Archive
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 !!)
Microsoft MVP Award – July 2011 !
It’s the first of July and I’m here to announce another important milestone in the MVP Award Program.
We evaluated, scrutinized, “monitored” and got recommendations of outstanding community contributors in the Region I represent (Italy & CEE, excluding Russia + CIS Countries).
And it’s always a challenge, making sure we got all the information, making sure we nominate people in the right expertise (and it’s not always a piece o’ cake). But we ended up, hopefully, to Award the people that really deserve it !
I’m of course helped in this journey, which happens every 3 months: by dear colleague Marjorie, who really works hard on that period of time (and not only during that time ), by the local stakeholders, including the Audience Marketing Managers up to the DPE Leads, Directors and BMO Lead who can (and actually is very appreciated) give their opinions on the candidates that are in review. I guess the actual process really works thanks to all the people that are involved in this (and they are a lot, believe me ).
Having said that I would like to announce the newly Awarded MVPs for the 1st of July (sorted by name):
| MVP | Technical Expertise | Country/Region |
| Darko Milevski | SharePoint Server | Macedonia F.Y.R.O |
| Grzegorz Rycaj | Visual Studio ALM | Poland |
| Hajan Selmani | ASP.NET/IIS | Macedonia F.Y.R.O |
| Joanna Subik | System Center Operations Manager | Poland |
| Kaido Järvemets | System Center Configuration Manager | Estonia |
| Karel Klatovský | Remote Desktop Services | Czech Republic |
| Margarita Naumova | SQL Server | Bulgaria |
| Martin Wilhelm Angler | SharePoint Server | Italy |
| Peter Gubarevich | Enterprise Security | Latvia |
| Peter Holpar | SharePoint Server | Hungary |
| Piotr Pawlik | Exchange Server | Poland |
| Radi Atanassov | SharePoint Server | Bulgaria |
| Rok Bermež | Windows Azure | Slovenia |
| Salvatore Di Fazio | SharePoint Server | Italy |
| Slavko Kukrika | Windows Expert-IT Pro | Slovenia |
As soon as they’ll publish the good news (hopefully it’s a good news for them ) by blogging, micro-blogging and/or on their MVP Profiles, I will add the links to their names so you can start familiarize with them.).
A BIG CONGRATS to the MVPs who have been renewed this Award cycle: the list is long but I want to congratulate them for their hard community involvement. Being renewed is as tough as being awarded for the first time. Being involved in the online and offline community environments is a challenge (time constraints, few or no help from other community members, several trips to make speeches, spending big amount of time reviewing and writing articles and books and so forth). It’s the PASSION that drives us all, and it should always be like that.
BTW, If you don’t know nothing about the MVP Award Program, why don’t you subscribe to our blog? You’ll definitely find some good interesting stories to read !
Enjoy your Award and join me in congratulating them !
Microsoft MVP Award – April 2011 Awards !
Everytime is a challenge, everytime is a “working hard” to make sure all the valuable members of the Communities are Awarded. It’s a process that never ends…
And it’s not that easy, monitoring all the Communities in CEE & Italy (the Region I represent, excluding Russia & CIS Countries), and find the “best of the best” inside those entities.
But I’m helped, of course: thanks to the continuous commitment of the Microsoft local Subsidiaries, and the help of the MVPs themselves, we get new outstanding nominations throughout the Region every Quarter.
So what can I say, apart from CONGRATULATING the new and re-awarded MVPs?
I never experienced that but, if I would be a technical expert in the IT Industry, getting the MVP Award e-mail should be really satisfying, from a personal and professional standpoint.
I always feel the excitement from the new MVPs, but also from the ones who are renewed, it’s still a very emotional part of their jobs and careers.
And this is thanks to what you do, on a voluntarily basis, that makes you a Microsoft MVP, even if you are not “MVP-branded” yet . Doing communities activities, being available to the local subsidiaries when it comes to do technical presentations or articles or whatever it is, you’re part of the Community Ecosystem as an “Influencer”. People listen to you, listen to your advice, and take actions on your technical feedback. And this is definitely TRUST, something you gain year over year with your continuous effort in helping the communities grow from a technical perspective. So this is just to say THANK YOU, again, for what you do.
