The Transcender Team Weblog

Meet the Transcender Team at Microsoft TechEd 2012, Orlando

In case you missed us on Twitter and Facebook, we wanted to make sure you knew we’re at Booth #2049 this year and can’t wait to meet you! Our Team will provide their recaps and reviews from the show in the coming weeks and they will be sure to share the wealth of knowledge gathered at the countless Keynotes & Sessions & Labs, but THIS blog post is about the GOOD news:

Where’s the food, drinks, and entertainment?!

• Community Night: Meet fellow attendees and members of the TLC and Connect Zone in North Hall B from 6:15-9pm (yes, there’s beer)
• Jam Session (our favorite!): Open jam for all you musicians (and brave wannabes) tonight from 9 pm – 1am at B.B. King’s at Pointe, Orlando. Just bring your talent, everything else (Instruments, lyrics, sheet music, etc) will be provided. If you’ve never been to one, we highly recommend it!
• TechEd Gives Back: When you’re done chatting it up and dancing the night away, consider giving a little something back to our host city of Orlando. Stop by South Hall B (by the Registration area) and check out the list of on-site volunteer activities. It doesn’t take a lot of time or money to make a huge impact!

Be sure to comment below or over on our Facebook page and let us know which of these events, or the dozens of other activities, you participate in this week at TechEd 2012.

Transcender Products Available at Tech*Ed Study Hall

Something exciting to announce this year: if you’re planning to take your certification exams at Tech*Ed, there will be Study Hall with practice tests loaded on them to help you prepare. The Microsoft Learning Study Hall products will include all MS practice tests from my favorite provider and yours, Transcender! So take advantage of the opportunity to get in some last minute prep work before you knock out that exam.

Here’s the process: sign up at Prometric, schedule to take your Microsoft Certification exam in Room B316 at Tech*Ed, and pack in any Cram4Exam sessions and Study Hall practice tests before you sit your test. Scroll down to Get Certified for the full details.

As a reminder, Transcender will be exhibiting at Booth #1904, and we’ll be giving away puzzles, games, and a chance to win a $250 Amazon.com Gift Card (no purchase necessary).

Coming to you live from Tech·Ed North America 2011

Happy May! This month the Braves will play at Turner field, temperatures will start getting warmer, and Microsoft Tech*Ed North America 2011 will set up shop at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta. Transcender will be exhibiting at Booth #1904, so be sure to stop by and say hi. Nearly everyone on the team will have a rotating spot on the front lines to interface with customers the good old-fashioned way. Stay tuned here and to our Twitter updates, as we finalize our Expo schedule so you know when you can stop by if you’d like some quality time with yours truly or one of my fellow Content Developers!

There are a lot of great sessions at Tech*Ed – in fact, there’s an overwhelming amount to see and do. The best thing to do while you still have a couple of weeks before the show, is to spend some quality time on the Tech*Ed’s Session and Exhibitor Catalog, where you’ll see a number of resources that can help you plan your Tech*Ed experience.

You don’t have to attend Tech*Ed to benefit from Tech*Ed

Of course, not all of us are able to attend. What you might not realize is that there’s a lot of free material on this page for people who aren’t attending. Look under Pre-Event Online Webcasts, where you can access – for free, without registration – 105 instructional webcasts on a slew of technical topics from PowerShell to ForeFront.

If you do attend Tech*Ed, why not take an exam?

For those of you who are attending Tech*Ed, there’s a wealth of certification prep options that not too many people know about. To review those, check the right hand pane on the catalog page. Under Filter By, open the Session Type tree. The keywords here are: Certification 101, Cram4Exam, and Hands-On Lab.

The Certification 101 sessions (two time slots, one hour each) include topics like certification process, choosing a certification path, preparing for your first exam, taking an exam, and what to expect after that.

There are twenty “Cram4Exam” sessions, which are targeted toward specific exams, but still broad in scope. These certification prep sessions are generally 75 minutes long and cover some of the more popular certification exams for Windows 7, SharePoint 2010, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Exchange Server 2010. You can learn valuable tips and tricks for prepping and passing in these classes.

