Joy's Blog

Passed 070-630 with 1000 marks…!

2008-10-11T20:49:00.000+05:30

I wanted to write the exam 070-630 - TS: Configuring Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 but unable to get a free time. Finally I scheduled it and took the exam today.

There were more than 50 questions and all of them are very familiar to me since I was doing MOSS related work for last 1 ½ years.

Guys, don't be afraid. Just go and take the exam, because 2nd shot is FREE.

Proud to be a part of TechEd SEA 2008..!

2008-08-20T10:55:00.003+05:30

I got an golden opportunity to take part in TechEd SEA 2008 as a presenter. Not only me. Prasasnna also participated as a presenter for the 2^nd time.

We landed in Kuala Lumpur on 10^th and we had to participate presenter preparation session on 10^th evening. TechEd started on 11^th and I was surprised to see my picture in the keynote session. They played the Microsoft Learning Case Study which I participated, in the big screen.

There were very good technical sessions in the TechEd and I feel very sorry about not having a TechEd in Sri Lanka for the past 02 years.

I participated in 02 Light & Easy sessions, one talks about the Value of Certification and the other talks about the Value of MCT.

We had fun during presenter party and I came back to Sri Lanka on 15^th Friday.

Hope to fly Malaysia in 2009 to present in TechEd SEA 2009.

Are you attending to TechEd SEA 2008..?

2008-07-28T09:24:00.003+05:30

After two (2) consecutive years, we are excited to hear that TechEd SEA 2008, Microsoft's premier and largest annual conference, is back with full force! This year, they are offering opportunity to learn, connect, explore, evaluate, problem-solve and ultimately experience and realize the full potential not only of the technology, but of our own!

There are 19 Sri Lankans already registered to this event to fly to Malaysia, and get most out of Microsoft TechEd SEA 2008. Above all, what is so important for us is, you can see a Sri Lankan doing a Break-Out session in TechEd SEA. Who is that? No one else, he is Prasanna (as you might have already guessed).

Here is what you get this year in TechEd SEA (http://www.microsoft.com/malaysia/techedsea2008/default.mspx ):

More than 2000 participants from 33 countries
73 sponsors / exhibitors
109 of speakers: 49% Microsoft Corp Speakers
51% Local Speakers
158 Hands-On Labs
38 Instructor-Led Labs

And also:

GeekOut Party
Tech·Ed Fest
Women in Technology

More importantly:

Microsoft Learning Pavilion (http://www.microsoft.com/malaysia/techedsea2008/msl.mspx )

I'll be attending TehcEd SEA 2008 specially for contributing to Microsoft Learning Pavilion. What is so important about it? If you are attending TechEd SEA, make sure you attend to session "Why get Certified? MS Most Valuable Professional speaks" on 13^th August, 06:00 pm onward. You will be provided lots of valuable information about Microsoft Certification.

See you in Malaysia…!

Microsoft Learning Case Study…!

2008-06-24T07:19:00.003+05:30

Finally they have released the Microsoft Learning Case Study to public. Please feel free to see what we have done.

Written Case Study:

http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=4000002017.

Video Case Study:

http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=4e3c9e75-3049-4bbc-ba23-e35315268b48

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6FQg7EkKNU

Proud to be a part of Microsoft Learning Case Study…!

2008-05-09T11:19:00.003+05:30

Learning is an integral part of our life. I used to say "Learning never stops..!". Being an IT professional, learning has to be an internal plug-in to your life style. If you spend 1 day without learning any new thing, you will be outdated. This is very close to Charles Davin's theory of evolution.

Microsoft is very committed to provide content on new technologies in order to keep every individual up-to-date. Microsoft Learning is a very aggressive team within Microsoft Corporation. Certification is the only way we can showcase the competency within community. According to a recent survey conducted by IDC, Microsoft Certification helps to increase business market value by up to 40%.

Microsoft wanted to prove IDC's statement by doing a Customer Solution Case Study about Microsoft Learning. I got an golden opportunity to be a key member in this case study and they have release the final version of written case study.

This is the written case study and there is a video case study also which will be released very soon. Guys, it's true. I'm a very good living example of how Microsoft Certification helps us to increase value of our career (which in turn increases the value of the organization).

Case Study

.NET Framework 3.5 Enhancements Training Kit…!

2008-04-24T23:20:00.000+05:30

On 21^st April, Microsoft published a preview of the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 Training Kit (currently named the .NET 3.5 Enhancements Training Kit). The preview release contains 06 hands-on-labs for the new features such as Astoria, the Entity Framework and ASP.NET MVC.

