Hear me as a guest on .NET rocks.

That is all I have to say, besides a very very late night celebrating with the locals over the win in the Africa Cup semis.

I have to hand it to Microsoft. Just when I get pissed off at them for Office Service Pack 2 (don’t ask) they remind me why I am in their camp.

I am in Cairo, Egypt at the moment with the anti-suck gang (the four founders are all here: me, Goksin, Malek, and Clemens) preparing for the 2006 Middle East Developers Conference. What is amazing is that we have 5,000 developers turn out for this event.

Why I give Microsoft so much kudos for putting on this event is that the developing world needs to build a rock solid technology based economy and Microsoft is right there leading the way. The charge for this conference is very low (about $8.75 USD) and the entire amount of money collected won’t even cover Clemens’ mini-bar bill. Microsoft has made such a commitment to the developing world, it is quite impressive.

I’ll be giving 4 talks:

XML in SQL Server 2005: The XML Data Type

Ranking and Windowing Functions in SQL Server 2005

Building Enterprise Applications with SQL Server Mobile 2005

Writing Secure ASP .NET Code

Thursday, January 19, 2006 2:30 PM - Thursday, January 19, 2006 8:00 PM (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada) Language: English-American Microsoft Corporation Central Park Conference Room 1290 Avenue of the Americas 6th Floor Microsoft Facility New York New York 10104 United States

General Event Information
Products: Visual Studio.

Recommended Audience: Developer and IT Professional.

On this day of thanks, especially right after Veterans Day, please take a minute between your turkey and football to give thanks to all the men and women in our armed services stationed overseas this holiday-as well as the families of the fallen soldiers.

While you are at it, take some time to remember the Tsunami victims, Katrina and Rita as well our friends in Pakistan.

Tomorrow is the 12th annual Technology Enterprise Forum here in Manhattan.

I was a judge this year in the outsourcing category. It was fun to judge the submissions, you can submit yourself for a best practice award next year here.