This afternoon I received an email from Microsoft telling me that I've been awarded the 2008 Microsoft MVP award for my efforts in the Internet Information Services Community over the past year.  This is a great honour to be classified in the same group as the many other great MVPs who do great work throughout the community.  I hope I can continue in the same way in the coming months and years.

On the evening of Wednesday 2nd July 2008, I'll be presenting a session on IIS 7.0 for ASP.Net Developers at Black Marble's Community Evening in Bradford.  This event is part of a full day of sessions which Black Marble are hosting.  In the morning they're hosting a session on Overview of the current and future states of Microsoft’s Real World SOA and Business Process Automation platform and in the afternoon they are hosting a TechNet in the North session - Microsoft's Vision for Unified Communications - delivered by James O'Neill and then I will be completing the day with the community element.

The abstract for my session is as follows:

IIS7 for ASP.NET Developers

One of the biggest and best new features of Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista is Internet Information Server 7.0.  IIS 7.0 is the latest and most significant release of Microsoft's Web Server. With this release comes a new extensibility model which gives developers more options than ever before, more diagnostic tools with which developers can debug and locate issues. During the session Andrew will investigate the new architecture, look at extending, configuring and developing for IIS7, take a look at its management user interface, and introduce the debugging and diagnostic facilities within IIS7.

For more information and to register for this event go to - http://www.blackmarble.co.uk/events.aspx?event=Andy%20Westgarth%20on%20IIS7

Steve Schofield, IIS MVP, recently set up a new site - http://www.appcmd.com - which is a great resource for commonly used appcmd scripts.  Appcmd is the new command line administration utility for IIS7.  I've used the Tech Preview of the PowerShell provider for IIS and I use the IIS7 Manager a lot but I still like to work with APPCMD an awful lot and this new site is definitely going to be top of my list for daily checks to see any new content.  Go take a look and let Steve know what you think.  Also if you have any favourite APPCMD Scripts also let Steve know and they may get posted.  Thanks for starting this site Steve, it's a great resource.

I've been taking a look at the web stats from my blog over the past few days and have noticed a lot of hits on a previous post - FrontPage Server Extensions for IIS7 and thought I would follow that up with a link to a great series of blog posts which Robert McMurray has been writing recently about Life after FrontPage Server Extensions  Hope this post helps anyone searching for info on IIS 7 and FPSE and the ways forward.

After announcing I would do this shortly after my session at IMTC, unfortunately I have only just managed to get round to actually completing the page and putting it live.  I have written a page and added it to my blog listing all of the blogs and IIS Resources I use to research and keep up with developments on IIS - IIS 7 Resources.  I hope you find this useful and I'll keep adding to it as I find new and interesting ways and resources in my quest to stay up to date.  One thing I must stress is that the first point of call should always be the excellent IIS community site - www.iis.net.

Recently I blogged about the new IIS7 PowerShell Provider, and this was picked up by the people behind the PowerScripting Podcast - who commented on the post to say they would be included in the next PowerScripting podcast.  Well that podcast has now been released - Episode 23 - IIS7 Special and includes a great interview with Thomas Deml, Senior Program Manager on the IIS Team, who goes into more detail on the roadmap and features for the IIS 7 PowerShell Provider.  Check it out now it's a great listen and if you're interested in PowerShell as a whole, why not subscribe to the podcast?

Last night when I was reviewing my blog feeds, I noticed an interesting post by Thomas Deml - http://blogs.iis.net/thomad/archive/2008/04/14/iis-7-0-powershell-provider-tech-preview-1.aspx on the use of PowerShell with IIS7.  I have been intriqued by PowerShell for a while and have seen a couple of great sessions at recent Developer Day events.  The IIS Team are currently working on a PowerShell Provider with which you can administer IIS and you can get hold of the first Tech Preview now - .  I particularly like command line utilities as it reminds me of sitting in DOS and other command Shells.  I love the appcmd command-line utility which can be used to administer IIS7.  I like the new UI for managing IIS7 too but sometimes I just like to get a little geeky and sit and work in a command shell window :).

This morning I was sat in the garage, waiting for my Car to have it's MOT test, and I had downloaded the PowerShell snap-in walkthroughs (http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/447/managing-iis-with-the-iis-70-powershell-provider/) last night and sat and worked through them in the garage waiting area.  There are nine walkthroughs so far and they guide through Administering Sites/Apps/VDirs/AppPools etc.  If you are comfortable using PowerShell, I haven't done a lot of work with it but picked the syntax up quickly, then this is definitely worth a look.  I haven't decided yet which I prefer but the fact that we are now getting so much development, new features and so many new tools for IIS7 can only be great news.

A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to be able to attend and speak at the Irish Microsoft Technology Conference in Dublin.  This was and enjoyable experience and further lessons were learned and experience gained in the delivery of my session. I have forwarded my slide deck and demos onto the organisers at IrishDev but if you would like to get to them now, please find them listed on my Slides and Resources Page on this blog.  There you can find the slide deck and an archive file of the extensibility example which I demoed.  One warning with the example however is that there are a couple of practices employed in the handler and module which are no longer considered best practice.  For this reason, due to feedback received in regards to the demos and in light of the fact that I was far from happy with the deliverance of my demos I do intend to screen cast this element of my session at a later date - hopefully sooner rather than later :).

I also mentioned in my session that I would be starting a page on my Blog dedicated to IIS resources - as the list of resources on my slides could have been about six slides long at a minimum.  Essentially the best resource and one stop shop will continue to be the IIS Community Site - www.iis.net but I will also be listing any articles which I feel are of particular relevance and also a listing of the blogs which I read on IIS and IIS7 in particular, this is made up of IIS Team members and MVPs.

Finally I would like to thank the delegates and organisers of IMTC 2008 for the opportunity to attend and speak at the conference, it was great to meet you all and spend some time with you.  I hope to see you at other events in the future.

Here is a brief introduction to my session IIS 7 for ASP.net Developers which I will be presenting at IMTC 2008 in Dublin on Friday 4th April 2008 at 11:30.

The Irish Microsoft Technology Conference (IMTC) 2008 is a three day conference running from 7pm on Wednesday 2nd April till Friday 4th April, in Dublin.  Full details of the agenda can be found at http://imtc.firstport.ie/agenda.aspx, and it looks pretty impressive, with 8 tracks and 40 sessions of great technical content with some excellent speakers.

I'll be there to deliver a session on Internet Information Services 7 for ASP.Net Developers, and this will be my first ever visit to Ireland, so I'm really looking forward to going over and having another opportunity to speak on a topic which I have great passion for. 

There is a great offer for the first 300 people who complete their registration for IMTC as they will receive a personal copy of the IMTC 2008 DVD showing ALL 40 Sessions, interviews and Keynotes - so go on now - get yourself booked in for what looks to be an excellent conference and excellent value for money.