Microsoft says, "The .NET 3.5 Enhancements Training kit builds on the success of the Visual Studio 2008 Training Kit which resulted in 70,000 completed downloads since being released in November. These training kits provide a way for developers to grasp the breadth of the entire release, as well as dive deep into a specific technology."

The .NET 3.5 Enhancements Training Kit covers the technologies in the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 release and the out of band releases that are a part of the same wave, namely ASP.NET MVC and the ASP.NET Silverlight controls. Currently, the training kit contains six hands-on labs, made up of the following technologies:

ADO.NET Data Services
ADO.NET Entity Framework
ASP.NET AJAX History
ASP.NET Dynamic Data
ASP.NET MVC
ASP.NET Silverlight controls

All six labs contained within the kit have been tested and validated by customers during 02 .NET 3.5 SP1 training workshops held in Redmond. We will continue to receive customer and field feedback on the labs and incorporate the feedback into future iterations. There will also be new versions of the training kit with additional content, including presentations, demo scripts and screencasts.

http://lostintangent.com/2008/04/16/net-35-enhancements-training-kit/

Source: MVP Communications

From Seattle to Austin, Texas..!

2008-04-21T14:08:00.000+05:30

I came to Austin, Texas from Seattle today. It was a 4+ hour journey from Seattle to Austin. Purpose of this visit is to meet our CEO & COO and to brief them about SharePoint.

I stayed in Embassy Suite Hotel which is very near to Gateway shopping complex. I stayed 3 nights there and Marko took me around the Austin city and I saw great University of Texas too. It was a very nice and calm city. I wish I was born there. Only thing came to my mind is Harry Potter. It was so beautiful city.

Thanks Marko, for taking me around the city.

MVP Summit 2008..!

2008-04-19T23:32:00.001+05:30

What an amazing/ exciting week it was. One of my dreams came true. The MVP Global Summit 2008 just got over today and it was really exciting event. We got an opportunity to meet product teams at Microsoft. Microsoft proved that they are a company which listens very well to its customers by giving us an opportunity to talk to product teams. They showed us what's going to come next and they collected lots of feedback from us as to how they can improve the quality of their products.

Event started with the key note of Sean founder of Community concept and ended with the keynote of Ray Ozzie-Chief Software Architect and Steve Balmer-Chief Executive Officer in person.

On 16^th night we had our attendee rock night at EMP-Enterprise Music Project, and got an opportunity to see Science Fiction Museum also.

On 17^th evening, we all went to Space Needle and looked at the beautiful city of Seattle. When we came to Seattle, it was 4^o C temperature and it was going down and they were expecting snow today.

Photos:

Crab Pot Dinner http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/send2joy/MVPSummit2008CrabPotDinner
MVP Summit Day 1 http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/send2joy/MVPSummit2008
Microsoft Campus http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/send2joy/MVPSummit2008MicrosoftCampus
Rock Night http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/send2joy/MVPSummit2008RockNight
MVP Summit Closing Event http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/send2joy/MVPSummit2008ClosingEvent
City of Seattle http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/send2joy/MVPSummit2008Seattle

What is Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Search (MOSS/S)..?

2008-04-17T07:24:00.000+05:30

We know about Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS), differences between them and when to use each of them. What about Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Search (MOSS/S)?

We need/ use MOSS/S in the following 02 scenarios;

You have implemented WSS 3.0 due to cost factor of MOSS and you need searching capability across multiple web sites. The major limitation of WSS is it does not allow searching across multiple web sites. But you decided to implement cross web search facility without investing on MOSS. Now you can obtain MOSS/S through volume licensing and deploy on top of WSS 3.0 and get cross web search facility. It integrates seamlessly with WSS 3.0.
You have implemented MOSS due to its competing feature set and you decided to implement a separate Search Server for balancing the load of MOSS implementation and due to hi demand of searching. You can buy MOSS/S and setup a separate Search Server on top of MOSS implementation and get a great performance improvements of cross web search.

Visual C# 2008 Keybindings..!

2008-04-15T16:56:00.000+05:30

If you are a keyboards shortcut fan, here is what you need. This poster contains all the default keybindings in Microsoft Visual C # 2008 environment. Download it and get familiar with all the shortcuts in order to speed up your coding life.

1 hour in Microsoft Video Studio..!

2008-04-13T23:23:00.000+05:30

I landed to Seattle today morning and rushed to Microsoft building 127-Microsoft Video Studio. This is part of the case study that we were doing about "Value of Microsoft Certification".

I went for the video recording. There were so many excitements. First time in Seattle, first time in to Microsoft Video Studio and first time in front of a camera.

