{"id":9895,"date":"2009-10-05T13:23:00","date_gmt":"1999-11-29T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/?p=9895"},"modified":"2009-10-05T13:23:00","modified_gmt":"1999-11-29T20:00:00","slug":"update-on-irish-launch-events","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/?p=9895","title":{"rendered":"Update on Irish Launch Events"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I mentioned just over a week ago, I\u2019m taking part in the Microsoft Ireland community launch events for Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Exchange 2010.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been doing the deployment, Application Compatibility and XP Mode stuff.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Galway was fun.\u00a0 The audience was really into it and asking lots of questions.\u00a0 But the \u201cfun\u201d was the previous 24 hours.\u00a0 The servers that were used in the server side of the demo were delivered late to MS so Wilbour Craddock pretty much stayed up all night to get the demo\u2019s built.\u00a0 I was up till midnight getting the XP Mode and App Compat stuff ready.\u00a0 We were working in Will\u2019s room: servers, PC\u2019s, laptops, home servers, XBox, and cables all over the place.\u00a0 I took a photo (below) which Dave Northey showed to the audience the following afternoon to show how much work had gone into this.\u00a0 The following morning we were late to get our Internet setup and access to the room.\u00a0 Both me an Will were still prepping when the keynote had started!\u00a0 Luckily it all went well with around 180 people in attendance.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

\"clip_image001_thumb[1]\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

Also of interest was the presentation by the EDC guys who revealed that Windows 7 was a global development effort in Redmond, Dublin, Haifa, India and Tokyo.\u00a0 Patrick Herlihy took the responsibility for doing the Exchange 2010 launch presentation by himself and showed loads of stuff.<\/p>\n

In the evening Will did his IT Pro and Home stuff featuring Windows 7, Windows Home Server and XBox 360.\u00a0 The audience really were into it, as usual.\u00a0 It\u2019s a good session and has me considering rebuilding an old PC as a home server for backups.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday we hit the road and set up in the hotel in Cork.\u00a0 The Rochestown Hotel is a lovely place but it\u2019s a maze.\u00a0 Getting from A to B where there\u2019s only 25 metres between them (and steps) makes moving hundreds of kilos of equipment very interesting \u2013 especially when the place seems to be 5 or 6 different buildings just stitched together.\u00a0 We had a hard case which contained the PC demo stuff and on it we moved the server demo stuff.\u00a0 Trying to get from our temporary prep room to Will\u2019s room was not fun.\u00a0 Eventually I went scouting and found a non-obvious short cut.\u00a0 We were in good condition for the demo.\u00a0 I even got to do some work before we met up with Anthony Crotty<\/a> for dinner at a really nice Indian and demolished some wine.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d say around 160 people turned up on Wednesday.\u00a0 It was a quieter audience than in Galway.\u00a0 We altered the flow a little show I added BitLocker to Go to the demo.\u00a0 I also added a wallpaper to the PC\u2019s I was doing a user state capture\/restore on.\u00a0 One or two people noticed it didn\u2019t restore \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 I figured that little snafu out pretty quickly.\u00a0 Will\u2019s at home session was pretty interactive again.\u00a0 The downside for me in Cork was the number of people who were leaving once they got their free of Windows 7.\u00a0 I believe there will be changes to prevent that happening again.<\/p>\n

Belfast is up next.\u00a0 TechDays back in the Spring was good up there.\u00a0 We\u2019re heading up on the 12th and doing the session on the 13th.\u00a0 At this point we have it running very smoothly.\u00a0 I was even able to prep Belfast while we ended the demo in Cork.\u00a0 Then we head down to Dublin on the 14th to set up for the 15th.\u00a0 As of last week there were some 2000+ requests for the 350 seats at the main launch event.\u00a0 MS has prioritised members of the user groups which is great.\u00a0 They are hoping to record the Dublin session for those who couldn\u2019t attend.\u00a0 I believe the invites went out over the weekend to the lucky few who are getting to attend.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a lot of hard work but it is fun standing up there and doing the demos, especially when we are doing complex things and they\u2019re working.\u00a0 I was in bits after travelling nearly 800KM\u2019s and working early and late last week.\u00a0 But it was worth it.\u00a0 I\u2019m already looking forward to see what surprises Belfast and Dublin spring on us.<\/p>\n

I found out last week that my fellow UK & Ireland MVP\u2019s selected my session on Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and VMM 2008 R2 for the local MVP mini-summit in Reading.\u00a0 That\u2019s cool; two years in a row.\u00a0 Hopefully my laptop won\u2019t die in the hotel over there like my last one did last year, the day before the presentation.\u00a0 I\u2019m taking the ferry over this time so I can bring some camera gear to get a little shooting done during the following weekend.\u00a0 It beats being screwed over by RyanAir.<\/p>\n

And in November I\u2019ll be staffing the Springboard stand at TechEd EMEA in Berlin.\u00a0 I\u2019m really happy to participate in this, as a member of the Springboard STEP program.\u00a0 I\u2019ll be there in the afternoon slots and able to attend morning sessions.\u00a0 I\u2019m itching to see where things are going next year.\u00a0 Odds are there will be lots of Exchange 2010 and Office 2010 content.\u00a0 Exchange 2010 is set to RTM in November so it wouldn\u2019t surprise me to see that happen at a keynote in Berlin.\u00a0 It looks like the attendance from Ireland is down a good bit from last year which is a pity.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

EDIT #1:<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

Will has also posted<\/a> a blog entry on last week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I mentioned just over a week ago, I\u2019m taking part in the Microsoft Ireland community launch events for Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Exchange 2010.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been doing the deployment, Application Compatibility and XP Mode stuff.\u00a0 Galway was fun.\u00a0 The audience was really into it and asking lots of questions.\u00a0 But the … Continue reading “Update on Irish Launch Events”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9895\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}