Wednesday, March 12, Chris Eargle will be presenting on Continuous Integration using MSBuild and CruiseControl at the March Meeting of TriNUG. Chris has an excellent grasp on this topic, and this presentation, while easily approachable for those new to CI, has plenty of technical depth for those more familiar with the topic. Chris is a great speaker, and this event will leave you well-versed and capable in setting up your own CI solution.

[Direct scrape from Dug's blog but I wanted to make sure we got the word out!]

Posted in TRINUG  | Comments [0] 

Registration for Code Camp RDU on Feb 16, 2008 is almost full. If you're planning to attend this free day of .Net developer training, make sure you register over on the www.trinug.org website.

This year's event has a speaker list including Richard Campbell, Carl Franklin, Mark Dunn, Ken Spencer, Don Demsak, Miguel Castro, Steve Avery, Scott Forsyth, Jim Wooley and many more.

Topics include LINQ, SharePoint, MVC, SIlverlight, ASP.NET AJAX and more.

The last spaces will likely fill up fast so get registered if you're not already. This is an event you will not want to miss!

Posted in TRINUG  | Comments [0] 

If you're planning on participating in the TRINUG VS2008 InstallFest later this month, please be certain to have completely UN-installed any VS2008/.Net 3.5 prerelease software that you may have installed on your computer. Scott Guthrie has a blog post with a good list and order to go through to uninstall.

Microsoft DE (And all around nice guy) Joe Healy also has a list, which includes a few notes on what do do if things don't go smoothly.

I personally had no issues following Scott's list and am now happily running VS2008 and .Net 3.5.

** Just a note that we've pretty much reached our capacity for the TRINUG event. We are using a waiting list so please feel free to sign up and we'll let you know if a spot opens up. (If you are not going to be able to attend please let us know as well. You must be present to participate in the offer)

Posted in TRINUG  | Comments [0] 

The date has been selected for the CodeCampRDU 2008

Mark your calendars for Raleigh Code Camp on Feb 9, 2008. We'll be updating the website soon and issuing an official call for speakers.

Posted in TRINUG  | Comments [0] 

The Triangle .NET User Group is going to be hosting an exciting meeting in December to celebrate the release of Visual Studio 2008. As part of our launch party, attendees will be given an opportunity to install the RTM version Visual Studio 2008 Professional.

EVERYONE THAT REGISTERS FOR AND ATTENDS THE EVENT IN PERSON WILL RECEIVE A FREE LICENSE KEY FOR VISUAL STUDIO 2008 PROFESSIONAL! 

Please note a couple of key things, you must first REGISTER to attend this event by logging into www.trinug.org and registering for this event. Space is limited, so don't delay. We're working on a couple of options to secure a larger venue for the event, but will likely start a waiting list shortly. At the event, the Trial Version will be provided for install. The license key that wil be sent within 90 days from Microsoft will unlock this version without need for a reinstall.

At the event, during the install party we will be holding a number of short 30 minute presentations on a variety of VS2008/.Net 3.5 topics. If you're interested in presenting with us, please let me know.

As part of the evening, we will also be asking that all in attendance bring a donation for the local food bank. We will be accepting food and cash donations at the event.

For more information, please visit www.trinug.org

Posted in TRINUG  | Comments [0] 

The energy level is going to be through the roof in November when WPF Fanatic Karl Shifflett arrives at the Triangle .Net User Group (TRINUG) for his presentation on Authoring WPF Custom Controls on Wed November 14, 2007. If you are interested in WPF, and want so see some examples of it's power in real world applications come check it out.

Authoring WPF Custom Controls
Karl Shifflett
Blog: http://karlshifflett.wordpress.com

When Microsoft released the .NET Framework, they really energized and radically expanded the toolset available to developers. The .NET 3.0 Framework is no exception to this trend.

In this presentation we will explore the steps required to build and consume lookless WPF Custom Controls that expose Dependency Properties and Routed Events.  The sample code includes a WPF CheckListBox and HyperLink control (that is not dependent on the FlowDocument, Page or TextBlock controls) along with a WPF application demonstrating their use. 

visit www.trinug.org for more info!

Posted in TRINUG | wpf  | Comments [0] 

INETA Speaker Bureau Speaker Chris Menegay stopped by TRINUG to present on Visual Studio Team System Futures. (Ironic that somebody from Texas away comes to show us something being build within a couple miles of here. Anybody from the local VSTS team want to come show us more?)

Chris provided a great look into new things coming in the next version, while at the same time introducing us to things in the current version that we had not all seen (Well, at least I learned a couple of new things!)

