Is this your first TechEd? You’re probably wondering what you need to bring, who you should talk to and all that sort of stuff. TechEd is a big conference. It’s a lot of fun, but it can also be quite daunting for the newcomer (I’d know – this is only my second). After a chat with a couple of TechEd veterans, I’ve collated the list below of tips and tricks for attending TechEd.

Bring a laptop that will give you enough battery to get most of the way through the day

TechEd is riddled with power outlets and places to charge your devices. That said, TechEd’s also riddled with geeks who have devices that need charging, so it’s sometimes hard to find a free space. Bring a device that you can rely on for most of the day. I will be bringing my EeePC and iPad for this – between the two of them I can (well and truly) get a day out of them. Also be sure to throw a power board/strip in for use in the hotel – where w ...

Update: Unfortunately due to unprecedented demand, Microsoft have reached the capacity for User Group discounts and we are unable to accept any new requests. Early-bird registration is open until July 26 (5PM AEST), and regular registration is open until September 7th. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

It's July again! Which, amongst other things, means it's getting cold. In unrelated news, TechEd Australia is just two very short months away.

As usual, we at AuTechHeads are super excited about this conference and the opportunities it provides for geeks such as us.

We are pleased to be able to offer a substantially discounted ticket to our members on behalf of Microsoft Australia. If you're a member of AuTechHeads, simply register your details in the form (closes August 2) and we will pass your details on to the generous folk at Microsoft.

Once Microsoft receive the minimum number of user group registrations (just thirty - so we're quietly confident) the offe ...

After reading about the improved battery life in the 4S, I had a great first day with the phone. After actually getting it and turning it on from about 8:30am, playing with it for the morning, and then doing a full restore from my old phone. Apart from the charge while the restore was going on, I didn't charge it for the rest of the day. Played lots with it in the afternoon and had about 10% charge left by 11pm that ...

I was lucky enough to attend TechEd again this year and had a fantastic week. Like most people I’m heading back to work with tons of new ideas and a renewed enthusiasm in the technology I work with every day. If you missed it this year, this is my wrap up.

Highlight:
The most amazing part of this week for me personally was winning runner up in the Microsoft Women in IT Community Contributor Award. I was genuinely shocked when I was called up and I’m still really touched that people thought of me. For those of you that nominated me, a massive thank you. I meant a lot to me and has really inspired me to keep at it.

Of course the biggest thank you goes to Catherine Eibner (@ceibner) who does lots of hard work to help promote the WIT cause. I think she does a stellar job and deserves to be recognised for her hard work. 

Speaker/ Sessions Highlights:
My favourite sessions were delivered by Rhonda Layfeild (@deploym ...

So, a few miffed tweets and a blog post or two, and I find myself picked up by itnews.com.au (totally without my knowledge, mind!), and the story grows legs, and takes off all on its own.  That said, I stand by what I have written, and I firmly believe that I have delivered an even handed and fair appraisal of what occurred from my personal perspective surrounding the issues with the Pre-Conference Technical Training at Tech.Ed Australia 2011. Bottom line, most delegates in the training did not get what they paid for.

Technical failures happen.  In our industry, we all have to deal with them.  In a previous blog, I made mention of the fact that a great organisation is made by how they respond to this sort of event.

As a result of my blogs and tweets, I had some chats and emails with people from Microsoft such as Jeff Alexander and Sarah Vaughan.  Both of these guys made every effort to apologise and to make sure that I was listened too and responded too ap ...

OK, so the journey continues on my Tech.Ed Australia adventure for 2011, and I must say that things are one heck of a lot better than yesterday.  Those that have been playing along from home, or keeping tabs via this site or on Twitter will have read from yesterday's blog that things did not get off to a very good start with the Pre Conference Technical Training Labs.

Attendees were basically served up crashing VMs, couldn't log on, or were forced to sit through an unfortunate barrage of 'Death by PowerPoint' sessions as a result of the SAN running the VMs having a hardware failure.  The trainers all did a great job of trying to save face and deliver meaningful content to the attendees, but at the end of the day, none of us paid the aforementioned $715.00 to attend a PowerPoint slide-deck-fest.

This morning, things were markedly different.  On arrival in my lab, I noted that the workstations we were using had been re imaged overnight to include all labs on ...

So my Tech.Ed Australia adventure is off to a very bumpy start so far.  I, along with a few hundred others, paid the princely sum of $715.00 (plus extra accommodation, food etc) to attend what should have been two fully packed days of learning and tech geekery.  Instead, we encountered death by PowerPoint, error messages such as "SYSTEM IS FULL - All of our available lab connections are in use at the moment, Please check back at a later time" and generally high levels of nerd-rage and frustration.

The day started off fairly normally - there was an introductory session, and info on the new stuff, complete with complex Visio diagrams and verbose PowerPoint slides.  We then progressed onto the first of the lab sessions, of which we were expected to complete three in around an hour and a half.  Simple stuff like adding server roles, creating users and OUs in AD.  Instead, we were served up with endless loading/progress bars, VMs that wouldn't start, and generally ...

It's a shameless cross-promotion, of course (like all good cross-promotions!) but here's a blog post outlining my sessions at TechEd New Zealand and TechEd Australia.

I'm speaking on User Device Affinity (UDA) in SCCM 2012, and how to migrate from SCCM 2007 to SCCM 2012.

 UDA is going to revolutionise user, workstation and application management in SCCM, and the architectural changes in SCCM 2012 will make you want to jump ship from SCCM 2007 as fast as possible (awesome product though it is).

So check out my sessions and say Hi at TechEd :-)