WPF: Training other developers (Italy)

I am back from Milano, Italy, where I spent the last 3 days teaching WPF to some of our developers. It was a very new experience for me. In the past, I have organized and held demos and presentations already, but it's the first time that I am training other people for more than just one or 2 hours. I was quite nervous before starting the training, my main concern being to be able to say everything I wanted to say about the technology in the imparted time.

The original material for the training was the one we received from IdentityMine in March in Tacoma, WA, USA. While it's great material, I also decided to talk about Expression Blend, and I showed quite a few examples in Visual Studio and in Blend. I really believe that every WPF developer should use Blend and take advantage of its features. The developers' reactions to Blend were actually great, and I am sure that they will definitely use it in the future (I made my demos using Blend 2 May CTP).

I'll be teaching the same training twice more in the coming weeks, once in Zug, Switzerland (which is also where I normally work) (when I am not somewhere else, that is) and once in Pune, India in July. Exciting times :)

Cleaning the backlog: Our February ski holidays pictures finally online

I've been very busy lately. This is why I have a backlog of unpublished pictures. Here's the first batch of unpublished pictures, relating our ski holidays in Serfaus.

Serfaus, Austria

The ski holidays in Serfaus were just great. We had a great time there. Alise went to ski school every day, and took part to the ski race on the last day. She made a lot of progress!! We had very little snow in the beginning, but then the snow came, and while it made skiing a little more "extreme", it also provided us with excellent ski conditions. Finally, to end a great week, the sun came again, and the last two days were simply perfect.

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Microsoft MIX07 in Las Vegas, and Chicago

Las Vegas

One more business trip. I was lucky enough to visit the second edition of the MIX conference, held by Microsoft. This conference is very special, because it is a MIX (hence the name) of contents for software developers and graphics designers. The focus is very much on web technologies and also the newest UI technologies developed by Microsoft, for example WPF. It's also a great occasion to meet experts from all over the world, and exchange ideas about all kind of subjects.

I didn't have much time to visit Vegas, but I had the time to catch Mystère by Le Cirque du Soleil at Treasure Island, and it was amazing (it better be, because I didn't go to the MIX party with the PussyCat Dolls to see Mystère!).

Much more information about Mix on my technical blog

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Chicago

After 3 amazing days at MIX, I went to Chicago, and spent two days in our US headquarters. It was very nice, and I even had a few hours to spend downtown and finally visit a little, including climbing up the Sears tower, once the highest tower in the world (it lost its title to the Petronas towers, which made stupidly proud :-)

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