Tomislav Bronzin [RD&MVP]

Happy International Women's Day (8 March)!

2010-03-07T23:34:00Z

Traditionaly, International Women's Day (IWD, 8 March) is celebrated globaly for the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future.

Fight for women's rights actualy started in 1900's and it was specificaly marked in 1908, when 15.000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights and the first National Women's Day were celebrated in USA 1909.
In 1910, at Second International Women's Conference at Copenhagen famous Clara Zetkin (Leader of the 'Women's Office' for the Social Democratic Party in Germany) came with the idea of an International Women's Day.
The First International Women's Day was celebrated across the Europe in 1911 and next year will be 100. IWD and Global Centenary 1911-2011.

In many countries IWD is a national holiday and today it is truly celebrated globaly and still marks the fight for the women's rights!

I would like to specificaly draw the attention to all Women in Technology to a WIT one-stop shop Web site (http://www.microsoft.com/emea/women/default.mspx), dedicated to the advancement of women in the technology fields. As a thought leader in the IT industry, Microsoft is committed to the ongoing development of female professionals and encouraging new professionals to join the industry. For this reason, Microsoft has provided this site, specifically designed to support women in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) who work with technology.

Happy International Women's Day (8 March)!

How to migrate MySql to Microsoft SQL Server? Easy use SQL Server Migration Assistant!

2010-03-07T08:20:00Z

Among the whole series of tools for automation of the migration process from Oracle, Sybase, Access and PowerBuilder to SQL Server 2005 & 2008 (including the SQL Azure DB), there is new one: SQL Server Migration Assistant for MySQL.

All of the above mentioned toolkits are designed to simplify the manual process of database migration, and cost and risk associated with migration.
SQL Server Migration Assistant for MySQL will be generally available in the summer of 2010, but you can download Community Technical Preview here: SSMA 2008 for MySQL v1.0 CTP1

Microsoft Innovation Center initiative in Moldova – Face2Face interview with Tomislav Bronzin

2010-02-19T10:03:00Z

I was in Moldova last week (Feb 8-13) to investigate an opportunity to leverage framework and experience from Microsoft Innovation Center’s in Croatia and Slovenia in similar Center of Excellence/Innovation Center in Moldova.

I was stroke by the great enthusiasm of Moldavian people and their willingness to change things and create better life, not just for those people working in IT but to nation as a whole.As an USAID RCI Senior Advisor, I was working with my colleagues in USAID CEED Project and with great support from Microsoft and HP branch office in Moldova to acquire enough data to prepare Feasibility Study and Concept Paper that will be presented at Moldavian ICT Summit Feb 30-31.

My visit was very well accepted by all the institutions and business that I had opportunity to talk with, including representatives from Moldavian Government, donor organizations (beside USAID) like Word Bank, telecom providers like ModTelecom and ModCell, Moldavian ICT Association of private ICT companies, representatives of Academic institutions, Business and Technology incubators as well as with CISCO, as one of the potential private partners (beside Microsoft and HP), etc.

I think that there is enough willingness to be optimistic about this initiative!

Hello MS Community! Vote for PnP track at WinDays 10 Conference!

2010-02-17T16:56:00Z

I am delighted that we have 15 applications for PnP track at WinDays 10 Conference!

Go ahead and vote for your choice here!

P.S. You need to be registred to login to the MS Community Portal to be able to vote!

Good luck to all of the applicants!

MIX: Inspire the world with just 10K! - Entries are accepted till February 15th

2010-02-04T23:28:00Z

Recently, I was talking about "good old days" and how I wrote my first (successful) application in only 8K (8086 assembler), just to be worn that "this is too much" for those days PC's.And then I found out that 10K max rule still apply: http://mix10k.visitmix.com/

So, if you think that you are up-to the challenge, create your application and upload it here: http://mix10k.visitmix.com/Entry/Create

Protect@Work - certified Win7 app that uses WPF, WCF, .NET, VIsual Studio 2010 - But where is business case? Watch it here ...

2010-01-31T19:52:00Z

My team was busy: we have received 1 Gold Medal, 1 Silver and 1 Bronze medal for innovation at international Innovation Show's; we have certified Protect@Work for Windows 7 Logo, utilized WPF, WCF, .NET and has been built using Visual Studio 2010.But, what about business case that Protect@Work solution is designed for? How this application can help companies to reduce cost of protection of workers in dangerous industries? Can this solution help companies to be more productive too? Of course, the answer is YES IT CAN :-)!

