INETA APAC Newsletter March 2007

About INETA
INETA is the next evolution in user group communities—a non-profit, independent organization, chartered with supporting all user groups interested in the Microsoft .Net platform.

INETA is run by a Board of user group leaders, elected by their peers, and supported by Microsoft Corporation and other sponsors.

Happenings Around INETA Asia Pacific (APAC)

Happenings around Asia Pacific
Most users groups have now received their CLT kits and user group launch events are being held across APAC. We’re glad to be instrumental in helping get the latest training material to all our members. I’d like to welcome you’ll to drop us an email if there is any specific products you or your members might be interested in and we could work with the concerned vendors to help arrange NFR copies of software and training.

The 2nd INETA Conference was held in Seoul, Korea on the 11th of Feb and was attended by 400+ people even though it was a Sunday which is quite amazing. All sessions were presented by user group leaders. Meanwhile across Japan we’ve had a restructuring of the volunteer force and the volunteers there are getting close to establishment as a Non Profit Organization which would further help in better functioning.

Our Speaker Bureau has now started receiving applications from potential new speakers in Australia and New Zealand, which will enable us to deliver speakers for user group meetings. Internally we’re now evaluating the new Sharepoint 2007 to enable a better system for collaboration between our volunteers across Asia Pacific. If you have expertise in Sharepoint we appreciate if you could help us with this effort.

The vendor management team at INETA APAC is looking specifically for people who might be interested in working with various software vendors across APAC. This is an opportunity to be the first to get your hands dirty with various key products from vendors sometimes before they hit the market and at times with exciting new products. This is an exciting opportunity to establish relationships and be the Santa Claus for our member groups by working with vendors to provide goodies, software and valuable training. If you would be interested in this effort please drop us an email.

Sanjay Shetty,
President, INETA APAC sanjay.shetty@ineta.org

Editor's Note

In this issue, we bring you shots of L.O.V.E in action in the various countries in APAC. We share with you the events being organized by the various communities in APAC focusing on VISTA, Office 2007 and .Net 3.0.

If you have a story or photos to share about an event happening in your region, do send us an email so that we can feature it in the newsletter.

The newsletter committee is looking for volunteers in this team who can assist in various areas such as data collation, editing, proof reading, design and formatting etc. Please feel free to drop an email to weehyong.tok@ineta.org

WH
Editor, INETA APAC
Newsletter Team

The APAC .Net Channel

Usergroup Activities around APAC

India

Madurai
by Nirmalanand Jebakumar

The MaduraiDotNet Community Launch of Windows Vista
Conference Hall,CSE Dept. of Thiagarajar College Of Engineering on the 3rd of February 2007

The MaduraiDotNet Community Launch of Windows Vista was held at the Conference Hall,CSE Dept. of Thiagarajar College Of Engineering on the 3rd of February 2007. The keynote address was given by Mubbasara which was followed by a talk on MaduraiDotNet User Group and its activities by Arun Kumar. A session on the Windows Vista-Key Features was handled by Nirmalanand, Microsoft Student Partner. This was followed by two sessions, one on Fundamentals of Windows Vista & the next on Web 2.0 which was handled by Padmashree, Microsoft Student Partner.

Over 100 students attended the launch with students from Madurai Kamaraj University, KLN College of Engineering and Kamaraj College of Engineering & Technology. A session on Introduction to .NET was handled by Kishore for the newbies. Students were given awareness on the ongoing Imagine Cup 2007.Goodies were given to the attendees who got the answers right during the quiz session.

Towards the end of the technical session, Hands-on-lab on Windows Vista & .NET 3.0 was conducted and it was guided by students of the MaduraiDotNet Team. Over 70 students attended the HOL. All the attendees got an opportunity to get a feel of Windows Vista and the capabilities of .NET 3.0. The vote of thanks was given by Jebasingh. The entire event lasted for 4 hours and the event was a big success.

A big Thanks to the INETA APAC Team for supporting the MaduraiDotNet User Group from the very beginning and to all the people who have made this possible.

Here are some of the snaps taken during the launch.

The Audience at the launch

The Hands on Lab in progress

Korea

2nd INETA Conference in Korea
by Dongbum Lee

The 2nd INETA Conference in Korea was held at the Gunkook University new Millennium Hall on 10th Feb 09:00 ~ 18:00. About 500 INETA members (comprising of professional developers) attended this conference.

Most of the sessions focused on the exciting new features in .NET Framework 3.0, and covered the following topics:

• Windows Communication Foundation Overview and Utilization Strategy
(by Hoons.net)
• Peer to Peer Programming using WCF (MHVB)
• Pattern for .NET Developers (Devpia)
• Ready for Window Workflow Foundation (WaglWagl)
• Debugging Microsoft .NET 2.0 Application (DebugLab)
• WPF/E Update (Taeyo.net)
• isBoard, Web 2.0 and Open Source (Neovis)

The key highlight of the event is the community meeting booth. Since most of all community members interact via the online community, the community meeting allowed them to meet fellow members face-to-face, and sparked off many interesting discussion. Each of the communities also prepared fun events for members to participate in As you know, *first key of what community is* is people. Through this event, each of the communities built a stronger relationship with community members.

