Fake Wigs, Vista Cakes and Dodgy Dealings

Event Detail HERE

Last night saw the NxtGenUG crew in Coventry launch the latest range of products from Microsoft; Windows Vista, Microsoft Office Suite 2007 and Exchange Server 2007. The event is part of the celebrations being held by Microsoft and INETA, although this event was different from the rest!

The theme of the night was to 'sell' features of Vista/Office and Exchange to the attendees. Alun Rogers stepping in from Risual to present on features of Exchange Server 2007.

The evening consisted of 6 rounds, where each presenter had less than two minutes to sell a feature of the three products. Competition was fierce as the presenters demonstrated, joked and even sung their way though each slot.

All the attendees were given a handful of play money, and after each round had to decide who got the £50, £20, £10 and £5 notes, along with a handful of small change for sympathy money. The presenters walked round with their 'begging bowls' in one last chance to obtain the elusive £50 notes.

Show me the money... Show me the money

Dave came out the blocks the quickest after, John and Alun had disasterous starts, and Rich had just about recovered from audio problems. Was there sabotage at play, and it wouldn't be the last twist to the evening...

Video Problems - Sabotage (Is Dave Smiling? and where is Rich?)

Despite the fake wig it was Alun's demos that 'fell about his ears', he even wore a coat to help coax the money from the members, but they weren't having any of it, and poured money towards Application Recovery, Flip3D and the future of gaming - Vista Games, Halo 2 for PC and ShadowRun.

Dave begs for money...

At the halfway stage, and with Vista Speech, Flip 3D and Vista Gaming under his belt, Richard Costall had a slender lead over Dave with his Access and Sharepoint integrations. Alun Rogers Exchange features (Document Access and Edge), along with Powershell trailed slightly behind, John Price, who had covered Sidebar, Windows Experience Indicator and Application Recovery.

not just Vista you get while it's hot!

Windows Vista - Cake Edition

During the interval, the attendees enjoyed a selection of food and a drink provided by NxtGenUG, plus the traditional NxtGenUG Vista Launch Cake. Then after 10 minutes, it was back into the pressure cooker atmosphere of selling features

Smart Art and Excel Heat Maps clashed head to head, with Vista UAC and Outlook Web Access sharing the spoils.

Rich gets Halo in yet another presentation!

With two rounds to go Richard's lead over Dave was just £41. Richard still had Vista Ultimate Extras and the Ribbon to present, surely it would be enough to beat Preview Pane and ReadyBoost!

What happened next, changed the course of the night. Dave disappeared behind the screen, only to return wearing a fake wig and holding a guitar. He then proceeded to sing his song about ReadyBoost - At the end, down came the house, along with all Richard's hopes of victory

The Dave McMahon slush fund was Ready'Boosted' by a whopping £445.00, with Richard demoted to the part of 'Ultimate Extra'. Alun's Clustering and John's Media Centre demos also tried in vain, but to no avail.

ReadyBoost the song - Take it away Dave...

In the last round Richard's Ribbon demo narrowed the overall gap against Dave's Preview Pane, Alun Rogers 'Transport Rules' took second place and John's SuperFetch trailed in fourth place.

Costall was graceful in defeat - "When he (McMahon) came out in that wig, I knew it would end in tears for one of us. On the night when the 'Fat Lady' sung it was all over, but like Halo 3, I'll be back to Finish the fight..."

Alun's use of a pool cue to acquire money, was debated by the judges, who eventually ruled he had the short straw anyway, and his presentation of Clustering was that of a beaten man.

Geff Lombardi managed the finances for the evening, and produced the following reports.

	Name	Total money
	Dave McMahon	1683.50
	Richard Costall	1524.50
	Alun Rogers	1222.50
	John Price	1155.00

At the end of the competition, all the attendees left with SWAG which included 5 copies of Vista Business, Infragistics licences, a Visual Studio 2005 boxed set, books, T-shirts, USB drives and sweets. Member Ray Starkey even took to the stage to mention his own favourite feature of Vista - Disk Partitioning (although there was no money left by this stage)

Costall rounded off the evening. "NxtGenUG like to be different, and it was certainly the case tonight, a real fun, but educational evening, showing over 40 features of the latest products - a great launch, thanks to INETA and to Microsoft. Hey! I just realised nobody did a demo of Search - Round 7 everybody!

Go on the Dave, Play us out...

Video: The NxtGenUG Vista ReadyBoost Song by Dave McMahon

Alun Rogers... a broken man (couldn't take the pace of the NxtGenUG boys)

Video: NxtGenUG -Vista Launch - Alun Rogers - Continuous Cluster Replication