Back to the April Award Cycle, I’m very happy to announce the new MVPs (sorted by name):
| Influencer | Country/Region | Technical Expertise |
| Alberto Ferrari | Italy | SQL Server |
| Anton Staykov | Bulgaria | Windows Azure |
| Bahrudin Hrnjica | Bosnia-Herzegovina | Visual C# |
| Daniel Stefaniak | Poland | Management Infrastructure |
| Dimitris Papadimitriou | Greece | Connected System Developer |
| Francesco Sodano | Italy | SharePoint Server |
| Igor Pavlekovic | Croatia | Exchange Server |
| Jevgeni Tsaikin | Estonia | Device Application Development |
| Marcin Dembowski | Poland | Internet Explorer |
| Marcin Iwanowski | Poland | Expression Blend |
| Mirko Mainetti | Italy | Dynamics NAV |
| Nicola Ferrini | Italy | App-V |
| Toomas Ruus | Estonia | Exchange Server |
(as soon as you’ll publish the news on your blogs and/or on your MVP Profiles, I will add the links to your name so anyone can see who you are ).
I won’t put the list of all the re-awarded MVPs as it’s very long but, if you ask me to do it, I’ll do it !
Of course we had some declined MVPs. And this is natural: sometimes people don’t have time to dedicate to the communities anymore, some others changed jobs so this make it difficult for them to be active again: any other reason in between I don’t want to lose connections with these guys because I’m sure, sooner or later, they’ll come back again !
BTW, If you don’t know nothing about the MVP Award Program, why don’t you subscribe to our blog? You’ll definitely find some good interesting stories to read about !
That said, Enjoy your Award and talk to you soon !
Microsoft WinDays 2011 !
Following the great success of the last year’s event,
Croatian WinDays strikes back with a new 2011 promising event !
" There is no better place to search for new and different ideas than the leading business and technology conference in Croatia – Microsoft WinDays11!”
The Conference will be held in Rovinj, Croatia and it will be split in two conferences:
WinDays11 Microsoft Technology Conference 4 – 7 April, 2011
WinDays11 Business Conference 7 – 8 April, 2011
“Whether you’re an IT professional, company director, an expert in sales, marketing or business development, you can always happen to run out of new ideas. We are all here to help: a great source of ideas runs dry, and it is necessary to look for inspiration. There is no better way to do this than to surround yourself with people who, like you, live and profit from new ideas and their implementation, which is even better, ideas really begin to live only when you share it with others.”
Featuring MVPs Ilija Brajkovic, Marin Franković, Damir Dizdarevic, Robert Petrunic, Domagoj Pavlesic, Dobriša Adamec, Vibor Cipan and I’m sure many more, covering lots of Microsoft technologies (as you can also see by the picture above): from Lync Server to Windows Phone 7, from Silverlight to IE9 and Office 365 just to name a few…
Feel free to follow the upcoming news and see you in Rovinj!
Link to: Početna – Microsoft WinDays11. Prostori ideja. Drugačije ideje
Microsoft Technical Conferences 2011- The All-in-One !
Yes, you read it right:
Microsoft Italy organized the biggest Technical Conference of the year.
Featuring 3 in a row Conferences:
SharePoint and Office Conference 2011
SQL & Business Intelligence Conference 2011
Unified Communications & Collaboration Conference 2011
From the 19th to the 21st of April, and in one single place, you will be able to listen and interact with some of the most prominent speakers and gurus of these technologies.
Featuring (for SPS & Office Conference) MVPs Claudio Brotto, Peppe Marchi, Igor Macori and Romeo Pruno.
As well as other MVPs as speakers during the SQL BI Conference: Davide Mauri, Gianluca Hotz, Igor Macori and Marco Russo (as well as Alberto Ferrari, I really rely on this guy 
)
While during the 3rd one, my friends Andrea Garattini and (former MVP) Massimiliano Luciani (and other important speakers) will “unify” your stuff pretty well !
