Wednesday evening, 19:00. Back home from a day with meetings from 8:00 till 18:00. While checking your e-mail (you always want to do that after being a day without it, don't you) and you see that Scoble and Maryam sent the phone number of the hotel they are staying at. You call them and say you'll pick them up at the hotel in 45 minutes.

So far so good. Until you arrive at the hotel but the police won't allow you to stop. Why? Because Dr. Condoleezza Rice is also staying at that hotel. Because of this I way too late to pick them up, of course.

After picking up Wim, we went to visit the city of Leuven. After having a big casserole of mussels (note for Robert: that was in Leuven and not in Brussels ;), Wim and I gave Robert and Maryam a quick tour around the city with of course a visit to the Oude Markt (freely translated as "Old Market Square"). This place also has the nickname of being the greatest bar of Western Europe. Not many people out there that night though... Luckily we had quite some stuff to talk about: culture, food, beers, Microsoft, Google, Apple, blogging... One thing's for sure, if you're out with the Scobles you're never out of conversation material. Robert is a great guy and knows a lot about so many different things. His wife, Maryam is such a spontaneous and lovely woman.

Before bringing them back to their hotel, we also gave Robert and Maryam the opportunity to see the Atomium at 1:00 in the morning. Luck was definitely not on our side, because normally this piece of art is completely lighted. But not now... Robert posted some photo's of places we visited.

Thursday morning Scoble gave a breakfast presentation to my colleagues at the Microsoft Belgium offices. Besides the "regular employees" also several members of the management team could free up time in their agenda to attend his presentation on blogging. Sweet!

In the evening, there was David's Geek Dinner at Serenata in Zaventem. On the previous geek dinners I attended almost everyone was part of the .NET developer community. (Yup, I definitely should go to more geek dinners.) This time, however, there were quite some people that I didn't met or even knew before. With the risk of forgetting someone, the people that I remember to have seen: Scoble & Maryam, David Boschmans, Wim Verhaeghen, Jelle Druyts, Joris Poelmans, Erwin van  Hunen, Luc Van Brakel, Smetty "I Kissed Scoble", Miel Van Opstal (Coolz0r), Maarten Schenk, Frédéric De Vries (Druppels), Will Moffat (Hamstersoup.com). Also Bart Goossens, author of the Dutch book "Webloggen" of Clickx Magazine, joined us. During the evening we had nice chats on several topics, such as Apache, Windows Media Server, PHP, having blog dinners when interesting people visit Microsoft, open source, and much more. Erwin showed us the coolest mobile application that I've seen since Imagine Cup's SmartRunner. DopplerMobile is an enhanced version of the desktop DopplerRadio with many nice features. This is one of those apps that would convince me to buy a new Smartphone, just to be able to run it. Knowing that it has been written by someone that lives in Belgium just adds that extra touch. Erwin didn't release a beta version to the public yet.

During dinner one of the Belgian national radio's, Studio Brussel, broadcasted the interview that Kaat Mendonck did with Robert and Maryam earlier that day.

Summarized: it was a fantastic experience. Thanks Robert and Maryam for taking the time to visit our nice country (view an informational video). It was nice to hear that you enjoyed your visit!

PS. Today, De Morgen also published a piece on blogging with quotes from Robert.

Update: Maarten Schenk has also published a lot of pics of the dinner.

Are you using C++ as your programming language? You might be interested to hear about Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 from the Group Program Manager of this product... Check out the MSDN Belgium & Luxembourg events page for more information and free registration.

MSDN Evening on January 5th, 2006: A Lap Around Visual C++ 2005
With Ronald Laeremans, Group Program Manager Visual C++ team at Microsoft Corporation

Come and see why Visual C++ 2005 is a must have upgrade. You'll be taken on a whirlwind tour through the 2005 release in this demo-heavy session. Get little know tips and tricks for the IDE and debugger. Learn how to improve the performance of your code using whole program and profile guided optimizations. And see how you can easily leverage the .NET libraries from your existing Win32 or MFC C++ application.

