If you are coming out to the Philly.Net meeting on Wednesday, don't forget to bring some cans of food or other non-perishables.  We are collecting food to donate to a local food bank.  Steve Andrews will have the exact details tomorrow night.  All year round many people in our area are hungry.  Let's try to make a difference tomorrow night by collecting a lot of food to help.  Those of us in the Philly.Net leadership have wanted to be more charitable for a while now, it is nice that Steve got this idea going.  Check out GeekFoodDrive for more details on the program.

If you have any other similar ideas and want to get involved, just let us know.

My contact at O'Reilly sent me this.  It's a bit last minute, but if you have time, please help them.  Maybe you'll win a free book!  Unfortunately it needs to be complete before Oct 17th.

O'Reilly Media is conducting research about in-person, live workshops on
software and business topics, and we'd really like your opinion.  If you
live in the United States and work in the tech industry, please consider
taking our 19 question survey to help us understand what you look for in
a live training course what motivates you, what you expect to get out
of a workshop, what topics you'd like to see, and so forth.  

To participate, please go to:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=3bFGXzVnXige7WrPdJ0wAQ_3d_3d

To show our appreciation, we'll select 10 people at random to receive a
free book of your choice.  The drawing will happen on Friday, October
17, so you'll need to complete the survey by that date to enter.  The
last question on the survey will ask for your e-mail we'll use that
only to contact the randomly selected winners and your responses will
remain anonymous.

NoDeNUG, The Northern Delaware .Net Users Group has been going strong for a year now!  Wow time flies.  The success of this group is due to the hard work of John Baird for running the group.  They've also had a great partner in Diamond Technologies for sponsoring all (or at least most) of their meetings for an entire year.

For a few years people in the area wanted to start a .Net User Group in Northern DE.  A year ago, John, Mitch Ruebush, Doug White and myself finally got it going.  Dani Diaz helped of course.  Plus Nate Sharp (Diamond Tech) supported the group from the start, and since he and I worked for Diamond, owners Chuck Burns and Greg Ballance offered to host the first few meetings and sponsor one of them.  I think we were all pleasantly surprised that the first meeting had about 15 people, if my memory serves me correctly.  The second meeting had more, and it grew each month.  Diamond offered to host and sponsor the meetings for the year.

After the first few meetings, I was unable to help out anymore since I got a new job and wasn't working in DE anymore.  It's an hour from my home and I'm pretty busy with Philly.Net anyway.  But John has really done a great job with the group and it's been growing and growing.  They moved out of Diamond's office due to size constraints and now host meetings at Delaware Technology Park but Diamond continues to sponsor the meetings.  I hope to make it to some meetings soon, but it sure is a long drive down there for me.  I'm a bit out of touch and don't know if Mitch or Doug are involved anymore.  As far as I know, John is running the show by himself (apologies if I am wrong).  Microsoft recently honored John for his efforts with NoDeNUG, among other things, by naming him a Microsoft MVP!

If you are in the area, you really should check out NoDeNUG.  Congrats to John Baird for making the groups successful.

 

The big news this week is that Code Camp (Oct 11, 2008) registration is now open!  In the past we have filled up fast so if you plan to come, register now.  This year's session list is even more diverse than ever since we now have tracks for IT and Infrastructure, in addition to our usual ASP.net, SQL Server, Sharepoint, Alt.Net and more.

 

We've got great partners lined up too.  Thanks as always to them for their support.

Platinum:  DeVry University, Microsoft

Gold: Cigna, HostMySite, IDP, RJB, Software Logic

Silver: Infragistics

Plus, as usual we'll have a bunch of prizes from lots of other vendors!

 

Lastly, don't forget to join our LinkedIn Group:  http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=137867

 

See you at Code Camp!

I'll try to keep the news about Code Camp coming on a regular basis.  Here are some things that may be of interest:

We are planning 10 Tracks with two new topics:  IT Infrastructure and Enterprise Management.  Yes, we have expanded to include IT topics now!

Here is the list of tracks, of course subject to change:

• Alt.NET
• SharePoint
• Architecture
• SQL
• Business Intelligence
• Toolbox
• Framework
• IT Infrastructure
• MIX (Web)
• Enterprise Management

We've got a few Partners lined up already.  I can't urge our members enough to check out these companies.  Without them Code Camp would not be possible.  Here's the breakdown so far:

Platinum:  DeVry and Microsoft

Gold: Software Logic and RGB Technical Consulting

Silver: Infragistics 

In addition some great companies have stepped up to send us prizes.  I'll write about that soon!

If you are interested in helping out with Code Camp, please let me know.  We always need volunteers, in advance and on the big day.  If you've been there before you know how much work goes into an event like this.

Time flies, so here comes another Philly.Net Code Camp.  Back at our favorite venue - DeVry U in Fort Washington, PA.

Once again we'll have about 50 sessions.  In addition to the Developer and SQL stuff, this time we are including sessions for the IT guys (sorry... and gals) too with an Infrastructure track.  Bill will be announcing a call for speakers soon so get your topics ready if you want to present.

As usual, I'm heading up the quest for Partners.  If you are interested in contributing towards Code Camp, please let me know.  It's a great way to reach the best Developers, DBAs and IT Pros in the Philadelphia area. 

 

Stay tuned for more information...

At tonight's meeting I announced the new group.  If you are a member of Philly.Net, please join the group.  It's a good way for us to find other members too, since you can search for members of a group.  Spread the word, we've got several thousand members of Philly.Net and a lot of us are on LinkedIn. Let's see how many we can get in our group.

Click here to join the group.

Philly.Net is hosting yet another Code Camp in May.  Thanks to DeVry University in Fort Washington, we'll be back at their excellent facility.  People really enjoyed the last one we had there in January.

So what's going on for Code Camp now?

Steve is organizing the speaker/session list.  Bill sent out the "call for speakers" a while ago and the track leads are working with Steve to line it all up.  We'll have 40 sessions this time.  We could easily do 50 again, but we all felt the day was a little long in January so we dropped a session.  But we'll still have the variety of tracks including asp.net, SQL Server, Alt.Net, and more.

As usual, I'm working with the Partners.  We are very fortunate again that a great group of companies have stepped up to help.

Our Platinum Partners:

DeVry University	Microsoft

Our Gold Partners:

HostMySite	Micro Endeavors
Perficient	RDA

 

Our Silver Partners:

Neudesic	Ted Pattison Group
Telerik

 

Want to know about what prizes we'll be giving out at the end of the day?  I'll post that soon!

For those of you who were at the last Philly.Net meeting, Marc promised you his slides.  So here they are.  Enjoy.

 

Marc gave me two power point decks.  Interestingly, the 2007 version is much smaller.  I've noticed that with other presentations too.  They must have done something cool to keep the files smaller in the newer version...neat.

Mix Summary for Power Point 2003 (.ppt) 

Mix Summary for Power Point 2007 (.pptx)

Code Camp 2008.1 on January 12, 2008 was, in my opinion, the best Code Camp Philly.Net has ever had. This is supported by the comments of many of our attendees. We are very grateful to DeVry University in Fort Washington, PA for hosting this event. Their top-notch facility really made the day special for the crowd of around 350 people. Not only did DeVry generously allow us to use their campus for Code Camp, but they had staff on hand to help out and make the day great. It was really nice working with them.  Also a special thanks to all of the Philly.Net members who helped out setting up Code Camp! Too long a blog post?  Click to read about Partners, Prizes, Sessions, Feedback  Our Partners:  Code Camp is only possible thanks to our many partners. Special thanks to our local Microsoft Developer Evangelist , Dani Diaz, for year round support. And we definitely appreciate the support of our other Partners: ComponentOne, Infragistics, Neudesic, RDA, RedGate, CodeBreeze, Spherion and Solid Quality Mentors. It was great working with them all to make this such a successful event.  It was especially fun meeting some of our partners that were on hand for Code Camp.  If you enjoyed Code Camp, I hope you’ll support all our Partners. Click on their logos for more information.                         Prizes:  I’d also like to thank our Prize Contributors. While we all attend Code Camp for the great sessions, everyone loves the prizes and giveaways that our partners provide.  Of course, the XBOX-360 from Red-Gate was a big hit. Plus we gave away a ton of other prizes including books and software.  We've continued our tradition of spreading out the prizes throughout the day.  Each speaker gets a bag of stuff including a book, a shirt, and a water bottle to give away during each session.

