MVP published 11 part XNA 2d tutorial

MVP Pavel Yosifovich who is passionate about gaming has published an 11 part tutorial on developing on XNA, Microsoft’s gaming platform.

http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/pavely/archive/2010/11/01/xna-2d-game-tutorial-part-1.aspx

http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/pavely/archive/2010/11/02/xna-2d-game-tutorial-part-2.aspx

http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/pavely/archive/2010/11/04/xna-2d-game-tutorial-part-3.aspx

http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/pavely/archive/2010/11/06/xna-2d-game-tutorial-part-4.aspx

http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/pavely/archive/2010/11/07/xna-2d-game-tutorial-part-5.aspx

http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/pavely/archive/2010/11/09/xna-2d-game-tutorial-part-6.aspx

http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/pavely/archive/2010/11/11/xna-2d-game-tutorial-part-7.aspx

http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/pavely/archive/2010/11/13/xna-2d-game-tutorial-part-8.aspx

http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/pavely/archive/2010/11/14/xna-2d-game-tutorial-part-9.aspx

http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/pavely/archive/2010/11/16/xna-2d-game-tutorial-part-10.aspx

http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/pavely/archive/2010/11/17/xna-2d-game-tutorial-part-11.aspx

Wheels for Christmas comes to South Africa

DATE: 5 December from 12 noon till 2pm
Wheels for Christmas… The Largest Santa Claus Gathering @ The Brightwater Commons, Republic Road, Randburg

Simply Santa yourself – dress up in your Santa outfit and join us, as we attempt to set a record for the most Santa’s gathered at one venue
So arrive at Brightwater Commons in or on any set of wheels
Motorbike, Bicycle, Tricycle, Skateboard, Pram, Wheelchair….
While you are here join us at any of our restaurants have lunch, grab a beer or cold drink or simply sit back and enjoy a host of your favourite Christmas Carols and Sing Along to your heart’s content with thousands of other Santa’s!
To register from the 2nd of November go to www.wheelsforchristmas.co.za
R30 makes you part of this great event!
A portion of money raised will be donated to charity

 

Johannesburg Developers: Community Night – 9 November 2010

Direct from MSDEV (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/southafrica/archive/2010/11/01/johannesburg-developers-community-night-9-november-2010.aspx)

Time to get involved!!!!

———————–

Calling all developers in Johannesburg!

Join in with you fellow developers at our Community Night. We’re hosting a range of different communities at our Johannesburg offices to make it easier for you to find a community and take part.

Communities are a fantastic way for you to connect with other like-minded people, share your experiences and learn from each other. It’s also a great way to meet people in your industry and even just have a chat over a drink.

Communities Involved

We’ve worked with many developer communities in Gauteng to make this initiative happen. From next week onwards you’ll be able to attend meetings hosted by the following communities:

• Information Worker (Johannesburg)
• SQL Server Usergroup
• DRP
• Game Developers (a brand new group!)

If you have a developer-related community group, looking for a place to host your meetings (and have food and drinks for your members!) contact us and we can work with you to host your group as part of Community Night.

When? Where? And Other Questions?

When? We’ll be kicking things off next week , 9 November 2010, with our very first Community Night. Community Night will be a monthly event happening every second Tuesday of the month. It should become easy to remember and plan your community activities in your calendar with regularly scheduled meetings.

Where? Microsoft South Africa, 3012 William Nicol Drive, Bryanston (Map)

What time? Communities get to select times that suit their members best. The communities have selected the following meeting timeslots:

Timeslot	Room 1	Room 2	Room 3
16:00 – 17:30	Information Worker (Johannesburg)	-	-
17:30 – 18:30 Food, refreshments and networking
18:30 – 20:00	SQL Server Usergroup	DRP	Game Developers

We’re serving refreshments between 17:30 and 18:30 for the hungry and/or thirsty.

How Much? One hundred million dollars! Community Night is free and you’re welcome to bring anyone else who might be interested in coming.

Do I have to stay for 4 hours??!! Only if you want to. We’re trying to be flexible with peoples’ time. If you want to stay for multiple meetings, you’re welcome to. If you only want to attend the meeting that you’re interested in, that’s cool too.

I don’t live near Johannesburg. Can I get involved? At this stage, Community Night is an initiative we’re trying in Johannesburg. If it works well, we’ll expand it to other cities. We’re also going to work out how we can record community meetings or stream them live online for everyone else to be a part of, but more on that in the future

There you have it. Community Night. Every second Tuesday of the month. Get involved in your developer community, learn something new and have some fun!