If you know Croatian, you can watch an interview authored by Jasmina Franjic from Croatian National Television about Protect@Work: http://www.youtube.com/v/bBWpLlqJNfo&hl=en_US&fs=1&

Registration for Developers Bootcamp in Zagreb open! (in Croatian)

2010-01-31T10:41:00Z

If you would like to participate at Developers Bootcamp in Zagreb (February 22.-26.) you can register here: http://bit.ly/bwNlXE.

This is the first trening in Croatia (maybe also in CEE) that has following topics:
a) Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2
b) .NET Framwork 4.0 (WPF, WCF, WF, ASP.NET, C# & VB)
c) Silverlight 4.0
d) Windows Mobile 6.5
e) Office 2010
f) Microsoft Solution Framework

More info (in English) here: www.developersbootcamp.com

If you would like to invite us to your town/country - we are ready to come!

Who we are?

1. Tomislav Bronzin, Regional Director, MVP & MCT
2. Andrej Radinger, MVP & MCT
3. Dobriša Adamec, MVP
4. Vedran Kaldi, MCT

"Developers Bootcamp": Visual Studio 2010 & .NET Fx 4, Zagreb, February 22.-26.2010

2010-01-29T08:37:00Z

Developers Bootcamp is a 5-day intensive training which introduces attendees to technologies, news and tools supported in new development environment as well as project methodology MSF.

Every session consists of theoretical introduction, followed by demos and examples, and concluded with hands-on labs on attendee’s workstations. All HOLs are supervised by Bootcamp trainers.

Last day of Bootcamp, attendees will be divided into several functional team sand each team will have a specific task within a large project. Final result/delivery of all teams will be a solution created by Visual Studio 2010, following MSF methodology.

Date: February, 22.- February 26. 2010.
Duration: 5 days, 9:00 - 17:00
Early Bird: 30% discount until February 10. 2010

Location: Development Agency Zagreb, Croatia

No of participants: 10
Event scope: CEE/SEE Europe
Target audience: Developers, solution architects, system analysts.

NEW DISCOUNTED PRICE!
Price includes: access to the training.

Special 30% discount on Early Bird offer for members of INETA Europe User Groups!

Learn more h e r e (http://www.developersbootcamp.com/)

Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4 Launch posponed!

2009-12-18T17:16:00Z

Two top Microsoft Developer Division Executives: Scott Guthrie and “Soma” Somasegar - announced today (December 12) that official launch of Microsoft flagship development tool Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 platform will be moved from March 22 further and that Microsoft is planing to extend the beta period by adding another interim checkpoint release, a Release Candidate with a broad “go live” license, which will be publicly available in the February 2010 timeframe.

I and my friends are speaking at TechEd Europe in Berlin: Wednesday 11/11 | 13:30-14:45 | Paris 1 - Hall 7-1c

2009-11-08T23:08:00Z

I will be at TechEd Europe till Friday, and I will deliver following session:

CLI308 Windows 7 Taskbar: New User Interface for Your Application
Wed 11/11 | 13:30-14:45 | Paris 1 - Hall 7-1c

Session summary:
Windows 7 Taskbar is great new addition to the Windows user interface that replaces Quick Launch and Traybar from the previous versions of the Windows OS. Usually operating system API is accessed by native code, but we show how you can use managed code wrappers like Windows Vista Bridge or Window 7 Interoperability Pack to access it directly from the .NET language. Learn how you can manipulate Taskbar buttons and application ID, create jump lists, destination and tasks, integrate thumbnail toolbars, add overlay icons and progress icons, create custom thumbnail and peak and build custom switchers (MDI/TDI).

Also, I invite you to attend sessions that will be delivered by my good friend and Mobile Dev Expert, MVP Andrej Radinger:

MOB303 Adding Life and Intelligence to Windows Mobile 6.5 Applications
Mon 11/9 | 10:45-12:00 | New York 2 - Hall 7-1a
MOB04-IS Building and Integrating Mobile Solutions into Existing Microsoft Dynamics ERP Systems
Thu 11/12 | 15:15-16:30 | Interactive Theatre 4 - Green
MOB403 Microsoft SQL Server Compact Edition Ultimate Performance Tuning
Wed 11/11 | 15:45-17:00 | New York 2 - Hall 7-1a

When we are not speaking, find as at Community Area! I will be at INETA Europe Booth/Pod (read here more: http://bit.ly/9hBOq), Microsoft Regional Director and MVP Booth/Pod, as well at TLC area of Windows Client Development!