Platinum Partners   Gold Partners     Silver Partners

Company Prizes Provided Addison Wesley/Sams Lots of Books Apress Lots of Books ASP.Net Pro Magazine A copy for everyone Code magazine A copy for everyone CodeSmith CodeSmith Licenses ComponentArt WebUI Licenses ComponentOne Studio Enterprise Licenses Dundas Dundas Licenses JetBrains ReSharper Licenses O'reilly Lots of Books Microsoft Lots of Software Red Gate Software plus an XBOX 360 SQL Server Magazine A discount subscription offer SteelBlue Solutions CodeBreeze Wrox Lots of Books Ndepend Software

Sessions:

We had an unprecedented 50 sessions at Code Camp!  That included a wide variety of presentation topics split into 8  tracks: Alt.Net, BI, Database, Toolbox, Architecture, Collaboration, Frameworks, and UI.  With presenters with names from Andrews to Ziss presenting a huge variety of topics including:  ASP.Net, Silverlight, Databinding, LINQ, TDD, AJAX, SQL Server, MVC, Katmai, Spring.Net, BizTalk, WCF, IIS 7, Visual Studio, Powershell, Sharepoint, Continuous Integration, Refactoring, Dependency Injection, Reporting Services, T-SQL, Mobile, InfoPath, SubSonic, Exception Handling and more. 

For a full list of presentations, check out this list.

It would have been hard to gather this amount of speakers with the help of several other groups in our area: 

PhillyAlt.Net

Philadelphia Area Office Geeks

Philadelphia SQL Server Users’ Group

Northern Delaware .Net User Group

Philadelphia Area SharePoint User Group

Feedback:

I'd like to share some of the feedback that we got from Code Camp.  We got high marks and praises from most of our guests  I've included a very small sample below.  In addition, some people pointed out a few areas for improvement.  I tend to agree with a lot of them.  This was a great event and we'll get it even better next time.

Some of the General Comments First time to code camp – classrooms worked great. No technical glitches – excellent job. Speakers were able to get up and rolling on time. Great job! Great Code Camp! I love Code Camp. Great Location! Good event, venue and speakers. Would definitely attend future Code Camps. Overall, this is an excellent venue to get exposed to new tools and ideas. I’m glad the Alt.Net group was included, I think they have a lot to offer, a little unpolished, but that’s cool too. Great! Great event. Will certainly attend another. Some of the Presentation Comments Great speaker, great info. Content “From the horse’s mouth”! No Slides, all Code, awesome. This guy was top notch. Did a great job, especially considering the huge turnout. Very engaging, dynamic, animated speaker. Loved it! Superb!! Really good topic w/very pragmatic approach… will be very useful to me. Very useful and tightly focused. Speaker was excited about the idea and it shows. Phenomenal session. Very useful, Can’t wait to try this out. A Few Suggestions for Improvement (my comments in [Brackets]) Just need more people to help register – great problem to have at a Code Camp… too many people! Good job. [Yeah, we'll get that one right next time.] What, no internet connections? [Unfortunately, DeVry did not have Internet access for us to use.  Maybe we can work something out for next time. ] Need larger rooms for some talks. [A good problem to have!  Many other conferences have a first come, first served approach like this] No confirmation until 2 days prior to event. [I agree we should work on that one] Birds Of a Feather – Good idea, not enough room. [We might need to rethink how we do BOF.  Maybe a longer lunch would help?] Keep coffee running throughout day please. More veggie food please. Overall awesome event. Thanks to all organizers. [The Veggie Food went pretty quick, sorry about that.  Unfortunately, our Coffee Maker broke pretty early in the day. Luckily DeVry had a Coffee in the vending area] More cookies! [They sure were good!  I agree.] Another 5 minutes between sessions would be good. [I like that idea too] Some speakers too quiet. [This was obviously more of a problem during the really crowded sessions.  Maybe we can look into some microphones.]

*Thanks to Melanie Wright from DeVry and our own Mark Magliocco for providing the photos.

We had a great Code Camp on Jan 12.  I've got a longer blog post planned to summarize the event.  I'm gonna work on that next.  But I promised Marc that I'd post his slides from his presentation "Building ASP.NET Dynamic Data Web Sites using LINQ for SQL".  And to be fair, he sent me this stuff on Jan 14 and I'm finally posting it today.  Sorry to those of you who were waiting for it.  I sat in on this presentation and it was a lot of fun and full of content.  Thanks Marc!

 

He was kind enough to create two versions of the slides:

Slide Deck for Power Point 2003 (.ppt)

Slide Deck for Power Point 2007 (.pptx)

Updated on12/19.  Infragistics has joined us as a Gold Partner

 

Wow, Code Camp 2008.1 is coming up fast.  It seems like we move from planning one Code Camp right into planning the next one.  We are busy lining up sponsors and speakers and I can report that both efforts are going very well.

First, a sponsors update.  Scroll down if you want to see the sessions that are planned.

We now have several levels of sponsorship.  Companies can contribute money to Philly.Net so we can pay for the expenses of running a Code Camp.  In addition, companies provide prizes and swag, and everyone likes that! Of course, this list is changing all the time.   All of these companies have been very generous in their support of Philly.Net.  If you get some time, check out their web sites/products. 

Announcement: The official email hasn't gone out yet but I'll let the cat out of the bag... Code Camp registration is now open on the Philly.Net site!

Platinum Partners:

Thanks to DeVry in Fort Washington, PA.  They'll be hosting our Code Camp.	We can always count on Microsoft's support throughout the year.

Gold Partners:

Silver Partners:

Other Partners:

Solid Quality Mentors

Other companies have pitched in to provide prizes for Code Camp.  Here's a list of who's signed up to help, so far:

ComponentArt

Dundas

AddisonWesley/Sams

SQL Server Magazine

Wrox

Presentations:

We all come to Code Camp for the presentations.  Here is a list of some of the presentations that you'll get at Code Camp. This list is NOT complete and is subject to change, of course.   Keep an eye on the Code Camp site for the latest information.

Alt.NET
Brian Donahue - Panel Discussion
David Laribee - Fundamental Domain-Driven Design
Jeremy Jarrell - Decoupling Your Design - Dependency Injection with Windsor
Jeff Deville - ASP.NET MVC - A New Way To Build Web Apps 
Steve Eichert - Behavior Driven Development In Action:  The Evolution of TDD
Don Demsak - Design Patterns

Architecture
Mitch Ruebush -
Harish Bidad - BizTalk R2 BAM
Chip Lemmon - Entry Level Event Models
Tim Dodd - IIS 7
Sam Gentile - ESB/SOA

Business Intelligence
Dan Clark - Integrating SQL Server Reporting Service Reports in .NET Applications
Dan Hartshorn - Performance Point
Mark Scott -
Andy Leonard -

User Experience
Andy Schwam - ASP.NET Custom Controls
Jonathan Newell - Databinding ASP.NET
Bill Wolff - Silverlight 2.0 with Expression and Visual Studio 2008
John Juback - Real World Experiences with Silverlight
Eric Pascarello - Investigating JavaScript and Ajax Security
Susan Lennon - Using SharePoint Designer to build a dashboard-type view of lists

Frameworks
Marc Ziss -
Jim Bonnie - SubSonic as a Data Access layer for DotNetNuke
Rachel Appel - Exception Handling & Management Strategies
Kevin Goff - Crash Course on LINQ and VS2008 Language Enhancements

Collaboration
David Mann - Delivering Modular SharePoint Workflow Functionality via Components
Bob Fox - SharePoint Disaster Recovery, Backup and more…
Tony Testa - AJAX in SharePoint
Michael Lotter - InfoPath 2007 with Visual Studio 2008
Russ Basuira - Programming Composite Applications that use the SharePoint Business Data Catalog
Gary Blatt - Using OpenXML to Access Excel and other Office 2007 Files
Database
Sharon Dooley -
Ed Pochinski -
Joshua Lynn - SQL Server 2008 New feature: Change Data Capture
Reed Sutton -
Hilary Cotter -
Chuck Urwiler -
Toolbox
Mark Magliocco - FaceBook Developer Toolkit in .NET
Judy Calla - Visual Studio 2005
Travis LaBorde -
Rob Keiser - Powershell 2.0
Todd Snyder - Using Refactoring to hunt down code smells
Steve Andrews - Visual Studio 2008 Tools and Add-Ins

Wow, Code Camp 2008.1 is coming up fast.  It seems like we move from planning one Code Camp right into planning the next one.  We are busy lining up sponsors and speakers and I can report that both efforts are going very well.