Timing: 18:00 - 20:30
Location: Microsoft offices in Diegem (near Brussels)
Registration: See http://www.msdn.be/events

Steven Wilssens just blogged that he is planning to start a Belgian Visual Studio User Group. Interested to participate? Check out his blog...

Warning: commercial content following...

Together with my colleagues at the Microsoft Press front, we were able to extend the Launch Event promotion on the following 2 books:

• Working with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System for 21,60 EUR
• Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Pocket Consultant for 19,99 EUR

Recently Rédo and Aurelien showed me a very nice website that demonstrates the power (and flexibility) of using CSS to skin your website. Probably I should already have known this, but it was a real eye opener that one can easily work this way.

The concept is quite easy: you have one HTML file and you have to change its appearance only by modifying a CSS file. Graphic artists can submit their CSS to the site owners. After they approve it, the design can be viewed from the site.

All of that on http://www.csszengarden.com/. Choose different designs in the right hand column.

A few weeks ago "The RAD Race" (copyright) was held in Hasselt (Belgium). With 14 different participants, an impressive list of jurors, and a nice concept, the contest looks quite interesting...

I just received the news that the winner of this competition used Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 for their entry. The winners also wrote up a report on their own website in Dutch.

David has invited Robert Scoble and his wife Maryam to Brussels. He was right to leverage this opportunity and organize a geek dinner in the neighborhood of Brussels on December 8.

More details on the 8 December Brussels Geek Dinner is on David's blog...

If you understand Dutch and want to get up to 5 .be domains for free, you should register before 30 November on the Combell website: http://www.combell.com/pcworld/. While you're there, you could also check out their ASP.NET hosting offer (webpage also in Dutch); it's also free till the end of 2005.

Only a few days left to start a free 90-day subscription to Microsoft E-Learning. You can register for the following courses free of charge till November 17, 2005:

• Clinic 2551: Introduction to Visual Studio Team System
• Course 2924: Building Data Components in Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005
• Course 2925: Building Managed Code for SQL Server 2005 and Creating SOA Applications with Visual Studio 2005
• Course 2926: Building Windows® Forms Applications with Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005
• Course 2927: Building Web Applications with ASP.NET 2.0
• Course 2928: Implementing Data Access and Security in an ASP.NET 2.0 Web Application
• Course 2929: Implementing Wizards, Site Navigation, State Management, and Configuration in ASP.NET 2.0
• Course 2930: Implementing Master Pages, Personalization, and Web Parts with ASP.NET 2.0

After November 17, these trainings will still be available but not for free.

Blatantly copied from the site:

Watch Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer introduce SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005 and BizTalk Server 2006 in the worldwide launch event in San Francisco. See how this next generation application platform makes the next leap in productivity, scalability and availability for mission critical applications.

So tune in at 18:00 (if you live in timezone GMT+1) -- http://www.microsoft.com/emea/steveballmerlive/

During several conversations with developers I noticed not so many are aware of the Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar (currently still in beta and probably only useful if you're into web development). Jeff Varga explains what's changed in the Beta 1 Refresh release.

The IT Pro guys have created a video on how they think developers should share the pain of the end-users when something goes wrong. I suggest you watch this 4-minute video on the "WSYP project: Leverage customer feedback for software reliability" (WSYP = We Share Your Pain) when you need a good laugh. I find it quite funny.

Watch the video:

• English spoken with Dutch information and subtitles on TechNet Belux
• English spoken with French information and subtitles on TechNet Belux
• English spoken with English information and subtitles on TechNet UK

On the "IT's Sh0wtime" website, IT professionals can also find high quality technical content from different experts such as Kimberly Tripp.

Over the past few weeks, we have published several articles from different Belgian & Luxemburger authors on the local MSDN website. Here's an overview:

Visual Studio 2005 Walkthrough: ASP.NET 2.0 Web Services and ADO.NET 2.0
In this walkthrough Wim Uyttersprot learns you how to create an ASP.NET 2.0 Web Service that returns and updates an ADO.NET 2.0 DataSet. The dataset is consumed in a Windows Form and bound to a DataGridView instance, using the new asynchronous patterns of .NET 2.0. The dataset is serialized in XML. Using a XSD schema, a typed dataset is created.

