A little while ago I was contacted by Daniel van Soest, who is one of the two Dutch IT Pro Evangelists. He phoned to ask me to do a one-hour session at Microsoft's Dutch Windows Server 2008 Launch Event, which will take place on March 6th, 2008.

Microsoft has named the Dutch Launch event the IT Herolympics. The event name fits in the Heroes Happen {Here} scheme of things. With a twist of course, but did you really expect anything else from these guys?

Sold out

The event was announced zix weeks ago and the ticketbox opened nearly five weeks ago. Around two weeks ago all 1700 tickets were sold and I believe there are hundreds of persons on the waiting list, waiting for people to cancel their reservation. The line up is incredible though, with loads of goodies and many international speakers.

Loads of goodies

Persons who have paid € 99 for their tickets and care to attend the meeting will be overwhelmed with loads of goodies. I believe the least of them will be:

• A Full Licensed version of Windows Server 2008 (for testing purposes only)
• A Full Packaged Product for Visual Studio 2008 Standard
• Media of the latest SQL Server 2008 Community Technology Preview (CTP)
• A voucher for SQL Server 2008 when the bits are ready
• A free Microsoft Press book, choice between:
  • Professional LINQ
  • Administering Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Core
  • Windows Powershell Scripting Guide
  • Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007
  • Programming Windows Services with Microsoft Visual Basic 2008
  • Pro SQL Server 2008 Relational Database Design and Implementation

Many International speakers

The Dutch TechNet team has invited many big names from the International speakers list:

• John Craddock & Sally Storey (UK)
• Gert Drapers (US)
• Brian Delahunty (US)
• Steffen Krause (DE)
• Steve Lamb (UK)
• Ronald Beekelaar, MVP (NL)
• Ruben Spruijt, MVP (NL)

… and me! 🙂

Since I won the Speaker Talent contest last year, Daniël and Tony promised me a session on the next Dutch TechNet event. They decided to give me an hour to tell a story to a couple of people.

Server Core

My session will cover Windows Server 2008 Server Core. I guess that won't surprise anyone, since:

• My latest posts covered Server Core in detail
• I won the Dutch Speaker Talent contest with a presentation on Server Core
• I'm addicted to the Server Core TechNet Forums

Daniël van Soest specifically asked me to do a session with a load of demos, so I'm trying to keep the presentation bit as low as possible (10 minutes max) and prepare at least 45 minutes of demo. (That way I can screw up 5 minutes…)

See you there!

When you already have a ticket for IT Herolympics I guess I'll see you there between 13:15 and 14:15!

I wished Jorge would also be there, but he's on his flight to DEC 2008 that day. Too bad, because I rehearsed his favorite line from my Speaker Talent presentation a lot:

Server Core is your buddy 🙂

Further reading

Lancering Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 en Visual Studio 2008 op 6 maart!
IT HerOlympics, 6 maart 2008 in Nieuwegein
The PowerShell Guy : IT HerOlympics
Windows Server 2008 …. nog 43 dagen
Spreker tijdens de Nederlandse lancering
IT HEROlympics uitverkocht
Heroes happen {here} & TechDays 2008