Tech Ed Daze: T - 4 Days Till My Presentation
So, here I am, on the plane headed to Orlando for Tech Ed 2008 - Developer Edition. I've been attending Tech Ed since 2004. This time, I'm excited, nervous, and a little scared, as this is the first time I have attended Tech Ed as a presenter. I'm presenting on Thurday, June 5th, at 1 PM on Applied Web Testing With Visual Studio Team System. This is what I've been devoting most of my time to over the past several months, and why my blog has been rather silent.
If you want to find me at Tech Ed to chat about Team System, or anything else for that matter, you have the following options:
- I'll be in the Developer & Tools TLC on and off throughout the week, and definitely there on Wednesday, June 4th, from about 2:30 - 6 PM.
- My session (obviously) from at 1 PM on Thursday, June 5th.
- I'm having a book signing! Woo Hoo! For those who don't know, I helped co-write Professional Team Foundation Server from Wrox Publishing. This will be on Thursday, June 5th, from 3:30 to 4 PM. I've not been told where, but I'm betting it will be near the bookstore.
You can also find me via Facebook, via email (see my blog tagline for that), or using my contact link above in my blog. Shoot me a message. I'd love to hear from people are follow Team System Rocks!
So my goal with my session is to talk about Web Testing, obviously, :D. It's a 300 level session, so I was told to assume that everyone there has done some basic web testing with VS2005 or Vs2008, and knows how to create a basic web test and use basic validation and extraction rules. I'll go over that briefly, but then jump into some of the more advanced stuff that you can do that is cool, such as Custom Extraction Rules, Data Driven Web Tests, Web Test Plug-ins, and Coded Web Tests. I'm also going to give some tips and best practices for using the VSTS Web Testing rules, and I'll relate some stories about how web testing has been used in the real world (and possibly in some ways you might not have expected).
I started working on this presentation back in February/March 2008, once I found out I was accepted as a speaker. I've gone through several iterations of it, at one point completely throwing out what I had and starting over. I finally found the story I wanted to tell, and everything started to fall into place. I've gotten some great feedback from people I've shown my presentation to, so I've revamped it some more after that, to include some suggestions that were made.
My goal for my session is minimal Powerpoint and lots of hands-on. Those are the kind of presentations I like, so that is what I am going to try and deliver. I would expect 10 minutes or less of Powerpoint, with the rest of the time spent inside Visual Studio Team System. The session should come it at right about an hour, giving us plenty of time for Q&A afterwards. As well, I'll head to the TLC after the session to answer any more questions before i go to the book signing.
My goals for today are to make it to the hotel, and run through my presentation at least twice. I'd love to get registered for Tech Ed today as well, but I don't know if it's open today or not. We'll see. I don't think there is anything going on tonight, but if I'm wrong, and someone is aware of an event, please let me know. :D
I'd like to thank Doug and Erika for giving me the opportunity to speak, and for all those people who have helped me on my presentation with advice and ideas. So a big thank you goes to: Brian Randell, Martin Woodward, Dave McKinstry, Neno Loje, Chris Menegay, Donovan Brown.
If you read this blog post, and are planning on coming to my session, shoot me an email and let me know. And don't forget to fill out the evaluation at the end. I'd love to know how i did, what I did right, and what I did wrong, so I can improve as a presenter.
See you at Tech Ed!