Is Code Camp time around Europe!

2009-10-31T00:42:00Z

And I am participating on one today (October 21) in Belgrade Serbia!

More info here: http://codecamp.msforge.net/

I will speak at the keynote of this event and I brought one of the legend of the Microsoft Community, first Microsoft Regional Director for Croatia: Arian Stipic!
Arian Stipic is a leged and he was my mentor, so I was pleased when he was invited to speak at this conference!
He was not just my teacher that has helped me enter magic wrold of development on Microsoft Platform, but also he guided me to become one of the Europen .NET Developers Community Leader.

Big thank you, Arian!

If someone asks me to explain what CodeCamp’s are, I always can quote my good friend and MVP Vladan Strigo: CodeCade is based on 6 principles:

By and For the Developer Community
Code Camps are about the developer community at large. They are meant to be a place for developers to come and learn from their peers. Topics are always based on community interest and never determined by anyone other than the community.
Always Free
Code Camps are always free for attendees.
Community Developed Material
The success of the Code Camps is that they are based on community content. All content that is delivered is original. All presentation content must be provided completely (including code) without any restriction. If you have content you don't want to share or provide to attendees then the Code Camp is not the place for you.
No Fluff only Code
Code Camps are about showing the code. Refer to rule #1 if you have any questions on this.
Community Ownership
The most important element of the Code Camp is always the developer community. All are welcome to attend and speak and do so without expectation of payment or any other compensation other than their participation in the community.
Never occur during work hours
We need to understand that many times people can't leave work for a day or two to attend training or even seminars. The beauty of the Code Camp is that they always occur on weekends

Microsoft Vizija, Skopje, FYR Macedonia

2009-10-20T00:53:00Z

I and several other MVP's, speakers and trainers had great time at Microsoft Vizija that was held from October 8th to October 9th.

I had two sessions:

Title: Windows 7 Taskbar - new User Interface for Your Application
Windows 7 Taskbar is great new addition to the Windows user interface that replaces Quick Launch and Traybar from the previous versions of the Windows OS. Usually operating system API is accessed by native code, but we will show how developers can use managed code wrappers like Windows Vista Bridge or Window 7 Interoperability Pack to access it directly from the .NET language. This session will show how developers can manipulate Taskbar buttons and application ID, create jump lists, destination and tasks, integrate thumbnail toolbars, add overlay icons and progress icons.

Title: Develop Application for Unified Communication Now!
What features are available to be used by ISV's to add to their applications by using Microsoft UC platform? How to integrate IM, voice, video and e-mail into your applications? What are possible implementation scenarios and examples of Unified Communication capabilities in Smart Clients and Web applications, as well as service/bot's? How you can do it with just few lines of code? Attend this session and find the answers! All samples will have demos with code!

View here: presentations from tbronzin.

There were more than 500 attendees that attended one of the 3 parallel tracks: IT Pro, Development and Solutions. Also, each night there were opportunities for networking on great parties that was organized by Microsoft.

I want to say big THANK YOU to the organizers (Microsoft Office in Skopje, Microsoft Community, INETA Europe Chapter FYR Macedonia, PASS, Culminis/GITCA) and all MVP's that was very pleasant and showed great hospitality!
Thank you to MVP's: Daniel Joskovski, Vladimir Meloski, Aleksandar Talev, Boban Stojanovski, Community Leaders: Dejan Dimitrovski, Dejan Anevski and all others...!

I would go to this conference anytime! See you there next year!

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 Released to MSDN Subscribers!

2009-10-19T21:47:00Z

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 is finally here!

Not only that Microsoft published Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 to the MSDN Subscribers, but there are separate installation of Team Foundation Server 2010 and .NET Framework for different platform flavors!

What is new in Visual Studio 2010?
Some of the new features are Windows 7 and SharePoint 2010 tools, drag-and-drop bindings with Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation, the inclusion of the Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR) for programming with scripting languages, and support for parallel programming.

