On Saturday October 21, I left Noumea, New Caledonia at 11:55 pm, and arrived next day... Saturday October 21 ;) at 8:30 am to Tahiti Faaa. It was quite a surprising experience. A week with two saturdays is not something one gets very often.

Last week end, however, I had to pay back my due, and I left Tahiti Saturday Oct 29 at 8pm, and arrived Midnight Sunday Oct 30 to Numea. It was quite deceiving to have a week without Sunday...

I will never have the same feeling about week days... What I always took for granted has now become very uncertain.

How many Saturdays will you have this week?

11/3/2005 1:11:46 PM UTC     

I have not been flying too many economy long haul flights lately, and was awakened by some remarks from my Lufthansa "flight attendant". I asked about the choice I have for drinks, and was not happy with the brands they had. She said " this is economy, it's free ".

I remember talking with some friends at some point in the past about the service (actually the lack of service would be more acurate) in economy class, and I believe it was Clemens that dubbed it "Cattle Class"...

8/9/2005 1:19:48 AM UTC     

    Oh Boy, Oh Boy... during the month of June, I spent all my time in Hotels, planes, airport lounges ... etc. I only spent three nights sleeping on my bed.

   So, lots of traveling, no so much time for my friends - but I will make up for it  - and a great number of things to blog. I will rest a little bit today, and enjoy a an evening alone at home... Staring tomorrow, I will be blogging about Mauritius Island, Pakistan Developer Conference, Dubai, Lagos, Nairobi and Mombasa. I even have some fun stories like having been baptised with a new name : "Wambua" which litteraly means "Rain Man"... and that was only a side effect of having to have a tribe...

   I am really looking forward to a couple of days of "normality". before I go back to more travel and even more madness.

6/28/2005 9:28:42 AM UTC     

  I have been looking through my agenda for the rest of March and April, and it is a quite busy schedule :

• March 21-23 : Visual Studio Connections in Orlando, FL (just 1 session)
• April 2 - 5 : Microsoft Partner Academy Workshops in Algiers, Algeria (4 full days)
• April 10-12 : Gulf Developers Conference in Ryadh, Saudi Arabia (6 sessions)
• April 16-18 : North Africa Developers Conference in Algiers, Algeria (4 sessions)
• April 25-27 : Developer Coference in Istanbul, Turkey (number of sessions TBD)

  Off course, I have all my regular work with my customers (to finish all ongoing projects, and I will be finished on those by April 8), flying in between locations takes usually one day before and one day after each event. All in all, I'll be home or a total of  7 busy days during the next 4 weeks... and then I will be moving... to Istanbul for good.

3/20/2005 6:18:33 PM UTC     

   This year, I had a great time (again) in Cairo. I had to do 7 presentations at the conference!!! but I still could manage to spend some time with my friends. 4 out of 5 of the anti-suckiness club were there : Kimberly Tripp, Steven Forte, Goksin Bakir and I. We had some very good moments. Patrick Hynds was accompagnied by his wife Sabina and his partner Bruce Bacca. We had arranged to stay for two extra-days, and we did some tourism together. It was very fun and Sabina and Bruce are very nice to hang out with.

   Lara Martini was there too, and I had some good time talking to her. She made me remember writing (which I have not done for quite a while) as she wrote poetry and short stories as well.

   All in all, I got to meet quite a few new people, to do some productive speaking, and to hang out with friend. It was a blast.

2/5/2005 1:48:33 AM UTC     

With Lim Say at the Microsoft Office in the Petronas Towers (tallest building in the world)

Steven is Huge in Japan...

The stairs to the Batu Caves

Entrance of the Batu Caves

Monkay...

Kimberly, Goksin and I Blessed by the priest...

At the Petronas Towers KLCC

With Kimberly at the Menara Kuala Lumpur (one of the highest telecommunications towers)

Eating out on the street in China Town

Petaling Street

At the Chinese lantern Festival (Adam, Goksin, me, and Ee Von)

Brian, Eevon, Richard, Adam, Kimberly, me and Goksin at the Palace of the Golden Horses

9/23/2004 12:17:24 AM UTC     

   Saturday, I was with Richard and Goksin at a techy mall in Kuala Lumpur. We all wanted to get "gigged". I and Goksin wanted a 1Gb SD card, and all three wanted GB USB2 key drives... The mall (which we had visited earlier with quite a few others : the 3 of us and Kimberly, Brian Noyes, Adam Cogan and Stephen Forte). That mall is very surprising... here is the kind of adds you see there :

   When was the last time you saw such a big Disk Drive add in the mall ?