No make-up, with my red eyes due to sleepless 21 hours of flight to Seattle. With all these constraints, I believe that I did my best to make this a success. This video case study is going to be around 5 minutes and there were 6 of us contributing to compile this.

There were 4 of them-Microsoft, showing their colors with cameras, interviewing, etc. Big thanks to them for helping me to go through this great experience.

Sorry guys, I couldn't take any pictures today. Just wait for the video.

I’m in Seattle, USA..!

2008-04-13T23:13:00.000+05:30

I landed in Seattle today morning to attend MVP Global Summit 2008 in Microsoft Campus-Redmond, Seattle, USA. This is the 1^st MVP Summit I'm attending and I feel it's worth flying 24+ hours for traveling and spending some big money on this. We have some existing sessions lined up on Visual Studio 2008, SQL Server 2008 & Windows Server 2008. We'll be staying in Sheraton Seattle hotel until 18^th and I'll be flying to Austin, Texas on 18^th for some official work.

It's so exciting to be in Microsoft Campus, and to get to know Microsoft employees & other MVPs around the world. We are starting our event tomorrow and today I have a video recording at Microsoft Video Studio.

We (Allanzo, Prasanna & me) are attending this event and I feel very proud about myself for making this a success.

Special thank to Microsoft for awarding me as an MVP and giving me this golden opportunity to attend this event.

Amazing experience..!

2008-04-03T21:12:00.001+05:30

I realized that I'm not using real capabilities of desktop pc and I decided to install Visa Ultimate x64 edition yesterday. I started installing it and accidently I deleted a very important partition during setup wizard. It had all the important data which I was maintaining for more than 2 years. Now what…?

I went through internet and found a tool to recover my lost data. Everyone said there is no chance to get my data back since I deleted the partition. I didn't want to give-up.

I installed the tool and you will not believe, it recovered all my data (95GB) within 4 hours of time.

This was an awesome experience for me.

SharePoint Customization @ .NET User Group Meeting-March 2008...!

2008-03-05T23:04:00.002+05:30

SharePoint is a very famous tech term in Sri Lanka. I noticed lots of organizations trying to jump into SharePoint and most of them fail. I feel lack of SharePoint resources is the main reason for these organizations to fail. I decided to do few sessions on SharePoint Customization and today I did 1^st session on SharePoint Customization-"SharePoint for Developers".

There were more than 55 attendees even in the heavy rain. Main objective of this session was to show all of .NET developers that SharePoint is something that they can learn easily and get a good career change.

Yeah..! We developed a small SharePoint WebPart from the scratch and deployed to SharePoint..!

MSDN Package arrived…!

2008-01-24T21:47:00.000+05:30

I received my MSDN package today. It took more than a week for me to get it cleared from customs. It has 6285 USD worth software CDs, and cusom detained it due to it's value. For the 1^st time I went to another 02 government places and got my package cleared.

It's time to play with my MSDN Subscription.

My new phone, Sony Ericsson P1i…!

2008-01-17T14:17:00.000+05:30

I bought a new phone and thanks to my brother, I got it from Dubai for very cheaper price. It's Sony Ericsson P1i…!

This is the 1^st time I'm using a Sony Ericsson phone, and reason to move from Nokia is, this has almost all the features of a PDA phone at a reasonable rate.

According to reviews, this has a good RAM and never restarted/ hang and similar to mobile in its size.

Following are the interesting things I noted in this unit:

3.2 MP camera
3G
Push email
Touch Screen
Symbian 9.1 operating system

Following are the good reviews you can read before purchasing this phone:

http://www.geardiary.com/2007/08/08/sony-ericsson-p1i-review/

http://www.my-symbian.com/uiq3/review_p1i.php

New 3G Super Line..!

2008-01-14T19:45:00.000+05:30

I changed my SIM today to a new 3G Super Line and it got connected pretty fast. One SIM with 02 numbers. I'm waiting for my new phone to come to taste all 3G features.

Enjoying MVP Award Welcome Kit..!

2008-01-12T21:02:00.000+05:30

I received my MVP Award Welcome Kit today and I spent quite some time enjoying it. It contains a gift from Microsoft and most importantly MVP Award Certificate.

How to become an MVP..?

2008-01-09T11:32:00.001+05:30

I have got nearly 10+ calls and messenger alerts asking how I became an MVP. All of them said same story that they also want to become one and how to get it. I'm fed up answering to this question and I think following will answer most of their questions:

http://welasharp.net/Default.aspx?blogid=2007112601

ISV Training on SharePoint customization-January 2008..!

