Countdown to the Imagine Cup 2010 Finals

Rand Morimoto, Captain of the Imagine Cup 2010 IT Challenge, is blogging again during the worldwide finals.  His blog can be read here.

The Imagine Cup IT Challenge asks competitors to become masters at making systems work.  They will be tested on their knowledge, face unique scenarios and come up with solutions for diverse customer needs. If they make it to the end of this competition, they’ll attend the Worldwide Finals in Poland and be announced as the best of the best in the industry.

PRIZES: The top 3 finalists will receive a trip to the Worldwide Finals in Warsaw, Poland from July 3-8, 2010. Trip includes round trip coach airfare from major airport closest to winner's home, standard hotel accommodations, and select meals. In addition, the top 3 finalists will receive one of the following cash prizes:

• First Place: $8,000 USD
• Second Place: $4,000 USD
• Third Place: $3,000 USD

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Imagine Cup, Cairo, Egypt #5

[The last entry from my wife, Amy, on our trip to Cairo, Egypt for the Imagine Cup competition]

Hey all,

We’re sitting at the airport (5:30pm) waiting for our delayed flight to London. Thought I’d use the time to wrap up our Cairo experience.

Wednesday, we went to Coptic (Christian) Cairo to visit the Hanging Church, St. George’s, and the Coptic museum. It was very beautiful inside the church. It’s called the Hanging Church because it was built over two U shaped tower remains and “hung” between them with palm tree wood. The Coptic Church seems very similar to Catholic. Many of the same saints, taking of the host bread and wine. The dogma is the main difference and they revere icons. It’s kind of like a cross between Orthodox and Catholic. The church dates back to the 1st century. A young woman was kind enough to give us a tour around the church and explain the symbolism and icons. While there, several people approached us. An elderly lady wanted her picture taken with me, and her daughter with Claire. She kissed us both on the cheeks afterwards and seemed very happy. Another woman approached me and wanted to show me her baby and asked that I touch him. She was very nice and took a photo for us.

In the evening we went to Giza for a sound and light show at the Sphinx. It was kind of cheesy, but the kids enjoyed it and it provided a brief history lesson. Jeff was not happy with the Giza pictures he had so far, so it was agreed that we would go back in the morning early before we had to pack.

Thursday morning we went back to Giza and took more pictures of the Sphinx and the kids on camels. We then packed, left for airport, and are now waiting.

In closing, I wanted to reflect on and share a few things I’ve learned about Egypt and her people. The people are so very nice and always smiling. Never met one who wasn’t as helpful as his English would allow. They just love kids. Claire is glad to go so she won’t have to be hugged, kissed, and talked to by strangers. People seem to have a high sense of cleanliness. Men are always well-groomed, most keep their hair very short. Clothes are clean. Ladies and children are neat, clean and properly covered. There is a large variety of acceptable dress. Never had a problem or felt uncomfortable in Western dress.

Cairo is very dirty which is surprising considering that the people are neat and clean. There are piles of trash and rubble everywhere; everyone litters; saw children playing in trash piles. The buildings are covered in black soot from the poor air quality. Also, the buildings are all “unfinished” because taxes are much higher when they are completed. So all around, buildings are missing floors or look to have levels added. The living conditions are unbelievable. First, there are no homes, only apartments. There are no building materials except concrete and brick. It is a very colorless city. The apartments rarely have glass windows, just wooden shutters or curtains. There is laundry drying off windows and balconies everywhere. They have electricity, some have little individual air conditioners, and most do not have elevators. Holes in walls are common. The City of the Dead is an ancient cemetery at the foot of the Citadel. The poorest live inside the cemetery within above ground family crypt rooms set aside for families to visit their departed members. This is apparently ok with the local populous.

Our plane is at the gate now, so we're off to London for 2+ days!

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Imagine Cup, Cairo, Egypt #4

[More from my wife, Amy, on our visit to Cairo for the Imagine Cup competition.]

Hi all,

Sunday, the kids and I went to Saqqara (pronounced "Sakara") which is just south of Giza. There is a tomb with wonderful carvings on the walls of daily Egyptian life (no photos allowed), a deeper underground tomb that we could go down into (see pictures on Facebook) with a black stone sarcophagus. The main attraction is the Step pyramid. It pre-dates Giza. The steps are called mustafas and one would have been a common burial tomb, but this pharaoh wanted to make an impression and had multiple mustafas built on top of each other to represent the sun and rays (which lead to the standard pyramid shape). The shape is based on the sun, Ra, (top or peak) and the rays coming down to the earth combined to form a pyramid shape. From the Step pyramid, you can see about a mile away south to Dasr where the “Bent” pyramid is (see pictures). The builder got the angle wrong and "bent" the pyramid inward 2/3 of the way up. Needless to say, the pharaoh was not happy and ordered construction of another one next to it.

