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On a personal note...

Etienne Tremblay — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 00:09:40 GMT

I was saddened to hear that Gary Gygax had passed away last week. Mr. Gygax is one of the inventors of the Dungeon and Dragon tabletop game. You could say he started a sub-culture which is no small thing. Most of the RPG games (video or tabletop) all take something from D&D. I started playing in the 80s and I am a still a regular gamer 25 later. D&D helped me learn English, stay out of trouble, fantasize about adventures, travelling to other worlds and dealing with other cultures. It is also great for exteriorizing yourself through role playing. My son will soon join us at the table and it's really interesting how he sees the game now with the age of video games. I hope he joins us and doesn't feel it's too slow ;-).

Good times playing D&D... Goodbye Mr. Gygax and thanks for inventing such a great past time. RIP.

Cheers,

Technorati Tags: Personal,D&D

What have I been up too?

Etienne Tremblay — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 10:17:31 GMT

Well it's been a while since I've last posted, I'm in my eyeballs with stuff to do. We have finally released our internal Team Build offering and I will hopefully soon start my series of post on Team Build. We have just bought a house so getting everything ready running around to see what we need to do, mortgage, boxes, phone numbers, address changes... you know what I mean.

I'm preparing my presentations for the fall, I'll be a panelist on the "Ignite your career" Webcast series offered by MSDN Canada, I'll be in the 4th one, "Becoming your own boss" and in case you are wondering, no I'm not leaving my job at EDS, I'll be representing the Enterprise developer/architect were Derek and Steven will talk about the intricacies of being your own boss. Check it out I'm sure it will be fun. I'm also giving a talk at our upcoming Montreal Code Camp on the top 10 new things in VSTS and TFS 2008. Then I'm flying over to Vancouver to give 3 talks at DevTeach in November. I then move in my new house... crazy spring coming up.

While I'm at it, I've been with VSTS/TFS 2008 (in preparation for my talks) and I have to say a lot of the little things that really get in the way of smooth working have been ironed out quite nicely, for example the Offline experience was very sub-par in 2005 (not to say dismal ;-)) but in 2008 they have smoothed the workflow very nicely it will make for a much nicer experience. There are so many little things, come see me at DevTeach or at the Montreal Code Camp where I'll demo a lot of them.

Brian just announce the immediate availability of the TFSWA for 2008. I just installed it and it looks good. I haven't really pushed it yet so I might come back it I find anything to say about it. There is also a new Clearcase to TFS Migration toolkit released, some TFS 2008 B2 hotfixes

Time flies when you're having fun... ;-)

Cheers,

Technorati Tags: Personal, TFS, Webcast, DevTeach

Route to Seoul (part 7)

Etienne Tremblay — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 00:26:31 GMT

Well we now know who the winners are ... visit http://imaginecup.com/Competition/finals.aspx for all the news and winners in all the categories. Canada took 3rd place in the photography Competition Go Canada!!

For my finals the Software Design Invitational it was an excellent competition and the results are as follows

3rd place: Jamaica

Second Place: Korea!! but they left the stage to fast for picture since the press wanted them.

First Place: Thailand!!!

The winners to the British Telecom Image Cup Innovation Accelerator teams are the first 3 + Ireland, Poland and Mexico you can see them here.

Well tonight is the farewell party and most people will be heading out tomorrow, it was an extremely exhilarating experience to be here. I am humbled and taken aback by the ingenuity of those students. I'm sure a lot of them will go very far. I went walking around this morning at the team showcase where the teams showed their project to the press and other VIPs and I had a lot of good discussions with the students, they really want opinion and feedback on their project and where very happy when I listened and gave them pointers and things to look into to make their product better.

It's been very cool and I really hope to be invited again to judge next year in Paris.

Well this is ET signing off from the Imagine Cup 2007 in Seoul Korea.

Cheers,

Technorati Tags: Imagine Cup

Route to Seoul (part 6)

Etienne Tremblay — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 08:33:08 GMT

Well as promised here are a few pictures of Seoul in the rain. I hope the sun will be back before I leave so I can take a few pictures with sunlight in them ;-). But before the pictures, Day 4 just finished and we saw the presentations from the 6 finalists (see my previous post for pictures). They where all extremely good considering there was 500 people in the room in front of them and 4 VIP judges from the UNESCO, British Telecom, Academia amongst others. I don't know I could have performed that well those student are really amazing. Tomorrow we'll finally know who the big winner is.... stay tuned. Ok now for the pictures.

Go see my flickr profile here for more.

Well that's all for now.... tomorrow, the results.

Cheers,

Technorati Tags: Imagine Cup

Route to Seoul (part 5)

Etienne Tremblay — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 17:21:17 GMT

So the finalist have been announced: Austria, Ireland, Korea, Thailand, Jamaica, Serbia.

Good luck to all of you.

I'll post picture of my visit to Seoul (in the rain) later today.

Update: Here is a picture of all the finalist in action (I don't have the Irish I'm sorry).

Cheers,

Technorati Tags: Imagine Cup

Route to Seoul (part 4)

Etienne Tremblay — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 06:55:33 GMT

Wow.... wow!