With that said, if you’re really into technology and you wanna chat with these important professionals and gurus, you may to register yourself to all of the 3 to get a discount. It doesn’t happen so often to have such a bunch of great Microsoft, Partners and MVPs, together with their community peers, in one place for 3 days so I’d strongly recommend it!
You can learn more about the whole event by clicking the link below…(and I’ll see you there!)
Link to: Microsoft Technical Conferences 2011
Sinergija 10 & more !
I took some time this morning to recap on the recent event in which I had the pleasure to participate. It was in Belgrade, Serbia, and I already talked about the previous one in this post.
Sinergija is one of the most important event in the Balkans, together with some other events. ITPros and Developers had the chance to interact with each other and meet a lot of Microsoft folks and international speakers sharing their experiences on Microsoft products.
Also, this year Sinergija was at it 10th anniversary, which made the event even more important.
My colleague and friend Borko Kovacevic wrote some notes regarding the event which I guess it’s nice to share with you. Sinergija 10 gathered more than 1500 people on each of five days of the conference, and more than 3000 people on all Sinergija related events!
Some numbers:
5 days
150 technical presentations
30 business presentations
30 conference partner
1500 people on Technical Conference
700 people on Business Summits
150 speakers
80 IT Influencers from all over CEE
100 Press Representatives
150 Sinergija staff members
120 MS employees
1.500 people on Sinergija Party
1000 visitors of gaming and EXPO events per day
I specifically highlighted the Influencer n° as, together with the CEE HQ, we organized an Influencer Summit inside the event, where MVPs, Regional Directors, Student Partners and “Influencers” could meet and interact with us for a full day.
There were a lot of people who I personally met during other events and I have to tell how much I appreciated all the discussions and talks with them, representing almost 15 Countries in Central and Eastern Europe. MVPs from Estonia, Latvia, Russia, Poland, Croatia, Republic of Macedonia (F.Y.R.O.), Bosnia, Bulgaria, Romania, I can’t even mention all the people that was there. We also had Tomislav Bronzin (Vice President INETA Europe) and Bernardin Katic (Director at Large) who represented INETA Europe and GITCA who were available for discussing community and User Group issues and requests. Even the local General Manager from Microsoft Serbia came and make a short speech during our event which I think was fantastic !
In the evening, the organizers gathered speakers and Influencers for a dinner on a boat. We had a bus talking us from the hotel to the restaurant and the venue was really super ! We had the chance to talk about different topics but, fore and foremost, having all these Countries represented for me was a great experience (it’s always is).
There are several anecdotes I would like to share: on a personal note, I really appreciated the chat I had with MVP Bojan Jovicic about social skills (thank you for your advices !!)
And I’d also like to ad we had a great time talking about communities with Valdis Iljuconoks (nominated as the Official CEE MVP Photographer 
) and Maciej Pilecki !
There are several pieces of experiences I grab with myself after the event. One in particular, which is nothing new but worth to mention is:
“Strategies are important, but without relationships they are gonna fail”
See you soon !
WindowServer.it PMI Conference 2010 !
This is the first event organized by the local WindowServer.it community on Small-Medium Businesses.
Together with OverNet Education, the community organized, from the 4th to the 6th of October, the first WindowServer.it PMI Conference 2010.
During the 3 days all the technical issues will be analyzed in details, from a business perspective, like which products to implement, which regulations and how to implement an infrastructure using Windows Small Business Server 2008.
Among the topics that will be covered, Exchange Server, SharePoint and Dynamics CRM will be covered too. The speakers will involve some of the most important IT professionals in the industry (together with local MVP Giorgio Garcia-Agreda).
For more information, please follow the link and follow S.NET 
!
Link to (ITA): …:::: WindowServer.it PMI Conference 2010 ::::…
Microsoft Vizija 2010 !
On 13 – 14th October 2010, in Skopje (Former Yugoslavian Republic Of Macedonia).
I’m pleased to announce the Microsoft Vizija Conference (8th edition) which will include traditional IT Professionals, Developers and Managers everybody in one place.
“With the large number of lectures and the presence of eminent National and International people, the conference will give the opportunity to attendees to learn about new products and long term strategies of Microsoft, and to exchange views and knowledge about the latest technologies.”
