When Software Attacks!

Want to know what’s going on? Come to the Black Marble Tech Update

It’s January, which can only mean one thing. It’s time for the annual Black Marble Tech Update. If you’re an IT or development manager, come along to hear the stuff you need to know about Microsoft’s releases and updates last year and what we know so far about what is coming this year. Tech Updates are hard work to prepare for, but they’re quite exhilarating to present. In the morning, myself, Andy and Andrew will run through the key moves and changes in the Microsoft ecosystem to help IT managers with their strategic planning: What’s coming out of support, what’s got a new release due; in short, what do you need to pay attention to for your organisation’s IT.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Microsoft People-centric IT Roadshow

Microsoft UK have been running technical events around the UK for a couple of years now, and it’s a great thing. Too many events are focused in the south of England and there are lots of IT pros north of the M25! Starting on Monday, the latest series of events kicks off. The People-Centric IT roadshow content is being delivered by MVPs from across the UK and Ireland. Covering hot-topics like Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and information security, the sessions will talk about using the appropriate tooling from across the Microsoft stack to address these real-world problems.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Sunday, June 8, 2014

Speaking at UK Tech.Days Online 2013

I’ve been supporting the great team of evangelists at Microsoft with their UK Tech.Days events for some time now. I am chuffed to bits that they have asked me to contribute to the fantastic UK Tech.Days Online event. If you haven’t heard about it, go look at the agenda right now! Three days of great content on the latest technologies covering client, server, cloud and dev. The whole thing will be streamed live thanks to the wonder of the internet and includes a live interview with Steve Ballmer.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Saturday, October 26, 2013

Unexpectedly now doing a session at DDD North 2013

I had a surprise exchange of text messages last night with Andy Westgarth. Sadly, one of the people who was to speak in one of the first session slots has had to pull out. Andy did the thing all the best conference organisers do – he called his friends! As a result, Richard and myself will be presenting a session about our experience with Lab Manager on Saturday morning. Lab Manager is an interesting part of the development puzzle, allowing automated provisioning of environments that can then have software deployed to them and automated tests run against them.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Thursday, October 10, 2013

Grok talking at DDDNorth 2013

DDD North 2013 is almost upon us and I hope you’re all converging on Sunderland for what should be a great for devs. I’ll be helping out during the day, and I will also be doing a short Grok Talk on how Generation 2 Virtual Machines in Windows 8.1 and Server 2012 are new, different and cool. Come along and heckle, why don’t you?

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Being allowed out in public: Forthcoming events

It’s autumn again, and that means event season is upon us once more. In the next few months I’m getting around a bit, so this post is a plug for the events I’m either attending or speaking at. October 1st is VMUG Leeds. I’m registered to attend, but chances are I’ll be spending much of the day helping the Microsoft guys run their hand-on lab. The agenda has some great-sounding sessions and I believe there are still spaces so why not register and come along.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Sunday, September 29, 2013

Links from presentation on Server 2012 R2

Thanks to all who attended the ReBuild and TechEd revisited event today. I promised that I would post the links from the final slide to this blog so you can all start evaluating Server 2012 R2 and System Center 2012 R2. Download and evaluate the Preview software http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/evaluate/trial-software.aspx Refer to additional Windows Server 2012 R2 resources http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/windows-server/windows-server-2012-r2.aspx Windows Server 2012 R2 on TechNet http://www.Microsoft.com/technet Refer to additional System Center 2012 R2 resources

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Tech Update for Public Sector

Right now I am putting the finishing touches to my deck for an event Black Marble are running at Cardinal Place next week. As many of you will know, for the past ten years we have run the annual Tech Update covering moves and changes across the entire Microsoft spectrum of products. Until now that has only taken place in Leeds but for the first time we are taking that show on the road.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Notes from the North East: Imagine Cup Hackathon 2012

We had a great time at the Imagine Cup North East Hackathon this weekend. Black Marble turned out in force with myself, Steve, Richard, Robert, Linda, Josh and Riccardo all helping out. Andy Westgarth and the guys at Sunderland Software City had done a solid job on the organisation and we were well looked after. There were nine teams there in total, from a wide range of Universities and Colleges in the Newcastle/Sunderland area.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Looking forward to the Imagine Cup Hackathon

It’s a busy week this week and I’m really looking forward to being involved with the Imagine Cup Hackathon for the North East Region this Friday and Saturday (1st and 2nd February). Black Marble have a long history of supporting the UK Imagine Cup teams and it’s great to be able to continue that support. We’ll be in The Life Science Centre, Newcastle upon Tyne in force this week. Steve Spencer, Richard Fennell, Robert Hogg and myself will be accompanied by Riccardo Viglianisi and Josh Whittle from Black Marble.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Sunday, January 27, 2013