Getting Ready for 2008

A new year comes with a new job and a new perspective.

One of my personal goals this year is to increase my community involvement. There are lots of user groups in Brisbane, and similar opportunities Australia wide. I've filled in my Outlook calendar with all the upcoming events and thought I'd share the list with you as well (for the next month):

• 30/1/08 5:30pm : BizTalk user group - Mark Daunt on RFID support in BizTalk
• 01/2/08 7:30am : VSTS user group - Grant Holiday on securing TFS
• 19/2/08 5:30pm : QLD MSDN user group
• 28/2/08 5:30pm : SQL Server user group

Also, in April (26th and 27th) is CodeCampOz. Although I've never been before, I'm aiming to drive down this year. Want to car pool? CodeCampOz has been described to me as a mini Tech.Ed except without the advertising.

Readify provide presentations called RDNs which I hope to also get moved to Brisbane in the not-so-distant future. RDNs are like user groups, but the content can have more depth. Getting these in Brisbane will be great for the local development community.

My blogging will hopefully increase in both quantity and quality. Currently I am working with Notification Services, Visual Studio 2008 and .Net 3.5. All new technologies for me, which means more tidbits to learn and share with you.

I've also decided to move my blog to Windows Live Spaces. As portals go its not too shabby, and has a nice layer of extensibility. The official link is here. If you have a windows Live account then its easy for you to leave comments. Oh, and add me as a friend! I am currently cross posting to both old and new blogs for now, but you should definitely subscribe to the new version as soon as possible.

There's some projects I'd like to attack this year. I've found a podcast receiver that works on Vista called PrimeTIme Podcast Receiver, but am not wowed by it. So one of my plans this year is to build a podcast subscription tool. Could be a good candidate to learn some WPF as well.

I also want to work on a patterns web site that provides code examples in multiple programming languages.

Most importantly, this year I will get certified. I've delayed it for too long. I have a few certifications in mind long term, but currently I am aiming for MCTS in Web Applications.

Let me know if there is something you would like me to cover in my blog. Otherwise the direction will be random (as it has been). Also, if you would like to provide feedback on how to improve my writings/content, please feel free to be open and honest since it will only benefit you when my style gets better.

Watch this space.