MVP Award Program – April 2012
It is the time, yes, to communicate the new MVP Awardees for the April cycle. As you may know, there are 3 different cycles and every 3 months I publish information about newly awarded Microsoft MVPs on my blog regarding the Region I represent: Central, Eastern Europe & Italy.
I know many people are anxious when it comes to re-awarding, especially on the 1st of April, where it may seems to be a joke (but it’s not! 
), and it’s totally understandable. When you get the MVP Award, it means you dedicated a lot of time and efforts to help your peers, whether it was online or offline, and the meaning of this Award is a THANK YOU for what you did for the communities, for your peers, using your technical skills to make sure people understands how to use our product in a 1:many relationship. So I guess it’s natural to be a little bit nervous…
I’m truly honored to represent this prestigious Award and I’d like to CONGRATULATE the following new MVPs, sorted by Name:
| Influencer | Technical Expertise | Country |
| Alessandra Salvaggio | Office System | Italy |
| Damir Arh | Data Platform Development | Slovenia |
| Francesco Valerio Buccoli | Virtual Machine | Italy |
| Goran Milanov | SQL Azure | Serbia |
| Ivan Florian | Project | Romania |
| Ivan Kardum | Visual Studio ALM | Croatia |
| Luka Manojlovic | Small Business Server | Slovenia |
| Marek Pyka | Virtual Machine | Poland |
| Mario Serra | Directory Services | Italy |
| Michal Gajda | PowerShell | Poland |
| Mirco Vanini | Device Application Development | Italy |
| Silvio Di Benedetto | System Center Cloud and Datacenter Management | Italy |
(this list is related to the new MVPs in the Region I represent, which is CEE & Italy, excluding Russia and CIS Countries).
A BIG CONGRATS to you guys MVPs and of course to the ones that have been re-Awarded. And being re-Awarded is tough as well: don’t you think MVPs are taking it for granted. The MVP Award lasts 12 months and every single candidature is treated carefully and thoroughly so I totally understand the excitement (and sometimes the pain ) to wait for an email saying that you’ve been Awarded again.
That said, I’ll be travelling abroad in the Region so I really hope we can meet in person!
I also wanted to spend a few words for the ones who haven’t been award so far or who have been declined on this cycle: as I’m really sorry for that, I’m sure you’ll get a chance to be nominated again so don’t lose faith!
Also, If you don’t know exactly what the MVP Award Program is, take some time to subscribe to our blog as you’ll find some interesting stories to read…
Feel free to follow @MVPAward and myself on Twitter: you may find a lot of real-life stories, covering different Microsoft products and technologies…
That said, Enjoy your Award and Congratulations Again !
Nokia Lumia 710: my personal impressions
I’ve always been fascinated by the mobility computing from a consumer perspective. My passion goes back to the 90’s when I owned 2 PockePCs (a Compaq and a Casio Cassiopeia with Windows CE 2.11), a Palm Pre 2, A Psion Revo (best smartphone keyboard ever), several Windows Mobile Phones and an Android device.
I have to be frank, when I first looked @ the first Windows Phone model, I was not that impressed. The metro style was kind of strange, considering where the other devices (iOS, Android, WebOS) where heading to. But when I started to use it, I realized the full potential. And I became addicted…
I got this beautiful present for Christmas (probably my family is VERY aware of my addiction ), which was a Nokia Lumia 800. Superb phone, stunning display, lots of memory. But it doesn’t fit well.
What I mean is that I’m not a big fan of big phones (the Samsung Galaxy Note is like a giant phone to me, it’s not even a phone!). Technology is trying to “micro-do” everything since the Motorola 8700 and we’re going back to where we were before. Even though I see the value of them, I just don’t like to idea to carry a huge phone in my pocket. So my choice went to the Nokia Lumia 710.
I got the device yesterday and the price is at least a half of the normal Smartphone prizes, no matter which OS you like. Which is a good start…
When you lift the device for the first time, it’s seems like you’re handling an empty case, it’s just super lightweight. The form factor, something some people underestimate, it’s great. It perfectly fits in your hand. The USB connector is not in an awkward position like the Lumia 800. And it has buttons, instead of touch ones, which is great for a guy like me who was used to like the old IBM keyboards doing a lot of noise when you were typing.
Of course it lacks something: memory is only 8GB, the display is not even comparable with the Lumia 800 (TFT VS AMOLED, but the Gorilla Glass is good to have), the battery is only that powerful (although it’s removable, which is a good thing) and the camera is 5MP compared to the 810’s 8MP (which is ok for me. I don’t pretend to take stunning pictures from a phone).
You can have a look at this comparison I found (but there are plenty more out there):
If you’re still undecided, take a look at Tom’s Hardware Nokia Lumia 710 review.
I finally found the device I was looking for and I have no plans in changing it for anything. It reminds me, in a way, the HTC Mozart, one of the first Windows Phone I had, which was a great phone.