In every conference, community leaders are strongly encouraged by members who attended this event. All the events are operated by community members. who come as early as 7am to make preparation. Microsoft supported the event; and INETA Korea did the organization and planning (which took about 3month). An event agency helped to handle the logistics ; whereas all the other events and decorations were done by the community leaders in Korea. In addition, we also ensured that we shared with the community members what INETA Korea is about via the session list and programs.

Malaysia

Kuala Lumpur
by Chua Wen Ching

MIND February 2007 Special Edition: Introducing Lego Mindstorms Development

Mark this day February 10, 2007. This was the 1st step for MIND community to move into Robotics field. This was something I wanted to achieve for the MIND community a year ago.

It was not so easy to find working professionals and hobbyist that specializes on Lego Mindstorm Development in Malaysia. Thanks to Eric, Andrew and the 2 guys from Sasbadi. Sasbadi is the local distributor for the Lego Mindstorm and also the Lego educator center in Malaysia.

We were surprised to know that there were already Lego Mindstorm exposures at the primary and secondary school levels. The speakers had shown us videos about these young talents building up robots to compete against the world. I believe this will be potential and I really hope that I can encourage members to leverage Microsoft Robotics on this platform.

The speakers demonstrated LabView programming with real Lego Mindstorm robots. There was one demo which the speaker tried to show how a robotic car utilizes the sensors for parking.

Even though this event was slightly smaller than the normal one with 28 people excluding speakers and committee, however all of them had praised the event to be the greatest and coolest ever. I am guessing probably it is robotics and is something new to all of us who come from the enterprise software development.

I will like to thanks Microsoft Malaysia and O’Reilly for the sponsored goodies. Check the pictures as below.

Left: The crowd waiting for the speakers to start

Right: The presentation slides featuring MIND community, Sasbadi and Lego Education

Left: The Lego Mindstorm NXT kits

Right: Eric explained on Lego fundamental development. It looks alike Windows Workflow Foundation Designer.

Left: Andrew showed how you can use a remote control to navigate a car? It is possible using a mobile phone too on Bluetooth technology.

Right: Wen Ching took some pictures with the participants.

Singapore

Spreading the message of L.O.V.E. on Valentine’s Day
By Lilian Quek

14 February 2007

February 14 is the day of love due to Valentines Day, but more importantly, it is also the month of LOVE (say it with me: The month of LuuuV) as Microsoft WW prepare for the launch of Windows Vista and Office 2007. Whoever said that Valentine’s Day are meant only for lovers will eat their words after they have witnessed the LOVE Stunt organized by the Microsoft Singapore subsidiary!

The Singapore subsidiary was no exceptional as we prepared for this massive Vista excitement, bound to kick dust into the air! An estimate of 500 employees, partners, customers and MVPs, all dressed in black “WOW” t-shirts boarded the Microsoft branded “WOW” train for her maiden journey from the Singapore Expo all the way to Raffles Place, with the aim of spreading the message of L.O.V.E. on Valentine’s Day. All of us got to experience more “WOW” inside the train with a string of endless fun and entertainment. The finale came when all of us shouted “WOW” when the train stopped at Raffles Place, whereby we disembarked and distributed VISTA freebies and VISTA heart shape red balloons to the people at the station.

Special thanks to the following 9 MVPs (Alan Andrew Dias, Alan Yap, Ai Chung Chong, Dennis Chung, Edwin Sarmiento, Lawrence Ng, Sarbjit Singh Gill, Sukhdev Singh and WH) as well as Audience Marketing Manager Yasmeen Hameed Chan, Senior Community Program Manager Howard Lo and Developer Evangelist Chewy Chong for celebrating this milestone with Microsoft!

Also heartiest thanks goes out to the unsung heros—Singapore Microsoft Staff who labour behind the scenes to ensure the “WOW” journey was an unforgettable journey of a lifetime!

(Left) Microsoft’s Cupids: 500 Microsoft staff gathered at the Expo MRT station this morning to embark on a train journey with the aim of spreading the message of L.O.V.E. on Valentine’s Day. L.O.V.E stands for the Launch of Microsoft® Office 2007, Windows Vista™, and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, which took place in Singapore early this month.

(Right) From Microsoft with L.O.V.E.: 500 Microsoft staff gathered at the Expo MRT station before boarding a special Microsoft-branded train to spread the message of L.O.V.E., which stands for the Launch of Microsoft® Office 2007, Windows Vista™, and Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007.

SIN MVPs in love with the Wow train.
Microsoft Challenge Cup 2007 (MCC)
By Shen Yizhe

The Microsoft Challenge Cup 2007 (MCC) was held at the Microsoft Auditorium on 20th Jan 2007. A total of 88 people representing 7 Institute of Higher Learning (IHL) in Singapore took part in the challenge. The organizing committee consists of Microsoft Student Partners (MSPs): Shen Yizhe, Cheong Kah Meng and Tan Chun Siong.

The whole-day event consists of 2 talks (on Vista and Office2007) given by the student partners, Shen Yizhe and Tan Chun Siong.

This was followed by a 5-stage quiz style online challenge. In addition, teams are given additional points if they come to the competition in Vista colours.

To support the competition, the MSP team also developed an ASP.NET application, called Arena which is used to provide live scoring of the event. The champion team walked away with Windows Vista Ultimate and the Challenge Trophy.

Left: Joseph (left) and Yizhe (right)
Right: ASP.NET Live Scoring Application - Arena

Vista Colours!

Prizes for MCC

Top: MCC Champions
Bottom: 1st and 2nd Runner-ups

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