   Off course, there where quite a few other intersting curiosities, like these (current exchange rate is RM3.75 for US$1) :

   The highlight Saturday was getting Gigged (correct spelling would be GBed). I don't think I need to comment this picture :

All I need to say is that we left KL GBless !!!

9/22/2004 12:29:55 PM UTC     

   Since I came here to Mauritius, I have been exposed to an unfair amount of beauty. So much so that this simply cannot be natural. There must be something filtering out any woman that is not beautiful (the only ones you might come across are mainly tourists)... can it have something to do with the sugar cane plantations covering every piece of land that is not a village or beach?

6/28/2004 6:58:52 AM UTC     

   Finally arrived to Mauritius yesterday night, and the place is very beautiful. Tomorrow, with Lee Mungai, Microsoft Developer Evangelist for West East and Central Africa, we will be doing DevDays.

6/24/2004 9:59:25 AM UTC     

   Wednesday, coming back from the Bowling in Area 51, I was the accomplice of Nasser recording a conversion that took place on the bus somewhere around 12:30 AM.The main voice that is on the recording is that of Serge Lenbet. Off course the rest of us, as geeky as we are, were discussing much more technical subject like distributed security and handheld devices used by the mobiles forces...

 Enjoy

6/18/2004 6:55:13 PM UTC     

    I just got back to Casablanca from Karachi, where I spoke at the Pakistan Develeopers Conference. My luggage got lost on the way (the transit in Dubai was tight in time), and I hope I will recover it tomorrow.

   I had promised those who attended my sessions that I will be posting the slides as soon as I get home, and here they are :

ASPNET mobile.ppt (1.5 MB) , Compact Framework.ppt (514.5 KB) , Semi-Connected.ppt (423.5 KB) , Performance.ppt (176 KB) , ADO.Net.ppt (240.5 KB)

   For the code samples, I will bundle them in zip files with installers before posting them tomorrow (I hope).

   The speaking season continues, and I'll be speaking at Lagos, Nigeria Monday and Tuesday, then going to Mauritius where I will speak Friday, then Réunion Monday June 28, and again on Mauritius  Wednesday June 30, before coming back home for a little vaccation...

6/18/2004 1:14:37 AM UTC     

    Yesterday, after a day in which I spoke on 5 sessions back to back, and then had to sit through the Q&A session (not that I had any energy to actively partcipate). Then, with a heavy security escort (the police took us for some really important people as it sems), we all went a bowling in Area 51.

At the bowling, we had fun and very good food. There were all 6 RDs :

From left to right, one can see Ahmad Badr, Hossam Khalifa, Clemens Vasters, Me,Goksin Bakir and Farhan Muhammad.

6/18/2004 12:40:25 AM UTC     

Here is where I am and what I am doing this week...

5/17/2004 10:52:14 PM UTC     

   I promised I will be telling stories about Cairo, so here it goes ...

    Sleeping by the Pharo's tomb: Patrick, Cigdem, Shiraz and I were down inside the Mycerinus pyramid, and there was a nice guide showing us around the sarcophagus and treasures room. Before going back up, they all tipped the guide (I must confess, I was a bit miserly on that one). The guy was so happy with the tipps, and was telling us if there was anything else he could do for us … Well, Patrick asked if we could sleep by the toumb, and I seconded his joke … off course, everybody laughed and we left. Later on that day, Patrick found out he had made a mistake while tipping the guide, and gave him more than he thought he did. So we figured we had a good start on bribing him into letting us sleep by the tomb … Maybe next time, who knows ?

   Can I have some Hummus please ? on Sunday, Steven was going crazy about Hummus, and not accepting to have been in Cairo for more than 24 hours without having it. The problem is that we were at an Indian Restaurant at the Oberoi hotel in Giza (close to the pyramids). So he kept asking for Hummus, and they kept telling him again and again that this was an Indian Restaurant. Since he wouldn't stop asking for Hummus (which is simply the arabic word for Chick Peas), they brought that bowl with Chick Peas in a sauce ...

