software running on my machine backing up my projects and documents to the NAS, Live Mesh for all shared document with my partner and Mozy for almost all documents. I love Mozy. The real set-and-forget backup.

New Internet connection

I live in a “remote” area of Sydney. The next suburb is the limit between metropolitan Sydney and Regional NSW. Well, not exactly but that’s how my friends tease me. Unfortunately my good’ old ISP Internode does not provide ADSL2 in my area. So because paying $30 for a Telstra phone line and $80 for an ADSL1+ is way too much I’ve decided to switch to the only provider that offers Naked ADSL2+ in my area: IINet.

I’ve applied for the plan about 3 weeks ago online and filled in all the details. The told me I’ll be offline for 10-20 days depending on my luck, the ordering of the planets and the mood of some of the Telstra engineers. Now, you really need to prepare your wife for a big event like 10-20 days of no Internet + no phone. Seriously.

On Monday (3 weeks after the application) around 9AM the Internet and phone stopped working. Ok, so we are about to get connected. Expect 10-20 days of downtime. Around 11AM I’ve got an email telling me I’ve been disconnected and I’ll be connected in 10-20 days.

Today, Tuesday, about 24h after the disconnection I get an email that my Internet is connected. Two hours later my phone was connected.

WOW. That’s impossible. No it’s not. It’s not Tuesday evening and I’m connected via the iiNet Naked ADSL2 connection. Feels good and just ok in speed. I guess I’m far from the exchange. I’m still happy. 24h downtime only is pretty good. I’ve just started to save about $50 a month. Not bad. Well done iiNet.

Domain ownership

As you might know, part of the rules for .com.au domains is that the company that has the domain has to have a good reason to own it (same or similar name or some other explanation).

So to buy a .com.au domain all you need is a company, an ABN and about $30 for two years.

However, if you want to change the ownership of a domain (company + ABN) you need a bunch of paperwork, signatures, align the planets, get your beloved mother in law to sign her mortgage and pay an arm and a leg. Yes, to transfer the ownership of a domain you can expected to be charged anywhere from $440 to $220 depending on the register that has your domain. Well, if $220 for a domain is a rip-off then $440 is outrageous.

So for the last 4 days I’ve started a quest to find a register that will change the ownership of some of my domains for less than $220 and I found them: www.anchor.com.au. The only company in Australia that decided to charge a fair amount for a simple procedure. All they charge for an ownership transfer is a same rate as a two years renewal $69.00 (you need to renew for two years anyway when you change a .com.au). Now this is fair and cheap. I can now recommend Anchor as the best value for money for domain ownership transfers.

Well, this is my new exciting digital life. Now, back to watching Mythbusters and then doing some more coding before going to bed.

Well, it seems like everyone is doing a post TechEd review of their own.

Me … I have to start with the comment that this was the best TechEd I’ve been too mostly because of the comments I’ve received for my sessions.

Some comments were good, some were great, some were funny and some were really eye-openers. (oh, yes, some were dull but they are worthless).

On Sunday I flew to TechEd NZ and much to my surprise when I’ve tried to book into my reserved hotel I was informed that I was upgraded and moved to the hotel on the other side of the road. Well, thank you. This was much appreciated. I was basically in the hotel just above the conference. I was taking the lift to level 4-5 and I was existing directly in the middle of the conference. You godda love that.

On Tuesday I had to do both my talks one after the other and then run straight to the airport. I didn’t get any feedback back as TechEd NZ seems to use paper to collect feedback and evaluations and heard no news from them. I hope they were good as I want to go back next year … one week earlier to do a bit of skiing as well …

On Wednesday I had my talk on debugging which went very well. The room was packed and the demos worked a threat. The only issue I had were the lights which were pointing straight into my eyes giving me the feeling of an FBI interview. It was hard to see the people in the room and the raised hands for questions.

The reviews&evals were really great. So great, I jumped straight in the top 10 best sessions and top 5 best speakers. Thanks everyone for filling in the reviews.

I have to write here some of the comments:

• Best session I’ve been to for several Techeds, congratulations. this is what it is all about….
• Simply amazed by this session, by far the best one I have seen during Tech-ed so far.
• Utterly brilliant – this session paid for the entire entrance fee Excellent

Well, there were over 50 such comments so thanks everyone for taking the time and writing them.

Now, some of the funny ones included no comments but a rating of “Too Technical“. Well, for what we considered (and it was marked as) a 400 level presentation and some considered in their comments as a 300 level presentation, a “Too Technical” comment can only be considered a compliment. If you left that comment, then mate, the session was supposed to be technical

Some of the eye-opener comments:

• I understand there was alot to cover, but at times the information was a bit rushed, and I found myself unable to keep up with some of the more arcane sections
• The only thing is that sometimes he’d speak a little too quickly, which combined with the accent made it hard to hear some things
• Well delivered. He did have a “balky” moment when he mentioned he might shoot himself in the “leg”.(Woops. It was supposed to be “foot”. Sorry for that.)
• Speaker’s accent was hard to understand at times

Comments from the security talk:

• Ease up on the hand waving Corneliu When flicking through code please linger a little longer to give people at least 2-3 seconds to process the context and the detail.
• Speaks very fast
• The guy was like a ferret on speed. Great knowledge, but flicked between code wayyy too quick. There were very few web developers in the room, and most of it was about web stuff. Can’t remember what was in the description, but this was disappointing.
• Very web oriented, which was not obvious from the title.