Pyramids or burial tombs can be found up and down the Nile, but only on the western side. As the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, they believed that was representative of the life cycle. So tombs are set in the west where the sun or life ends. There are over 115 discovered “pyramids” at this time. It is estimated that only 25 to 35% of Egypt’s antiquities have been discovered.

We also went to a papyrus shop and learned how the ancient Egyptians made paper out of the plant. We went to a carpet school where youth are taught to weave and knot carpets by hand.
Jeff finished his work in the afternoon, we went to the pool for awhile, then he slept through dinner until the morning.

Yesterday, Monday, we were at the pool during the day and then went to the Khan el Khalili bazaar in the evening. It is the old spice trade route market dating back to the 11th and 12th century. It is a site and experience that cannot really be described. It was crazy, noisy, trashy, pushy salesmen, and local shoulder to shoulder, but very colorful and full of energy. Jeff was offered ten camels for me. I was not flattered.

Today, we are going back to Giza this afternoon and evening for the Microsoft Imagine Cup closing ceremonies and a night time light and sound show at the Sphinx. Right now am sitting pool side, lounging.

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Imagine Cup, Cairo, Egypt #3

[More from my wife, Amy, on our Cairo trip. I'm only entering them now that I have time.]



Hi all and happy 4th of July to you!

I almost hate to remind the kids it is the 4th today. They are bummed about missing fireworks. Yesterday, Friday, we did some looking around the City Stars complex that the Intercontinental hotel is connected to. It is like a mall but more, there is a little amusement park, theaters, bowling alleys, etc... but it is about the size of 5 city blocks. It is just massive and believe me it doesn't take long to get completely lost. Thankfully, Microsoft has placed colorful Imagine Cup logo shaped foot prints all around. There are several other hotels at various point of the mall and many contestants are staying at them, as they are cheaper. The footprints lead you to the Intercontinental entrance.

Here is an important travel tip: Find a local supermarket store nearby where you are staying for inexpensive daily needs. We found one down the street in Paris and was very helpful. Lucky us, we have one here just down one floor in the mall from the hotel. It is called Spinneys (I think it's called that because the yellow and green shopping cart wheels can spin 360 degrees. :) It's like a Target or Walmart. I don't think they have clothes but they have TV's, toys, jewelry and most importantly, bottled water and food cheap. They have packaged food, a deli, bakery, and hot dish area. It's been decent and convenient. One night we had chicken and rice (they eat a lot of rice here - it's good) and another we had some "cheese pizza" on bread. Of course, they have all the toiletry things you might forget like lotion, Q-tips, aspirin, etc.

Jeff started the IT Challenge competition early this morning so the kids and I went to the little amusement park last night to let him get to sleep early. It's like a really big Chuck E Cheese meets a local traveling carnival meets, well, general garish parental torture/noise/little kids everywhere/no safety regulations. They went on a couple of little rides and then went on these bumper cars that went faster than I've ever seen bumper cars go. Well, Claire got a little scared and then a little hurt when she hit the wall going pretty fast. The seat belt straps across her cut into her neck on both sides and gave her a burn. So she was very upset and we left. We put ice on the scratches and this morning they are red marks, but she says they feel better.

Jeff is in the heart of the competition today that runs for 24 hours. Then they have to review the entries, then meet with each contestant for review then score them. It will run well into tomorrow. They get little or no sleep during this time.

Not sure right now what we are going to do today. Kids are just getting up and must feed them. I have a list of several places and am going to talk to the concierge about them.

I've been meaning to mention security. Everything is screened here. There are screeners and walk through detectors for everything, even to get into the mall, and of course all the sites we've visited. At our hotel, there is a bomb sniffing dog that goes around your car before they'll let you drive into the parking lot. We feel very safe here. :)

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Imagine Cup 2010 to be held in Poland!

The Imagine Cup 2010 worldwide finals will be held in Warsaw, Poland. This is a video that introduces Poland as the host of IC2010.

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Tools of the Trade

There are various tools, utilities, and applications that we use during the Imagine Cup IT Challenge.

The image above displays a network traffic matrix for all network communication in the IT Challenge. Each line in "The Eye of Sauron" represents network traffic between two hosts. This is captured on the judge's Microsoft ISA 2006 server since it's the focal point for the network.