Extend Windows Media Player with Visual C++ Express and Advanced COM Interop - Part I
Learn how to create cool plug-ins for Windows Media Player. Ianier Munoz guides you to the process of enhancing the user experience of Windows Media Player with new visualizations, audio effects and other power toys.

Remote monitoring of mobile device applications
Philippe Cailleau explains how to get back information about memory usage during execution time in order to spot key points that could be useful to identify the source of strange memory consumption.

Enterprise Source Control with Visual Studio Team System
In his latest article Peter Himschoot talks about the source configuration management features of Visual Studio Team System, and shows what features are important for us developers in day to day development. Some features are compared with Visual Source Safe. There is even a hands-on lab includeded so you can try for yourself.

Do you also want to share your knowledge with the developer community by authoring articles? If you're Belgian or Luxembourger, please send an e-mail to msdnbewm@microsoft.com. Everyone else can check out the article submission section on MSDN.com.

I recently realized that you have to be careful with what you say to a marketeer. During one of the Launch Event preparation meetings we were talking about Clemens Vasters, one of the speakers. Since not everyone knew him, I compared him with a popular international singer.

A few days later our marketeers announced to all people at Microsoft Belgium that Clemens Vasters - the Robbie Williams of .NET development - will give a gig on the Launch Event. Given Robbie's reputation with women, I'm not sure if Clemens's girlfriend likes this comparison. ;)

Over the past few weeks, I've received some questions about running different parts of Team System on 64-bit operating systems. Rob Caron has just clarified this...

What? Microsoft at one of the biggest Java conferences in Europe? Microsoft sponsoring BeJUG, the Belgian Java User Group? What the heck is going on...

We got similar reactions when we sponsored JavaPolis 2004. Stephan Janssen, the chairman of BeJUG (Belgian Java User Group), asked for views and comments on Microsoft sponsoring JavaPolis. Although not too many people commented on his post, during the conference we had quite a lot of developers coming over to us and asking what we were doing at the event.

After recently talking to Stephan, it appears that several Java developers still ask similar questions and are not confident about Microsoft being at "their" event. Now I could try to explain some of the reasons here, but it would always be someone from Microsoft that's talking.

That's why I prefer having someone from the Java community talk a bit about his experiences with Microsoft. Not just anyone from the Java community. No, hear for yourself what Rick Ross, the founder of the Javalobby community website (which is also the website that JavaPolis uses for hosting their presentations), has to say about his experiences after being invited by Microsoft for attending the Technology Summit in March 2005. His webcast is only 20 minutes long, but it is worth seeing.

Not convinced yet? Just come over to our booth in the exhibition for a chat. Or attend the presentation on SQL Server 2005 by Shelby Goerlitz, product manager for the SQL Server 2005 JDBC Driver, on Thursday 15 December at 11:30.

Man man man, we've crossed the barrier of 2.000 registrations for the Visual Studio 2005, SQL Server 2005 and BizTalk Server 2006 Launch Event here in Belgium on 10 November. I'm sure we'll have to close the registration really soon. Together with all questions and inquiries I received over the past few weeks on Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio Team System (because of RTM), it's obvious that this launch is really getting the attention of the Belgian developer community.

You'll also be able to meet several partners/sponsors on the launch event that are as happy as we are about this release. They'll show you what Visual Studio, SQL Server and BizTalk Server means to them. I'm not going to spoil the surprise, but it will be worthwhile to visit them...

Oh, I'm talking too much fluff here... but that's only because I feel so happy about this Launch and its products. Please forgive me.

No need to say more... http://msdn.microsoft.com/subscriptions/

Looking from the .NET Framework 2.0 download? Find it here.

Exciting, exciting, exciting... I didn't know that I would actually feel so strange/good after reading the news.

Did you already notice that MSDN.com contains local Belgian headlines on its home page?

If you don't see headlines for Belgium, you can change this by clicking on the "Change" link.

You can of course still subscribe to the local MSDN Belux RSS feed too.