Usually I am traveling very relaxed to Tech*Ed. This is one of those conferences that I have attended many, many times. It is a real showcase for current Microsoft technologies. This year will be a little different for me though. Even though I am looking at it right now as just another presentation, it is something very, very special for me to be able to speak at Tech*Ed. I remember my first Tech*Ed, back in 1996. I remember waiting for the keynote to get started while everybody was treated on loud music and a number of videos. I also remember the first breakout sessions I attended and I remember daydreaming about one day being able to present a session myself. This was at a time that I hardly did any presentation, except for a few local events. It was also the time first rumors were heard about this new Microsoft operating system called Windows CE. Being excited about a new operating system, I promised myself to invest a lot of time understanding this operating system and stay up to date with it. This is 11 years ago right now. After a while, Windows CE was used in a product called Windows Mobile, an operating system dedicated to handheld devices, Pocket PC’s and Smart Phones. And of course, with Visual Studio 2003 we all of a sudden had capabilities to develop managed applications for Windows CE based devices. All that time I kept up with both Windows CE and Windows Mobile, not necessarily to make a fortune, but mainly because I love this technology. Over time I also started to become active in the community, since 2002 mainly answering questions on newsgroups until 2005. It is really cool to help other people by answering questions and it also brought me personally something very good, being recognized for that work and being rewarded as MVP. Since that initial recognition, back in 2003, lots of things have happened. I started writing and talking more and more about Windows Embedded operating systems, resulting in a very cool award back in 2003 when my buddy Michel Verhagen and I wrote an article about real time behavior of the .NET Compact Framework. This article won the 2003 WinHEC award for best white paper. Well, Michel moved on since that time, in fact he is living in New Zealand right now, working for a company called Embedded Fusion. I moved on as well, having the chance to present a number of sessions during international conferences like the Microsoft Embedded Developer Conference, Embedded World, the Microsoft Mobile Developer Conference, Mobile Connections and during the last couple of years at MEDC. I also got the chance to present tons of sessions at MSDN Webcasts and I wrote a number of articles for MSDN. However, one wish didn’t come true so far. Speaking at Tech*Ed! This year is going to be the first year that I will be speaking at Tech*Ed, even cooler, the Tech*Ed organizers did put me up as one of the featured speakers for this years’ Tech*Ed. Being on the same page with folks like David Platt, Jeff Prosise, Juval Lowy and Mark Russinovich makes me feel very good. Of course, right now I am feeling nervous. How will my session go this Thursday? Will the audience like it? Are people showing up for the session? I will be part of the brand new mobility track at Tech*Ed with this topic: Improving the Performance of Your Application Using Diagnostic Tools in the .NET Compact Framework. The demos are all working, even the ones running under Visual Studio Orcas. The timing of my presentation is still wrong, I have tons of material to cover, not only about diagnostic tools but about performance improvements in general. Hopefully after rehearsing all week and after skipping part of my content I will be able to squeeze everything in into 75 minutes on Thursday at 4.30 PM. If by any chance you are attending Tech*Ed I would love to see you attending this session and hopefully meet in person afterwards. If you are not attending Tech*Ed you shouldn’t worry. I will repeat parts of this session during an upcoming MSDN Webcast sometime in July. As a matter of facts, since performance is such an important topic for Windows Mobile devices I am even thinking about doing more webcasts around this topic. A dream becomes true for me with speaking at Tech*Ed. Even though I still have to wait and see if my presentation is appreciated by the audience, I already like to thank the folks from Microsoft that wanted me to be part of this year’s Tech*Ed. I guess right now it is time to move the bar up one notch. Why don’t I start dreaming about presenting at PDC. This is even harder for non-Microsoft employees, but hey, everybody needs something to dream about, right?   

Maarten Struys