Manda QoP

Myles Matheson from Microsoft will be presenting "Demystifying Business Intelligence" and Carolyn Sanders from Fronde Systems Group will be presenting "Scrum 101 - Unleashing the theory!". Tickets are $35, price includes dinner and a glass of wine. Tickets available from www.girlgeekdinners.co.nz . DEMYSTIFYING BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE BI is real hot right now, but I often find myself in situations where I have to try and explain Business Intelligence (BI). It’s not that easy to define BI in a universal definition that everyone agrees with. BI is as much a collection of technologies and principles as anything else. My talk will be about how companies use BI and what it means to the IT professional. I will take you through the first principles of BI. The who, why, and how we deliver BI systems today. We will also look at an end to end solution that many businesses already own. Myles is a Solution Specialist for Microsoft New Zealand. He has worked in the fiel...

The next Auckland Girl Geek Dinner event is on Thursday 27th August. We're holding it at GPK in Ponsonby. Tickets are $35. We have two speakers for August, Carolyn Sanders and Myles Matheson. More info and ticket purchasing on the website www.girlgeekdinners.co.nz.

Someone raised an interesting point on Monday night at a GGD dinner and I feel they have missed the entire point of Girl Geek Dinners and have also, with their comments, seriously undermined other women who are looking to come out of their shell and interact with other 'geeks'. If you don't agree with what we're doing then don't come to a Girl GEEK dinner, and certainly don't turn up and throw cold water on people, make belittling comments and then moan that it was too technical and you didn't enjoy it. So what is a geek? There seemed to be some confusion. These women throwing around the derogatory comments seem especially confused. So let's refresh everyones' minds. You don't need to be in IT to be a geek folks! It's not an exclusive club limited to women who don't baulk at the thought of writing code. We're a diverse crowd and we celebrate each others geekiness, even if it isn't something we're into. We certainly ...

This is now the fastest graphics card around - drooool. I need a new graphics card, no, honest, I do! Half life will be even more awesome. :-) http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/20080812/amd-brings-the-game-to-nvidias-doorstep/#more-16090 . Mind you, if I'm going to change the graphics card then I should probably upgrade the motherboard and a few other bits as well. Just for the hell of it of course.

After pulling an all nighter at the weekend my TechEd talk has been submitted to TechEd for peer review - WOO HOO! All I need now is a fantastic SaaS or S+S case study and feedback from the peer reviews to get it closed off. It feels so great to finally get that completed and means that I can spend the weekend concentrating on making sure the next Girl Geek Dinner is a fantastic success, preparing the GGD slides for TechEd and maybe fit in some shoe shopping as well. :-) PS: http://www.girlgeekdinners.co.nz/ if you want to buy tickets to the GGD event on the 28th. ;-)

I have just deleted my entire Hotmail account by accident. Nngggggnnnnhhhh!! Let this be a lesson to everyone, if you set up Outlook Connector in Outlook 2003, don't delete it so that you can reset it from scratch as it also deletes all your Hotmail emails and you can't get them back. It is also possible that the monster amounts of pain killers I'm taking had something to do with this monstrous debarcle. Ah well, it's one way of tidying up the emails. Hope there was nothing important in there.

And no, I don't mean the one at the back of that book you're reading. I'm talking about that pesky little flap that hangs out with the intestines, acting all cool and detached for 30 years, doing absolutely bugger all and then one day for no apparent reason it pops its top! I was finally looking forward to a weekend of being able to work on my TechEd talk and whammo, 6.30pm on a Friday night (excellent timing there by my internal appendages don't you think?) we have a little trippette to A&E. I've now been let out of the gynaecology ward (don't ask - I have no idea why). Sitting at my computer for more than half an hour without the support of copious amounts of drugs is not possible, however, my TechEd talk must be written. If there is a surreal section in the middle of my presentation it's the drugs talking and I apologise in advance. Thank goodness for peer reviews. LOL! I am now off to hold a wake for my appendix having spent the last minute wri...

Here's an alternative sponsorship request for you! Microsoft & Girl Geek Dinners are hosting a special Girl Geek Dinner at Tech Ed this year on Monday the 1st September. There will be around 300 women at this event at Sky City in Auckland. As a novel form of advertising, NZ Girl Geek Dinners are going to hand out free t-shirts during the Girl Geek Dinner at TechEd and at the TechEd conference itself. This is as an alternative to handing out flyers. The t-shirts will also be available from the Microsoft Stand and any other company stands who will let us cadge some space - hint hint. We are looking for sponsors to help cover the costs of making the t-shirts. Sponsorship for t-shirts will cost $500 per business. In return for sponsoring us you'd get your logo on the back of the t-shirt and on our National and Wellington websites. I am keen to give our existing and previous sponsors first dibs at this and will be limiting the number of sponsors so that the t-shirt does...

The NZ Branch of Girl Geek Dinners have their first dinner arranged. When: 22nd November 2007 Where: The Komodo Rooms, Parnell, Auckland Speaker: No-one yet but I'm hoping to get something good for the first dinner. Cost: $30 per head - this goes towards covering the cost of food and venue hire. Drinks: You will be able to purchase drinks from a bar all night. For more information about NZ Girl Geek Dinners go to: www.girlgeekdinners.co.nz