So overall I’m very satisfied with this purchase (at least this one I won’t regret it) and, if you want to see some pictures or have more info about my experience, just let me know in the comments box and I’ll definitely share them here.
And lastly, YOU, what Windows Phone do you have or you’re planning to buy?
Microsoft MVP Award – January 2012 !
It has been an incredible year, full of events and activities embracing new technology directions which will impact us in the future. Well, it has an impact on a lot of us already, if you think about Windows Phone and the social media integration as a well as the XBOX gaming gaming experience. Some people like it, some people don’t but you have to admit it’s a step further compared to a “normal” Smartphone experience.
Ok, ok, next blog post I’m gonna talk about that, not on this one . Aren’t you a little curious to see who got the MVP Award this cycle? It’s always a pleasure for me to Welcome new people as exceptional community Leaders, online and/or offline. I’m not saying they were not Leaders and strong community-oriented guys before the Award, I’m just saying I’m truly honored when I award people like that and I’m more when I have the chance to meet them.
So here is the list, freshen up & ready for the 2012 Year (sorted by name):
| MVP | Technical Expertise | Country |
| Adis Jugo | SharePoint Server | Bosnia-Herzegovina |
| Boris Ulik | Enterprise Security | Slovakia |
| Drahoslav Dvorak | Project | Czech Republic |
| Gabriel Enea | ASP.NET/IIS | Romania |
| Hrvoje Hudoletnjak | ASP.NET/IIS | Croatia |
| Maciej Grabek | Windows Phone Development | Poland |
| Mihai Nadas | Windows Azure | Romania |
| Nenad Trajkovski | Project | Croatia |
| Sebastian Wilczewski | Project | Poland |
| Slaven Sola | SQL Server | Croatia |
(this is related to the Region I represent, which is CEE & Italy, excluding Russia and CIS Countries).
A BIG CONGRATS to you guys MVPs and of course to the ones that have been re-Awarded. And being re-Awarded is tough as well so don’t you think MVPs take it for granted. The MVP Award lasts 12 months and everybody are treated as normal candidates so I totally understand the excitement (and sometimes the pain ) to wait for an email saying that you’ve been Awarded again.
That said, I sincerely want to wish you a very Happy New Year and, if took some time off, Happy Holidays ! I’ll be on holiday for a while but I’ll still be around (you’ll definitely find me on Twitter ).
BTW, If you don’t know nothing about the MVP Award Program, please take some time to subscribe to our blog as you’ll find some interesting stories to read…
Also, did you notice my blog URL has changed? The RSS Feed has been automatically updated but I wanted to let you know anyway (some personal promotion doesn’t hurt )
Enjoy your Award and Congratulations Again !
2011 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for my blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 18,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 7 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Sneak Peek: CarbonWP Twitter client for Windows Phone | wpcentral | Windows Phone News, Forums, and Reviews
The Cyber Thieves That Stole Christmas [INFOGRAPHIC]
Via Scoop.it – digitalmashup
The Cyber Thieves That Stole Christmas [INFOGRAPHIC]
Via infographiclist.com
Virtualstudy.pl: let’s go virtual !
When I was @ the Microsoft Technology Summit in Poland few weeks ago I had the pleasure to talk with a lot of MVPs @ the Community Booth that had been set up for the event. BTW, that was a HUGE event with, I presume, almost 2.500 attendees. As you can imagine, it’s the biggest annual Microsoft event in Warsaw and, from what I’ve seen, it was a real success.
BTW, I’d like to point out a great article on the event (in Polish) by MVP Piotr Pawlik.
Well, during these conversations a lot of interesting things normally come up. One of those was regarding the VirtualStudy.pl (not to mention all the other communities like WSS.pl, codeguru.pl and a lot more).
Thanks to the hard of the community members, VirtualStudy.pl now has a full support of English language, an English forum and even a few videos in English available as VOD.
At the same time the board is now looking for presenters who would like to prepare and present sessions in English (possibly with good presentation skills).
VirtualStudy.pl was created to allow users to attend online meetings and learn free of charge. Since the beginning they had quite a few interesting courses like Windows Server, SharePoint 2010 Training, SQLServer 2008, Windows Phone 7 programing, as well as 6 month C# training course which finished with an exam and certificates) where the average number of attendees was around 200-300 people.
Currently VirtualStudy.pl hosts all the previous sessions on a on-Demand basis (few hundred sessions are already available to watch).
These online sessions do not contain any marketing content, but it’s pure technical Microsoft knowledge.
And at the moment they are currently organize their first VirtualStudy.pl Conference 2011.
So this is a call to action for anyone with technical skills on Microsoft Technologies who wants to deliver English presentation.
And, just to close the topic that I started at the very beginning, these are some pictures from the MTS:
And this is me, powered by a customized Chrome-Joke T-shirt (), when I just got a nice & unexpected gift:
Thank you for the wonderful time guys: I’ll see you next time in Warsaw (or even before, @ the MVP Global Summit !!)
