Microsoft has just post the screencasts of most sessions of the Visual Studio Extensibility (VSX) Developer Conference 2008 back in September. I didn’t attend because it is a long trip (I live in Madrid – Spain-), a flight to Seattle is not direct (you need a stopover in France, England, Netherlands or in the US) and the fare is not what we could say a domestic flight, not to mention the jet lag that you get when returning. Also, I have already been to Seattle three times in the last four years for the MVP Summits, so tourism is no longer an added value for such a trip. But fortunately the videos are available so although the networking and social aspects of such events are missing, we can get the content (the audio and the PowerPoint slides in synch).

Today I have watched the one from the list that attracted me more, which is not technical, but the one of about marketing tools for Visual Studio (How to Market Your Extensions (VSX107) by Joe Marini) and I have enjoyed it a lot although I was familiar with all the topics explained (it happens that I had read all the books and blogs but one mentioned in the last slide). Making the transition from a freeware MZ-Tools 3.0 for VB6/VB5/VBA to a commercial MZ-Tools 6.0 for VS.NET 2002-2008 product has been a challenge for me, not only from the technical point of view (VB6 -> .NET) but for the most part from the marketing point of view for a geek like me. I have read lots of books, articles, blogs, etc. about it so I am now a bit less clueless 😉

The screenshots are available here:

VSX Developer Conference 2008 Sessions overview:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vsx/cc676517.aspx