Other tools we use are network packet sniffers, protocol analyzers, and network packet regeneration tools. We use these tools so we can verify that the competitors' builds are working properly, as well as monitor and troubleshoot network issues.

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Hello from the Imagine Cup IT Challenge!

Head judge and captain of the Imagine Cup IT Challenge, Rand Morimoto, is keeping a running blog on the IT Challenge here in Cairo, Egypt.

You can read his blog here.

The competition is half over at this point. Just 12 more grueling hours to go. Then, after a full 24 hours of configuring, the 10 competitors will each face half an hour of judging. That means we'll all finally get some sleep after 30 hours.

The Intercontinental Cairo City Stars is a fabulous hotel. Really first rate for this kind of competition and shows off all the hard work that the teams have been putting in. We haven't had many of the power issues that have faced the Imagine Cup IT Challenge competitions in years past.

Tomorrow we will all get some sleep after the judging completes. Monday is the Imagine Cup Cultural Day, where we will all go the Giza to take in the pyramids. Here's a picture that was taken of the stage being built for the cultural day ceremonies.

It will be interesting, for sure!

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Welcome from Cairo!

I'm visiting Cairo as a judge for the Imagine Cup 2009 competition. We arrived on June 30 and entered the blast furnace that is Cairo. It's a dry heat, as opposed to Florida, so even though it may be 104F it's tolerable (don't ask my wife or kids, though).

The first two days we spent touring Cairo with a guide. Day one we took a city tour and visited the Egyptian Museum, Coptic Cairo, the Citadel, and the Kahn El Kalili bazaar. Day two we visited Giza to view the pyramids. Both days were amazing!

Today, I started to prep for the Imagine Cup IT Challenge. I met the two captains, Rand Morimoto and Chris Amaris, in the IT Challenge room. Rand is the owner of CCO (the company I work for) and Chris is the CTO. Valÿ Greavu is the other judge from Romania and is arriving tonight. The four of us will be administering and judging the 24 hour competition. 5 hours of judging happens after the 24 hour competition, so the competitors and judges will have been up for 29 hours.

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Imagine Cup 2009 Worldwide Finals

I'm honored to be one of four judges for the Imagine Cup 2009 Worldwide Finals in Cairo, Egypt. This is the second time I've been a judge, the first being last year in Paris.

This year's finals will run from July 2-9, 2009.

The object of the IT Challenge competition is to highlight the art and science of developing, deploying, and maintaining IT systems that are efficient, functional, robust and secure. IT professionals have a base set of tools and techniques, but still have to work through customer needs and configurations that require an intimate understanding of how the pieces fit together. They also need to know how far the systems can be pushed before they will break, and how to make the systems highly available, so that they are always available.

Competitors will have 24 hours to complete a real-world scenario. The competition will involve almost the entire stack of Microsoft technologies, where competitors will actually implement their solutions.

I'll be blogging about the competition and our travels to Cairo and London here. If you would like to see real-time updates, you can follow me on Twitter. We leave on Sunday and will arrive in Cairo Monday, June 29.

Looking forward to a great time!

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Imagine Cup 2009 IT Challenge

I'm honored once again to be a judge for the Imagine Cup 2009 this year. I and three others will be judging the IT Challenge. This year the finals will be held in Cairo, Egypt.

The object of the IT Challenge competition is to highlight the art and science of developing, deploying, and maintaining IT systems that are efficient, functional, robust and secure. IT professionals have a base set of tools and techniques, but still have to work through customer needs and configurations that require an intimate understanding of how the pieces fit together. They also need to know how far the systems can be pushed before they will break, and how to make the systems highly available, so that they are always available.

The contestants are currently in the round two semi-finals, the written scenario, which ends May 20, 2009.

The worldwide finals run from July 3rd through the 9th in Cairo. Here, competitors will have 24 hours to build a comprehensive IT solution based on a real-world scenario.

First place wins $8,000 USD, second place wins $4,000 USD, and third place wins $3,000 USD.

Good luck, competitors, and I'll see you in Egypt!

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First Ever EXPTA Hyper-V Contest Winner!

Congratulations to Thorsten Schuett in Berlin, Germany!

As the 100,000th visitor to my blog, Thorsten will receive a signed copy of my new book, "Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Unleashed." This book represents our experience working with Hyper-V with our customers over a year before it was available to the public.

Thanks to all the entries I received. I appreciate the kind words and hope that you all find the information I provide in this blog useful.

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First Ever EXPTA Hyper-V Contest!

Sometime next week the EXPTA {blog} will get its 100,000th visitor.

To celebrate, I will send that lucky visitor a free copy of my new book, Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Unleashed, anywhere in the world!

