As Mike said, I’ll be helping out on the Client development day at TechDays in the UK. There’s a great line-up for that day including Ingo Rammer and Ian Griffiths, so from my keynote, things can only get better…

Still time to register – take a look.

I’ll be loitering about the rest of the week too and in particular helping Paul Foster with an “After Hours” event on 14th April where we’ll be talking about anything from home entertainment to augmented reality. Join us, it’ll be ace.

It’d be crazy for me not to spread the love for this awesome video from TED in which Blaise Aguera y Arcas (of Seadragon fame) demonstrates augmented reality integration inside Bing Maps.

I demo’d some of the Photosynth and Bing Maps integration at an internal shindig just a few months ago which I thought was awesome. Looks decidedly old already in the face of this. Fantastic pace of innovation from Bing – which I’m coming to expect.

Other videos I’d recommend (I’m still working my way through) would be Bill Gate’s Innovate to Zero, and Jamie Oliver’s TED Prize Wish: Teach every child about food.

With particular regard to Jamie’s session:

• It pleases me that Evan (my daughter – 2) does recognise potatoes, tomatoes and lemons already.
• Jamie has – in one 18 minute slot – validated my “drunken bloke on a ship in a force 9 gale” style of swaying about whilst giving a presentation. They try and change me, but I say no…

Ta-dah! Go register now for developer and IT pro goodness! w00t!

I can’t believe I’m not described as a featured speaker. Who is that Taulty bloke anyway?

Phew – finally we’re unveiling the awesomeness of Windows Phone 7 Series. I won’t add to the constant barrage of immediate reflection but you can find the press release, and videos from MWC here.

From the press release:

With Windows Phone 7 Series, Microsoft takes a fundamentally different approach to phone software. Smart design begins with a new, holistic design system that informs every aspect of the phone, from its visually appealing layout and motion to its function and hardware integration. On the Start screen, dynamically updated “live tiles” show users real-time content directly, breaking the mold of static icons that serve as an intermediate step on the way to an application. Create a tile of a friend, and the user gains a readable, up-to-date view of a friend’s latest pictures and posts, just by glancing at Start.

Every Windows Phone 7 Series phone will come with a dedicated hardware button for Bing, providing one-click access to search from anywhere on the phone, while a special implementation of Bing search provides intent-specific results, delivering the most relevant Web or local results, depending on the type of query.

Other stuff you should have a look at (for starters):

• @inafried interview with Andy Lees
• XBOX Live and Windows Phone 7 – quick mention from @majornelson
• This excellent MIX 10 offer – still a $200 discount to be had.
• This Engadget piece: “Windows Phone 7 Series is official, and Microsoft is playing to win”
• And of course – Charlie Kindel’s (@ckindel) new blog.

Did we mention the XBOX Live and Zune integration?

Roll on MIX 10.

I’m off to MIX in March – w00t! I’m sure you’ll be there too. As always, if you can find me, I’ll buy you a drink. (Not you Clayton – don’t you owe me one?)

So whilst the likes of MikeO, Sara, and MikeT are busily planning which sessions to attend, who to talk to and so on – very sensible as there’s going to be a lot happening – I’ve taken to the movie archives for inspiration.

Following on from Ocean’s Eleven and Casino, I’ve moved on to 21. Now, that card counting malarkey looks easy. I could’ve gone to MIT if I’d applied myself (my mother says) and frankly, if Kevin Spacey can do it then so can I.

I’ve got no intention of being able to win anything. I just fancy a scrap with Laurence Fishburne in the kitchens at the Mandalay Bay.

See you there lucky people.

I’ll probably never master the art of saying very little – I like to talk. To paraphrase (and ruin) a line from a movie: “Lady, I speak two languages: Fast English and Bad English”. I actually like to listen too – I just iterate quickly…

I often wonder what impression you embed in other folks minds when you say a lot of words. Here’s a nice example from His Jobsness:

The fifth AIC is now lined up and ready to go. This year will be a two-day, three-track affair across Enterprise, Solution and Infrastructure architecture with a day 1 focus on Architecting Today: From Cost to Innovation and day 2 focus on Architecting Tomorrow: Implications of Cloud.

Great speaker line-up including:

• Iain Mortimer, Chief Architect, Merrill Lynch Bank of America
• Andy Hopkirk, Head of Projects and Programmes and Director e-GIF Programme, NCC
• David Sprott, CEO, Everware-CBDI International and Founder, CBDI Forum
• Ivar Jacobson, Ivar Jacobson International
• Kim Cameron, Chief Architect of Identity and Distinguished Engineer, Microsoft Corp
• Steve Cook, Software Architect, Visual Studio Team System, Microsoft Corp
• Ulrich Homann, Chief Architect, Worldwide Services, Microsoft Corp
• Terry Smith, Senior Director, Partner Technology Unit, Microsoft Ltd
• Mark Taylor, Senior Director, Developer & Platform Evangelism, Microsoft Ltd

You can take a look at the agenda, and sign up, here.

• Tools: Visual Studio and Microsoft Expression
• Runtimes: Internet Explorer and Silverlight
• Platform: Windows 7 and Azure

• Get your hands on the tools: Visual Studio 2010 and Expression Studio
• Have a look at some of the commentary on the work we're doing towards Internet Explorer 9.
• Update yourself on Silverlight 4 via this post from Tim, or if you're a detail fan, then head to Mike's blog for 26 blog posts on the new features.
• All of the Azure stuff can be found from the main site, but also the delivery of AppFabric  - the realisation of the Dublin, Velocity (and Sydney) projects really takes some time to digest.

As Matt points out on his blog, you can now get your mitts on the decks from the very successful Architect Insight 2009 event. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/architecture/dd135210.aspx

AIC covered a lot of ground from identity to governance to dynamic languages to user centered architecture to SOA to Oslo so there’s something for everyone over there.

And I can confirm that @blooders has stuck with the familiar “translucent black headers” pptx style…

Fortunately, the gang are way ahead of me to tell you about this event, but I figured I should mention it too. This is the first ever TechNet UK Virtual Event and takes place on 19th June.

You can register for the event and see the full agenda here. There’s a bunch of interesting sessions: Viral and Andrew will be presenting amongst other experts. I’m also interested in Asif’s session on Desktop Deployment at Microsoft: IT at Microsoft is one of the silent reasons for job satisfaction here.

Other stuff you can see and hear: a keynote from Mark Russinovich, information on WS 2008 R2, OCS R2 and voice capabilities (which I ABSOLUTELY LOVE AND IT HAS REVOLUTIONISED MY COMMUNICATION), stuff on SharePoint and some discussion on the 10yr outlook for IT.

Oh, and our very own Eric Nelson will be staffing a ‘virtual pod’ for MSDN (so they’re not left out). No, I have no idea what that means either.

Undoubtedly, there’ll be chatter on Twitter. Worth following @Alex_Ball and @AskTechNetUKto stay up to date.