2008 will go down as a year of great activity, not only for the election and the economy but for the evolution of community and culture online. In short, a lot happened this year. Here at TechZulu, we too are reflective about the year that is about to pass but also really excited about the future ahead.

TechZulu’s Geoffrey Emery interviews James Johnson while at the firestarter event. James is the Founder and President of the Inland Empire .NET User’s Group in Riverside California. He has been developing software since the HyperCard/Laser Disc days, still remembers sending backup tapes to get one-off CDs, loves staying ahead of the curve in new technology, and is passionate about getting people excited in their own potential. You can keep up on James’ adventures at www.duringlunch.com. We talked to James about ado.net data services and what it means to develop using beta bits. It was a fun talk with a great community organizer.

James Session was on - Consuming REST-based data with ADO.NET Data Services and introduced the ADO.NET Data Services framework and how to integrate REST-ful queries into your applications.

TechZulu’s Geoffrey Emery interviews Joey Snow at the firestarter event. Joey an IT Pro Evangelist who has been A Microsoft Certified Trainer and MCSE since 1998,and has spent the past twelve years working in various Information Technology roles specializing in Microsoft technologies. We dive into his current role at Microsoft  and  how he went from the help desk to  IT Pro and how use technet and Joey's blog to figure out how you to can do it too.