All you have to do is take a screenshot of the hit counter at the bottom of this blog and email it to me at jeff@expta.com, along with your name and address.

I get a lot of hits per day, most of them from Google searches, so it's very likely that the 100,000th visitor may not read this post. Because of this, I'll choose the winner whose entry is the closest to 100,000 from the first 10 entries I receive. The entry must show the bottom of the blog with a counter of at least 100,000 and must be submitted by September 22, 2008.

Of course, if you subscribe to this blog you'd be one of the first to learn about this contest!

Good Luck!

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Paris, Here We Come!

I will be going to Paris, France next week to judge the Imagine Cup 2008 world finals. I am a co-captain, along with captains Rand Morimoto, Chris Amaris and fellow co-captain Valy Greavu.

Congratulations to the six round three world finalists! There were over 16,000 competitors and these six students won the right to be call the best of the best. They will compete in the final hands-on challenge from July 3-8 in Paris.

To find out more about the Imagine Cup and the IT Challenge, which is open to students around the world, please visit the Imagine Cup website. Be sure to sign up for IC2009 notification list by clicking the "SIGN UP to get news about Imagine Cup 2009" link on the homepage and enter your email address.

This will be my first time in Europe and I'm very excited! I'll be taking lots of pictures and hopefully getting in a blog post or two.

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Party with Palermo Registration is Open

For those of you attending TechEd 2008 Developers, registration is open for-

Party with Palermo: Tech Ed 2008 Developers Edition

June 2, 2008 @ 7:00PM - 10:00PM

Glo Lounge http://www.gloloungeorlando.com/ 8967 International Dr, Orlando, FL
Ph: 407.351.0361

Cover charge is 1 business card. This will get you in the door and register you for the grand prize drawings.

• Free to attend
• Free fingerfood
• Free drink
• Free swag

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TechEd 2008 Session Preference Survey is open

The TechEd 2008 Session Preference Survey is now open to registered attendees.

When you arrive at TechEd North America 2008 IT Professionals you will have the opportunity to attend up to 19 breakout sessions and 3 labs taking place during 19 timeslots. By entering the sessions and labs you're planning to attend, Microsoft can assign session rooms and determine which sessions to repeat.

Also, by taking the survey you are automatically entered with a chance to win one of five $100 American Express gift certificates!

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The Games have begun!

The Microsoft 2008 Scripting Games begin today!

Be sure to log in and download your Competitor’s Pack, review the events, take a look at the challenges and prizes.

Good luck!

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Imagine Cup 2008 - Time is Running Out!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Imagine Cup 2008 competition is underway. The last quiz for round 1 is scheduled for January 31.

The Imagine Cup is one way Microsoft is encouraging young people to apply their imagination, their passion and their creativity to technology innovations that can make a difference in the world – today.

If you're a student, this is your last chance to qualify for round 2 and possibly make it to the finals in Paris, France. Sign up, take the quiz, and you could maybe even win an Xbox 360 game just for trying!

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Imagine Cup 2008

I'm very proud to be a co-captain for this year's Imagine Cup IT Challenge in Paris, France. Last year I participated as an exam writer and round 2 judge for Imagine Cup 2007 that was held in Seoul, Korea.

The Imagine Cup started five years ago, and already more than 100,000 students from over 100 countries and regions have competed. This year, more students than ever will be looking for victory in the nine competitions set up under three main categories, each reflecting this year’s theme.

The IT Invitational highlights the art and science of developing, deploying, and maintaining IT systems that are efficient, functional, robust and secure. In most scenarios, IT professionals have a base set of tools and techniques, but still have to work through custom needs and configurations that require an intimate understanding of how all the pieces fit together. IT professionals also have to know how to manage, administer, monitor, and maintain the systems for ongoing network security and reliability.

The IT invitational challenges students to demonstrate their proficiency in understanding not only the theory of how Microsoft Windows-based networks and applications work, but also how to keep them working. This includes core file and print services, e-mail messaging, database systems, document collaboration and sharing, network virtualization, unified communications, and systems management.

Round 1 of the IT Challenge runs now until January 31, 2008.

Students can register for the IT Challenge on the Imagine Cup 2008 Competition Website. Check it out and good luck!

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2008 Scripting Games

February 15 - March 3, 2008

The third annual Scripting Games are coming to the Microsoft Script Center February 15 – March 3, 2008. Mark your calendars now, this will be the biggest scripting competition of the year.

I won my very own Dr. Scripto bobblehead doll at last year's TechEd in Orlando. I can't wait to compete for a matching set!

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