Microsoft Developer Academy

A very impressive event. According to Yosi's blog 2300 people conquered the Cinema city complex. But I do have some comments.

The bad:

• As it turns out, the parking lot can't house so many cars. Here is where I had to park my car:
  
  
  

• Since you couldn't specify a list of presentations on registration, there were many occasions of 500 people trying to enter a theatre containing 150 seats, causing some people to miss the presentation. As Yosi wrote, they did add more presentations because of the demand, but it wasn't enough. You had to be standing near the door 10 minutes early to make sure you got in. I hope to catch those I missed here.
  
• The "Studential lunch" was a bit of a turn-down, after last year's convention in David Intercontinental hotel.

The good:

• The Microsoft team did an impressive marketing job for the convention. They created several 'Trailers' for the event, featuring many MVPs, and they re-models the complex, replacing all normal movie posters with posters for these 'movies':
  

• Ron Jacob's presentation was great. It covered mostly the basics, but most people tend to ignore those basics. I think many developers are now sealing security holes. He also did some ARCasts I intend to download. Here is Tal's review on Udi Dahan's and Ohad Israeli's talks. (You can also download Udi's talk here)
• This event is a great way for meeting people from the industry, I had a great time talking to peers, both old (people I used to work with) and new.
• No marketing presentations.