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Mississauga SharePoint User Group Inaugural Meeting – Monday, October 26th

mississauga_sharepoint_user_group

You can learn about learn about SharePoint 2010 – the upcoming version of Microsoft’s enterprise information portal platform — at the inaugural meeting of the Mississauga SharePoint User Group taking place this Monday at 6:30 p.m. at Microsoft’s Mississauga office. Rob Windsor from ObjectSharp will lead a session covering SharePoint 2010 with a particular focus on what’s new for developers. You’ll learn about the new designers, explorers and templates and overall developer experience. You’ll also see what’s new for your users, including the new ribbon interface, in-place editing and the new page and dialog interface model.

Many details surrounding Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 were announced at last week’s Microsoft SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas. One of SharePoint 2010’s top investments is user experience, from the ribbon UI, which allows users to easily add, modify and interact with content on the site, to mobile device support to its true multilingual user interface. Once you have the language packs installed and you set the appropriate languages on the sites, users will be able to interact with SharePoint in the language of their choice. To find out more, check out Steve Ballmer’s keynote at the Sharepoint conference.

sign_up_for_the_meeting

The meeting takes place on Monday, September 26th from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Microsoft Mississauga office (1950 Meadowvale Boulevard, at Mississauga Road, just north of the 401). Register for the event – it’s free!

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

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Windows 7: Even Linus Approves!

Here’s Linux creator Linus Torvalds, taking a break from the Japan Linux Symposium to pose at a store where Windows 7 was on sale:

linus torvalds and windows 7

[Thanks to Stefan Arentz for pointing me to the picture!]

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

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Burger King’s Windows 7 Whopper

To celebrate the release of Windows 7, Japanese Burger King franchises are offering a Windows 7 Whopper with 7 patties, selling for 777 Yen (CAD$8.92 as of this writing), available only for the next 7 days. I have no idea why they’re not doing this on this side of the Pacific; I’m sure it would be a big hit:

windows_7_whopper

According to Julie from ObjectSharp, the Japanese text after “13cm” says “American-size buns”.

[Thanks to Ian Irving for pointing this to me!]

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

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Me and Steve B.

I bought a fuzzy “Cat in the Hat”-style raver hat with a Canadian flag pattern on a whim earlier this year, thinking that I’d probably find a pretty good use for it some day. That day, it turns out, was yesterday, where I turned it into what I believe was yesterday’s only Steve Ballmer photo-op with a non-management Microsoft Canada employee:

Joey deVilla and Steve Ballmer, wearing Joey's Canadian flag raver hatPhoto by Barnaby Jeans.

Yesterday was a busy day at the Harbour Castle Convention Centre, where we had an all-day Steve Ballmer-rama. In the morning, Steve keynoted an event showcasing Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Exchange Server 2010 for the media, key customers and partners. This was followed by an employees-only “town hall” where Steve did a short presentation followed by a Q&A session. On a whim similar to the one that led me to buy it, I took the hat (along with the accordion) along with me.

Following a suggestion from my co-worker Damir, I arrived very early for the town hall, grabbed a seat by the stage and donned the hat. When Steve made his appearance, he did so in classic Ballmer style, running and whooping, high-fiving people as he made his way to the stage. As soon as he saw me, he yelled “Hey!”, put the hat on and posed with me for the photo above.

I’d made a decent splash at Microsoft in my first year, and I’d been wondering if I could match it in my second, which began on Monday. This isn’t a bad start.

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

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Tonight on “The Hour”: Steve Ballmer and Snoop Dogg

steve_ballmer_snoop_dogg

Fo’shizzle my Ballizle: on tonight’s episode of CBC’s news show The Hour, “Strombo”’s interviewing an unlikely pair: the CEO of the company for whom I work, Steve Ballmer, and Snoop Dogg. Alas, they’re taping the segments separately, so there’s no chance of Ballmer and Snoop doing a rap duet called Win and Juice.

The Hour airs on CBC tonight at 11 p.m. Eastern.

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

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Scenes from the Canadian Windows 7 Event

I’ll be updating this post regularly through the morning, so keep an eye on this article!

Here’s Steve Ballmer doing his keynote:

ballmer_toronto Photo by Tom Purves. Click to see the original.

Here’s my view from the event’s Twitter Lounge, where I’ll be doing demos and answering questions:

view from the twitter loungePhoto by Yours Truly.

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

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Reporting From the Canadian Windows 7 Event

cdnwin7

The official launch of Windows 7 doesn’t happen until tomorrow, but we’re having a big launch event with Steve Ballmer today in Toronto! I’ll be blogging and tweeting all day from the launch venue – Toronto’s Harbour Castle Westin Convention Centre.

For the full skinny on the event, follow the #cdnwin7 (short for “Canadian Windows 7”) hashtag on Twitter.

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.