8370

This morning I am delighted to announce that DDD North 2014 will be held at the University of Leeds on Saturday 18th October 2014.  DDD North is a free one day technical event for developers. This is the fourth Developer! Developer! Developer! Community Event ever ran in the North of England and we are delighted to be hosted at the University of Leeds following on from our three previous events with registrations rising over 425 last year! DDD North is a day of learning, discussion, contribution and involvement in the community in the North East, North West, Midlands and Scotland. … Continue reading DDD North 2014 Announced

Last night I had the pleasure of presenting at Dot Net Notts (@dotnetnotts), a relatively new User Group in Nottingham.  Having been born in Nottingham, it was a really nice experience to go back visit some family and then present at this vibrant and welcoming new user group. Last night I was talking about Telemetry and Logging experiences on a Cloud Platform (namely Microsoft Azure) and was trying to impart the benefit of some experiences running a large multi product platform.  Hopefully the talk was well received and everyone enjoyed it.  The talk was a different type to the majority … Continue reading Telemetry on Cloud Platforms–Resources

On Saturday I attended the inaugural DDD East Anglia and took the ideal opportunity to announce the details for this year’s DDD North!  The event has been in the planning stages for a while and work continues apace.  I’m delighted to announce that we will be returning to the University of Sunderland on Saturday 12th October 2013 for DDD North.  The University of Sunderland’s Sir Tom Cowie’s Campus at St.Peters’ is a fantastic venue and was a fantastic place to study when I was studying for my degree many years ago.  We are working hard with the University of Sunderland, … Continue reading DDD North 2013 Announced and Session Submission Open

Are you interested in getting started with Windows Azure and have are free on Saturday April 27th 2013?  Then why not join me in Bradford at the Global Windows Azure Bootcamp being hosted by Black Marble?  I’ll be joining Microsoft Integration MVP, Robert Hogg, Windows Azure MVP, Steve Spencer and Microsoft Alliance Manager, Linda Hogg to deliver a one day deep dive class which will help you get up to speed with developing for Windows Azure.  This is a great opportunity to get real hands on experience with developing on Windows Azure from professionals who are actively developing solutions on … Continue reading Global Windows Azure Bootcamp April 27th 2013

On Wednesday we celebrated the third birthday of NEBytes, a user group in the North East of England for Developers and IT Pros which I am a co-founder of.  We were delighted to partner up with the SharePoint User Group for the event and welcomed Dr. Bill Ayers to speak on Agile SharePoint Development. In addition we’d planned to have a speaker visit to talk about Windows Azure IaaS at the event but unfortunately had problems sourcing a speaker due to a number of issues.  I therefore stepped in and reviewed some content from Microsoft and presented it at our … Continue reading Windows Azure IaaS Slides

As we are under an hour away from registration opening for DDD North 2012, which is being held at the Bradford University School of Management I thought it would be useful to put together a few links to help with accommodation choices.  This list isn’t extensive as last year’s event as it was held in my home town, but I will keep adding to this list based on comments and recommendations. Heaton Mount – http://www.bradford.ac.uk/management/heatonmount/accommodation/ Dubrovnik Hotel – http://www.dubrovnik.co.uk/ Lister Hotel – http://www.listerhotelbradford.co.uk/ The Cartwright Hotel – http://www.cartwrighthotelbradford.co.uk/ As I say I’ll keep adding this as I uncover more options.   … Continue reading DDD North 2012 Accommodation Suggestions

Yes that’s right, today when I was at Microsoft UK Headquarters attending a day full of content on Visual Studio 11 and Team Foundation Server 11, the results of the 2012 Imagine Cup UK Finals were announced!  I heard the results were being streamed live at 4pm so when the time cam I hooked up to the broadcast and watched with bated breath for the results.  I’m delighted that both of the finalists from the Imagine Cup North East finals finished in the top two places, a fantastic achievement in the first year that the North East Colleges and Universities … Continue reading Winners of the 2012 Imagine Cup UK Final are from the North East!

Thanks to all the attendees who came to my talk on IIS8 last week at NxtGenUG Manchester Daresbury.  Apologies for the delay in posting the slides, you can now get them on my Slides & Resources page and the direct link for the IIS 8 Presentation slides is – http://www.andrewwestgarth.co.uk/Presentations/IIS%208%20–%20Platform%20for%20the%20Future.pdf

The Imagine Cup is a great competition for students to get involved in and something I’ve covered previously http://www.andrewwestgarth.co.uk/blog/post/2012/02/01/You-Can-Change-the-World-Through-Technology.aspx. Well 2012 is the first year that the North East has got involved and the competition is really hotting up as the teams hurtle towards the deadline for submitting their Round Two entry in the Software Design competition. Last month we had three teams present their ideas to the group at NEBytes and in return all of the attendees gave each team lots of useful feedback ahead of Round Two.  All of the teams were asked some very searching questions about … Continue reading Imagine Cup North East Final Looms

With the recent release of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview and the Windows Server 8 Beta I’ve been looking at the new features in IIS8 such as: Web Socket Support Application Initialization Configuration Optimization SNI Support and many more… If you would like to know more and are in the Manchester area why not come along to NxtGenUG Manchester on Wednesday 18th April 2012 where I’ll be giving my first in a number of sessions on IIS8.  For more information or to signup please visit the NxtGenUG Website