Are you a developer looking to launch your new web application? Or perhaps you are an IT Pro trying to understand what “the Cloud” means to you.  Or maybe you have a need for some compute time to run some computations.

Regardless of who you are, or why you are thinking about the cloud, Microsoft [...]]]>

Are you a developer looking to launch your new web application? Or perhaps you are an IT Pro trying to understand what “the Cloud” means to you.  Or maybe you have a need for some compute time to run some computations.

Regardless of who you are, or why you are thinking about the cloud, Microsoft is making it easy for you try out Windows Azure as well as SQL Azure and AppFabric.

If you visit http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/offers/ and select the introductory special you will be able to try a limited amount of the Windows Azure platform at no charge. 

This offer is available through October 31, 2010 and is limited to one per customer.  For full details and disclosure take a look at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/offers/popup.aspx?lang=en&locale=en-US&offer=MS-AZR-0001P

If you are in Canada and have question about Windows Azure, my team and I are here to help and can answer your questions.  We would love to hear what you are using Azure for.  Please feel free to email us at cdnazure@microsoft.com.

Over the past few months the outpouring of support from friends, family, and colleagues has been amazing. I have reached both my personal fundraising goal, and am part [...]]]> This weekend is the weekend that I have been training for for a very long time. Tomorrow I’ll be starting my 200km ride from Toronto to Niagara Falls.

Over the past few months the outpouring of support from friends, family, and colleagues has been amazing. I have reached both my personal fundraising goal, and am part of a fabulous team that has collectively raised over $275,000 for Cancer research.

Tomorrow as I set out on the ride I’m hoping to provide both real time view of where I am (visit http://barnabyjeans.ca/ride-tracker) as well as update twitter (http://twitter.com/bjeans) and foursquare as I make my way along the route.

If you want to follow my progress, either visit http://barnabyjeans.ca/ride-tracker or http://www.instamapper.com/ext?key=9222694677197659368  ( or from your mobile device – http://mobile.instamapper.com/ext?key=9222694677197659368 )

Thanks again for all your support and I’ll see you on the route!

As you may have read in my previous post, I have been involved in cancer fundraising for many years, however, just over a year ago [...]]]> In a little over a month I’ll be hitting the road for a two day epic adventure cycling 200km from Toronto to Niagara Falls to help raise funds for cancer research.

As you may have read in my previous post, I have been involved in cancer fundraising for many years, however, just over a year ago I was shocked at the rapid pace that cancer took the life of my mother-in-law and decided that I needed to do more to help find an end to  cancer.

I have committed to raise at least $2,500 before the ride, and with just over a month to go I still need to raise $1,000.  To put this into perspective, I have over 800 followers on twitter, 500+ connections on LinkedIn, and over 350 friends on Facebook.  Assuming that there is some overlap, if each of you only donates $20 we would blow away the fundraising goal and together we would add a significant amount of funding to cancer research.

Any amount will help me achieve my fundraising goals and move us one step closer to conquering cancer and for any donations of $20 or more you will also receive a tax receipt.  Please take 5 minutes right now to donate by visiting http://conquercancer.ca/goto/Barnaby.

(this graphic is updated in real-time so as you donate the amount raised will increase)

If you want to keep an eye on my training you can check out http://connect.garmin.com/explore?owner=bjeans and if you ever want to get together to go for a ride send me an email at barnaby.jeans@hotmail.com.

Some of the programs that you may [...]]]> As you saw in my previous post, I have taken on a new role and in doing so have left a vacancy in our marketing team.  If you are a passionate customer advocate with a strong marketing background then the role below might be a good fit for you.

Some of the programs that you may have heard of, TechDays, EnergizeIT, and AlignIT are just some of the programs produced and executed by my team, and are all directed and led by the audience managers.

If you are interested in being part of a great team that has outreach to technical professionals across Canada to create lasting relationships, then keep reading.

Senior Technical Audience Manager – Microsoft Canada

Are you driven by the need to make things bigger and better? Does making others great make you feel great too?

