Scott Hanselman's ComputerZen.com

The link is live 9am EST Sunday, spread the word!

.NET Charity Auction - http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5552696499 

This auction is a charitable contribution. Winners will pay for an hour each of .NET consulting time to benefit the Tsunami victims of Banda Aceh.  ALL of the money will go to help the victims (tax benefit for you as well). ALL eBay fees are going to be paid by thinktecture (http://www.thinktecture.com/) an European consulting firm.

Bid for an hour of a .NET Celebrity Consultant’s time. Winners can pick the brain of a .NET Expert for an hour (highest bidders will be first in the “draft” for the consultant assigned to them). Winners can call, email or IM the consultant and use the hour to answer that nagging question, do a code review, or just get some general .NET advice.

There will be 30 winning bids. eBay rules require that all 30 winners pay the lowest bid price. So you are required to pay the lowest bid amount, but are encouraged to pay for your final bid (we will invoice you for both, it is your choice how much you want to donate to IDEP (payments via PayPal)). Here are the participants we have RDs and INETA speakers from all 6 continents and 12 countries!

We've added even more consultants for you to bid on!

I spoke at South Colorado.NET a little bit ago and had a blast.  It was a great crowd, very active and outspoken.  David Yack is the group organizer and did a fabulous job of hosting me.  Today I was told he posted an Open Letter to INETA on Scott Hanselman on his blog.  Wow, that's VERY kind, apparently the talk was well thought of.

Here's a few choice tidbits that helped make my day:

I honestly think that if more people knew how good the session would have been I could have doubled attendance!

After Scott’s presentation, I can’t tell you the number of members that expressed their feeling that he did an excellent job presenting and keeping the group engaged.

While all of our speakers from INETA were great, Scott just stood out a little more and I felt he should get recognition for that.

I also want to continue to express our thanks for INETA providing the speakers to our group – this is by far in my opinion is the biggest impact that INETA provides to our user group.

I agree that Kudos go to INETA and everyone in the Speaker's Bureau. I do about 4 to 6 of these a year, and I always have a blast.  It's cool to be a part of such excitement around .NET. Thanks to Dave and to INETA for providing such a great service.

I'll be talking Web Services at the South Sound User's Group in Olympia, WA on Thursday night at 7pm.  Come hang out!  I'll be scouring downtown Olympia for a Quiznos around 6pm.

Afterwards, I'm heading to Redmond to visits folks on Campus on Friday.  Maybe I'll see you there!

Wow, I can't believe I missed this.  Michèle Leroux Bustamante, INETA queen, .NET queen, Regional Director, closet-Canadian, has a blog - http://www.dasblonde.net (I'm still chuckling about the title.)

Everytime I see her publicity head shot, I think about redoing mine...or just using hers. 

Michèle is running the University of California San Diego's Web Services Interoperability Education Day just before TechEd.  Ted Neward is Key Noting, and there will be a great Panel talk with John Bristowe, me, Joe Homnick, Joe Lindsay, Terry Mohn, and Ted Neward.

That's THIS Saturday at UCSD so check it out.

Happy Birthday to INETA...two years old this month. 

“When we launched INETA in February of 2002, .NET was fairly new and we came to the scene with about 40 user groups in our association. Today, we have close to 500 user groups and more than 170,000 members from all over the world that are part of INETA! Our growth is more than anyone ever imagined and outstanding as it is, it is also one of the most difficult things in managing INETA. More growth means more speakers, more support and more volunteers needed. “

Congratulations to Bill Evjen and everyone who makes INETA great, the speakers, the groups, the excitement!

Two years later and my picture still isn't up.  Hm...I wonder if I have wedding picture around...maybe with me in a tux? ;)