What an experience. I saw 22 presentations in round 1 and round 2... 22 presentations in 2 days from students that are so impressive I can't even describe here how impressed I am with them. They presented to small 4-10 people audience including us 4 judges for 20 min with 10 min of Q&A. Nope of them cracked. None of them showed nervousness (although I talked to a few teams after and they where extremely nervous obviously but they didn't show it) and all where amazing.

A lot of applications where using Silverlight, WPF, WCF, the .net 3.5... a lot of this stuff I barely use myself for lack of time to learn and those students not only learned it but where using them to create very innovative UI. A funny story I heard from a team that was using Silverlight in their project was that the Alpha expired last Thursday and the new version wanted to download most team downloaded and installed but their app broke (due to incompatible interfaces no doubt but also due to the fact you need VS 2008 B2 to use the 1.1 alpha refresh) so they where all scrambling to get their project to work while coming here. Their solution move back the clock in order to do the demo ;-). Very clever and effective and they go their stuff working.

It's been amazing to be a judge and to see all those projects. I made sure I questioned every team about some aspect of their project and I'm sure they appreciated the interest some of them have worked 8 months or more on these projects and are really anxious to get feedback from industry specialist list us.

The second round is now over and the finalist will be announced tomorrow at a dinner with the mayor of Seoul. I'm having a great time here and it will be fun to see the finalist's presentations. We (the judges) are not judging the final six, it will be VIP judges that will do the honors.

I try to talk to as much students as possible and give them feedback on their ideas and how they could improve on their design and it's very gratifying for them when we show interest in their project. Friday morning there is a technology showcase and I think I'll go around dishing out wisdom ;-).

The organization is great here. We have good food and great hosts (the Koreans). Tomorrow is a sightseeing tour of Seoul and I'll be talking a lot of pictures... Stay tuned. I'm beat so I'm off to bed.

oh and did I mention... WOW! those kids are amazing!

Cheers from Seoul,

Technorati Tags: Imagine Cup

Route to Seoul (part 3)

Etienne Tremblay — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 14:31:32 GMT

I just got up (6:30am) here in Seoul, yesterday was a recuperation day, I meet many people and talked about the event and what my responsibility as a judge will be. We have a briefing this morning around 9am to go over all of that then we are introduced to the teams. I'm getting really nervous to introduce myself to 500 people including media that will be a really unforgettable experience I think. After that the competition starts and we will see teams from 2pm to 8pm for 30 min presentations. Tomorrow we start a 8am until around 2pm for the second part of the 1st round. Following that all the afternoon we'll see participant that will go through the second round for 40 min presentations until about 8pm again. This is going to be really full days but I'm really looking forward to hearing about all those projects.

Last night was also the welcome party and here are a few shots of that event. Just a few stats from the Image Cup 2007, 100,000+ students from 100+ country have participated and only a handful have made it here so the quality should be very good.

Talk to you all later today after all this first day whirlwind.

Cheers,

Technorati Tags: Imagine Cup

Route to Seoul (part 2)

Etienne Tremblay — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 18:58:21 GMT

여보세요!

I made it to Seoul, after 29h in planes, buses and automobiles in four different airports I reached my destination. I was fairly lucky considering I got no delays along the way and made it on schedule here.

I just got out of bed (12h later) I was so beat I needed a good rest. Here is a picture from my hotel window, it's a little gray here today (but hot and muggy at 27C)

I'm going to go see the organizer and try to get a schedule of activities. Maybe I'll go have a little stroll around the hotel after that.

I'll be back soon,

Cheers,

Technorati Tags: Imagine Cup

Route to Seoul (part 1)

Etienne Tremblay — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 08:04:31 GMT

So I'm en route to Seoul through Chicago. If you recall I'm going to the Imagine Cup 2007 as a Software Design Judge. That will be awesome and after a 24h journey I will get there.

Montreal -> Chicago (2h) + Layover (3h)

Chicago -> Tokyo (13h) + 1day + Layover (2h)

Tokyo -> Seoul (2.5h) + Bus ride to hotel (1.5h)

= 24h

Meeting the finalist and hooking with new friend

= priceless

I'll be talking lots of picture and posting them on flickr so don't worry. oh and as a side note, don't break toes 2 days before leaving on a long trip through many legs and in unknown airports (thank god I have long layovers). I did that 2 days ago and it hurts like a sonavagon ;-).

Stay tune for part 2: The Arrival, booking and first day in Seoul!

Cheers,

Technorati Tags: Imagine Cup

Imagine Cup finals judge

Etienne Tremblay — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 09:02:42 GMT

Well I got the good news today that I was selected on the Jury of this year Imagine Cup in Seoul Korea! I'm super stoked about that it should be a great event and will be great to see the best and the brightest of the upcoming generation.

I will be judging the Software Design category representing the Industries.

You can read all about the Image Cup here

My good friend Guy beat me to my own announcement here, what to steal my punch Guy!! ;-).

Cheers,

Technorati Tags: Imagine Cup