    Cigdem’s pyramids : The first day, when we went to the pyramids in Giza, we didn’t really buy any souvenirs (except for the perfumes I will talk about later on). When we (I believe it was Cigdem, Patrick and I) went to Memphis and Sakkara on Tuesday, she needed to get some presents for family and friends, and was looking at pyramids. She finally closed a nice deals on some small pyramids, and since she thought she got a nice deal, she took two sets of three pyramids each. Later on the same day, at Khan El Khalili (After the closing session at MDC), she was thinking she would need more presents, and spontaneously started thinking of getting more pyramids … after strolling about a certain number of shops, she finally found one that had the same pyramids she had bought in the morning, but they wouldn’t sell them to her for the same price. There came Stephen, who started to bargain for her. To make the story short, he started, at one point, to propose a Yukon DVD for the pyramids, and the shop owner refused. Well, it was a great laugh, and Cigdem got her 3 new sets of 3 pyramids each (I joked about her using them as Lego pieces) …

   The American selling souvenirs at Khan El Khalili : this story actually started when Stephen started to bargain for the rest of the gang. At one shop, he started (again) to offer Yukon and Whidbey DVDs for souvenirs, and while squeezing the shop owner so much on the prices, the guy simply told him that he would like to see him selling the stuff and whether he would still be talking about the same prices (I spare you some details that I have to sensor, both to avoid wrath from Steven, and because this blog is not adult only content …). Anyway, here is Steven selling the souvenirs, trying to get the walkers by to buy his stuff, and making the bargaining a blast … one great moment was when another shop owner (or so he said) stopped by, and Steven offered him a Yukon DVD for his entire shop (we never saw the shop or even knew if it existed), and the guy accepted …

   Party to Damascus: Throughout the trip, Steven has been evangelizing … a song. He finally got both me and Goksin singing it with him. So let’s all hum together : Its Official, Raise Your Glasses, We’re Gonna Party to Damascus …

That is just part of the story, and I will probably be blogging about Cairo for quite some time ...

1/30/2004 11:35:58 PM UTC     

What is the Sphinks looking at (the credits go to my friend Patrick Hynds for thinking of it)

Pizza Hut and KFC ...

1/28/2004 9:43:23 PM UTC     

MDC04 is over, and it was a great conference, and a very warm atmosphere for all of us speakers.

One great thing about conferences is the get together, and on this one, my good friends Stephen, Cigdem, Goksin and Patrick were here, and I made new Friends ... and that certainly keeps the level of suckiness very low ...

We were a nice gang of RDs and Microsoft People out here in Cairo. Stephen Forte , Patrick Hynds, Goksin Bakir, Cigdem, Lee, Shiraz and I formed a happy gang, that did most of our visiting and shopping together. I have quite a few stories to tell, and I'll catch up with them as soon as I get back home. But to keep suspens high (and to have a chacklist to help me not forget anything), I have stories about sleeping by the Pharo's toumb in the pyramid, the american selling souvenirs in a shop in Khan El Khalili, Cigdem's pyramids, the whidbey barter, partying to damascus, public bargains, and other things as well ...

1/28/2004 1:49:13 PM UTC     

What is the Sphinks looking at (the credits go to my friend Patrick Hynds for thinking of it)

1/25/2004 11:13:03 PM UTC     

Very simply put, I got to the conference a little bit late (after Billg was already there, although not yet speaking), and was siddered to see lots of people standing at the entrance gates (on the street) and not able to enter. The gates were closed and the guards at the gates didn't understand what being a speaker meant...

I had to stand in the street until the Keynote ended and Bill Gates left before they let us in...

Well, the trip is great, and overall, this really soen't suck ...

1/25/2004 11:03:06 PM UTC     

The MDC is a great information source for Developers. Started last year, the MDC is becoming "The" Microsoft conference in the middle east ...

For those who missed the PDC (Los Angeles, October 2003), this is a great opportunity to have a look at the future with Longhorn, Yukon and Whidbey ... The three products that will change Microsoft technology, and place managed code at the center of every Microsoft product ...

This year, the conference will be opened by Bill Gates himself (for the first time in Middle East).

There are a few of my friends and fellow RDs speaking :

Stephen Forte

Patrick Hynds

Goksin Bakir

Selçuk Uzun

Hossam Khalifa

For myself, I'll be giving 4 sessions. 3 sesions on Office System development (using XML in Word and Excel, InfoPath, and Visual Studio Tools for Office), and a mobility session on developing mobile applications with the compact framework (I will dwell quite a bit on smartphone development, on performance considerations and tips, and I will introduce the new mobility features of Visual Studio Whidbey).

1/13/2004 10:49:10 AM UTC     

I think I have posted sometime ago on how much I love Algiers, and on how hard it is for me to get there ...

Well, once again, it was really complexe and time consuming to get there for my office launch speeches.

First, the visa took a long time (More than a week, until I had to cancel the procedure at the Algerian consulat in Casablanca, and use another invitation for a conference of Arab investors, and get my visa through the ambassy in Rabat on Friday afternoon).

