Two user groups merge and two more get started

On Tuesday I went along to the monthly Melbourne .Net user group meeting at which it was announced that it is finally merging with the Australia Developers .Network to become the Victoria .Net user group.
This sounds like it will be a really positive step as the two user groups have been holding joint meetings for a while now. The other bonus is that the new user group is part of the Victoria .Net cluster which means it should have easy access to even more resources. The official announcement is online here
On Thursday I went along to the first meeting of the Melbourne SharePoint User group. It was really quite a interesting audience. At MDNUG the audience is mainly technical people but there were quite a few business users attending the SharePoint Group. The first session has a more technical focus but next time it sounds like it will be right back to basics as there were quite a few people there who wanted to go through the features and how to build a business case and implement SharePoint. It will be interesting to see how the group progresses. Seen as a lot of Microsoft's new products will be using Windows SharePoint Services under the hood, I can there might end up being quite a few new people trying to learn more about the product.
Another new group which is starting next month is the VSTSUG , this is another group that sound like it will cover a wide range of different people, as the product itself aims to do.
Looking forward to going along and seeing how it runs potentially there is such a wide bunch of topics it could cover right from project processes to technical details which should prove very interesting.

Uni is over and I've found a new hobby

I completed my hopefully last exams for my master degree last week. It's really difficult to tell how I went as the subjects aren't really the type that have really clear right and wrong answers, plus a large part of the exams are the ever fun essay questions. I did feel that I went ok though so I'm looking forward to finding out my results, it'll be a big relief presuming I pass them all.
The results are due out on the last day of TechEd so if you see me with an extra large smile on my face that day you'll know why.
This weekend was my first real weekend for about the last year as I didn't have to study or do an assignment. In true computer geek style I had planned to spend most of it getting reacquainted with my xbox, I did manage to fit in a bit of quality time playing Splinter Cell Chaos Theory, but also got a bit distracted by a late birthday present that I received.
I'm now a proud owner of a nice electric guitar. Of course I can't actually play anything on it yet, but I'm sure gonna spend a bunch of time over the next few weeks trying . So far I'm up to learning C, D and G :)