First, a sponsors update.  Scroll down if you want to see the sessions that are planned.

We now have several levels of sponsorship.  Companies can contribute money to Philly.Net so we can pay for the expenses of running a Code Camp.  In addition, companies provide prizes and swag, and everyone likes that! Of course, this list is changing all the time.   All of these companies have been very generous in their support of Philly.Net.  If you get some time, check out their web sites/products. 

Announcement: The official email hasn't gone out yet but I'll let the cat out of the bag... Code Camp registration is now open on the Philly.Net site!

Platinum Partners:

Thanks to DeVry in Fort Washington, PA.  They'll be hosting our Code Camp.	We can always count on Microsoft's support throughout the year.

Gold Partners:

Silver Partners:

Other Partners:

Solid Quality Mentors

Other companies have pitched in to provide prizes for Code Camp.  Here's a list of who's signed up to help, so far:

ComponentArt

Dundas

AddisonWesley/Sams

SQL Server Magazine

Wrox

Presentations:

We all come to Code Camp for the presentations.  Here is a list of some of the presentations that you'll get at Code Camp. This list is NOT complete and is subject to change, of course.   Keep an eye on the Code Camp site for the latest information.

Alt.NET
Brian Donahue - Panel Discussion
David Laribee - Fundamental Domain-Driven Design
Jeremy Jarrell - Decoupling Your Design - Dependency Injection with Windsor
Jeff Deville - ASP.NET MVC - A New Way To Build Web Apps 
Steve Eichert - Behavior Driven Development In Action:  The Evolution of TDD
Don Demsak - Design Patterns

Architecture
Mitch Ruebush -
Harish Bidad - BizTalk R2 BAM
Chip Lemmon - Entry Level Event Models
Tim Dodd - IIS 7
Sam Gentile - ESB/SOA

Business Intelligence
Dan Clark - Integrating SQL Server Reporting Service Reports in .NET Applications
Dan Hartshorn - Performance Point
Mark Scott -
Andy Leonard -

User Experience
Andy Schwam - ASP.NET Custom Controls
Jonathan Newell - Databinding ASP.NET
Bill Wolff - Silverlight 2.0 with Expression and Visual Studio 2008
John Juback - Real World Experiences with Silverlight
Eric Pascarello - Investigating JavaScript and Ajax Security
Susan Lennon - Using SharePoint Designer to build a dashboard-type view of lists

Frameworks
Marc Ziss -
Jim Bonnie - SubSonic as a Data Access layer for DotNetNuke
Rachel Appel - Exception Handling & Management Strategies
Kevin Goff - Crash Course on LINQ and VS2008 Language Enhancements

Collaboration
David Mann - Delivering Modular SharePoint Workflow Functionality via Components
Bob Fox - SharePoint Disaster Recovery, Backup and more…
Tony Testa - AJAX in SharePoint
Michael Lotter - InfoPath 2007 with Visual Studio 2008
Russ Basuira - Programming Composite Applications that use the SharePoint Business Data Catalog
Gary Blatt - Using OpenXML to Access Excel and other Office 2007 Files
Database
Sharon Dooley -
Ed Pochinski -
Joshua Lynn - SQL Server 2008 New feature: Change Data Capture
Reed Sutton -
Hilary Cotter -
Chuck Urwiler -
Toolbox
Mark Magliocco - FaceBook Developer Toolkit in .NET
Judy Calla - Visual Studio 2005
Travis LaBorde -
Rob Keiser - Powershell 2.0
Todd Snyder - Using Refactoring to hunt down code smells
Steve Andrews - Visual Studio 2008 Tools and Add-Ins

Don't forget that Code Camp is Saturday, January 12 at DeVry University in Fort Washington, PA.  I'm still working on prizes and contributions.  We've got some great companies pitching in to help already:

GOLD Level Contributors:
ComponentOne
Neudesic
RDA
Neudesic
Red Gate

SILVER Level Contributors:
SteelBlue Solutions

Inaddition, other companies have already promised to provide swag/prizes including:

• ComponentArt
• Dundas
• AddisonWesley/Sams
• Wrox

 

We are starting to line up speakers.  I think we already have around 30 presentation set.  If you are interested in Contributing or Speaking, please let us know.

I'm happy to announce that RDA has signed on as a Gold Level Contributor for Code Camp 2008.1.  I don't think the Code Camp page is up on the Philly.Net site yet.  Meanwhile, you can get some details in this post.

I'm currently working on the details with some other companies and I'll have more information coming out soon.

Don't forget, we are still looking for Sponsors and Speakers!

We've scheduled our next Code Camp for January 12, 2008.  This time we're having it at DeVry University so we have room for many more people.  This could be Philly.Net's biggest and best code camp ever!  I've started working on contributors and prizes and Bill and Steve are rounding up the speakers.  We're planning to have 8 tracks running!  If you are interested in speaking, let us know and we'll put you on the schedule.  We'll have .Net, ASP.Net, SQL, Office, Sharepoint, Alt.Net and more.

I am proud to announce that we have our first Silver Level Contributor lined up.  Thanks to SteelBlue Solutions.  Miguel Castro, a very popular speaker (and Microsoft MVP) makes a cool code generator named CodeBreeze...check it out.  Other companies lining up to contribute and I'll have more information soon.  Let me know if you are interested in Contributing money or prizes.

Other Events:

Silverlight Firestarter:  Dani Diaz is putting together a Microsoft event on December 15th.  It's a full day of designing and developing with Microsoft Silverlight. And if you have a lot of energy, stick around because at 5:30PM they are having an XBOX party!  Register here.

VS 2008 Install Fest:  Sorry for the late announcement, this one is Tomorrow (Dec. 4).  Come to the Microsoft Malvern office and install a copy of VS 2008.  If you do, you'll get a free license.  Pretty sweet.  But you've got to be registered.

We've got lots of stuff going on with Philly.Net these days.  Here is some news that I thought would be worthwhile.

Next Meeting:  "15 Minutes of Fame" on November 20, 2007 - Instead of having only two speakers, we'll have 10 speakers, each doing about 15 minutes!  We did this last year for our Nov. meeting and we got great feedback so we'll try it again.  I'm looking forward to it, I'll be doing my 15 minutes on LINQ.  For more information, check out the web site. 

Visual Studio 2008 is Coming Soon - This isn't exactly Philly.Net news but I thought it was worth mentioning.  Check out the Visual Studio Developer Center for the details.  Microsoft announced at TechEd in Barcelona that VS 2008 and .Net Framework will be released this month!

Future Meetings - We've got lots of good stuff coming soon including regular meetings, Code Camps, Pub Nights and some special events.  If you are interested in speaking or sponsoring, please let us know.  We need sponsors and speakers starting with January Code Camp and also the February monthly meeting.  If you have never spoken, I advise you to give it a try.  It is fun and you'll actually learn a lot from the process.

Architects Group - Mitch Ruebush is starting up a User Group for Architects.  Keep an eye out for more information.

We've got some other things that we're working on.  Plans for Code Camp, newsletters and more.  You'll be hearing more about that soon. 

