With only a few days until the end of the year, what better time to sit and reflect on the year that was?
2013 was a big year for IT Pros, with the general availability of the R2 wave of releases, the rise of the mobile worker, the continuation of the Windows 8 vision with Windows 8.1, more resources to help you build a hybrid cloud, a smashing TechEd Australia 2013 on the Gold Coast and lots, lots more.
Over at the Microsoft Virtual Academy in 2013, developers, IT professionals, and aspiring technologists took more than 1.1M hours of on-demand training across 300 courses, in over 11 languages.
In case you missed them, here’s the top TechNet blog posts of the past six months, as voted by your finger-tips:
Business Intelligence
Get Started with the SQL Server 2014 CTP1 and BI
“Data Explorer” is now Microsoft Power Query for Excel
Microsoft Power BI for Office 365 – New Samples Video Launched – View Now!
Cloud
Microsoft Wants to Help VMware Experts “Future-Proof” Their Career
VMware Migration… Like You’ve Never Seen
Mark Your Calendars for Oct 18: The R2 Wave is Coming!
Data Platform
Introducing Power BI for Office 365
EF6 Release Candidate Available
Developer Tools
Visual Studio 2013 Launch: Announcing Visual Studio Online
Visual Studio 2013 New Editor Features
Visual Studio 2013 available for download
Server and Management
Exploring Windows 8.1 Start Screen and Start Button Options and Configurations
Remote Desktop Protocol 8.1 Update for Windows 7 SP1 released to web
Enjoy the last couple of days of the year! If your family and friends are scattered around the globe, the Skype team has some tips on staying up past midnight and keeping in touch with your loved ones in different time zones.
Over at the Fire Hose, you can meanwhile find out how to juggle several devices with family members– useful if you have a relative who keeps borrowing your tablet to play games on! And don’t forget these helpful tech tools and tricks if you’re hosting a holiday party this year.
See you in 2014!
Katherine.