It is reckoned that 80-90% of data has a spatial component to it. But what do we do with it now? At best, we constrain it to postcodes. Well, that would be great if we were delivering letters, but the majority of us aren’t. In this session we look at Spatial Queries in SQL Server to see how it works and what can be done with it.

Here's what Gary Short said about the session when he saw it: -

"Colin MacKay's Spatial Data talk last night really rocked! If you get the chance to see it you should."

Colin Angus Mackay is a software developer specialising in Microsoft technologies located in Glasgow, Scotland. He is a Member of the Institution of Analysts and Programmers, Member of the British Computer Society, a Microsoft MVP (C#), a Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer, a Core Member of Scottish Developers, Code Project MVP for four years running and while not involved in software related pursuits is an amateur photographer, cyclist, map maker and is also the Vice President of Education for South Side Speakers, the Glasgow South Side Branch of Toastmasters International. And if all that wasn’t enough he is also organising Developer Day Scotland.

It's an exciting time to be a Microsoft developer - with new platforms and products come new challenges. Make sure you're ready for what's ahead and attend this session.

With the introduction of new data types in SQL Server 2008 combined with the existing variety of data types in SQL Server 2005, Office 2007 and SharePoint there is a need to understand how these choices impact the use and exchange of data.

This session reviews the different data types and considers how to select the most appropriate data types with regards to the implications this may have for using the data in various versions of Office and Visual Studio. Along the way there will be an opportunity to explore some of the new features in SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008.

This proves to be a fascinating and enlightening session.

Andy Couch is an expert in the field of Data Types and specialises in Data Migrations. Some of his articles can be found at www.upsizing.co.uk.

This session is action packed and has something for everyone, both the Developers and the IT Professionals.

During the first part of the event Andrew will Walk us through configuring SharePoint and the creation of your first Silverlight application followed by a Q&A session on what this means for you and some of the challenges you are likely to face introducing Silverlight into your SharePoint applications.

In the second part of this event Spencer will run through an overview of Kerberos and the benefits it offers in a SharePoint 2007 deployment including: -

• Discussion of whether your SharePoint deployment needs Kerberos.
• Tour of the required pre-requisites and configuration settings.
• Approaches to automating configuration in a SharePoint Farm.
• Preview of the SharePoint Farm Kerberos Configuration Utility.
• Q&A/Discussion.
  

The HEROES Happen {Here} Manchester launch of the latest set of Microsoft products - Visual Studio 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 will be an absolute blast.

We'll be exploring all three products with the help of some Community Super Heroes who will be giving you the information you need to head back to work and be a Hero yourself (cape not provided).

Along the way we'll be giving away a huge range of prizes; someone will walk away with thousands of pounds worth of software and goodies, will it be you? Can you afford to risk not showing up?

This new release offers new web tools, virtualisation technologies, and security enhancements. Powering the next generation of networks, applications, and web services is even easier with new functionality and powerful operating system improvements.

Designed to aid software developers face complex challenges and create innovative solutions, this suite of development tools will help you create connected applications with compelling user experiences for Windows Vista, the 2007 Microsoft Office system, mobile devices, and the web.

A trusted, productive and intelligent data platform that enables you to run your most demanding mission-critical applications. Reduce costs, streamline development, and drive business intelligence through your business under a scalable solution with support for data warehousing, server consolidation, and online transaction processing.

You might want to check out the official UK HEROES happen {here} site for more details on the products.

The emergence of Web 2.0 technologies has brought new opportunities and caused us to solve old problems in new ways. AJAX and SilverLight applications need read/write access to data and business objects without performing full page refreshes and without dumbing down the data so much we are just left with primitives. Microsoft’s answer to this problem is Microsoft Codename “Astoria”. In short “Astoria” is a data access layer for client-size technologies such as AJAX and SilverLight. This session shows how it works, how you can write “Astoria” data servers and how you can customize “Astoria” to your applications requirements.

With Windows Server 2008 on the Horizon its high time we started preparing for it. In this Session the guys from 'Windows Server Team' (http://winserverteam.org.uk/), Scotty McLeod and Austin Osuide will walk us through the new features and fucntionality in Windows Server 2008.

Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services Gateway will be covered by Austin as he explores installing and configuring the role and drilling into the certificate requirements to configure secure access. By implication will also cover a quick overview of the new Server Manager and general admin interfaces.

Scotty will cover Core Server and Read Only Domain Controller, discussing the impact of the generally command line only interface and capabilities and security of a Read Only Domain Services replication.