Effective Thoughts

This post includes a recent inquiry and my response. Thought it was interesting...names changed to protect the innocent. ============================= Jeff, I was one of the attendees at the Foo Bar seminar you put together earlier this month. I got a lot out of it and have been inspired to give it a try. I do not have an employer at the moment, nor any extra equipment lying around. I want to install and configure the whole mess on my laptop (dual-core processor, 2G RAM, Vista SP1 -- so it should handle it). I don't want to use the downloadable virtual image as I want to learn how to do the actual installation process. Hopefully this experience will help me in the future. (Or is this crazy and I should just stick with the virtual image?) I have copies of all the relevant software, and am looking for some advice on the best way to do the installation and configuration where the Team Server, SQL Server (I already have 2008 Express installed), and Team Sui...

Until recently, I labeled myself BizTalk-curious but more accurately it would have been BizTalk-clueless (and...curious). I ordered " Foundations of BizTalk Server 2006 " but haven't had a chance to tear into it yet. Serendipitously, (now there's a word you didn't expect to read here...) my firm just hosted BizTalk 101 for a client. As a Microsoft partner, Microsoft was good enough to deliver a 3-day, online introduction training. Vishal Arora , the instructor performed brilliantly. I'm certainly far from expert status but with this training, I at least can eliminate my BizTalk-clueless moniker. If you're a partner and want to get into BizTalk, this training is a great place to start. I recommend leveraging it in conjunction with a client.

One of the avenues for learning I've leveraged this past year is the Microsoft-sponsored ArcReady three hour in-person, bi-monthly seminar. It's held in a dozen or so cities but mine (Columbus, OH) is coming up on February 4th. Click here to register . [...and before you look at the remaining post and say TLDR : ArcReady is free, there's usually good swag and there are some very cool/smart folks that attend...] I enjoy ArcReady because more than likely, you won't see a line of code. As developers, we're constantly exposed to writings and presentations with lots of code. For the most part, I like that and feel it's the best way to learn about software development. However, always approaching from a developer perspective tends to lose the forest for the trees. My opportunities to code have certainly declined over the years but I enjoy coding and can [gasp] actually read a code book and enjoy it (vs. using it as a reference). However, I'm constantly amazed at ...