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Andrew's Blog

Recent Posts

• Awarded Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Award for 2009

  Posted: 01 Jul 2009 at 21:53 by Andrew Westgarth

  Today I received an email from Microsoft to tell me I’d been awarded the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Award for 2009, to follow the award which I received in 2008.  I am very pleased, and once again extremely humble to be associated with a great group of very clever people around the globe.  I hope I can continue to server the community in the best way possible over the next year!

• WebDD ‘09 – Saturday 18th April 2009 – Registration Open!!!

  Posted: 30 Mar 2009 at 09:47 by Andrew Westgarth

  Yes folks, WebDD is on Saturday 18th April 2009 and REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN for this great community event, it’s free to attend and held at Microsoft’s UK Campus in Reading – register now - http://developerdeveloperdeveloper.com/webdd09/Register.aspx I’ll be delivering a session on the Web Deployment Tool and there is a great line up of speakers and sessions – http://developerdeveloperdeveloper.com/webdd09/schedule.aspx There are limited places so don’t miss out – register now!!!

• VBUG Newcastle: PowerShell 0-60 in One Evening – Tuesday 24th March 2009

  Posted: 19 Mar 2009 at 13:09 by Andrew Westgarth

  Damn, just noticed this has been sat in my blog drafts folder :( Hope this catches people in time. The next VBUG Newcastle meeting will be held at Newcastle University on Tuesday 24th March 19:00-21:00 (18:45 registration) and will be delivered by Jonathan Noble who will be doing a session on PowerShell: Windows PowerShell has been around since 2006, but now that version 2 will ship on the desktop in Windows 7, as well as being in Microsoft's Common Engineering Criteria and several 3rd party pr

• 24 Hours of Firsts

  Posted: 01 Mar 2009 at 04:45 by Andrew Westgarth

  The 24 hours I'm currently writing this post in are all about firsts. First I've just got back from my first ever live gig, and first ever experience of Metallica live! I've been to the Sheffield Arena for the latest leg of Metallica's Death Magnetic tour, it was f***ing AWESOME!!!! Can't wait to do it again! Note to self - why has it taken 28 years for this to happen???? WTF!!Secondly I'm currently sitting in the departure lounge at Newcastle Airport waiting for my flight to Amsterdam and then

• Alt.Net ‘In the North’ Conference – Registration opens at Noon!

  Posted: 24 Feb 2009 at 09:47 by Andrew Westgarth

  Last week Richard Fennell sent through details about an Alt.Net Open Space Conference he has helped organise in Bradford on 17th/18th April 2009. The event will be hosted by Black Marble at their office in Bradford, West Yorkshire, and there will be space for 50 attendees. The format will be the same as previous UK Alt.net conferences. A planning session on Friday the 17th April from 7pm to 8:30pm, followed by a trip to a bar to socialise The open spaces sessions from 9am to 4:30pm on Saturda

• VBUG NEWCASTLE : REARRANGED Parallel Programming in .Net (VS2010) with Eric Nelson Now 24th February

  Posted: 08 Feb 2009 at 20:52 by Andrew Westgarth

  I’m pleased to announce that we have rearranged Eric Nelson’s session on Parallel Programming in .Net (VS2010), which was unfortunately cancelled due to the poor weather, and the event will now be held on TUESDAY 24th FEBRUARY at the same venue.  Please register for the event, even if you had register for the previous date, at http://www.vbug.co.uk/Events/February-2009/VBUG-NEWCASTLE-REARRANGED--Parallel-programming-in-NET-VS2010-with-Eric-Nels.aspx I look forward to seeing you there!

• EVENT CANCELLED: VBUG Newcastle 3/3/2009 Parallel Programming in .Net

  Posted: 02 Feb 2009 at 21:25 by Andrew Westgarth

  Unfortunately due to the adverse weather conditions we are experiencing across the UK at the moment, we have had to cancel tomorrow night's event. Unfortunately Eric is not able to make the trip up at this time due to being grounded at the Airport tonight. We hope to rearrange the event as soon as possible.

• VBUG Newcastle Future Roadmap Ideas

  Posted: 29 Jan 2009 at 10:22 by Andrew Westgarth

  Over the course of the next four to six months, I have decided to change the regularity/format of the meetings for the usergroup in the North East.  I had been speaking with a fellow Twitterer, Jonathan Noble, about desires for usergroups in the North East.  It was mentioned that there are few very IT Pro events occurring in the North East of England, barring the occasional visits by the TechNet Team. Therefore in order to help with my planning and provision of events, with Jon’s help, I&r

• VBUG Newcastle: Parallel Programming in .Net (VS2010) with Eric Nelson – 3rd February 2009

  Posted: 29 Jan 2009 at 10:22 by Andrew Westgarth

  VBUG Newcastle kicks off 2009 on Tuesday 3rd February with Eric Nelson, Microsoft Developer and Platform Evangelist, visiting to cover Parallel Programming in .Net using Visual Studio 2010. Session Overview: The next version of the .NET Framework will come with new classes that start to remove the difficulties in building multi-threaded applications that are able to take advantage of the modern multi-core processor architectures and the future many-core architectures that are coming over the n

• New Year – New Challenge #1 – Project 365

  Posted: 01 Jan 2009 at 23:58 by Andrew Westgarth

  In my last post, which wasn’t intended to be my last of 2008, I mentioned that I was looking for new challenges.  Well one of those got underway in December when I changed jobs and started working for Hydratight in their Software Engineering Team.  However the next challenge which I have embarked upon started today.  I have taken my first steps into completing Project365 on Flickr! What is Project365? Essentially Project365 is about having one photo for every day in a year.  There are diff

• BUPA Great North Run – Done – Next Challenge Please!

