This week’s RunAs Radio has Clint Huffman, a Microsoft Premier Field Engieer talking to Richard Campbell about understanding the health state of IIS7/7.5.  There is some excellent content in this episode and I’d strongly recommend listning to it. Clint covers aspects such as mappings, caching, failed request tracing and the IIS Log Analyzer. Rather than tell you everything that is in the podcast, listen now! - http://www.runasradio.com/default.aspx?showNum=248

RunAs Radio is an excellent weekly podcast with Richard Campbell and Greg Hughes for IT Professionals/Developers making use of Microsoft products. In my honest opinion I think developers need to also have an understanding of the systems they develop and deploy on top of to maximise the full use of the platform, so I feel this is an excellent resource for all, so check out the podcasts and subscribe now!

When I presented at NxtGenUG in Birmingham last month I was asked which podcasts I listen to and I promised to write a blog post listing some of my favourites.  So here it is!

• .Net Rocks! – Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell publish a podcast twice a week and cover a wide range of .Net related topics for .Net Developers
• RunAs Radio – Richard Campbell and Greg Hughes host a weekly talk show primarily aimed at IT Professionals.  I’m a developer but pretty much an all round geek, so love hearing about additional technology such as Exchange, Hyper-V and Lync.  Plus to be a good developer I believe you need to have an understanding of the systems you are interacting with.
• Hanselminutes – Another weekly talk show this time hosted by Scott Hanselman, covering a wide range of topics from how-to advice, tools, utilities and issues and workarounds.
• Deep Fried Bytes – Deep Fried Bytes is a podcast with a Southern (US) flavour hosted by Keith Elder and Chris Woodruff, a huge variety of topics are covered as they say in their description “Anything is fair game if it plugs into the wall or takes a battery.”
• This Developer’s Life – This is a fairly new podcast but a great listen.  Scott Hanselman and Rob Conery talk about different aspects of being a developer and most of it is really relevant, especially the Disconnecting episode.
• NEBytes Bytecast – Of course our very own NEBytes Bytecast – I always listen back to see how good or otherwise it was.
• PC Pro Podcast – This is a weekly podcast from the team behind the PC Pro Magazine, covering a wide variety of topics and technology, quite an easy listen.
• Polymorphic Podcast – This is a great podcast which I only found last year, Craig Shoemaker covers Object Oriented Development, architecture and best practices (.Net).  Unfortunately there haven’t been any new episodes for a while but the archives are certainly worth listening to!
• Pixel8 – Podcast centred around building great user experiences.
• Sod This – Podcast by Oliver Sturm and Gary Short two normal guys interested in technology, software, programming and lots of other things.
• The Thirsty Developer – A fairly new podcast to me, been running quite a while though – podcast with MS Developer Evangelist Dave Bost and Clark Sell
• SEO 101 – As I’ve been getting more and more into SEO I came across this easy to listen to podcast, unfortunately what’s not easy to listen to are the four long advert breaks per episode, thankfully I can fast forward through them!
• Radio TFS – What it says on the tin – a podcast dedicated to Visual Studio ALM (Team Foundation Server)
• Pragmatic Programmer – If you’ve read the Pragmatic Programmer then you should check this podcast out from the Pragmatic Bookshelf
• Windows Weekly – This Week In Tech’s Windows Weekly podcast with Paul Thurrott, a weekly look at all things Microsoft.
• NxtGenUG Podcasts – Podcast from Rich and Dave although they haven’t produced many new podcasts lately their back catalogue is certainly worth a listen.

Finally I have just found the Herding Code Podcast and will be adding that to Zune for synchronisation and automatic download.  That finishes quite a long list but are there any podcasts I don’t have in that list that you listen to and would recommend?

Throughout the course of the week at Tech Ed Developers there were a number of community events held in the community lounge.  Primarily these were delivered by UK Community members and leaders and brought a great buzz to the hall and the event.  Dave, Rich and John from NxtGenUG hosted the Speaker Idol competition and regularly hosted gameshows for attendees such as Swagilly Fortunes, Who Wants to Be a Swaggionaire and although the participation was hesitant once the swag started flowing attendees were flocking to take part.  The Speaker Idol competition was great and there were some excellent quality speakers and topics.  Each speaker had five minutes to deliver a presentation to an audience with the ultimate prize of presenting a session at next year's Tech Ed Developers.  One of the Judging Panel, Guy Smith-Ferrier has a blog post with a more details - TechEd Europe 2007 Speaker Idol Final

Also the NxtGenUG boys were podcasting daily from Tech Ed and as before I've mentioned their podcasts are excellent and I recommend you listen to them - http://www.nxtgenug.net/Podcasts.aspx Also Tim and I managed to get some more content for VBUG's podcasts and we're hoping to start publishing a number of podcasts this coming week.

