Forwarding on a note from my local MS Developer Evangelist Joe Healy about his next series of free presentations coming up in Florida. While the "Tiki Hut" name may sound less than serious, it's intent is to bring free MSDN content to smaller cities that don't usually get a full sized MSDN presentation each quarter. These are free events that run 3-4 hours, some during the day and some are evenings. Free = good, and Joe is a good presenter (as is his partner on the trip Jeff Barnes). Here are the sessions - #2 probably the one of interest to most DBA's, I'm hoping to catch this one myself.

Session 1 – jQuery with ASP.NET - JQuery is an open source JavaScript library that has a passionate following among Ajax developers. Microsoft is integrating the open source JQuery library into both the ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC frameworks and providing full product support. Learn how you can take advantage of JQuery to build richly interactive client-side Ajax applications when developing either ASP.NET Web Forms or ASP.NET MVC applications. Also see how JQuery works in combination with ASP.NET AJAX to provide the best framework for building Ajax applications.
Session 2 – Data Services - OnPremise and Off - In the near future, applications will be developed using a combination of custom application code and online building block services, including data-centric services. In this session we discuss advancements in the Microsoft development platform and online service interfaces to enable seamless interaction with data services both on-premises (e.g., ADO.NET Data Services Framework over on-premises SQL Server) and in the cloud (e.g., SQL Server Data Services). Learn how you can leverage existing know-how related to LINQ (Language Integrated Query), data access APIs, data-binding, and more when building applications using online data.
Session 3 – Architecting for the Cloud using Windows Azure - This session provides a tour of the Windows Azure cloud computing platform, an overview of its various components, and explains how these fit together to provide best-of-cloud experiences. We will explore the architecture that links many of the Microsoft .NET services and lets ISVs and businesses deliver compelling solutions. Learn how to compose these services with SQL Data Services to create applications in the cloud and connect them with on-premise systems. We will also examine the next generation of messaging, data, access control, and directory services, and how they fit together to provide a seamless integration into the cloud.

Full details on his blog,