I have had the honour of working with the Microsoft MVPs for some time now, and have to admit that they continue to amaze me. The South African MVPs are making waves locally and the international MVPs are just as passionate and driven.

Microsoft has officially announced the launch date for Visual Studio 2010 and also released the Beta 2 version to MSDN subscribers with Go Live licenses in place. There has been quite a few changes we will look at over the next few days.

SA Developer.Net has finally gotten a new home after more then a month offline. This has again highlighted the importance of sponsorship to keep these communities alive and well, even with the current recession.

Hilton Giesenow, the well known South African MVP has launched a new podcast called the MOSS Show, covering the SharePoint platform through hosting interviews with some of the more well known, and lesser know SharePoint experts in the world. I have a look at the first 3 episodes and really recommend everyone involved in SharePoint to subscribe.

I have been actively involed in the South African technology community for the last 3 years. I have always been a proud and passionate member of the community, involved as a technology evangelist. I have achieved a lot in this time however it hasn't been without a heavy cost. The time has come for me to step back and slowdown, as my family and my body is not the only parts of my life suffering from my current involvement.

SA Developer.Net KZN is having an event with guest speaker Gail Shaw on the 12th of February 2009. The event will be covering Gail's talk from the PASS Submit 2008. We are extremely honored to host her for the evening and invite anyone interested in development or SQL to attend this talk.

During Tech-Ed I was interviewed by Ruari Plint about South African Communities, in particular on what it means to be a community lead and also on what challenges communities face. The video has been posted on the Tech-Ed Online website.

Tech-Ed Online contains video interviews with key speakers and visitors of Tech-Ed. Currently the South African interviews are available for download from the MSDN site. This year quite a few of the local bloggers and community members featured in these interview.

DevDays 2008 was a huge success and I was extremely glad to have the support of so many people at the community lounge. It was a busy 3 days with more people then we ever imagined but the exposure was amazing.

The MVP's and community leads took over Microsoft in JHB to host the first every interoperability day, an event where Linux and Microsoft technologies come together and proof that there is no borders when it comes to technology.

The move to IT Intellect prooved to be a big adjustment for me, and I am more and more involved with Microsoft and the community. However it is sometimes draining and I seem to be struggling to the adjustment harder then I expected.

I travelled to JHB to attend some meetings with Microsoft and IT Intellect around business and the community. While I was there I was able to meet with various community leads around events planned for the year.

Another life update this time featuring information about the new Microsoft MVP's, some community activity and plans for SA Developer.net.

Overall overview on Tech-Ed 2007 held at Sun City. The event was packed with 2000 attendees and the speakers and sessions where filled with an amazing array of new information from the Microsoft Stable.