Then, there was no direct or reasonable flight that could get me to Algiers in time for my first presentation saturday afternoon, so I had to go through Paris where I had to change airports and spend the night, before taking an early morning from Paris to Algiers.

Once there, at the Sheraton hotel, I learned that a customer can't check in before 3pm (I had to be on stage at 2:30pm, having spent the night awake to be sure I don't miss my flight, still wearing my clothes from the day before, and having not had my shower ...).

There were a couple more incidents in Algiers I will relate on a separate entry.

My return flight on Monday was even more amazing : I didn't know I had to register my luggage 90 minutes before the flight, and when I got to the airport around 10:40am, Check in was closed... There was this friendly gentleman at the Air France check-in area that helped get in touch with the escale chief, who in turn was very friendly, and got me on a flight to marseille, assuring me that I will find a hostess waiting for me upon arrival at Marseille with my boarding card for Paris ... Off course, she wasn't there, and I had to go back and forth between terminals before I got the issue resolved (less than 10 minutes before departure), and got on that flight to Paris. There were no further incident on the Paris - Casablanca flight. I finally got home at 11:30pm ... It would have taken me less time to get from Casablanca to Chicago or Dallas ...

12/10/2003 8:40:31 PM UTC     

Being on a "Microsoft Flight", as strange as it might seem, or, for corectness sake, let's say a European avaiation "microsoft Developer circle" charter flight, has been quite an experience ...

In London, it was an algorithmic challenge to find out what gate the plane was boarded on ... later, it was a guy hunging on the reactor, and the guy just fell down (I didn't see it, but all the spanish guys around me where talking about it, and assuring me it did happen) ... luckly, he didn't seem to hve endured any injuries ...

One hour too late, we where boarding the plane.  well, we borded, but that does'nt mean we departed ...

One more hour, and the plane took off ...

Even if the plane was far from being on time, it did deliver, at least on the first part of the flight, the promise of being a microsoft thing ... the very first movie showing (its an eleven hour flight), was the .net Show covering Direct-X managed ...

All of the movies that followed, even though they were regular movies, they were cartoonish/alien stuf ... which reminded me of that slide I usuallly use with young developers (academia, certain customers) that states, with no ambiguity, that the main influence of developers is StartTrek ... which slide I borrowed from my friend Sidi Ali Maalainein (Microsost North Africa-TS Team) .... I just hope there were some impressionable people on the flight ...

Another totally unordinary thing was the meeting room in the front of the plane ...

Once in LA, thee was of course the very serious immagration finger print and photo taking ... which will be compared to the finger print and photo when departing ... just to make sure my finger has not changed its print during the pdc ... Really makes you feel more secure ...

Then, LA ... it's LA with its high suckiness potential (The level of suckiness is a new standard by the anti-suckiness commission, finalized in hammamet, Tunisia on last June 25 ... it is based on measures of suckiness taken by three major independent source, ie: clemens, steven, goksin and I ... Well, I don't have clemens' and stev's measurement, but for myself, it is strange, but the level of suckniness is keeping quite low ... Great Hotel, huge room, nice drinks and food, and it is warmer than Casablanca ...

10/26/2003 9:10:33 AM UTC     

   I love travelling, and I have a special affection for many of the places I visited before. However, it is rare that my feelings for some place be as strong as those I feel for Algiers. Like most Moroccans, I have grown up in an atmosphere where Algeria has always had contradictory meanings. It has always been the closest people to our own, both cuturally, ethnically, and also in repect of the main caracteristics of the people's personnality (at least for those, like me, whose ancestry if from the eastern area of Morocco, at the Algerian Border).

   Despite the hassle of the Visa, I am always happy to go to Algiers, see the beautiful harbor once again, the kasbah, and walk on the streets of downtown. Yes, I can't wait until tomorrow night (I am flying in the morning, but I will go directely from the airport to the training center were I will be giving an Office System training for developers). I hope Stephane will be up for a dinner downtown.

10/10/2003 5:10:16 PM UTC     

I just got back from Tunis, Tunisia. For one week, I had no connectivity, my AC adapter for my laptop broke down, and Tunis went through some innondations ...

I was doing a training on Office System for a mixed audience of developpers and ITPro, which I will do 3 more times non-stop, in Casablanca, Morocco and Algiers, Algeria. The course covering XML features, SharePoint integration, smart Tags and smart Docs, research, ...etc.

I will have some rest today, and tomorrow I will post some insight into the new Office development techniques (as well as the code I promised last week).

9/28/2003 5:44:21 PM UTC