 

Tonight's meeting was sponsored by RDA Corporation.  They provided our dinner (pizza) as well as a $50 Gift Card to Circuit City as a give away!  Making it's first appearance at a Philly.Net meeting was our new coffee maker!  We bought it for Code Camp but now we'll have coffee for our regular meetings.  Enjoy it!  Thanks to Rob for running tonight's meeting.  Bill was out at Microsoft in Redmond (supposedly he's working) so Rob stepped up to run the show and make announcements.

Our next meeting is November 20th.  We are bringing back the "15 minutes of Fame" format that we used last November.  That means we'll have about 9 presenters, each doing a brief 15 minute presentation.  Last year this worked out really well and we got a great response.  If you are interested, please contact Bill or myself. 

UPDATE:  Both of the presenters are from RDA Corporation.  Check out their Technology Corner for information on these presentations and more.  Or click directly to Building an Extranet with Forms-Based Authentication using WSS 3.0/MOSS 2007 or Visual Studio 2005 Tips and Treats

Presenter:  Deepak Gupta, RDA Corporation
Topic:  Building an Extranet with Forms-Based Authentication using WSS 3.0/MOSS 2007

Sorry, I can't summarize this session.  I was busy with Philly.Net business and I missed the whole thing.  It's too bad because I was told that Deepak really knows his stuff on Sharepoint!

Presenter:  Steve Andrews, RDA Corporation
Topic:  Visual Studio 2005 Tips and Treats

Steve started by promising that these tips would be posted here on his blog.  It's a good thing too because he jumped right in with a ton of tips and I can't remember them all.  He started by showed how to customize VS menus and toolbars with a variety of features that aren't there by default.  Then he showed all kinds of shortcuts and settings that I plan on using tomorrow at work.  I've been using Visual Studio since 2002 and I didn't know many of these little tidbits.  The crowd contributed a few tips too and I'm certain that everyone learned something tonight.  As a bonus, Steve did a quick demo of Lutz Roeder's awesome Reflector tool.

We wrapped up with prizes from RDA, O'Reilly, Wrox, Sams, and SourceGear!

I just heard about a cool contest Red Gate is having.  It's called Break The Code prize draw and there is no cost to enter (and no purchase necessary).  The catch is, you need to decipher a code posted on their web site.  How you do that, I have no idea.  I just pass these things along. 

Thanks again to Red Gate for their support of Philly.Net Code Camp.  They provided an iPod for us to raffle, as well as some software.

Well, we did it again.  Thanks to the hard work of many people, Philly.Net's Code Camp 2007.2 was a terrific event.  I've already gotten some great feedback from many people about the day.  If you have any comments to add, please email me or comment here on this post.  We take the comments seriously.  Last time it was suggested to afternoon snacks and drinks, we had that this time.  Last time the day was a little too long, this time we shortened it.  Last time people wanted coffee in the morning, this time we provided it.  Our presenters did a great job, it was evident in the evaluations that we collected.  Thanks to everyone who filled those out, the presenters look forward to your comments.

I think my presentation went very well and I've gotten some good feedback from people.  I had a lot of fun presenting.  If you are looking for my code samples, you can find them here.  Also, I'm in the process of putting together a summary/wrap up email.  In that email, I'll include information about Code Camp including links to all of the presenters, just in case you lost their information.

Sorry gang... Pub Night, scheduled for Tuesday, Sept 11 (originally scheduled for Wed, Sept 12) is now postponed again!

Because it was postponed, there wasn't enough time to ensure a good crowd for tomorrow.  Plus, a lot of us are still working on our presentations for Saturday's Code Camp.

I think it will be next week, probably Wednesday.  But don't put any money on that yet!

Sorry for the late notice, but our Pub Night has been changed.  Sorry, we didn't realize it was scheduled on a Jewish holiday.

Luckily, everything else stays the same.  e-brilliance will still sponsor the event at the Great American Pub in Conshohocken.  We'll start drinking around 5:30.  See you on TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 11.

The official e-mail invitation should be going out soon.

I've got some speaking engagements coming up.  It almost sounds like an official tour is planned.

Presentation Topic: Developing Custom Controls for ASP.Net

Description:  In this demo I'll show you how to get started creating your own custom server controls for asp.net.  I'll show how to create controls, expose public properties to make them easier for other developers to implement, and handle events from the control.  We'll  create a ControlDesigner so Visual Studio can render the control at design time.  I'll even build some extra features into the control using Ajax.

Where:

• Saturday, September 15 2007 at Philly.Net (Code Camp)
• Monday, October 15 at Lehigh Valley.Net
• Thursday, October 25 at the Northern Delaware .Net User Group
• Saturday, December 1 at the Central Penn .Net Users Group (Code Camp)

I'm really excited to get out to some of these other groups for these presentations.  If you live near any of these groups, check them out.  They've all got regular, monthly meetings with great .Net content.  I've also got calls in to Madison Square Garden, LA Coliseum, Wembley Stadium and others.  But I haven't heard back from them yet.

Please, no brown M&M's.

Update:  When I get some time I'll be writing the demo out as a tutorial blog post.  In the mean time, if you are interested in the source code for this demo, here it is:

ControlsDemo.zip (1.05 MB)

Code Camp is just 10 days away!  The Philly.Net leadership has been working hard on all of the details.  We had a meeting last night at Rob's house.  Attendees included Bill Wolff, Rob Keiser, myself, Marc Ziss, Marc Magliocco, David Mann, and Dani Diaz.  Here are some of the items discussed about Code Camp and Philly.Net in general:

• We may have to move Pub Night.  Keep an eye out for more information soon.  We didn't realize that it was scheduled on Rosh Hashanah.  We are looking at Tuesday night instead.
• We (loosely) planned out the food for Code Camp.  We'll have breakfast (bagels or muffins) with coffee and juice.  For lunch we'll have big hoagies like last time.  Plus we'll have snacks throughout the day including water and soda.
• This time we are going to try and stagger the lunch schedule, so don't panic when you see the session schedule.  Hopefully we'll have shorter lines to get food.
• Bill is going to try and send out a confirmation email to registered attendees soon.
• David Mann is starting up a new group for developers using Microsoft Office, VSTO, etc.  I'll post more when the details come out.
• Several of us are starting a new .net user group in northern Delaware.  Check out this web site for more info.  I'll be speaking there October 25th.  Please spread the word about this new group.
• Check out the ReMix 07 conference.  If you missed Mix07 last spring, here's your chance to get caught up on ASP.Net, Silverlight, AJAX and more.
• Check out our future meeting schedule on the web site.  You'll see that we don't have many speakers or sponsors lined up for future meetings.  Here is your change to do presentation or be a sponsor.
• Rob's new nickname is Bubba.  You'll have to ask.

See you at Code Camp!  Don't forget, you can check out the swag/prizes here.

 

Philly.Net is proud to announce our newest Gold Level Contributor, Neudesic.  Our Gold Contributors make it possible for us to host the event and provide food and drinks throughout the day.

In addition, we've added SQL Server Magazine as our latest Swag contributor.  They are graciously providing a subscription to the magazine for each attendee.  You'll have to fill out the form on the day of the event though - don't forget!

 

We've got lots of other companies supporting us.  Check out the entire list.

Check out the Philly.Net site for more information.  And don't forget that pub night is Wednesday, Sept 12.

Sorry, if you haven't registered already for the Sept 15 2007 Code Camp you are out of luck.  Hopefully we'll see you at the next Code Camp, we are planning one for the winter.

 

If you are attending, check out the Philly.Net site to see a list of presentations.  We've got a nice variety of presenters and presentation topics.  If you are interested in the free stuff you can get at Code Camp, check out this post.

It's official.  You can now register for Philly.Net Code Camp 2007.2.

On Sept. 15, 2007 we'll have 25 sessions on .Net related topics.  Check out the web site for more information including a preliminary list of topics and presenters.

Also, check out this blog post for more information on our generous corporate contributors and the prizes that we'll have.

Registration opened last night but remember, last time it filled up in less then a day!  Register now, don't get shut out.

(Updated Sept. 5)

Philly.Net is proud to present Code Camp 2007.2 on September 15. 2007 along with our Gold Partners:

Our partner organizations for this event are PhillySharePoint and PSSUG.