From the list of the speakers, I can recognize a lot of Microsoft MVPs coming from the whole EMEA Region: Paula Januszkiewicz (Enterprise Security, from Poland), Dejan Foro (Exchange Server from Switzerland), Tomislav Bronzin – (SQL Server from Croatia), Damir Dizdarevic (Management Infrastructure from Bosnia-Herzegovina), Serge Luca (SharePoint Services from Belgium), Aleksandar Talev (SQL Server from F.Y.R.O.M.), Boban Stojanovski (Visual C# from F.Y.R.O.M.), Vladimir Meloski (Exchange Server from F.Y.R.O.M.) and Daniel Joskovski (SQL Server from F.Y.R.O.M.).
Microsoft Vizija continues to be the most important IT Event in the Country for those who wants to know more about Microsoft Products & Technologies and mostly to get involved in technical discussions with some of the key players in the field !
Link: http://www.msvizija.net/
Microsoft Days 2010 | Hlavní stránka
Microsoft Days 2010 will take place on 14-15th of September in Prague.
This is the biggest event ever organized in Czech Republic by Microsoft merging together conferences for IT Professionals, Developers and Partners.
The Agenda is pretty huge, covering topics like Azure, Online Services, Cloud Computing, Web Platform and other Client/Server/Developer/Dynamics content.
And, based on that, it’s split into two separate tracks – Technical (for IT Professionals and Developers) and Business part for Microsoft Partners.
Of course the Microsoft MVP Award Program will be very well represented thanks to the participation of 7 MVPs as speakers and another 6 MVPs in the Ask The Experts booth.
Martin Pavlis (Exchange), Miroslav Knotek (Consumer Security), Kamil Jurik (SharePoint Server), Petr Kosec (System Center Operations Manager), Michal Valasek (ASP/ASP .NET), Ondrej Vysek (Setup & Deployment), Martin Zugec (PowerShell) as well as the MVPs who will be present at the ATE Booth like Miroslav Pragl (Consumer Security), Jan Pilar (Windows Desktop Experience), Igor Vit (Visual FoxPro), Igor Stanek (ASP/ASP .NET), Jarda Jirava (Client App Dev) and Pavel Repa (System Center Operations Manager). It’s a long list ! 
Furthermore, the XBOX 360 Kinect will also be officially announced here !!
Link (in Czech): Microsoft Days 2010 | Hlavní stránka
A little update on Social Forums
I’ve been very busy during the last couple of months and I was pushing myself trying to find some time to “revitalize” my blog.
So here we are, back on track, with some new information regarding the Forums.
I already talked about it on one of my previous posts and I would like to share with you some of the updates and new stuff already in place (mostly for the EMEA Region).
TechNet (basically for ITPROs and System Administrators)
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TechNet (ITPROs) |
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Danish |
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not yet available |
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English |
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French |
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German |
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Italian |
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Polish |
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Portuguese |
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Romanian |
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MSDN (for Developers)
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MSDN (Developers) |
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Czech |
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Danish |
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not yet available |
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English |
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French |
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German |
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Italian |
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Polish |
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Portuguese |
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Microsoft Answers (for consumers: Windows, Microsoft Office & other related products)
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MS Answers (Consumer) |
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Chinese Simplified |
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Czech |
http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/cs-CZ/category/answerscscz |
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Danish |
not yet available |
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Dutch |
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English |
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French |
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German |
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Hungarian |
http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/hu-hu/category/answershuhu |
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Polish |
http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/pl-pl/category/answersplpl |
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You may want to know that you can access the forums not only through the web interface, but also using some of the tools available online. Basically all you need to have is an NNTP Bridge (links below) and a Newsreader (like Windows Live Mail for example):
Download the NNTP Bridge or download the Community Bridge (made by MVP Jochen Kalmbach: btw great job Jochen !)
And it’s very easy to get in there: all you need to have is a Windows Live ID and then you can start searching for the relevant forums you want to follow and start interacting with other users and Microsoft MVPs.
Happy Posting ! 
Mobility Day 2010 conference
On the 23rd of September, @ the Hotel Antunovic, Zagreb (Croatia), MVP Tomislav Bronzin, together with some other MVPs, organized this yearly event to go deep into Windows Phone and all the related technologies.