The latest podcast, Number 43 - http://nxtgenug.net/Podcasts.aspx?PodcastID=43, from Dave McMahon and Richard Costall, from NxtGenUG, features interviews from the VBUG Conference.  Dave interviewed Keynote Speaker, Ken Spencer and they discuss the Microsoft Regional Director Program and the keynote and sessions which Ken presented at the conference.  Dave catches up with delegates Mark Whitelock and Martin Sarosi from Engica, he talks to Rob Macdonald about the conference agenda and Dave chats with Tim Leung and I about our first conference as Vice Chair and Chair respectively, and our thoughts on the conference and VBUG.  This podcast along with their other productions are well worth listening and subscribing too.  Tim and I turned the tables on Dave after our interview and the results of that will be found on the forthcoming inaugural VBUG Podcast coming very soon...  watch this space!

I got in tonight and had an email from Richard Costall, telling  me the latest NxtGenUG Podcast - Number 37 - The One the Makes Your Ears Bleed! - was available for download.

This is a completely different type of podcast from a user group - it has no technical content.  The recording was made at the recent Royal International Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford.  This is an amazing event for all Air Enthusiasts and features historic and world leading aircraft with everything from Spitfires, Hurricanes and Lancaster (My Favourite!) to the latest Typhoon (Eurofighter)!

In the Podcast Dave and rich talk to the organisers, ground crew (erks), Air Cadets, hear about the Vulcan to the Sky Trust (A Charity set up to get an Avro Vulcan flying again!) and Dave commentates on an F-18 Display.  The sound effects are amazing!  Go and listen to it now it really perked me up and I've now dug out from the video collection (yes I still have some!) the Battle of Britain!!

On the subject of Airshows, next Saturday and Sunday (28th & 29th July 2007) sees the return of the Sunderland Airshow - The largest free Airshow in Europe.  This is something I look forward to every year and can't wait once again to attend both days - hopefully with the use of my new Camera I'll be able to post some excellent photos to my flickr account.

Tally Ho!

Recently Richard Costall and Dave McMahon gave a presentation at Community Leaders Day - an event for Community Leaders at Microsoft TVP, UK - on the subject of Podcasting. Indeed they even recorded a Podcast, showed us how to publish it and edit it Live in the session. They have made the podcast available to all and if it's something you are interested in I recommend a listen - http://www.nxtgenug.net/Podcasts.aspx?PodcastID=35.

While at DDD5 Dave McMahon caught up with me for an interview on IIS7 and my experiences of starting to speak on the circuit at national and local events. This podcast also contains interviews with attendees, speakers and organisers of DDD5, excellent work once again - to listen to the DDD5 podcast use this link - http://www.nxtgenug.net/Podcasts.aspx?PodcastID=36 also why you're there why not check out their other podcasts

DDD5

Dave McMahon and Richard Costall of NxtGenUG are currently attending the MVP Summit in Seattle and are delivering Podcasts daily this week from the summit. Richard Costall is an ASP.Net MVP and Dave McMahon is a Connected Systems Developer MVP. The MVP Summit is held every 18 months and MVPs from all around the globe meet together.

Why not add the Podcast RSS Feed to your aggregator - http://www.nxtgenug.net/RSS/RSSPodcasts.aspx?

For more information on the MVP Program visit the MVP Homepage.

I've previously mentioned the great podcasts produced by Dave and Rich at NxtGenUg and there recent one is another gem. They have started a series of podcasts with Dinis Cruz. Dinis is a security specialist and is part of OWASP, he is a great speaker and if you get chance to see him speak I seriously recommend attending. I saw his session at DDD2 and along with the rest of the audience, was copletely blown away with the exploits and methods of identifying them that Dinis outlined. Not just SQL Injection and cross site scripting. You can download the video of his session, which is well worth watching, from the Developer Developer Day Website.

In this podcast is the start of a series of sessions with Dinis and he discusses his work and that of OWASP. You can listen to this podcast and more from the , also check out my post on the security courses Dinis and NxtGenUg are running in March and April.

The Four Chaps From Blighty have started publishing a Podcast. The Four Chaps in question are Guy Smith-Ferrier, Steve Scott, Brian Long and Steve Tudor. They are the latest to produce a Podcast and very entertaining it is too. Their first Podcast covers how to give great presentations and in the latest one they discuss the recent Developer Day.

Another great series of Podcasts are produced by Richard Costall and Dave McMahon of NxtGenUG. Their Podcasts usually include a number of interviews and views on all that is happening in the community. The series has become compelling listening and well worth a listen, I have even had the pleasure in receiving a number of mentions and have been interviewed on a couple of occasions too.

Go and look them both up!