How MVPs / Rangers laid 56’000km virtual copper cable to TechED session in South-Africa

 

A shameless copy (With permission) from Willy’s blog, WELL DONE MVPs and RANGERS

MVP Zayd and MVP Robert hosted a great Rangers awareness and integrative TFS discussion session at TechED. For me the session was exciting not only because I noticed a number of attendees showing interest for the Rangers and actively collaborating in the Q&A, but we even had Francisco from Ecudaor, Martin from the UK and Bijan from Redmond in the session. A great example of the distributed nature of the Rangers ecosystem.

Vancouver
Durban
16967km

Redmond
Durban
16998km

Glasgow
Durban
10109km

Guayaquil
Durban
11897km

55971km

What is truly amazing is that the Rangers laid a total of 55971 kilometers (34778 miles) of virtual copper cable to participate in the discussion

Thank you Zayd, Robert, Bijan, Francisco and Martin for your time and for coordinating this fascinating whiteboard session!

The presentation slides can be found here.

By the way …!

… you must watch this video of Robert and Kinect … I am still rolling on the floor laughing Sorry Robert Watch more video by searching for techedafrica on www.youtube.com.

TechEd Africa 2010 Kicks off in style!!

So here we are TechEd Africa 2010, this year I had a companion riding down with me to TechEd Africa. Meet Minkey, Minkey is one of 60 brothers and sisters that are being adopted at TechEd from the community lounge this year.

The community lounge is the hub of the buzz of TechEd and is run by the local IT user groups and the MVP program.

Early Saturday morning, like 6am Minkey was jumping up and down, the TechEd craving was getting to musc to handle, so blurry eyed we set out on the 600km journey to Durban and TechEd Africa 2010. (By Bike)

Luckily for me I had the HD2 with navigation and Minkey the ever excited navigator to get us there the most direct route (No going over Mountains for me this year)

 

One of the cool things about this year is Poken (www.poken.co.za) has joined the festivity of TechEd Africa and every MVP received a free Poken so that delegates can Poken them and get into the Social Media world. After much screaming even Minkey ended up with his poken. It’s all I could do to shut him up a bit, one noisy litter chap this minkey, I’m dreading meeting his brothers and sisters.

Sunday is usually made up of stand setup and chaos as we run around getting everything working.This year we managed to get the now world wide know xbox Kinect on the community stand, so it’s setup and testing testing testing, Oh my word what a workout, I really need one of these, If I can get Minkey away from it.

 

 

At the Keynote he rubbed shoulders with one or two of the famous speakers, a real go getter this chat and becoming a royal TechEd mascot!!!

Then no hard days work is complete without a little party, the opening party was a Halloween street party and Minkey went Ghost busting with MVP Robert as well as finding himself a little witch to keep him warn and safe in this party of demons!!!

 

Welcome to TechEd Africa 2010!!!

 

MSTag at TechEd Africa 2010

This year we will be running the now famous Hunt the MVP game using both Poken (www.poken.co.za) and as last year the Microsoft Tag (http://tag.microsoft.com).

This year it looks like I will not manage to be excluded from this and I now have a tag of my own for TechEd Africa, as well as a Poken.

So keep an eye out for me at the Community stand and come Tag / Poken me, also keep a beady eye on the Plasma screens around TechEd, you will find our tags there as well!!!

My Tag: (puts on the proud voice)

Get “Poken” at TechEd Africa this year

Get “What”, Get “Poken” I tell you, come see me at the community lounge and we can “Poken” with each other. Heck why not come and “Poken” with all the MVPs and community leads while you there.

That’s right we going “Poken” crazy this year at TechEd Africa. What with Cloud computing becoming a real technology, Social networking taking over the worlds interactions and the fact that what  happens at TechEd now stays on facebook; you have 2 choices, het Social or buy a wooden box.

here is what I highly recommend you all do!

1. Pop onto Poken website to find out all about it and why we going crazy “Poken-ing” everyone this year.

2. Sign up foryou own Poken account.

3. Get your Poken device, before or at TechEd Africa.

4. Join us and go “Poken” you friends, and then some.

5. Create your own “Poken” language and make us all laugh at the possibilities.

6. Pop on to the TechEd Social media sites and start expressing yourself. Don’t forget the twitter hash tag is #techedafrica (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=61283041553  & http://twitter.com/teched_africa)

So here is to “Safe Poken”, and pls don’t “Poken to many at one”, It’s ok to “Poken in public”, blah blah blah.

 

Dev Idol comes to Tech·Ed Africa!

 

Shameless plug from the DPE team: original here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/southafrica/archive/2010/09/29/dev-idol-comes-to-tech-183-ed.aspx?CommentPosted=true#commentmessage 

 

Do you have what it takes?

Dev Idol is coming to Tech·Ed Africa, do you have what it takes to be our winner?