 

Swag/Prize contributors:

Here is a preliminary list of companies that are helping us with Code Camp:

Addison-Wesley	Books, T-shirts, Canvas Bags
Apress	Books, T-Shirts, etc
CoDe Magazine	Magazine for each attendee*
CodeSmith Tools	5 Licenses to CodeSmith
ComponentArt	Software license
Diamond Technologies	Gift Card and other swag
Dundas	10 Dundas Calendar Licenses, 1 Hoodie, 1 Dundas Gauge License, etc
Google	T-Shirt for each attendee*
JetBrains	5 Licenses for ReSharper
Microsoft	Vista, Office, Expression Web, and other goodies
O'Reilly	Books
Red-Gate	an iPod and Red-Gate Software
SQL Server Magazine	Subscription for each attendee!
TechSmith	Snagit, Camtasia Studio, trial software, etc
Wrox	Books, T-Shirts, Water Bottles

 

Stay tuned for more information...

 

* While supplies last

Philly.Net is proud to present Code Camp 2007.2 on September 15. 2007

Our partners for this event are PhillySharePoint and PSSUG.

 

Here is an update on some of the contributions and swag we're getting for Code Camp:

Gold Level:

We are really excited to have two well known companies helping out.

 

Thanks to their contributions, we'll have great food to eat and excellent prizes!

 

Swag/Prize contributors:

Here is a preliminary list of companies that are helping us with Code Camp:

Addison-Wesley CoDe Magazine ComponentArt Diamond Technologies

Dundas Google Microsoft O'Reilly

Red-Gate JetBrains RJB Tech TechSmith Wrox

 

As things are finalized, I'll post specific information about the cool prizes we'll be giving out!

While the official announcement hasn't gone out yet, you probably know that Philly.Net is presenting Code Camp 2007.2 on Sept 15.

Swag and Contributions -- I've already started a campaign reaching out to vendors for contributors for swag, not to mention breakfast and lunch.  Code camp is a free event and we rely on the generous donations to pay for our expenses.  If you have any interest in helping out in this way, please contact me.  And if you have any ideas for swag that you'd like to see at Code Camp, please let me know.

Presenters -- Bill hasn't sent out the official call for speakers yet, that will come soon.  But now is a good time to think about what kind of presentation you might do.  We'll need about 25 presentation for Code Camp.

Newsletter -- I just got an email from Mark M regarding starting the newsletter.  It looks like he is trying to get this off the ground.  It will be awesome to have an official Philly.Net newsletter.  Thanks Mark!

See you at the next meeting on August 22.

Once again we had a great turnout for the meeting...over 90 people!  This week we had three presentations on a variety of topics.  Incidentally, the first two presentations use XAML... time to start learning something new!

 

Presenter:  Aaron Shafer, Lockheed Martin

Topic:  Silverlight

Aaron started of with some background on Silverlight (formerly known as WPF/E).  Silverlight is a subset of WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) meant for use on the web.  Silverlight provides a means to create some slick websites based on XAML.  It offers some great and easy to use audio and video features so you can enable your sites for media. 

Before long Aaron was into the demos and we had "Hello World".  Pretty quickly he got into some cooler stuff with animation.  And with a bit of code he wrote an web application that allows users to drag a shape around the page.  One of the coolest aspects of this is that he ran his demos in IE and Firefox, and then he ran them on a Mac!   That makes Silverlight a pretty powerful tool!

 

Aaron recommends checking out Tim Sneath's blog as a good source of information.  Also check out the Silverlight.Net site and of course Scott Guthrie's blog.

 

Presenter:  Bill Wolff, Agility Systems

Topic:  Acropolis Introduction

Bill started off with a disclaimer: He learned just enough about Acropolis to do this demo.  He learned about it at Tech Ed and then he went to the Acropolis site and watched some videos.  You'll need VS Orcas to do any of this stuff.  Acropolis is a design tool allowing developers to easily create windows applications.  It will create an MVC (Model View Controller) style application for you, storing the presentation layer in XAML.   He showed us a pretty cool demo that created a multi-document interface "Notepad" application.  XAML has a document management template that gets you started and puts in a lot of the features you'll need.  Bill showed a bunch of cool demos.  Download the source code from the Acropolis site and check it out for yourself.  My advice, I'd do it on a Virtual Machine!  None of this stuff is production ready.

 

This is cool stuff and was a first look at this technology for most people in the room. 

The Acropolis site has everything you need including the download, samples, videos and documentation.

 

Presenter:  Rob Keiser, Row-5

Topic:  PowerShell for .Net Developers

I've heard PowerShell defined as "command line on steroids".  The difference is that PowerShell works with objects, the .Net Framework, SQL and more.  There are lots of commands that are keyed in to execute them,  but there are a lot of aliases (shortcuts or abbreviations) too.  A lot of the commands are similar to Unix commands, so if you are used to that, you'll be all set.  Plus, the "|" (pipe) symbol is back and you'll use it a lot.  The power of PowerShell is not the simple commands that you can execute, but the ability to create scripts.   He showed a cool, simple demo of how to use PowerShell to browse through your registry.  Next he browsed through hard drives using the "get-wmiobject" command.  Next Rob got into using PowerShell with .Net.  He easily created a dataset.  And he browsed through SQL Server information using SMO (Server Management Objects) and even took his databases offline.  Lastly, he demo'd PowerGadgets, an extension to PowerShell.  WithPowerGadgets you can easily graphically chart output from PowerShell.

 

The fact is, none of this stuff is glamorous, but Powershell has some cool functionality that, in many circumstances, could make our jobs a lot easier. 

 

 

To get Powershell, download it here.

 

 

Meeting Sponsor: Solvepoint... Thanks for the sandwiches!  

Additional Door Prizes courtesy of:  

Around the country various technical communities have been holding "Geek Dinners".  The guys in Northern NJ have been doing them for a while now.  The idea is simple, a bunch of us get together and have dinner.  Everyone pays their own way and it's a chance to hang out with other members of the local .Net community.  Steve wants to get the ball rolling in the Philadelphia area so check out his blog for more info.

Regional .Net User Group Leadership Meetings

Two weeks ago Bill hosted a Philly.Net Leadership meeting at his house.  He also invited the leadership of PSSUG (Philadelphia SQL Server User Group).  We tossed around a bunch of ideas for how we may better serve the community.  In addition, yesterday was the monthly regional Community Leadership conference call hosted by our D.E (Microsoft Developer Evangelist), Dani Diaz.  Again, we discussed ways to best server the community.  Dani's conference call continues the tradition started by Peter Laudati (who filled in when we had no D.E.).  This call typically includes community leaders from Philly.Net, Central Penn .Net (Harrisburg area),  Lehigh Valley .Net, .Net Valley (Scranton area), the new Delaware .Net, and others.  I'll give you the gist of these meetings, mostly from the Philly.Net perspective.

In both of these meetings, there seemed to be two main topics:  Meetings and Communications.  Regarding meetings, we discussed various ideas for different types of Philly.Net meetings including the following:

• Monthly Meetings:  Our monthly meetings are well attended and very successful.  Still, we want to include a variety of topics and make sure we cover a wide variety of material from beginner to expert.
• South Jersey and Center City:  These meetings started off strong but we have don't have venues to host these meetings.  If you have any ideas, please contact me or Travis (for NJ) or of course, Bill.
• Study Groups:  In the past, Rob Keiser lead a certification study group.  We are looking to restart that group.
• Code Camp:  Our Code Camps continue to be very successful.  We want to host even more of them!  In addition, there are some other ideas going around such as hosting similar types of meetings focusing on Interop, Gaming, and more!  I'll keep you posted.

In the area of Communication, we are trying to figure out the best way to get the information out to our members.  As we grow, there will be a lot of information.  How would you want to get it?  Some people read blogs daily, others want to get monthly newsletters.  And others don't want any more email at all!  I like the idea of using a blog to get out information as it comes in, in short to medium sized posts, like this one.  People that read the blog get the up to date information.  Then, once a month, we could repeat the information in a newsletter, possibly included in our typical monthly meeting announcement.  We'll certainly want feedback from the community on this topic.  Let me know or speak up at a meeting with your ideas and suggestions.