How to get familiar with the new features of Visual Studio?
The best way is to go through the published collection of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Beta 2 Walkthroughs:

SharePoint Development
Silverlight and WPF Data Binding
Core Coding Experience
Native Development
Parallel Computing
Visual Studio Extensibility
Office Development
Workflow Foundation

So, what is the answer to the question: should I install these bits in my production environment?
Answer is - depends, of course how „brave" you are J, but if you are up-to, this time Microsoft prepared everything to make you happy user:

a) Visual Studio 2010 can be installed side-by-side with VS 2008
b) There is Go Live license (for most of the components) and .NET Fx 4.0 (http://blogs.msdn.com/jeffbe/archive/2009/10/19/going-live-with-visual-studio-2010-beta-2.aspx)
c) Microsoft is "promising" smooth upgrade path from Beta 2 to the final release "RTM" (unlike upgrade from Beta 1 to Beta 2)
d) You can register for support event in Beta (just send e-mail to: vsgolive@microsoft.com)

How to install Visual Studio 2010?
Good start with Visual Studio 2010 is here http://bit.ly/2ayz1p where Brian Keller explains in short (19 min) video how to download and install Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 and gives a lot of useful links, among them to VHD Windows Server 2008 image that you can use as a development and test "sandbox".

When these bits will be available to general public?
After October 21^st, 2009

When Visual Studio 2010 release is planned?
Microsoft will announce Visual Studio 2010 that official launch will be on March 22.

I wish you happy and productive coding!

Windows Mobile 6.5 and Exchange 2010 presented at Mobility Day 2009 Conference!

2009-09-14T07:36:00Z

Another (7^th) annual Mobility Day Conference has been delivered on 10^th September in Croatia by (among others experts) 8 Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVP’s) Andrej Radinger (organizer), Zeljka Knezovic, Andy Wigley, Damir Dobric, Dobrisa Adamec, Daniel Joskovski, Bernardin Katic and Tomislav Bronzin. Conference was opened by Microsoft Croatia General Manager: Venesa Schütz that delivered inspired talk about our “Mobile Life” and it was followed by keynote speech “Windows Mobile 6.5”, delivered by Andreas Garantziotis, Mobile Solutions Manager at Microsoft. Mobility Day Conference featured 18^th sessions in 3 tracks: Business, Developers and ITPro and lasted one whole day. Some of the “other” experts included Sasa Juratovic (Program Manager in UC Customer Experience, Switzerland) and Dalibor Kukoleca (Senior Dev Lead OCG Media, Redmond, USA) that spoke about Mobile Office Communicator/Office Communication Server and Live Meeting Server. There was also excellent sessions delivered by Josip Medved (Siemens) (GEO location services) and Dragan Jelcic (Securly Deploying WM6.5) and Igor Pavlekovic (Exchange 2010 & WM6.5).If you are familiar with Croatian language you can register even now and watch recoded session and download presentations (here) or read more (in English) about the conference here: http://www.mobilitydays.com

Great success of Mobility Day 2009 Conference! (in Croatian)

2009-09-11T07:29:00Z

Mobility Day konferencija predstavila nove mobilne tehnologije i rješenja za suvremeno poslovanje

Uz novi operacijski sustav za mobilne uređaje Windows Mobile 6.5 i Exchange 2010 poslužiteljsku infrastrukturu, na konferenciji su predstavljena i rješenja mobilne zaštite na radu te napredni sustavi za upravljanje transportom i logistikom. ZAGREB, 10. rujna 2009. – Ovogodišnji Dan mobilnih tehnologija – Mobility Day 2009 – okupio je vodeće donosioce odluka i IT profesionalce koji su imali prilike sudjelovati na predavanjima o poslovnoj vrijednostI korištenja mobilnih tehnologija u svakodnevnom životu i poslovanju. U organizaciji tvrtki Citus i Mobendo konferencija se etablirala kao najveće okupljanje takve vrste u regiji Središnje i istočne Europe, a koje je istovremeno orijentirano kako na poslovni tako i na tehnološki okvir tematike mobilnih tehnologija i poslovanja. Naglasak ovogodišnje konferencije bio je na Windows Mobile 6.5 operacijskom sustavu te najavljenom objavljivanju novog poslužiteljskog sustava Microsoft Exchange Server 2010. Također, jedna od odrednica ovogodišnje konferencije bila je tema o podršci za razvoj mobilnih rješenja u sklopu Visual Studio 2008 razvojne okoline. Ova je konferencija bila iznimno zanimljiva i programerima te razvojnim inženjerima mobilnih tehnologija, obzirom kako je dio konferencije konkretno pokazao kako vlastite proizvode uklopiti u potrebe i potražnju te ih na taj način distribuirati i učiniti konkurentnima na tržištu.

