DiscountASP.NET Hosting

So Cal Code Camp: The amazing pizza tweet

Code camps and conferences, Inside DiscountASP.NET, Internet

Social media.

If you’re like a lot of people you might ask, “What’s in it for me?” Well, if you play your cards right, the answer could be; lunch!

As you may be aware, we were at SoCal Code Camp on Saturday. The time between sessions can be a madhouse, with a lot of people stopping by the table and asking questions, shooting the breeze or just lurking around the margins and stuffing free pens and frisbees into their pockets. But during the sessions the traffic around the sponsor’s tables drops off and you can find yourself with a little time to kill.

Takeshi, Mark and I were behind the DiscountASP.NET table, and we realized that we were getting hungry. So I pulled out my phone and tweeted, “Free hosting for anyone who can bring us a pizza! 😉 #socalcodecamp”

I was kidding, of course, and we had a laugh and forgot about it. Then, less than an hour later, guess what showed up at the table? Courtesy of a DiscountASP.NET customer (who didn’t want his name used here in the blog – “Just call me Dexter”), a stack of pizzas!

It was one of those, “seriously?” moments, and a pretty convincing testament to the power of Twitter. Or hunger, or cheese or something.

This isn’t a plug for California Pizza Kitchen, but I would be lying if I said those pizzas didn’t really hit the spot. They did. So thanks Dexter (no, not that Dexter) for being the coolest guy ever, thanks So Cal Code Camp, thanks California Pizza Kitchen for being delicious, and thanks to Twitter, for being awesome.

Takeshi and Mark wondering if we would be pushing our luck to tweet for a few cold beers
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So Cal Code Camp

Code camps and conferences, Inside DiscountASP.NET, Team Foundation Server

We sponsored and made an appearance at So Cal Code Camp again this year. Code camps are great places to learn and network and even walk away with some cool stuff courtesy of vendors like us, who want you to walk around with a nice DiscountASP.NET branded travel mug. 😉

There are three different code camps in Southern California, and code camps in many other cities around the country. If you search “code camp your city,” the odds are pretty good that you will find one near you. The odds are also pretty good that we’re a sponsor of your local code camp. We’re pretty big on the concept, as you probably know if you read this blog from time to time.

This year we tried something new at So Cal Code Camp and spoke at two sessions. Joe Jun did a “Getting started with TFS” session in the morning that was plagued with technical difficulties (despite a hardware assist from Art Villa), but Joe winged it artfully and provided a good amount of information for the attendees. Since he was unable to give the full presentation, those who attended also received the bonus of a free TFS account, so I think everyone was pleased in the end.

Joe Jun wings it without any visual aids (Mike Vincent is in the background – thanks for your help!)

Then in the afternoon, Takeshi, Ray and myself did a “Hosting Q&A” session that was interesting and a lot of fun. You can count on developers to ask good questions, and they did. A lot of interest in Azure and Amazon cloud storage, and questions about how to use those services as CDNs in conjunction with traditional hosting, and how to decide which platform is best for hosting a specific project (the answer, by the way, depends on a lot of different factors – but for the vast majority of projects, a DiscountASP.NET account is going to serve you quite well (not that it should surprise you to hear me say that!)).

The rest of the day was spent manning the table and talking to a whole lot of curious coders. It was a good sized crowd and we enjoyed meeting everyone who stopped by to chat.

Takeshi, Mark and Joe
Derek Kadota, Mark and Takeshi look boldly into the future
Ray, catching some

In the next day or two we’ll post more on the So Cal Code Camp, including the story of the pizza tweet. You don’t want to miss that one.

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Houston TechFest 2011!

Announcements, Technical

A few days ago I blogged about the Socal Code Camp, but another stellar event will be held this Saturday – The 2011 Houston TechFest!  The Houston Tech Fest is the premier technical event in the Houston area designed for IT professionals, executives, business users, consultants and of course developers.  The focus is to bring technology experts and IT professionals together to discuss current and future technologies.  Even better, this is a FREE EVENT!   As of right now, there are approximately 1,000 people registered for the Houston TechFest but it is expected that 1,200 attendees will be on hand.

The keynote speaker for this Saturday’s Houston TechFest is Jeffrey Richter, co-founder of Wintellect and author of a number of books such as “CLR via C#”, “The Applied Microsoft .NET Framework Programming C# Collection” and “Applied Microsoft .NET Programming in Microsoft Visual Basic .NET”.  In addition to the keynote speaker, there are approximately 90 sessions scheduled for the day (not bad for one day).  The session tracks cover such topics as .NET, SQL Server, Cloud Computing, Agile, Mobile Communications and more.

If the keynote and various presentations aren’t enough, there will be recruiters from the Houston area present so attendees are encouraged to bring their resumes.  Also, don’t forget about the prizes that attendees can win.  Some of the prizes that will be given away include a trip to Vegas, Xbox 360 and Xbox Kinect, iPods, component suites and more.  Last but not least, lunch will be provided to all registered attendees.

The 2011 Houston TechFest will be held at the University of Houston and registration is absolutely FREE.  Preregistration is closed but you may still register on site on Saturday.

TFS Build Server Now Available in Europe

Announcements, Team Foundation Server

visual studio team foundation serverWe are happy to announce that we have launched our TFS Build Server add-on in our UK-based data center for our international customers. Effective immediately, TFS Build Server is now available for both our US and UK based TFS hosting service.

The hosted Team Foundation Build server provides the functionality of a build lab. With TFS Build, you can synchronize your sources, compile your application, and securely download your builds. Build managers are in full control of “when and how” they want the build process to work – from manual to continuous integration to scheduled builds.

For more information, check out our TFS web site.

SoCal Code Camp This Weekend – We Will Be There!