Finally, you can brush up your skills with one of the 250+ Hands-on Labs. The labs are self-paced, so you can do them at your leisure, and are tightly focused on one specific concept or skill. More importantly, Hands-on-Labs usually have exercises on the latest technologies, which you might not have access to in your job or at home. My bet would be that there will be labs on the next version of SQL Server (Denali) , Lync Server 2010, Azure,  and Virtualization, as well as established Microsoft technologies. The labs are all listed on the session catalog website, though some details are TBD.

Tech*Ed: My Personal Attack Plan

Sure, I’ll be working the Transcender booth, but I’ll also have time to do some learning myself. Last year’s Tech*Ed highlighted Azure and SharePoint 2010 among other technologies. Sessions on these topics will be plentiful this year. I plan to stick to sessions on Virtualization, Lync Server 2010, IE9, and of course, the next version of SQL Server (Denali), which already has several sessions scheduled.

One topic that I wanted to get more knowledge on this year at Tech*Ed is security. Here is just a sampling of the various sessions on security that I’ll be trying to squeeze in:

• WCL314 | Touch Me, Stretch Me, Squeeze Me: The Windows 7 WPF Multi-Touch Story
  • Breakout Session  |  300 – Advanced  |  Windows Client
• SIM301 | Monty WiFion and the Quest for the Holy Grail of Network Security!
  • Breakout Session  |  300 – Advanced  |  Security, Identity & Management

• SIM302 | Lessons from Hackwarts Vol 1: Defense against the Dark Arts 2011
  • Breakout Session  |  300 – Advanced  |  Security, Identity & Management

• SIM306 | Unmasking Administrator’s Evil
  • Breakout Session  |  300 – Advanced  |  Security, Identity & Management

• SIM404 | Hey, You! Get Off My Network!
  • Breakout Session  |  400 – Expert  |  Security, Identity & Management

They all sound fun, entertaining and informative. Okay, maybe just informative.

Again, if you are planning to visit Atlanta for Tech*Ed next month, please stop by the Transcender booth! There will be freebies, demos, and possibly a pop quiz on how to pronounce my name.

–George Monsalvatge

TechEd 2010 New Orleans: Closing Thoughts

With the conference winding down, I can safely say it has been a great week! I have reconnected with a lot of old friends, made several new friends, and gained valuable knowledge.

First, a huge THANK YOU to the City of New Orleans! I loved that New Orleans was this year’s host city. There is so much to see and do here. My family and I traveled here a few months after Hurricane Katrina, and it was like a ghost town. That was not a proper introduction to this lively city. But with this trip, we have been able to see a vibrant, active city with people we have fallen in love with. My husband and son have taken in many of the family-friendly sites, like the Audobon Insectarium, Audobon Aquarium, a swamp tour, and Mardi Gras World. I would love to come back to visit again soon!

The Morial Convention Center was a great facility. A previous TechEd I attended was in Orlando. While the conference center there probably wasn’t any larger than the one here in New Orleans, it seemed bigger. And bigger is not always better. I can’t tell you how many times I had to trek from one side of the Orlando conference center to the other, through the main exhibit hall, to get to another class. I often felt like I had run a marathon. The layout here in New Orleans was much easier.

And now a shout out to our FANTASTIC friends and fans! We loved shaking hands, spinning the wheel and catching up with some old friends as well as meeting some of our newest fans. Whether a loyal customer or an IT newbie, you have spoken and we heard you. The main buzz for certification is around Exchange Server 2010 and SharePoint 2010. There are also quite a few of you that still have to upgrade to Windows Server 2008. While our Windows Server 2008 products have been out for a while, our Exchange 2010 TS practice test product is fairly new. But check back with us in a couple of weeks as our PRO Exchange Server 2010, Cert-70-663, product is due to release very soon! Unfortunately, we have paid little attention to SharePoint 2010. But after chatting with you this week, we’re regrouping back at the office and SharePoint 2010 is at the top of our list.

As usual, you guys have the biggest influence on what we work on, so please e-mail us or comment on this post if you are interested in any certification prep material for these (or other) products!

We’ve barely checked out of our hotel rooms, and we’re already excited about TechEd 2011! Next year, the conference will be held in Atlanta, GA, Transcender’s home city. There are lots of great things to do in Atlanta including Six Flags, the Georgia Aquarium, Coca-Cola World, and Atlanta Braves baseball. So make your plans now to attend, bring the family, and we hope you’ll let Transcender welcome you to our city as well as New Orleans has welcomed us to theirs!

-Robin