Thanks a lot for these comments.

I know exactly what I need to focus on for next year.

• Speak slower (and keep that rhythm of talking): I know I was quite conscious at times of this during my debugging talk but I completely lost myself in the security one as I had the feeling I’m running out of time
• Present less: Have a smaller amount of information to talk about in one hour. Plan to have the session for only 50 minutes so I have time to speak slower. It’s easy to have an ace up the sleeves prepared that can fill in the last 5 minutes if you finish early.
• Fix my accent: Maybe if I can just speak a bit slower it’s easier with my accent as well. I know my diction in English is quite bad and I’m hard to understand at time (let me tell you I speak as bad and hard to understand in my native Romanian as well). I’ve already engaged an English teacher (my lovely wife) to prepare a course for me to improve my diction and accent.
• Work on some of the “quotes”/”jokers” that I use in my talks and make sure they are right. I’ll have to make sure you shot yourself in the “foot” not in the “leg”. (The original joke I was trying to refer to is How to Shoot Yourself In the Foot)

Well, now, back to my small corner of development:

1. I have to finish the Deadlock detector as I think I have a fix for the tool not finding deadlocks between a lock() and a slim lock or read/write lock.
2. I want to publish a Secure Web library for automatic encoding for ASP.Net controls that I was talking about in my security talk.
3. I need to publish a new site for my games shop
4. I need to start planning my upcoming trip to Europe

And most importantly I want to start planning for some new RDN talks and for some cool talks for next year’s TechEd.

PS>> If you were in my sessions and are looking for the demos/slides, please logon to TechEd portal and navigate to the session scheduler and you can find the pptx attached to the description of the sessions.

As I’m preparing for next week’s TechEd in NZ and Australia I’ve started to browse the pages they have prepared with details of the event.

One of the pages that I was most impressed by was the Earth Friendly Tech.Ed. Me trying to be a very green citizen of this planet (I run a house on green energy, offset my carbon emissions from the car and recycle every bit of recyclable material) I was very pleasantly surprised by Microsoft’s initiative.

Earlier this year Microsoft gave away some great reusable bottles to all it’s employees in Sydney in order to help reduce the number of plastic bottles used. I was lucky to work there at the time and received one of these bottles which not only it is very handy but also looks cool, attracts positive comments about it and yes, it’s green.

The initiative was very welcome.

So please go and visit the page and try to align and respect their initiatives.

Well done Microsoft.

It’s all been confirmed: I’ll be speaking at both TechEd New Zealand and TechEd Australia delivering two talk:

1. Secure Development Patterns – How not to screw yourself during development
   We’ve all seen the news reports showing what can happen when an application goes into production with security issues. But what can you, as a developer or architect, do to stop it from happening to your team? Plenty! This session will provide a bunch of practical, real-world examples of how you can implement “defence in depth” in your projects.
2. Debugging the world starting with the CLR
   It’s 3:00 AM and your service is down; your boss is breathing down your neck, and your SLA is approaching fast. The operations team refuse to allow you to install Visual Studio on the production machine, and without F5 or Attach to Process, you don’t know what to do. If only you had attended this session. Corneliu Tusnea will show you how to debug systems where no IDE is allowed; on running servers with live data, or offline with memory dumps. You’ll develop a sixth sense for finding deadlocks, memory leaks or unexpected exceptions. Whether you build Windows Services, ASP.NET websites or smart client applications, this session will give you the skills you need to debug in production, impress your fellow developers, and avoid being called into work at 3:00 AM!!

TechEd New Zealand schedule:

1. SEC314 – Secure Development Patterns: How not to screw yourself during development
   Tuesday, 02 September 2008, 12:10PM – 1:25PM
   Elliot Rooms 1-3, Crowne Plaza
2. DEV313 – Debugging the world, starting with the CLR (or Debugging from the trenches) (a shortened version of the talk as all I received was 30 minutes of talking)
   Tuesday, 02 September 2008, 1:40PM – 2:10PM
   NZ Room 4, SkyCity

You can book the sessions here: https://aunz.msteched.com/nz/sessions.aspx

TechEd Australia schedule:

1. DEV410 – Debugging the world, starting with the CLR (or Debugging from the trenches)
   Wednesday, 03 September 2008, 2:00PM – 3:15PM
   Parkside Ballroom B
2. SEC314 – Secure Development Patterns: How not to screw yourself during development
   Thursday, 04 September 2008, 12:00PM – 1:15PM
   Bayside 202/203

You can book the sessions here: https://aunz.msteched.com/au/sessions.aspx

I’ll also be around at other sessions and at the Ask the Experts night so please come and ping me.

As per Michael’s post there is also a competition on Ask the Experts to find the ultimate expert. Someone has to ask a question and nominate you to provide an answer to win a cool HP TouchSmart.

So please go and ask a question and nominate me to answer it.

Make the questions cool but not too hard as I might not be able to answer them )