We’re looking for the rock star (presenter) of the future! If you’re passionate about technology and development show us!

Enter our Dev Idol competition at Tech·Ed Africa, strut your stuff on stage and wow our judges and the developer community with your talent.

Our panel of judges will select the winning Dev Idol who will receive:

• The opportunity to present a technical breakout session at Tech·Ed 2011
• An Xbox 360

Two runners-up will each receive:

• Entry to Tech·Ed 2011

How is this going to work?

You will have the opportunity to submit presentations to us, we will list them on our blog and ask the developer community to vote for their favourites. The top 6 presentations, as voted for by the developers out there, will be selected to compete in Dev Idol. You will then deliver your sessions for our judges to score you. The winners will be announced once the judges have tallied their results.

• When? 18 October 2010 from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM
• Where? Room B2, Tech·Ed Africa 2010
• How do I enter? Contact us with your proposed presentation. Please include:
  • Your name
  • Your email address
  • The title of your presentation
  • A description for your presentation
• Can anyone enter? Almost anyone   You must be attending Tech·Ed but you must not be presenting at Tech·Ed – we’re looking for new hotshot speakers!
• When is the deadline for presentation submissions? You can submit your presentations until 12:00 PM, 13 October 2010.
• What topics can I cover? You can speak about anything related to development – tools, technologies, practices, something new, something old, something cool – anything!
• How long must my presentation be? Each presentation must be a maximum of 10 minutes long.
• When will voting start? Voting will start on 13 October 2010 once all submissions have been received. Details on how to vote will be published on this blog.
• When will voting end? Voting will end at 12:00 PM on 18 October 2010 (yup, that’s during Tech·Ed).
• When will I know if my presentation has been selected? We will announce the top 6 presentations at 1:00 PM on 18 October 2010 (yes, that’s during Tech·Ed and you’ll need to be prepared up front!)
• How will presentations be judged? We will have a panel of 4 judges who will rate your presentation on: mastery of your subject, the quality of your demonstrations, slides and code and your ability to get your point across. The audience will also vote on their favourite presenter.
• What you should bring: Yourself(!) and your PowerPoint presentation and demo code on a USB drive.
• What will be provided: A laptop with Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate and SQL Server Express 2008 will be available. You will have access to the Internet, but it’s recommended to plan your presentation without this. If your presentation requires the installation of other software, please bring your own laptop (if your bring your own, set your screen resolution to 1280 x 720).

But I just like to watch…

If you aren’t up for the challenge of presenting but still want to be involved you can still join in the fun:

• Vote for your favourite presentations – details will be provided on 13 October 2010
• Join us at Tech·Ed on 18 October 2010 from 6:30 PM in Room B2 and support the brave presenters, have a bit of fun and see who reigns supreme!

This will be a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to seeing people rising to the challenge, getting involved and enjoying Dev Idol! See you there.

- Dario

MVP Interviews

Every month as part of our outreach program, in conjunction with the now famed Microsoftfeed site, MVPS and MSPs will be willingly interviewed and the interview will be public in the Microsoftfeed site.

The interviews can all be viewed here : http://microsoftfeed.com/tag/mvp-interview/ .

So far the following MVPs have been interviewed and we will bring you the new names on an ongoing bases:

This offering has just been launched to MVPs on a worldwide bases – enjoy

Zayd Kara – Visual Studio ALM MVP from South Africa

Bojan Jovicic – Microsoft Dynamics AX MVP from Serbia

Alessandro Alpi – SQL Server MVP from Italy

Fatih Karaalioglu – System Center Data Protection Manager MVP from Turkey

Anil Erduran – System Center Configuration Manager MVP from Turkey

Vasu Jain – Windows Desktop Experience MVP from India

Cengiz Han – Visual Studio ALM MVP from Turkey

Gian Maria Ricci – Visual Studio ALM MVP from Italy

Ugo Lattanzi – ASP.NET MVP from Italy

Aleksandar Talev – SQL Server MVP from Macedonia

Chris Spanougakis – Directory Services MVP from Greece

Leone Randazzo – Solutions Architect MVP from Italy

Mohamed Saleh – SharePoint Server MVP from Jordan

Vjekoslav Babic – Microsoft Dynamics NAV MVP from Croatia

Cristian Lefter – SQL Server MVP from Romania

Andrei Ignat – Visual C# MVP from Romania

Paul Somers – BizTalk Server Architect MVP from South Africa

Paul Roman – Microsoft Exchange MVP from Romania

Yasir Attiq – SharePoint MVP from Saudi Arabia

Anton D. Nagy – Windows Mobile MVP from Romania

Gaël Duhamel – Commerce Server MVP from France

Shay Friedman – Visual C# MVP from Israel

Tamer Öz – Visual C# MVP from Turkey

Mohamad Halabi – ASP/ASP.NET MVP from Saudi Arabia

Michal Valasek – ASP/ASP.NET MVP from Czech Republic

Ayman Mohammed El-Hattab : SharePoint Server MVP from Egypt

Marius Bancila – Visual C++ MVP from Romania

Zeljka Knezovic – Communication Server MVP from Croatia

Emil Stoychev – Silverlight MVP from Bulgaria

Davide Zordan – Silverlight MVP from Italy

Paula Januszkiewicz – Enterprise Security MVP from Poland

Artemakis Artemiou – SQL Server MVP from Cyprus

Mihai Tataran – ASP/ASP.NET MVP from Romania

Mohammad Asem Alhourani – Configuration Manager MVP from Saudi Arabia

Mohammad Asem Alhourani – Configuration Manager MVP from Saudi Arabia

Matteo Raumer – Visual C# MVP from Italy

Matteo Emili – Visual Studio Team System MVP from Italy

Marin Frankovic – Management Infrastructure MVP from Croatia

Karol Stilger – Setup & Deployment MVP from Poland

Adriano Arrigo – Windows Desktop Experience MVP from Italy

Romeo Pruno – SharePoint Server MVP from Italy

Valdis Iljuconoks – Visual C# MVP from Latvia

Valy Greavu – SharePoint Server MVP from Romania

Mumin CICEK – Exchange Server MVP from Turkey

Majid Ardforoushan – SharePoint MVP from United Arab Emirates

Luka Manojlovic – Management Infrastructure MVP from Slovenia

Kostas Pantos – ASP.NET MVP from Greece

Robert MacLean – Team System MVP from South Africa

Wilson Kutegeka – Visual Basic MVP from Uganda

Evren Ayan – Sharepoint Services MVP from Turkey

Tomislav Bronzin – SQL Server MVP and Microsoft Regional Director from Croatia

Mina Nagy – Unified Communications MVP from Egypt

Tarek Ghazali – SQL Server MVP from Lebanon

Andrea Boschin – Silverlight MVP from Italy

Bander Alsharfi – SharePoint Server MVP from Jordan

Bashar Lulu – Visual Basic MVP from Kuwait

Baki Onur OKUTUCU – Windows Desktop Experience MVP from Turkey

Daron Yöndem – Silverlight MVP and Microsoft Regional Director from Turkey

Sherif Talaat – PowerShell MVP from Egypt

Hakan Uzuner – Forefront MVP from Turkey

Ahmet Mutlu – Virtual Machine MVP from Turkey

Burak Selim Senyurt – Connected System MVP from Turkey

Abdul Rafay – BizTalk Server MVP from Pakistan

Hammad Rajjoub – Connected System MVP from Pakistan

Mohammad R. Daoud – Dynamics GP MVP from Jordan

Mohamed Zaki – SharePoint MVP from Egypt

Mostafa Elzoghbi – Visual C# MVP from Egypt

Waleed Omar – Exchange Server MVP from Egypt

Saifullah Shafiq – SharePoint Server MVP from Pakistan

Adil Mughal – Visual C# MVP from Pakistan

Marwan Tarek – SharePoint MVP from Egypt

SPRINGBOARD SERIES TOUR: Microsoft Windows, Office and MDOP Deployment Workshops

www.springboardseriestour.com

Amsterdam – 25 Oct | Stockholm – 27 Oct | Helsinki – 29 Oct | Reading – 1 Nov | Rome – 3 Nov | Vienna – 4 Nov

The Microsoft Get On the Bus Tour is taking a winter hiatus to bring you a new tour – the Springboard Series Tour: Microsoft Windows, Office and MDOP Deployment Workshops!  Amsterdam marks our first stop on a 6-city European tour, en route to TechEd Europe, in Berlin, Germany. Are you looking to plan, pilot or deploy Windows and Office? Our workshops will cover the Office 2010, key deployment strategies for Windows 7, the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack, as well as show you the value of getting trained and certified in these key products.

Learn why Windows 7 has received rave reviews from IT organizations and is setting records as the fastest selling operating system in history, and find out why so many IT Pros are ready to deploy Office 2010. Give us five hours, and you will have a clear understanding of the tools, tips and tricks you need now to jumpstart the successful deployment and management of your Windows desktop environment today. Come join members of the Windows and Office US Product Teams, as well as local Microsoft Technology Evangelists for technical training, professional networking, and real world guidance. Don’t miss your chance to attend a workshop in the 2010 Springboard Series Tour, register today at www.springboardseriestour.com.

Get your Tour updates first! Follow us on Twitter, @MSSpringboard