Audience Marketing Managers (AMMs) drive the local engagement strategy, plan and execution framework for how Microsoft builds sustainable and meaningful breadth and depth relationships with our technical audience. AMMs focus on the following audiences: Developers, IT Pros, Designers, Architects and Students worldwide.

The goal for an Sr. AMM is to help find Technical Professionals better ways to use technology to greater benefit. We do all we can to earn the hearts and minds of those Technical Professionals, by focusing on their needs and by helping them to be successful in their jobs and in their careers. Our goal is industry-leading satisfaction and favorability because highly satisfied/ loyal customers buy more of our products and will recommend them to others.

Success of the Sr. AMM role is determined by the individuals’ ability to work collaboratively across the subsidiary/area playing a key orchestration role with internal partners and stakeholders including Developer & Platform Evangelists, Product Marketing, Customer & Partner Experience and Business & Marketing Organization resources including the Corporate Marketing Group and segment marketing leads.
Sr. AMM’s ensure one Microsoft voice is heard and the interests and needs of the audience are considered and integrated across all campaigns and activities.

Key Requirements for the role Include:

• Serves as the recognized “go to” custodian, advocate, and respected authority for audiences across the subsidiary. Maintains and supports product managers and other internal stakeholders with audience intelligence and guidance
• Serves as a local resource for audience intelligence use to drive, shape and influence key strategic messages, content, and programs across local marketing efforts (i.e., customer campaigns, events, purchase process and deployment). Synthesizes audience and market information to derive key audience insights and affect strategic direction and planning process.
• Consistently tracks programs to measure business impact including engagement, adoption, advocacy and scale
• Assesses market and audience standing to develop or refine marketing strategies that are responsive to market trends, audience perception, competitive pressure, product adoption and net new engagement opportunities
• Aligns with global audience strategy, programs and approach with execution based on local market and audience intelligence. Effectively assesses viability and value of existing, new and emergent channels/programs for improving audience outreach/scalability.
• Understands and leverages through effective project management, connection points across media and channels (both online and offline), to drive audience objectives.
• Reviews all programs and activities against metrics and goals to prioritize and make informed business decisions.

People who are successful in this role and in this team have a passion for the customer. They are consummate cross-company collaborators, and they are driven by the challenges of change. They balance the excitement of continuous innovation with the need to deliver consistent, predictable, reliable, and repeatable experiences for our customers. They are builders, motivators, and team players extraordinaire!

Join us if you are inspired by driving change!

If you are reading this blog post then chances are we have met at some point in the past. You’re either a friend, family member, colleague, classmate, business acquaintance, or someone I have met as I have travelled across Canada and around the world.

As you may or may not know, my wife (Michelle) and I [...]]]>

If you are reading this blog post then chances are we have met at some point in the past. You’re either a friend, family member, colleague, classmate, business acquaintance, or someone I have met as I have travelled across Canada and around the world.

As you may or may not know, my wife (Michelle) and I have been involved with fundraising events for cancer research since 2003 when Michelle’s aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer and the weekend to end cancer walk first came to Toronto.

Since that time we have either walked or crewed in 7 more events in Toronto, Calgary, Winnipeg, Ottawa, and London (UK).

We have been away from these events for the past few years while raising our family, however, in January 2009 Michelle’s mom was diagnosed with a very aggressive form of lung cancer, and within 3 weeks of the diagnosis, had passed away. You can read the full story at http://snipr.com/bernice_white. The speed and aggressiveness of cancer made us realize we needed to get back into fundraising to fight cancer and in June 2010, I’ll be on the bike to ride the 200km from Toronto to Niagara Falls. It will be a challenge in a number of ways, but with my bike, my helmet, and your generosity, I know we can make an impact.

Please contribute to this history-making event with a donation. Funds raised in The Ride to Conquer Cancer will support breakthrough research, exemplary teaching, and compassionate care at The Princess Margaret, one of the top 5 cancer research centres in the world.

