CodeMash 2014

Last week marked my seventh CodeMash, having only missed the very first one (a fact of which I’m still sad about).  As usual, the conference was top notch.  It’s amazing what a small number of dedicated volunteers can pull off.  At the end of the event they brought up the staff and there was less than two dozen folks there.  That’s the all volunteer staff that pulled off a four day conference for 2,000 people.  That’s quite a remarkable feat and my hat is off to them.  The event has grown year after year, to the point that this year they had just as many people in their families KidsMash program as they did at the very first CodeMash conference!

My Automating Windows Azure Session

This year I was honored to be selected to present a session on Automating Windows Azure.  Thank you for the folks that attended the session.  As promised here the resource links I showed on my last slide.  Also provided are the scrubbed copies of the scripts I had shown in my demos.  You’ll need to add your certificate thumbprint and subscription IDs to the scripts to get them to work, as well as change the storage account and cloud service account names to make them globally unique.

• Windows Azure Script Center: http://bit.ly/1bITTmb
• Article on Management Certs: http://bit.ly/1dnC8tH
• Getting Started with Managed Library:   http://bit.ly/1hprIk8
• Michael Washam’s Blog: http://bit.ly/19WeB5o
• PowerShell CmdLets on GitHub: http://bit.ly/1f6elFn
• Azure Scripty (for Node): http://bit.ly/JVkHJf
• Demo Scripts: http://sdrv.ms/1axxHiU

I hope you enjoyed the talk.  I will be giving it numerous times this year at various user groups and a few other events.  If you attended this one I’d really appreciate any constructive criticism you have on it.  Either leave a comment or contact me directly.

An Unexpected Session

The weather this year was pretty bad on Monday, so not all of the precompiler speakers were able to make it to the Conference in time for their sessions on Tuesday.  I had the great pleasure of teaming up with Josh Holmes to present a half day workshop on “Speaking for Speakers” to help fill in for another speaker until they arrived.  I had a great time working with Josh on this and the folks who joined us for the workshop were very engaged.  It was awesome co-presenting this with Josh who is someone I admire as not only an excellent presenter, but also a great person.

Thanks to all who organized and attended CodeMash to make it what it was: an excellent event and learning experience.