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Einar has been a software developer since the mid-1990s. Now he’s working as a consultant at Bouvet with Microsoft .NET related technologies as is primary focus. 1st October 2008 he got awarded with the MVP title on XNA and DirectX. He’s been developing games for both PlayStation and Xbox and now 22nd March he’ll have a session for us at NNUG Haugesund about this topic. Click here to sign up for this event!

What have you been working on? Any projects we might have heard about?
I worked with gaming till late 90s and started doing Interactive TV applications for a couple of years for TV channels in Norway and abroad, the biggest installation was NRK and TV2 in Norway. In 2002 I started working with enterprise application development on the Microsoft .NET platform, and worked on an ERP product at Visma; shift management software called Turnusplan. Worked there for 6 years and then started in consulting and have been involved with quite a few projects / products during my now 2 year experience in the consulting business. The technology range I’ve been working with in the enterprise spans from .NET to SQL Server, BizTalk, Windows Forms, WPF and Silverlight to mention a few. Customers has been a few, but Nordea and Komplett is probably the most known.

Being rewarded with the MVP title, is there anything you get to do that you couldn’t do before?
One of the biggest benefits with the MVP title is that one gets a chance to work close with the product team one represents, in my case these days, the Silverlight team. Last week we got to go to the MVP summit, which is an annual summit that Microsoft holds for all its MVPs and we get to interact with the development teams at Microsoft. Holding the MVP title is certainly a door opener in other ways. Microsoft uses the MVP directory actively and once in a while you can get contacted by Microsoft offices in other countries if they are looking for a certain profile and you match that.

Any particular software releases you’re looking forward to the next year?
I guess Visual Studio 2010 is something I’m looking forward to. After using the Release Candidate for a couple of weeks now I must say I’m really impressed with what’s coming there.
The technology I hold dearest these days; Silverlight, will have a release this year – and I can’t wait for it to hit the global web – some amazing stuff has been done in this technology for version 4. With Silverlight 4 we are really seeing the full potential Silverlight in the enterprise; I am personally really excited about the new printing support, Webcam/Mic support and a lot of changes and improvements in data binding support.
Also, the out-of-browser experience that was introduced in SL3 has a lot more capabilities. For SL4 we’re getting an elevated security model, which enables us to do a lot more and make our applications richer on the desktop – such as more file access, both read and write COM access and more. In SL4 they are also putting the MEF (Managed Extensibility Framework) in there. There is a lot more, if you want more details, I have a post summarizing most of the features here: http://www.ingebrigtsen.info/post/2009/11/18/Silverlight-4-beta-announced.aspx.

You were podcasting a while. Any chance you’ll continue with this?
I was, and I really enjoyed it – I had to put it on pause due to heavy workload with Balder, the open-source 3D engine for Silverlight, which got a bit of attention. And attention in software means responsibility, so I’ve been filling up my spare time with working on that project. I want to get more time for doing podcasts as well, but maybe in a different form than what I did and possibly targeting a Norwegian audience only. No guarantees though.

Do you have any hobbies, except computer stuff?
Well, I must admit that the last couple of years I really haven’t had time for any hobbies. But I love to do stuff with my hands and used to spend quite a few hours doing carpentry earlier. It’s the kind of work that really makes my brain relax, which is quite necessary when working in the software industry. I will be picking up my hammer again in a couple of months and find a project (usually too large) that I can work on, so I don’t get stuck in front of my computer. Also, I discovered bi-cycling – I have a few personal goals in that area.

Also, remember to check out Einar’s blog at http://www.ingebrigtsen.info