It happens every so often, you open up your mail or twitter feed and there is a very welcome surprise waiting for you, the biggest one of late was the announcement of the TechEd Challenge (#TechEdChallenge)
![src=]()
The aim is simple, get more dev’s interested and excited for (and if possible working on / buying) Microsoft’s latest and greatest server and backend offerings, just what do you have to do to enter this challenge? simple, download and try out either Windows Server 2012, System Center 2012 SP1 or grab a FREE 90 day trial of Windows Azure and give them your honest opinion about it. That and / or just keep tweeting / re-tweeting about #TechEdChallenge.
The full details are here: http://www.microsoft.com/uk/techedchallenge but in brief, here’s the run down.
Download one (or more ) of the three following products:
Write a review of your experience with your downloaded product(s) and either email them to Microsoft or use the submission site below:
if you download and review all three, you will have tripled your chances of winning.
Each first place prize includes your ticket to TechEd Europe, flights, hotel and meals. Winners will also be part of the TechNet team at the hub of Microsoft’s European community.
On top of that while the competition is running you can keep tweeting / ReTweeting about #TechEdChallenge to be in with a chance to win some free goodies, from mugs to tee shirts and notebooks (of which kind of notebook, I will update the article when mine arrives 
but I suspect of the writing kind)
Well what are you waiting for?
I have had experience with most of them before but I am still downloading all three and doing my own write up on them, so as a break from my normal schedule expect a few review articles coming very soon. In one way this has gotten me off the bench about Azure as I have been wanting to dig in to it for a while now and have a few projects that make a lot of use of their services but I have been preoccupied with other tasks, now I have got my trial and will get coding against it (may even blog about that experience as well on the side plus make use of Xamarin’s new Azure Mobile Services component plug-in for Xamarin solutions 
)
Laters
CodeProject
Simon (darkside) Jackson
Engineer, industry executive, research enthusiast. Avid learner with diverse interests in coding, game development, Mixed Reality (AR/VR/XR) and reinforcement learning. 25+ years of experience working in multinational corporations and startups.
Comments