Upcoming Events: 

I'll try to keep everyone alert regarding user group meetings in our area.  I'll include all the meetings I know about including various Pennsylvania .Net groups, PSSUG, and The Philadelphia Area Sharepoint User Group

Philly.Net South Jersey meeting:  In August Philly.Net plan to team up with PSSUG (Philadelphia SQL Server User Group) to host a meeting in South Jersey.  We figure that most .Net developer's need to work with SQL Server so why not team up with these guys!   Keep an eye on the Philly.Net site and the PSSUG site for more details.

Delaware Meeting:  Doug White is trying to get the Delaware .Net community going strong.  Did you know he's already had a bunch of meetings?  Stay tuned for more information regarding Delaware meetings in the Newark/Willmington area. 

Sorry for the late notice on this.  I wanted to pass along some information from our friends at the SQL Server User Group:

You must register for this event by noon today (July 9) !

 

Today I got an email from Telerik with a special offer for members of Philly.Net.  Too bad I didn't have this information in time for last night's meeting.  Oh well, I guess that goes to show why we need to have a good means of communication in our group.  

If you want a FREE COPY of Telerik Reporting Developer License, here is how to get it!  Any one who fills out Telerik's survey and gets at least 7 questions correct gets a free copy!  And then you get a chance to win a 19" monitor.  It looks like you'll need to down load a free copy of Telerik Reporting and review some of the documentation to get all of the answers but the questions look pretty easy.  If you already use this reporting package or were planning on checking it out, now is the time to do it!

Here is the message I got from Telerik

We are running our Reporting Challenge now and your user group members might be interested in taking part. Here is the link:

< http://www.telerik.com/products/reporting/challenge.aspx?gad=CIr3ptcEEggzNnfGTQKi2BiF1bL_AyDa8Mwf >

Your guests have the chance to win a 19" NEC monitor. Everyone who answers 7 or more questions correctly will receive a complimentary Telerik Reporting Developer License (value $399). The Challenge will end on July 13th and all winners will receive an email notification. We would be grateful if you could announce the Reporting Challenge and post the link at your user group web site.

I hope you find this information helpful.  And, Good Luck!

Perficient sponsored the monthly Philly.Net meeting featuring presentations on SQL Server Integration Services and Sharepoint. 

Don't miss our next meeting:  July 18th at Microsoft in Malvern.  This meeting is sponsored by Solvepoint.  The speakers and topics haven't been announced yet, stay tuned for more information.  And keep an eye on this blog for more information about Philly.Net Code Camp 2007.2 scheduled for September.

As always, here is my synopsis of the meeting.  If you miss a meeting or want some information about something you've seen at Philly.Net, hopefully you'll find the answer in my synopsis.  I try to put in links and information that the presenters think are useful.  Click on Philly.Net in the category cloud to see all Philly.Net related content (or click here).

 

Presenter:  Tony Testa, Perficient

Topic:  SQL Integration Services

Tony started off with a quick intro to SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), the next generation of SQL Server DTS (Data Transformation Services from SQL Server 2000).  SSIS has many uses but it is well suited for the ETL process.  Improvements over DTS include many new features, logging, configuration, debugging, an API, better deployment, and more.  He quickly jumped into a quick demo showing an SSIS package with a For Each Container using a Script Task - with debugging too!  With these simple demos you can easily see the power of SSIS.  He continued on to demonstrate many other cool features in SSIS.  He wrapped up showing us several different ways to execute a DTS package including from SQL Server, from the File System, and from a .Net application.

Here are the files from Tony's presentation:  SSIS_Demos.zip (522.14 KB)

 

Presenter:  Afshin Zavareh, Perficient

Topic:  Sharepoint 2007 Features and Components

Afshin started off good.  I always like a presentation that starts with "I only have one slide"!  The one slide was a good introduction to the various Sharepoint Feature Areas.  He quickly moved on to the demos.  One interesting point he brought up... all of the information for the Sharepoint demo site he created is stored in SQL Server.  There are no actual aspx files.  Sharepoint provides so many cool features that you can easily add into a site.  Here are some of the features Afshin showed us:

• Using templates to create sites
• Implement RSS
• Use built in search - not only for pages but other content like word docs.
• Create a custom search results page using web parts.
• Using Site Master Page settings to define the look of the site.
• Workflow for approvals.
• Using business forms.
• and more...

This is a big topic and Afshin did a great job at showing us the basics to many features.  He sent me a nice list of Sharepoint blogs that should be helpful to people who want more information:

• Developer Blogs
• http://blogs.msdn.com/jjameson/default.aspx
• http://andrewconnell.com/blog/Default.aspx
• http://blogs.tamtam.nl/
• http://www.codeplex.com/Project/ProjectDirectory.aspx?TagName=Sharepoint
• Admin/Deploy Blogs
• http://blogs.msdn.com/joelo/default.aspx
• http://msmvps.com/blogs/shane/
• Training Blogs
• http://tedpattison.net/
• Evangelist Blogs
• http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blogs/mikeg/default.aspx
• MSFT Sharepoint Team Blogs
• http://blogs.msdn.com/arpans/
• http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/

 

Meeting Sponsor: Perficient... Thanks for the Pizza!

Additional Door Prizes courtesy of:  Microsoft and Wrox Publishing.

The reviews are in… Philly.Net Code Camp 2007.1 was a huge success!

Thanks to the hard work of an excellent group of presenters, Philly.Net hosted a great Code Camp on Saturday, May 19th.  Did you attend a session and want more information?  Did you miss Code Camp and want to find out more about it?  Included here is a bunch of information to help you out.  Read on to see Philly.Net Code Camp feedback, presenter info (blog, web and email addresses) and prize contributor information.

Thanks to Bill Wolff for organizing the event and running Philly.Net all year round, and everyone else who worked hard to make the day great.

-Andy "The Swagman" Schwam

---

Your Feedback:

Here are some of the general comments from Saturday.  I know that many of the presenters look forward to seeing what you write.  They love the compliments and use your suggestions to enhance their future presentations.  Remember that the presenters don’t get paid and put a lot of time into getting ready for these sessions.  As one of the organizers, I like to see the comments so we know if we are on the right track.  We also get tips for improvement.  Here are some of the general comments about Code Camp. 

“Lots of good info in a short time. Helps me flatten out the learning curve.”

“I really appreciate you conducting this camp with no cost to attendees”

“No Coffee”

“Please have more code camps. It’s excellent and only way to keep up with technology for me”

“Very well organized session…thanks for everything…Appreciate much for all the organizers, sponsors and speakers”

“Have evaluations forms ready before fist session”

“ It is very beneficial to the group + it would be difficult to complain about a no-cost event”

“ I really feel more motivated to go deeper into Microsoft technologies. See you in the next code camp”

“I found all session extremely valuable”

“First time in code camp and like the way it’s conducted. Liked the flexible way of attending various session as I like. Thanks for material and food”

“The material was very informative and the speakers were entertaining. You could really tell that they have used these technologies in the real world”

“Learned a lot of new stuff…will apply to the work I do”

“This event was everything that I had hoped for. A good introduction to .Net 3.0”

---

Links for presenters, etc:

If you need some more information about one of the sessions you attended, hopefully one of the links or email addresses below will help.  By the way, to prevent spam, I modified the email addresses.  I'm sure you can figure out the translation!

Jean Barmash:
Here is the address for my blog – I already posted the slides for my talks there - http://home.infusionblogs.com/jbarmash/default.aspx
My company’s website is www.infusion.com.

Russ Basiura:
Russ Basiura  is the president of the Philadelphia Area SharePoint User Group (http://www.PhillySharePoint.org).  He specializes in helping companies in the Philadelphia area deploy SharePoint.  If you have questions about SharePoint or would like to discuss a specific project, he can be reached at russ AT rjbtech DOT com or call 215-699-2780 x101.  His website is http://www.SharePointSpecialists.com.

Sam Batterman:
email:  samb AT microsoft DOT com
blog: http://sambbiblog.spaces.live.com

Sharon Dooley:
For more information, contact Sharon at:  sharond AT voicenet DOT com.

