Flying to Vegas

Et voilà, I am off to Vegas. First my flight with Swiss airlines goes to Chicago, and then I'll take a UA flight to Las Vegas, where I'll arrive around 8:30PM local time. It's a really long trip (It's now 11:50AM in Switzerland, and I'll be in my room in the Venetian probably around 6AM tomorrow morning, swiss time) but I am convinced it will be totally worth it. Next year was amazing, and it has brought me so many new things to think about, to try out, and so many new contacts in the programming world (especially at Microsoft, but not only). Actually, this is also greatly that experience last year that led me to rebuild my website and to start this blog a few weeks later. One year later, after evangelizing (I dislike this word and prefer "coaching" WPF at Siemens in my division (Siemens Building Technologies), new contacts are also started with other divisions, and maybe we will have synergies and collaborations, what I'd really love. Of course, in a firm of Siemens' size, all this takes more time, but slowly we are really building something great.

For those of you who will be in Vegas, look for me, I'll be delighted to meet other Geeks with Blogs (and of course also Geeks without Blogs, don't feel excluded). For those who won't be in Vegas, stay tuned as I intend to write daily about what I'll see. Also, don't forget the MIX website where the Sessions will be posted!

Woohoo ;-)

More (technical) information about MIX and the sessions I will attend on my technical blog.

Seattle, Tacoma, Redmond, WPF training and meeting with Microsoft

At work, I am currently (since approximately March last year, actually) working on an application using Microsoft's latest graphic technologies called WPF. In order to train us with that technology, 8 developers and 3 designers involved in the project had the chance to follow a training given by IdentityMine, an excellent firm specialized in WPF development in Tacoma, WA, not far from Seattle.

The training week was amazing, and we also took the opportunity to drive to Redmond, where Microsoft has its headquarters and campus, to meet a few architects with whom we were already in contact. After the meeting, we had a "geek field trip" to the company store and the museum.

The same evening, we had dinner at the Space Needle, a very impressive experience in the revolving restaurant.

All in all, it was an amazing week, a great opportunity to meet some of the key players with this new technology and to exchange experiences and create new contacts.

More (technical) info about this trip here, here, here, here and here.

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