MVP Award

Apologies for being quiet the past couple of weeks.  I've been on vacation with my family and it was great.  This morning has been spent going though the emails I've missed and catching up on what's been happening while I was away (mainly all the TFS SP1 goodies - more on that later as I experiment with it).  Anyway, a piece of very nice news in my inbox is that I am now a Team System MVP. 

I have to say that I'm incredibly flattered.  Whenever anyone has asked me about it in the past, I've always given the same sort of answers as when you ask a politician if they want to lead the country - something I've secretly wanted but never really thought that I'd contributed enough to the community to receive.  However, to be recognized in this way is very nice - especially when you consider that my "day job" has me coding in Java....  One of the perks of the MVP award is a Team Suite MVP subscription, which means I'll be able to upgrade to the full Team Suite edition rather than the Developer Edition that comes with my work MSDN Subscription.

Anyway, just wanted to let you all know.  It is certainly a great encouragement to keep up the blog posts and to carry on posting at the MSDN forums.  As far as I am aware, I'm only the second MVP who lives in Northern Ireland and the first Team System MVP based in the UK or Ireland - which is nice.  Thanks to the folks who nominated me!