Sam Gentile:
http://codebetter.com/blogs/sam.gentile (blog)
http://samgentile.com (home)
managedcode44 AT hotmail DOT com (email)

Kevin Goff:
www.commongroundsolutions.net   (main site)
www.TheBakersDozen.net   (blog)
kgoff AT commongroundsolutions DOT net  (email)

Travis Laborde:
http://www.datadeluxe.com/ - Under "News" you can see links to the talks I've done along with links to every item covered in the talks.
http://clipmarks.com/clipper/travislaborde/ - My Clipmarks blog.  To see new stuff as I post it of course.  Some items came up in class that I said I'd blog about, and this is where they'd see it.

David Laribee:
http://laribee.com/blog/ (Blog)
laribee AT gmail DOT com (Email)

Mark Magliocco:
http://www.markm.com/markm/code_camp_2007_0519/Mark_magliocco_2007_code_camp_presentation.htm
http://www.markm.com/markm/code_camp_2007_0519/RSS_BASICS.pdf

Blog: www.markm.com

RSS ( Really Simple Syndication ) is on of the hottest areas of web 2.0.  When the Blogosphere emerged, RSS feeds really took off.  It is a must know technology, and an essential element of your web applications as well as search engine marketing. We will review the basics, what are the elements and tags.

If your name/information isn't listed here, please send it to me, I'll be sure to update the copy of this information on my blog.

---

Code Camp Contributors:

I’d like to thank all of the companies that contributed prizes.  Yes, Code Camp is completely free.  So you may be wondering, who paid for breakfast, lunch, and all of the prizes?  Many companies stepped up and supported this event.  I hope you will check out their websites and give their products a try! Thanks to the generosity of these companies, we had enough "swag" to have give-aways during every session!

 

Company	Contribution
Microsoft	Microsoft let us use the Malvern, PA office for Code Camp!  They also donated several prizes including:  1 Zune, 1 Vista Ultimate, 3 Vista Business, 2 Expression Web
Perficient	Perficient provided our breakfast.  A great way to start the day!
RDA	RDA provided our lunch, not too mention some cool beach balls!
Advisor	Advisor provided Sharepoint Advisor which was included in each attendee gift bag.
Apress	Apress provided us with a bunch of books as well as some note pads.
Sams/Addison Wesley	Sams/Addison Wesley sent us lots of cool stuff:  Books, t-shirts, bags, pens, quick reference cards, etc.
Cizer	Cizer provided something for each attendee:  A license for Cizer's Drop In Reporting.
Code Magazine	Code Magazine sent us a copy for each attendee's gift bag.
ComponentArt	Component Art provided 1 license to WebUI for ASP.Net.
Diamond Technologies	Diamond provided travel mugs for each attendee gift bag.  They also gave us $25 gift card to Circuit City for the raffle.
Dundas	Dundas sent us a license for Dundas Gauge, 20 licenses for Dundas Calendar for RS, a Dundas Software hoodie and other swag (pens, bags) .
Google	Google sent us a bunch of T-Shirts for the raffle.
JetBrains	Jet Brains donated 5 Personal Licenses to the popular ReSharper tool.
O'Reilly	O'Reilly send us a bunch of books.  They were distributed in sessions and during the end of day raffle.
Red-Gate	Red-Gate provided a copy of the brand new version of ANTS Profiler and two copies of SQL Refactor.  In addition, they sent us pens, t-shirts, memory sticks, etc.
Wrox	Wrox sent us a 50 books!  They also provided T-Shirts.

At Code Camp it was announced that Dani Diaz accepted the role of Microsoft Developer Evangelist for the Philadelphia region.  Since Dani and I have both been actively involved in Philly.Net, I have gotten to know him pretty well.  He's a great guy and I am sure he will do a fantastic job.  From speaking with many people in our local community, I know that many people are excited about Dani getting this job and I know they join me in wishing him good luck.

Now that he has the job I should make it official and ask my standard question:  "Dani, can we have some Microsoft swag?"

If you are registered for Philly.Net Code Camp 2007.1 for this Saturday you should have received an email from Bill Wolff.  In that email is a link to a session survey.  Please make sure you complete the survey.  The purpose is so Bill can assign rooms to the presenters.  Since some rooms are smaller than others, this survey will help us get an idea of which will be the most crowded.  Don't worry, if you change your mind you can still attend any session.  This is just to get an idea of session attendance.

Code Camp is almost here...May 19th and I am getting pretty excited.  Those of you who were lucky enough to register before we filled up have a great day ahead.  Here is an updated list of the swag we've got to give away.  There will be something for every attendee!  As you can expect, we'll have a raffle at the end of the day with some great "big ticket" items.  But wait, there's more!  We've got so much stuff we will have prizes given out during every session!  So in addition to the great presentations, there will be many chances for you to win something very cool.  Of course, check out the Philly.Net site for the full days schedule.

We'll be giving away 13 software licenses, A Zune, books, T-shirts and lots of other cool stuff!  You'll have lots of chances to win.  Of course, with great topics and content all day for free, everyone is a winner!

Here is the latest list of stuff:  (I hope I didn't miss anything)

Contributor	Contribution
Microsoft	1 Zune, 1 license Office, 1 license Vista, & 1 license Expression Web
Perficient	Breakfast
RDA Consultants	Lunch
Apress	Books
Cizer	1 Full License for Drop In Reporting for every attendee!
Code Magazine	Code Magazine for every attendee!
Component Art	1 Web.UI for ASP.NET Subscription License
Diamond Technologies	$25 gift card for one winner.  Plus, a travel mug for every attendee!
Dundas	1 Dundas Gauge, several licenses for Dundas Calendar for RS, a Dundas Software hoodie and other swag (pens, bags)
Google	T-Shirts
JetBrains/ReSharper	5 personal licenses for ReSharper
O'Reilly	10 Books
Red-Gate Software	A copy of the brand new version of ANTS Profiler and two copies of SQL Refactor.  Plus pens, 20 t-shirts, 25 memory sticks, etc.
Sams/Addison-Wesley	6 Books, 8 t-shirts, bags, pens, quick reference cards, etc
Sharepoint Advisor	Sharepoint Advisor magazine for every attendee.
WROX	50 Wrox books, 30 t-shirts

Sold Out

If you haven't registered yet for Philly.Net's Code Camp 2007.1 you are out of luck.  This event is full!  I am not surprised it didn't take long for registration to fill up, there is a great list of presentations. 

A swag mans job is never done!

For those of you who are registered, you'll be glad to know that I've been working hard to make sure we have lots of door prizes.  Many companies have been very generous with prizes for this event.  It is really awesome that we have their support.  Here is a sneak peek at some of the companies and prizes we'll have.  This list is unofficial and will change.  Hopefully I'll be adding more.  If you have any ideas for swag, please contact me.  I'll try to keep this list updated as things change.

 

*Updated on 5/26

Contributor	Contribution
Microsoft	1 Zune, 1 license Office, 1 license Vista, & 1 license Expression Web
New Horizons Learning Centers	Breakfast
RDA Consultants	Lunch
Apress	Books
Cizer	1 Full License for Drop In Reporting for every attendee!
Component Art	1 Web.UI for ASP.NET Subscription License
Diamond Technologies	$25 gift card, Memory Sticks and other swag
Dundas	1 Dundas Gauge, several licenses for Dundas Calendar for RS, a Dundas Software hoodie and other swag (pens, bags)
Google	T-Shirts
JetBrains/ReSharper	5 personal licenses for ReSharper
O'Reilly	10 Books
Red-Gate Software	A copy of the brand new version of ANTS Profiler and two copies of SQL Refactor.  Plus pens, t-shirts, memory sticks, etc.
Sams/Addison-Wesley	Books, t-shirts, bags, pens, quick reference cards.
WROX	50 Wrox books, t-shirts

Philly.Net is hosting Code Camp on May 19th.  Registration is now open!  This event will most likely "sell out" so register here  now before it is too late.  This is a FULL DAY, FREE event!