2008-01-04T21:58:00.001+05:30

I did 1^st ISV Training session in year 2008 today. There were more than 40 participants from more than 15 different development companies.

Today I did the session on "SharePoint for Developers", which talked about Microsoft Application Platform (MAP), overview of SharePoint 2007 and customization of SharePoint using .NET technologies.

There were only few guys who have done some work on SharePoint, which encouraged me to give them some valuable inputs on SharePoint customization.

I think this is the 1^st community session in this year-2008 and this is the 1^st session I did after getting MVP. I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to do the 1^st community session in year 2008.

I’m an MVP now…!

2008-01-02T13:30:00.000+05:30

Today is 02^nd of January, 2008 which is a new day and start of a new year.

I started this New Year with few little sad feelings in my heart and 1 of them is that, "I couldn't achieve much in my life I the last year". But today morning, as usual I was rushing my last minutes to get ready to go to work and I got a call from Gogula saying that I've been awarded as a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional-MVP. Guys, I couldn't believe that. I went to my PC and checked my emails.

Yes! They have awarded me and Gogula as new MVPs in the year 2008. I was so happy and now I know it was a great achievement that I did last year. What else I could do more?

Now I'm an MVP in Visual Developer: Visual C# category and I feel it's very challenging and I need to do more contribution to the IT Community in the country.

Guys, let me give you my heart-felt gratitude for the support/ encourage given to me to come this far in my life and hats-off to all of you guys. I look forward to give my maximum contribution to IT Community in the country no matter how hard is. Guys I need your maximum support as you did earlier.

Thanks to everyone @ Microsoft Sri Lanka for the appreciation of my work.

First Look Clinic/ HOL: Visual Studio 2008..!

2008-01-01T18:25:00.001+05:30

I went to MCT Download Centre after long time and when I search for content on Visual Studio 2008, I found something interesting:

"First Look Clinic/ HOL: Visual Studio 2008"

It's 3.71 GB and took more than 02 days to download. It's a virtual machine image and I loaded it in Virtual Server. I was so impressed. You know what?

It's Windows Server 2008 Enterprise with Service Pack 1 and it has SQL Server 2005 Express and Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition installed. And hardware is Intel Core 2 Duo 2.40 @ 6600.

It's cool…!

Only problem is it's not activated and we need to activate it. As usual I spent nearly 100 LKR phone bill and got it activated.

Guys, if you are MCTs, just try this. It's worth trying. And remember, this is a "First Look Clinic". So this will not be there for a long time. They will remove it anytime.

Happy 25th anniversary, TCP/IP..!

2008-01-01T16:08:00.001+05:30

January 1, 1983 marks one of the key milestones of the Internet history.

In 1^st January 1983, nearly 400 computers connected to the ARPAnet were made to communicate with each other using a technology/ set of protocols called TCP/IP.

The network transmits data by using TCP/IP. The TCP/IP protocol refers to the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP). Both involve in the transmitting of data in a network. This TCP/IP is the set of standards upon which today's Internet still runs.

Today marks the 25^th anniversary of TCP/IP protocol.

Guys, say cheers in honor of TCP/IP.

Happy New Year-2008..!

2008-01-01T11:25:00.001+05:30

Guys, we are in year 2008! It came early than I expected. Don't laugh at me. The reason why I say that is I had so many planned for 2007 and even half of it could not be achieved. But lots of unexpected things happened in year 2007!

So, I never say 2007 was a bad year. It was good! I met most if you during that time. Let me draw my plan for this year today and expect your wishes, support to achieve it.

And I wish all of you, to have a great life with peace, love, good health in this year and to achieve great success in your life.

MVP Open Day 2007..!

2007-12-16T11:46:00.000+05:30

Oh guys, finally we made it .

You won't believe how many emails went up and down for making this happen. I thought this time also it's going to get cancelled in the 11^th hour.

Finally we went on a 02 days(14/15) (actually 1 ¼ days net) outing to Kaluthara for planning our activities for the year 2008 and also to have some fun. There were 14 guys (Alan, Wela, Prasanna, Ruwan, Jinath, Manzi, Padman, Shaminda, Gogula, Dinesh A, 03 Student Ambassadors and Me).

We appointed new organizing committee (bug shots) for the technical communities (ITPro/ dotnetforum/ SqlServerUniverse) and discussed few major events that are going to happen until April 2008.

Wela announced very sadly that MVP count in the country had reduced to 06.

It was a very fun gathering and I appreciate all our good guys' hard work for the technical community.

Thanks a TON Wela/ Alan for inviting me to this event.

Look forward to contribute more to the technical community with my little time.