Since getting back from TechEd things have been a bit crazy.  The rest of the week there was a blast.  I got to meet many more community members and catch some really interesting presentations.  I am currently fascinated with the SQL Server 2008 Data Mining tools and am in search of a good problem.   I'd like to turn this into a presentation for the local User Group. 

One of the other highlights was using the Certification Testing at the conference.  After sorting out some issues with the name on my certification, I was able to finally get this logo:

That was not a pleasant test.  The tool just has so many facets to it and it's really impossible to have used all of them.  But the test prep senter at the conference and some reading got me a pass on the first try.

When: Wednesday June 11, 2008 @ 6:30PM
Where: Space Coast Credit Union Corp Headquarters

Want to know what you need to do to keep your DBA happy and make your application run really fast? Wondering if stored procedures are really faster than dynamic sql? Need some good guidelines for adding indexes? We'll spend an hour talking about performance in this very interactive presentation.

Andy Warren of End to End Training will be speaking.

Register if you plan to attend this event

Then will be pizza and magazines available for those who attend. We will be raffleing off a Technet plus subscription at the end of the meeting. 

The day started out with the key note by Bill Gates.  Very nice speech on the focus of their development efforts for the years to come.  We were also treated to the director's cut of the Bill Gates' Last Day video.

I've made some new friends.

Drank my MSDN Subscription's worht of Beer at Howl at The Moon for Geekfest 2008.  It was a nice time and I got to meet many more of the folks from the Florida .Net Communities. 

I arrived on Monday afternoon at the convention center.   I always forget how incredibly large the facility is.  The first glimpse of the floow was empty but beautiful.  The booths were very well put togeather.

The afternoon was spent at the INETA Community Summit with the Florida Delegation led by Joe Healy (Only half of us could vote).  It was a great discussion on the challenges, successes, tips and more of building a community.  I got some good ideas to bring back to the Space Coast .Net User Group.

After the summit was hotel check-in followed by Party with Palermo at the Glow Lounge.  Ran into a former co-worker who was staying at the same hotel and we got to catch-up over copious servings of beer.

I put a couple of collections on Live Maps to help everyone find the where & when of the after hours events at TechEd 2008 Dev.

• TechEd 2008 Dev Evenings - Monday
• TechEd 2008 Dev Evenings - Tuesday
• TechEd 2008 Dev Evenings - Thursday

I was comparing the list of evening events from the IT Pro week to the Developer's week and I have come to the conclusion - we're boring.  The IT Pro week is booked with evening events all over the place on every night.  It really doesn't matter, I'll be in my room in the evenings studying for certs (cough... not...).

These are odd months for the User Groups with the kids getting out of school.  You're never sure what you'll get.  We had a crowd of 15+ attendees. Some regulars and some designers who were new to the group.  Jeff's presentation was quite extensive but paced to not bore.

Next month is going tobe SQL Guru Andy Warren - more info to follow.