  Posted: 14 Oct 2008 at 22:47 by mail.nospam@nospam.hawaythelads.co.uk (Andrew Westgarth)

  I’m very late posting this but I want to say a big thank you to all of those who have supported me and sponsored me in my efforts to complete the BUPA Great North Run and raise some money for the Guide Dogs for the Blind.On Sunday 5th October, on a beautiful sunny morning, where conditions were per

• VBUG Newcastle: Introducing OpenXML with Craig Murphy – Wednesday 29th October 2008

  Posted: 14 Oct 2008 at 22:36 by mail.nospam@nospam.hawaythelads.co.uk (Andrew Westgarth)

  I’m very pleased to be able to welcome Craig Murphy to VBUG Newcastle on Wednesday 29th October to give us his introduction to OpenXML.  Craig has this to say about the topic:OverviewWith the release of Office 2007, Microsoft moved their document formats over to XML-based formats. This text-based fo

• Developer Developer Day 7 – Agenda Live!!

  Posted: 14 Oct 2008 at 22:21 by mail.nospam@nospam.hawaythelads.co.uk (Andrew Westgarth)

  Yes folks, all the votes have been counted and verified and the Developer Day Team have now published the Agenda for the 7th Developer Developer Day on Saturday November 22nd 2008 at Microsoft’s Reading Campus.  There is a great deal of variety and what is most exciting is that there are a nu

• 11th VBUG Conference 4th and 5th November 2008 – Book Now!!

  Posted: 14 Oct 2008 at 22:15 by mail.nospam@nospam.hawaythelads.co.uk (Andrew Westgarth)

  I have been heavily involved with the Agenda for this year’s VBUG Conference and am pleased to say that we have been able to set up a great selection of topics and a plethora of excellent speakers including the Keynote by Roy Osherove, sessions from Ken Getz, Jeffrey McManus, Oliver Sturm, Tony Whit

• VBUG Online Meetings Return: Tuesday 21st October – CSLA.Net Introduction with Andrew Hallmark

  Posted: 14 Oct 2008 at 22:02 by mail.nospam@nospam.hawaythelads.co.uk (Andrew Westgarth)

  At VBUG we are pleased to announce the resumption of our Online Meetings, and we resume with CSLA.NET Introduction by Andrew Hallmark next Tuesday, 21st October 2008, from 19:30 – 20:30.  I know a few people in my own region have asked for this topic to be covered but unfortunately it’s

• Flash Chance to Win an Xbox 360 Elite

  Posted: 14 Oct 2008 at 21:57 by mail.nospam@nospam.hawaythelads.co.uk (Andrew Westgarth)

  If you don’t already subscribe to the MSDN Flash newsletter, first of why not?? and secondly sign up now to have the chance to win an XBOX 360 Elite.  Microsoft are running this competition until 28th November 2008 for all who sign up to the MSDN Flash Newsletter which is crammed with useful

• New Blog Design and Updated Content

  Posted: 10 Sep 2008 at 11:54 by mail.nospam@nospam.hawaythelads.co.uk (Andrew Westgarth)

  This morning I have put live the new design for my blog. For ages I have been unhappy with the look and feel of my blog, but as I know my limits :), I was struggling to come up with something to replace the default choice of theme. I am pleased to announce now and start using, a great new design,

• Handling Webpage Display Issues in Internet Explorer 8.0 using IIS

  Posted: 09 Sep 2008 at 22:32 by mail.nospam@nospam.hawaythelads.co.uk (Andrew Westgarth)

  I have been using Internet Explorer 8.0 since the release of Beta 1. IE 8 requires more standards compliance in the code of web pages for them to display correctly. Today I was catching up on my RSS Feeds and came across this very useful article - Configuring IIS to work around webpage display iss

• More Great Software for Free to Students From Microsoft

  Posted: 09 Sep 2008 at 20:19 by mail.nospam@nospam.hawaythelads.co.uk (Andrew Westgarth)

  In follow up to my previous post, Students!!! - Get MS Office Ultimate 2007 for 39 Quid! An Absolute Steal!!, I was reminded this morning about Dreamspark which is a great offer for Students to get hold of some excellent development and design software. On offer for free to students who match the e

• Students!!! - Get MS Office Ultimate 2007 for 39 Quid! An Absolute Steal!!

  Posted: 08 Sep 2008 at 21:04 by mail.nospam@nospam.hawaythelads.co.uk (Andrew Westgarth)

  I was recently reminded of this great offer which Microsoft have for Students, Office Ultimate 2007 is available for £38.95 which is an absolute steal! I was reminded of this offer as my Brother is about to start a degree course at the University of Sunderland. This is an excellent