In early December I had an idea about running a developer event which will run across 3 cities and be available online to bridge the gap between developer communities and speakers. With a little help this event has become a reality and will be called DevRally.

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.

Team Foundation Server 2010 Beta 1 has been available for a while, and as part of the VSTS Rangers projects we have been working with the new builds in virtualized environments. With powerful new features the next edition of TFS looks exciting, and we have a brief look into what's new. Over the next few weeks we will do some indepth looks at TFS 2010 and the new frontier provided by Microsoft.

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.

With Tech-Ed 2009 arround the corner I am extremely proud to announce that Dave Coates, the Port Elizabeth community lead has taken on the challenge to run and manage the 2009 Community Lounge. Dave will be managing one of the most exciting parts of the Tech-Ed event.

Another life update this time featuring information about the response to my role change as an evangelist and community lead, my visit to the doctor and our very pregnant Sharpei Cross.

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 starting the year with a bang. One Development Talk and a Social already on the calendar and DevDays and Tech-Ed 2009 will promise to be existing events for this coming year.

Eben De Wit is running the quarterly DevChat event in KZN on the 13th of November 2008 at the Riverside Hotel in Durban.

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.

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.

We are in the middle of planning for Tech-Ed 2008 and this year the communities are high on the agenda with the biggest ever community lounge planned. Please join us at the Durban ICC for 3 days of technology and information sharing brought by some of the industries best.

SA Developer.net is having a event featuring two speakers. Dion Beneke will be joining us on behalf of SA Architect.net to discuss LINQ and 3 Tier architecture along with a talk on Ajax.

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.