Dev Connections might be much smaller than Tech Ed (I don't actually know, I've never been there). But I have really had an opportunity to meet and talk at length with some really knowledgable people. Some actually now know my name and speak in the hall (I”m trying to decide if that's cuz they enjoyed the chat or cuz I'm scary).
Big KUDOs to Julia Lerman for organizing Women in Technology at lunch today. It was fun and interesting to sit and lunch with Julia, Kimberly Trip and Michelle Leroux Bustamante (all at my table). There were plenty of geek questions and just some fun conversation. Lunch was 2 hours long and literally flew by. I was here two years ago and there are at least 10 times the women here compared to 2 years ago, although it definitely seems it's still less than 10%.
Scott Guthrie - AWESEOME - as always. I've gotten to hear him twice this week. The second presentation was in such demand, folks were listening from the hall. I didn't like that idea, so I went in and sat on the floor. He did non-stop “tips and tricks in ASP.NET“ for a solid hour. All were easy and all were definitely time savers.
Getting ready to head over to a steak cookout. Hoping to hang out and geek over steak, chicken & beer.
The “what's new in SharePoint“ presentations were disappointing. I was really hopoing to see where it's headed now that CMS is going to be no more and be integrated with SharePoint. The only thing I really learned is the names are changing (again). Now it's not SharePoint Portal Server, it's SharePoint Server (I think) and I can't figure out what the name of WSS is going to be - I've heard several. It does appear that the search from Portal Server might be included with WSS in 2007 (hopefully). There was no showing of the new placeholders in SharePoint (previously CMS), but several say “It's much improved“, yet no one showed it.
As an added bonus, I have had people asking to come and speak at the .NET User Group I lead. After having trouble getting INETA speakers, I'm going to have trouble convincing them to let me go to the limit this year. What a great problem to have!