Announcements, Code camps and conferences, Hosting Industry, How-to, Inside DiscountASP.NET, Team Foundation Server

This weekend, October 15 and 16, the two day SoCal Code Camp is back at the University of Southern California (Fight on Trojans!). Because this is in our backyard, we will definitely be there. Our presence this time will not be limited to the usual manning of our table and saying hello to fellow ASP.NET developers. Yes, we will still have a table, so definitely please feel free to stop by, HOWEVER this year we decided to crank this thing to 11, so we will be presenting two sessions that are near and dear to our hearts.

Our first session will be presented by our in-house TFS guru, Joseph Jun; “Getting Started with Team Foundation Server”. We launched our hosted TFS solution last year and often times we get questions about how remotely hosted TFS works. In this session Joe will demonstrate some of the core functionality of TFS on a live, remotely hosted TFS server, including Build Server features. Joe’s presentation starts on Saturday morning at 8:45am, which may be a wee bit early but don’t fret, we will have coffee at our table. So prior to Joe’s talk, come by, grab a cup of coffee to get you going and then head off to listen and learn how to get started with Team Foundation Server.

Our second presentation, “Q&A with ASP.NET Web Hosting Provider, DiscountASP.NET,” will be presented by our very own Takeshi Eto, along with other members of the DiscountASP.NET staff. Essentially, this is your chance to grill the crap out of us. We will answer your questions about application development, server maintenance, domains, web hosting, the hosting industry – from our point of view as a hosting provider. Takeshi and some other members of our staff have been in the hosting industry for almost 15 years, so they’ve pretty much seen it all. They will give you straight, honest answers regarding the tough and competitive industry that is web hosting.

The SoCal Code Camp will also be packed with tons of other sessions throughout the weekend (last year, there were over 100 sessions) as well as Saturday night’s Geek Dinner at Casey’s Base and Grill. You are encouraged to get there early on Saturday morning as the first 150 who check-in will gain admittance to the dinner. Last but not at least, don’t forget about the giveaways and Sunday afternoon’s lunch and afternoon raffle prizes.

As always, code camps are FREE, but registration is appreciated. Click Here to register for the SoCal Code Camp. See you this weekend!

It never rains in Southern California

Inside DiscountASP.NET

There are a lot of misconceptions out there about Southern California. If you believe some people, we are all hippie vegan electric car driving Botoxed yoga cult members. Now, I’m not going to lie, I do know people who fit into that (and other) Los Angeles stereotypes quite nicely. None of them work here at DiscountASP.NET, but they are out there, circling around like patient, unnaturally stretched out buzzards, waiting to draw you into their fuzzy, eternal sunshine world. But 10 million very diverse people live in Los Angeles county, yo, so you’d be hard pressed to really apply a universal stereotype to all of us.

Another thing that you may have heard is that it never rains here. And for about two-thirds of the year, that’s pretty true. Which makes the first good soaking of the winter somewhat of a special occasion. It’s like that old Ray Bradbury story, All summer in a day, about some school kids on a planet where the sun only shines one day a year. Only, you know, the opposite of that.

Yesterday was that first good soaking of the winter, and we had a full day of downpours. If you had walked into our office, you would have seen this sign on the first door you passed:

I’m not sure how much was raised, considering that pretty much everyone works in an office with a window, and there are floor to ceiling windows in the lobby right outside our office door, but the sentiment is there (besides, it looks like this viewing event was sponsored by CloudFlare, so strictly speaking, it should have been free).

Here comes Winter! Another L.A. myth busted.

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FTP – THE MOVIE

Miscellaneous

When you live in Los Angeles you see a lot of crew direction signs for movie shoots. But this one caught my eye enough to make me stop in a rainstorm and get a soggy picture.

I can imagine the trailer for this particular movie:

In a world where transferring files has become commonplace, where hundreds of different applications exist to move your data, a small band of rebels cling to an old standard. They are hunted and despised by the digital elite, yet they persist in their quest for simple, trouble-free transfer. They are known by the acronym they love and protect; FTP! Coming this summer, FTP! A bone-rattling thrill ride through the shadowy world of data, FTP will have you gripping your seat in stark, spine-numbing terror. You can crawl away, but you won’t walk away from FTP!

This film has not yet been rated.

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Personally, I’d Rather Drink from the Niche

Hosting Industry, Inside DiscountASP.NET, Internet

This past weekend I drank some nice Spanish wine and I thought about my earlier post, Sorry Tier1 Research, We’re Sticking with the Niche. And I thought about how at a HostingCon keynote, Tier1 Research recommended that hosts move to focus on the mass-market to capture the revenue growth projected for a still largely untapped SMB (small medium business) market. This strategy was further reinforced by Parallels in their third day keynote when they highlighted how their products allow hosts to tap into the SMB market.

So while I was sipping my wine, it got me thinking that it’s sort of similar to saying to wine makers that they should move to the mass-market and become more like say, Yellowtail, who has had incredible growth in an untapped mass-market. In the book, Blue Ocean Strategy, you can find more information on how Yellowtail was able to compete with a widely established wine industry – it’s a great case study on business strategy.

But I also thought how sad it would be if all wine makers adopted a mass-market strategy and we couldn’t enjoy the different unique wines produced in different regions, with different varietals, soil and microclimates. There is a demand for mass-market wine and there will be players that fill that segment but their success and projected revenues should not deter those who have a passion for a niche. The market is big enough for many types of wineries. I’m also not naive – of course there will be winners and losers in all segments. That is life in the business world.

You can also extend this thought out to mass-market beers and microbrewies, or cheese, or coffee…etc. The market is big enough for the mass-market players and the niche players.

Food for thought? Or perhaps I just had a glass or two too much…

Takeshi Eto
VP Marketing and Business Development

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