I attended VSLive in San Francisco last week. It was good, but not great. The previous two years I had attended Connections instead, so this year I decided to go back to VSLive. I think I'll be going back to Connections next year instead :)
Except for one thing: VSLive this year had certification testing, at half price. I had taken 70-310 (WebServices) in November, and planning to take 70-305 (Web) soon anyway. So, I decided to really cram hard and take both that and 70-306 (Windows) while at the conference. I did, and I passed both handily!
So, as far as I'm concerned, it was a GREAT conference :) Now to study up for the MCSD and MCDBA....
So, what was good and bad about the conference?
GOOD: Certification Testing, SQL classes by Kimberly Tripp, seeing family in San Francisco, and a book that I found at the book vendor that I hadn't seen before. Also, they had LOTS of computers on site so you could login, check your email, or whatnot. LOTS. The vendor area was HUGE. Did you know Jeff McManus works for EBay now? And, we did get to see the video of Bill dancing in "Great Moments at Work."
BAD: As usual the MS speakers were late, had the wrong slides, and in at least one case decided to do a different class than the one scheduled. The percentage of bad/mediocre classes to good ones was quite high. An entire day was spent on Whidbey. The ASP and SQL tracks were virtually non-existent.
At least the hotel had high speed internet :) Which is why I skipped Connections. The last two years, they have been in a place with no broadband. What are they thinking?
Print | posted on Thursday, April 01, 2004 3:32 PM