First Blog Post

Welcome to my first blog post!

Let me introduce myself…  My name is Noah Coad (pronounced “code”).  I am up here at my first (and last, more below) MVP Global Summit, which has been absolutely incredible!  My colleagues have convinced me to give this blog thing a decent try.  So this first post may be long, but bear with… J

Personal Website
http://coad.net/noah

Shared Coding Projects, Tutorials, and Tools
http://coad.net/products

Short Bio

As a kid, my Electrical Engineering father would create electronic schematics and taught me to solder and put his circuits together before I could write.  Games on the XT 8086 were quickly boring and a little book from the library on BASIC programming opened the world of computers to me.

My Dad’s inventions grew more complex, eventually needing to communicate with the PC, and I started writing communications software.  This grew into traveling to Europe and around the US on contact work.  I’m now finishing up my degree in Computer Engineering from Texas A&M University and will be starting as a Program Manager in Visual Studio at Microsoft in July (2004).

MVP Global Summit

Wow.  Amazing!  Just, wow!  Microsoft is really dedicated to its community and leaders.  These last few days have been incredible!  Various product groups had five story high banners covering the sides of their entire buildings welcoming MVPs.  Everything was run as smoothly and organized as absolutely possible.

I met dozens of top-notch MVPs, including the .NET Rocks! team, and the MS employees producing the development tools we all use.  It was great to discuss my ‘dirty laundry list’ with the C# team and find out the most everything was being addressed in Whidbey.  Steve Ballmer and the vice presidents showed us the vision and direction of Microsoft and made us proud to be on the leading team.

It was just so kewl it made my almost sad to leave the MVP program.  One can’t be both and MVP and MS employee simultaneously.  But my consolation is in the fact that I may be able to make an even bigger impact on the community by making the product we all use, Visual Studio, all the better.  Besides, I’m thrilled about working with the finest development team in the world!  J

Technology Interests

I’ve always enjoyed working with microcontrollers, creating communications protocols, and wring PC software, so here are some of the areas you can look forward to seeing discussed.

.NET, C#, Windows Forms, ADO.NET, XML, Web Services, .NET Remoting, ASP.NET, WinAPI, PIC Microcontrollers, USB, and much more.