Nakon pozdravnog govora kojim je direktorica Microsofta Hrvatska, Venesa Schütz, otvorila konferenciju, uvodno predavanje o trenutačnoj situaciji i planovima razvoja mobilnih platformi održao je Microsoftov Mobile Solutions Manager za Centralnu i Istočnu Europu, Andreas Garantziotis.

"Predstavljanje nove Windows Mobile platforme najveća je novost u povijesti Microsoftovog rada na mobilnim tehnologijama. Do sada su se mobilna rješenja uglavnom vezala uz poslovne uređaje i korisnike. No, novim se sustavom usredotočujemo na ljude, na njihova iskustva i emocije – na posao, ali jednako tako i na druge aspekte života. Microsoftov je konačni cilj da se mobilnim tehnologijama i sadržajima mogu doista koristiti svi, u svako vrijeme", naglasio je Garantziotis.

U predavanjima koja su uslijedila u tri zasebna smjera – za razvojne inženjere, IT profesionalce i poslovne menadžere – brojni domaći i strani ICT stručnjaci govorili su o novim rješenjima iz područja mobilnih tehnologija. Uz prijenosne tipkovnice te sustave digitalnih olovaka i zaslona osjetljivih na dodir, predstavljeni su i noviteti za interakciju između korisnika i mobilnih uređaja – akcelerometri za utvrđivanje kretanja uređaja u okolini, sustavi upravljanja pokretom te detektori svjetla. Na konferenciji su također predstavljena i brojna rješenja za automatizaciju transporta i logistike s naglaskom na uporabu mobilnih računala i opreme za automatsko prikupljanje podataka.

Sudionici su u poslovnom dijelu konferencije (Business Track) imali prilike čuti predavanja o mobilnim rješenjima, mobilnoj zaštiti na radu kao i primjere studija slučaja primjene mobilnosti u svakodnevnom poslovanju. Dio konferencije za razvojne inženjere (Development Track) obuhvatio je prezentaciju najboljih praksi u razvoju korisničkih sučelja i primjeni Windows Mobile 6.5 operacijskog sustava. Dio konferencije namijenjen IT stručnjacima (IT Pro Track) uključio je, između ostaloga, predavanja o distribuciji mobilnih poruka i sadržaja (Mobile Messaging), SQL poslužiteljima i Exchange platformi, kao i novim aplikacijama i sustavima za Windows Mobile 6.5 operacijski sustav.

"Drago nam je što smo u suradnji s partnerima tijekom proteklih godina uspješno izgradili Mobility Day u trajnu i relevantnu konferenciju o mobilnim tehnologijama. Uz stručnjake iz zemlje i bliže regije, svake godine na konferenciji sudjeluju i eminentni predavači iz svijeta, što polaznicima u konačnici osigurava dodatnu vrijednost i potpuniji uvid u proces razvoja suvremenih mobilnih tehnologija i rješenja. Jedno od takvih rješenja je i Windows Mobile 6.5 platforma koja će se na tržištu pojaviti početkom idućeg mjeseca, a na koju smo ove godine u sklopu konferencije stavili poseban naglasak", istaknuo je Andrej Radinger, direktor tvrtke Mobendo.

Posebna zanimljivost ovogodišnje konferencije bila je i predstavljanje specijaliziranog „IT namještaja“. S obzirom na to kako su proporcije i karakteristike namještaja za IT opremu standardizirani na svjetskoj razini, na konferenciji se mogao vidjeti i iskušati asortiman upravo takve specijalizirane garniture koja je u potpunosti usklađena s najvišim standardima funkcionalnosti, ergonomije i sigurnosti. Organizatori su ove godine uveli i još jednu novost – mogućnost praćenja konferencije putem Interneta, čime se svima zainteresiranima koji nisu bili u mogućnosti osobno prisustvovati događaju osigurao uvid u sadržaj predavanja i neophodne materijale.

Generalni pokrovitelj konferencije je tvrtka T-Mobile. Glavni sponzori su tvrtke infoKod, Selmet, Špica Sustavi, FatDUX i Hotel Antunović. Sponzori konferencije su tvrtke Algebra, posao.hr, Span, Hewlett-Packard i Inkea, dok su medijski pokrovitelji IT-infoNEWS i mjesečnik infoTrend. Konferencija se održala uz podršku Microsofta i Međunarodnog .NET udruženja (INETA).

Više informacija o konferenciji i njenom sadržaju pogledajte na web adresi www.mobilityday.com.