Bill has already arranged a great group of speakers with a wide variety presentation topics.  While they are subject to change, here is the list of topics. 

ASP.Net/Sharepoint Internet MOSS InfoPath AJAX Dev Testing Sharepoint Workflows Content Types .NET 3.0/Orcas WCF Intro XAML, Silverlight WF WCF LINQ SOA/WCF

Coders Framework Development Enterprise Library Unit Testing Aspect Programming NHibernate CAB/Validation SQL MDX Data Mining DataFlows Schedule Performance TSQL SSIS Scripts

Utilities RSS XNA Tools Powershell Licensing Compact Framework

Sponsors:  In addition to all of the knowledge you will get, there is free food too!  Morning refreshments are provided courtesy of New Horizons Learning Centers. Lunch is sponsored by RDA Consultants.

Door Prizes/ Raffles (aka swag)  But wait, there is more!  We'll have lot's of prizes to give away at the end of the day.  This is my department (they call me the "swag man")!  I am currently working on getting door prizes from as many companies as possible.  If you would like to provide a door prize of any kind, contact me!  This is a great opportunity for any company to reach a great target audience: .Net developers in the Philadelphia area.  We've already got some great stuff to give away and looking for more.  Can you provide software,  books, hat, shirts, gift certificates, travel mugs, thumb drives, or anything else that would make a cool door prize?  Please contact me for more information.

 We were back again at SEI in Oaks, PA for another great Philly.Net meeting. 

 mark your calendars for the following upcoming events:

Wednesday May 16:  Philly.Net Pub night. Marc Ziss has set up the second pub night at the Great American Pub in Conshohocken.  Once again, Human Capital Management is coming through to sponsor the night.  Last time was a lot of fun.  Don't miss this chance to have a beer or two with other members of Philly.Net.  No topics, no presentations.

Saturday May 19:  Code Camp is back!  Code Camp is a great way to learn a lot.  A whole day (8:30-5:30) including about 30 sessions on a variety of topics.  Bill is taking volunteers now for speakers.  Don't miss this...you can't beat this free event!

 

My Disclaimer:  The following is my summary of the presentations from the evening.  Hopefully I got the facts right.  I've included as many links to the topics as possible.  Check out the presenters blogs and websites for the most accurate information.  I'm happy to correct any mistakes. 

Note:  I'll add the slides and content to this post as soon as I get them from the presenters.

 

Presenter:  Peter Laudati, Microsoft

Topic:  Windows CardSpace

Peter Laudati is the NY/NJ Developer Evangelist.  Since that job has been a vacant in the Philadelphia market for a while, Pete has been helping us out and supporting our user group.  Check out his blog for lots of information including postings about Microsoft events in the NY/NJ/PA area.  Pete started off with a quick overview of the different pieces of the .Net Framework 3.0.  CardSpace, formerly known as InfoCard, is one of those pieces.  To get the 3.0 Framework, you can download it from MSDN and run it on Windows XP or 2003.  But if you have Vista, it is already included.  CardSpace is part of a system that provides a digital identity designed to solve authentication issues that users experience.  It is meant to solve security issues on the internet such as phishing, fraud, password fatigue, and the multitude of authentication systems we must use.  Microsoft worked with several partners to create this system and they developed the Laws of Identity.  You can learn more about the that at:  www.identityblog.com.  Some of the key features they planned included consistent experience across contexts, it should be available on multiple platforms, and should have minimal disclosure for a defined use.  CardSpace is the client side identity selector piece that is implemented within applications.  The system includes self-issued (you create them yourself) and managed cards (such as credentials issued by a bank).

He showed a demo using CardSpace to login to the website www.sandbox.netfx3.com.  He also showed us an example in code of how to implement CardSpace.  Since there are only 4 key tasks to complete, implementation doesn't look too difficult.  Peter also brought some great prizes to include in our raffle...Thanks Pete!

 

 

Presenter:  Robert Green, MCW Technologies

Topic: Using Windows Workflow Foundation to Build an Order Processing System

Rob started out with a little background.  He has two blogs.  The code samples will be on this blog but his more active blog is here.  He started out giving us the basics of Workflow Foundation.  After a few minutes he left the slides and jumped right into Visual Studio.  That's a good presentation from my perspective!   In VS2005 he started dragging workflow items out of the toolbox, wrote a little code (yes, "Hello World") , and showed just how quickly you can create a simple workflow.  He then explained the difference between a Sequential Workflow (basically, the steps all occur sequentially) and State Machine Workflow (the workflow does something, saves its state, and then waits for something else, maybe an external event, to happen).  He then walked us through a more complex example with a State Machine workflow.  This was a pretty complex sample with several steps and events.  But in spite of its complexity, Rob made it seem pretty easy to accomplish.  He summarized with his thoughts on the current State of Workflow.  To paraphrase, he really likes workflow but the tools through Visual Studio need some work but he is hopeful that it will all be resolved with the next version of VS code named "Orcas".

 

Meeting Sponsor: 

   Provided excellent hoagies!  

Additional Door Prizes courtesy of:  ,    and Microsoft

Philly.Net hosted its second Center City meeting on April 11 at Structured Hosting. Just like the last meeting in NJ, we had a capacity crowd again. I think these new meetings/venues are a success! If you missed the meeting (or if you need some details) here is my synopsis.

Meeting Date: March 29, 2007

Philly.Net has expanded.  We now host meetings in the Philly Suburbs,  Philadelphia (Center City), and now...South Jersey.  Thanks to Travis Laborde for getting the new South Jersey branch going.  Tonight's meeting was a huge success.  It was standing room only with about 50 attendees which is pretty impressive for a first meeting.  Pizza and location provide by New Horizons Training Center.  Plus, Travis' wife Jessica treated us to a cake to celebrate the start of Philly.Net in NJ.  It was a great meeting.  Please read on...

Presenter:  Travis Laborde, Data Deluxe

Topic:  Developer Testing

Not only did we learn a lot from Travis' presentation but we laughed a lot too.  Travis always does a great job to make sure his presentations are fun.  Tonight he talked all about developer testing.  And typically for Travis, he included bunch of great tools.  He demo'd the basics of NUnit, a FREE tool that assists with executing test classes.  He also showed MBUnit which he dubbed "NUnit on steroids".  This tool allows you to execute similar tests as NUnit, but introduces the RowTest attribute so you can run the same test in multiple iterations, passing in different parameters each time.  Next he went through testing for "Code Coverage" via TestDriven.Net and NCover.  He ended up with some quick demos of SeleniumIDE, a very cool FireFox add-on that allows you to record steps in the Browser so you can play them back.  This gives you the ability to test an ASP.Net UI over and over again automatically.

If you are into free tools and tips for .Net development, check out Travis' clipmarks site where you can read about all kinds of cool stuff.

 

 

Presenter:  Scott Watermasysk, Telligent Systems

Topic:  ASP.NET Tips & Tricks

Scott has been posting ASP.Net tips and tricks on his blog for a while.  Tonight he went through a bunch of them for us.

It is hard to summarize Scott's talk because he talked about so many items.  The good news is that most of the content is up on the web, check out the links included in my text. He provided us with a ton of tips for everyday use.  Some tips provided for controls:  Try to use <asp:Literal> control instead of <asp:label> and use <asp:Repeater> instead of <asp:GridView> where possible.  Some general ASP.Net tips included:  use Page.IsValid from button event handlers, use the AppOffline.htm page when you are doing "construction", use the new VirtualPath class to convert relative paths to absolute ones.  And Scott also spent a lot of time talking about State Management and Caching tips.  He also recommended a few articles:  one by Fritz Onion on Control State and "A Matter of Context" by Susan Warren.  I'll update this blog post and include his slides as soon as I can.

As a special bonus, Scott provided free copies of CodeSmith Professional for all attendees.  This certainly went over big with the crowd.

 

Meeting Sponsor:    

Additional Door Prizes courtesy of:  and Microsoft

We had a another great Philly.Net meeting on March 21, 2007, packing several great speakers into one night.

Philly.Net is expanding to include .Net Developer Usergroup meetings in South Jersey.