In recognition of some damn good evangelizing, and to make sure I don’t forget about all the .NET developers out there, Microsoft Canada sent a big package to me at the Shopify offices containing some fabulous parting gifts, including a Dell Latitude E6500 with 8 gigs of RAM and the large battery:

…along with the Samsung Focus that was assigned to me, and DVDs for Windows 7 Ultimate and Office Professional 2010…

…and last but certainly not least, an MSDN subscription, which gets me all kinds of developer goodies including Visual Studio (still the nicest IDE out there, in my opinion):

I’d like to thank Microsoft Canada (and Damir Bersinic, who made the arrangements) for these fabulous parting gifts. They weren’t under any obligation to send anything other than my final paycheque and expense reimbursements, but they’re taking a page from Gary Vaynerchuk’s The Thank You Economy, and I greatly appreciate the goodies. I was wondering how I was going to continue with Windows Phone and XNA development, but thanks to my old employer and coworker, that question’s been answered. I salute you with a filet mignon on a flaming sword!

This article also appears in The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century.

Here are some photos I took at Monday’s Windows 7 media event showing off the latest Windows 7-compatible computers from six vendors:

The participating vendors were:

• Dell
• Hewlett-Packard
• Lenovo
• LG
• Sony
• Toshiba

The whole day was a non-stop demo from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., with journalists both mainstream and tech, associated with an organization or independent, print and television, streaming in constantly to get a look at Windows 7 in action on all sorts of hardware. I was there as the "Microsoft Guy" to answer questions about Windows 7 in general; the vendors each sent a rep to talk up their specific hardware.

I did some demos that will find their way to television soon: one demo for CTV News which should air next week. I also did a demo for the Space channel’s always-entertaining Ajay Fry which will be appearing on Space’s show InnerSPACE (formerly known as The Circuit) tonight at 11 p.m. (Eastern); it’ll repeat tomorrow at noon (Eastern). Alas, there is no accordion playing, but I think I did a pretty good demo of some of the cool multi-touch possibilities with Windows 7. I don’t know if you’ll be watching it, but I certainly will!

My thanks to our friends at High Road Communications and the vendors for making the event both a success and very enjoyable.

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection and The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century.