“Highlight of this year’s Mobility Day conference will be Windows Phone 7, news related to it – both from development and infrastructure perspective”
As you can see from the agenda, there will be MVPs like Andrej Radinger, Robert Petrunić, Damir Dizdarević, Dobriša Adamec, Daniel Joskovski and Željka Knezović, all from different Central and Eastern Europe Countries and all with different technical backgrounds.
3 Tracks (developers, ITPros and Business) to accommodate all the different audience needs is definitely an adding value to the conference !
You can follow the news about the Conference by following them and by checking this event FaceBook Page…
Link to: Home – Mobility Day 2010 conference
Sinergija 09, Fresh from Microsoft !
One of the biggest IT Conference in CEE is now starts its engine: from the 17th to the 19th of November, ITPros, Developers and Information Workers can benefit of an early bird price (until the 5th of November) for Sinergija 09 that will be held in Beograd, Serbia.
The event will be split in these main areas:
Featuring: Damir Dizdarevic, Tomislav Bronzin, Maciej Pilecki, Andrej Radinger, Zeljka Knezovic, Ivan Pavlovic, Srđan Božović, Dragoslav Ogar and many other Microsoft MVPs and consultants and professional speakers from the Region, the event is really a great opportunity to hear from the top gurus about Microsoft Technologies, best practices and Case Studies.
As you can see by reading the Agenda, lots of topics will be covered so you won’t probably miss this chance !
Link to: Sinergija 09
Microsoft Technology Summit 2009
Around 3000 people expect including almost 600 people from the communities.
These are some of the numbers of the most important Microsoft Conference happening in Warsaw on September 29-30: the Microsoft Technology Summit 2009 !
MTS 2009 is Poland’s largest technology conference aimed at IT professionals, developers, and enthusiasts of new technologies.
Highlighting MVPs Kimberly Tripp, Grzegorz Tworek, Paweł Pławiak, Jacek Doktór, Sebastian Wilczewski, Bartosz Pampuch, Marlon Grech and many other International colleagues and IT professionals, the 2 days will be differentiated in 13 different areas:
Thus touching a lot of different Microsoft technologies and products: from Visual Studio 2010 to the System Center family, from Exchange 2010 to Windows 7 etc etc…
Even if my Polish is almost at a scholar level, I’ll definitely be there !!
Link to: Microsoft Technology Summit 2009 | 29-30 września 2009 | PKiN Warszawa
TechDays 2008 – Epilogue
And yet another great event is over..
We have been doing this event for about 4 years and, as the MVP Community evolved, we really made great steps. The steps I’m talking about are not only about us, doing the Ask The Expert and the MVP Interactive Panel with 13 MVPs as speakers and 8 as active participants, but I’m also talking about the event organization: the TechDays/WPC 2008
Around 400 participants had the opportunity to see many professional ITPros and Developers, on a 3 days event, covering 70 sessions over 14 tracks (from Architecture to Data Platform to Business Intelligence and so forth).
It was about meeting people: the talks and the discussions, mingling together with the same passion to share. Absolutely amazing !
The guest speakers made clearly a difference (David Chappell with his speech on Cloud Computing was simply brilliant!) but I can’t mention all the positive feedback I received from the attendees talking about all the other speeches.
Every time it’s a privilege for me to represent these exceptional community leaders, as we are not talking about mere skills, we are talking about dealing with people that really has a great passion to share, open minded and available to participate to meet other people hungry for knowledge.
I recall a guy telling me: “For me, solving a technical problem for which an IT department/a developer is stuck for days/months with just a face-to-face chat, really pays my day”. And this is exactly what fosters these people (as I said) I have the honor to represent…
I have a lot of special thanks but please let me do just one to Giorgio Garcia-Agreda and Anna Cometti who made the “MVP Experience” so special… !
about.me
Alessandro Teglia
EMEA Regional Manager @Microsoft
Social. Connected. Digital Enthusiast. Online & Offline Community Influencer & Follower. Avid audio book reader, rookie Photographer, History fan. Addicted to #WindowsPhone... #Branding is my Passion
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