To give you a sense of perspective, according to the National Cancer Institute of Canada, over 153,100 new cases of cancer and 70,400 deaths from cancer were estimated to occur in 2006. Men outnumber women for new cases by 5% and mortality by 11%. That's why I'm riding. To do something BIG about cancer. I hope that you'll share this incredible adventure with me by supporting me in my fundraising efforts.

To donate, please visit http://www.conquercancer.ca/goto/Barnaby

Thank you in advance for your support.

Barnaby

A couple of months ago I got IPv6 up and running at home,  now that I have that working, the next logical step was to [...]]]>

UPDATE: As I have changed hosting providers, the following information no longer applies, however, is left as a reference for others who may be trying to get IPv6 up and running.

A couple of months ago I got IPv6 up and running at home,  now that I have that working, the next logical step was to setup a server that I could connect to using IPv6.  Over the last few weeks I have been working on getting http://barnabyjeans.ca to not only speak IPv4 but also be accessible over IPv6.  The good news is that this is now working and you can access this site over IPv6.  If you are experimenting with IPv6, you should automatically connect over IPv6 as there are both A and AAAA records setup for that server.  However, if you have IPv6 setup but name resolution isn’t working you may want to try accessing the site via the following http://[2001:470:1f04:39a::2] (depending on your operating system, this may or may not work).  You should notice down at the bottom of the page (under the community server logo) is the IP address you are connecting from.  If you are hitting the server over IPv6, you should see your IPv6 address down there, if not, you will see your traditional IPv4 address.

Now that I have that out of the way, how did I go about getting the server to talk IPv6?  I’ll try to outline the steps below, but as with anything, you will probably want to try this out in a controlled environment before rolling this out more broadly.

1. Decide how you are going to get your IPv6 address.  For this server, I decided to try Hurricane Electric’s free tunnel broker which you can find at http://tunnelbroker.net.
2. Once you have registered and signed into the tunnelbroker.net site, you will need to request a new tunnel and provide the current IPv4 address of your endpoint (server).  As we are setting this up on an Internet facing server, you will likely have a public IP so this step should be pretty straight forward.  If your server sits behind a firewall they you will need to use the firewall IP address and, very importantly, make sure that your firewall passes protocol-41 traffic. 
3. After you have requested your tunnel, you will be provided with some important pieces of information, specifically:
   

   Server IPv4 address:72.52.104.74  — note this isn’t your server IP address – this is the tunnel server endpoint

   Server IPv6 address:2001:470:????:???::?/64

   Client IPv4 address: aa.bb.cc.dd — this should be the public IP address of your server

   Client IPv6 address:2001:????:????:????::?/64  — this will become the IPv6 address for your server

4. you will also notice some instructions on how to configure various operating systems to use the information above.  In our case we’ll select Vista/2008 (this seems counter-intuitive as we are using Server 2003, however, this option provides you with the “netsh” commands that you will need to get this working.
5. Enable IPv6 on the server.  In this case Windows Server 2003 so the following command should do the trick
   

   netsh interface ipv6 install

6. once you have ipv6 installed on the server, you can make use of the commands as mentioned in #4 above.  They will likely look like the following (I’ve replaced the actual values with $ClientIP, etc):
   

   netsh interface ipv6 add v6v4tunnel IP6Tunnel $ClientIP $ServerIP
   netsh interface ipv6 add address IP6Tunnel $ClientIPv6
   netsh interface ipv6 add route ::/0 IP6Tunnel $ServerIPv6

7. once you have completed these steps, you may want to try the following commands to see if you are connecting via IPv6:
   

   ping -6 www.kame.net and ping -6 www.sixxs.net.  unless you have a firewall that is blocking ICMPv6, these commands should be successful

8. lastly, if you have any websites currently running, you will need restart IIS to have it listen over IPv6.  The following article discusses IIS and IPv6 specifically: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/WindowsServer2003/Library/IIS/6ad3cff7-10f7-4499-8673-e866795607d1.mspx?mfr=true

There is a great page on Technet site that covers a lot of the background on IPv6 and is worth a read – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/network/bb530961.aspx