We're all curios to find out what Omar did to his VPC image though!

Thanks Chris, it was a great presentation.

Posted in INETA | TRINUG  | Comments [1] 

The Triangle .NET User Group will be hosting a special meeting, with extra special guest Russ Fustino on Thursday October 18, 2007. The event will be in the evening, following the afternoon MSDN presentation Russ is giving near by. For more information and registration [YES, REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED AT THIS EVENT SO WE CAN ORDER ENOUGH PIZZA] please visit the TRINUG Website. 

Russ Fustino
Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/rfustino/

Posted in TRINUG  | Comments [0] 

Who doesn't just love going to camp? Especially Code Camp! On Saturday a great deal of effort by Chris Love and I came to life in the form of the Summer 2007 edition of CodeCampRDU.

I want to start by thanking all of the 23 great speakers that attended from near and far (listed on the Code Camp Site) and the local volunteers from the Triangle .NET user group in Raleigh. Without these people, this event would never have happened. Special thanks go to Rod Paddock for starting our day off with the opening keynote session for us in addition to giving to sessions during that day. It was great to have you in town!

We were also very fortunate to receive incredible support and contributions from Microsoft, YohIT, Telerik, Component Art, Dundas, CoDe Magazine, O'Reilly, Wiley, and Wrox. ECPI was kind to let us use their Raleigh Campus for the day, and then to top it all off, after giving away an XBOX 360 from Microsoft, our local friends over at FarPoint gave away an HDTV as our grand prize. (Bet you never won an XBOX 360 or HDTV at camp before!?)

I had a great time in my WPF - Controls & Layout session. (I'll be posting my links and sample code shortly). It was a great way to finish off the day. Thanks to everybody that participated.

[Thanks to Steve J for the photos!] 

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The June Triangle .Net User Group meeting this month is featuring INETA speaker Rockford Lhotka. Please, please please pass the word that we are not meeting at our regular venue, but at ECPI's Raleigh Campus for the June meeting. The map for ECPI can be found here.

Using Mobile Objects to Build Applications in .NET 3.0

Rockford Lhotka – Magenic

Mobile objects are objects that physically move around the network from machine to machine. .NET 3.0 provides support for this concept, and my CSLA .NET framework builds on those capabilities to simplify the creation of Windows, WPF and Web-based applications based on mobile business objects. Resulting applications achieve high levels of reuse, scalability, long-term maintainability and other benefits. The framework demonstrates the use of WCF, object serialization, System.Transactions and other .NET technologies.

Posted in INETA | TRINUG  | Comments [0] 

Campers pack your bags! Registration for CodeCampRDU is now open! To register to attend our Summer 2007 Code Camp in Raleigh, NC please visit the Code Camp website at http://www.codecamp.org

This free, day long training event hosted by the Triangle .Net User Group includes breakfast thanks to Telerik and lunch from our good friends at YohIT in Raleigh. There will be many great give away's during the day from a variety of sponsors as well.

The session list looks great, with some terrific local speakers as well as some notable guests from out of town. The list so far looks like:

• .NET 3.5 and LINQ - Ashton Hobbs
• Adding Compression, Encryption and Hashing to Your .NET Applications - Rod Paddock
• AJAX - Creating a Virtual Earth Feed with Ajax and Silverlight - Jeremy Brown
• Building a better Updater for WinForms Client Applications - Chris Dix
• Content Query Web Part and the Data View Web Part in SharePoint 2007 using Microsoft Sharepoint Designer - Bob Gusek
• Creating Casual Games Using WPF - Rod Paddock
• DNN - David Wendelken
• Extending the CSLA Framework: Standard Business Rule Libraries and Built-in Business Rule Documentation - David Wendelken
• Layered Architecture 101 - Greg Pugh
• Real World Click Once - Craig Adams
• Sharepoint Workflow Development - Josh Carlisle
• SQL Server Integration Services for SQL Server 2005 - Charles Asbornsen
• SQL Server Performance Analysis and Tuning Potluck Session - Kevin Boles
• Web Part Development - Josh Carlisle
• Web site architecture - Diane Wilson
• Website Security - Steve Jackle
• Windows CardSpace - Brain Hitney
• Windows Work Flow - Mark Dunn
• WPF Controls: Styles, Templates, and Custom Layouts - Rob Zelt
• Write Better Code Using the Refactoring Tools in Visual Basic 2005 - Jim Duffy

We fully expect this event to sell out (Since it's a free event I guess reach capacity is more accurate) so please be sure to register early if you are planning to attend. (Especially if you're one of those people that missed our last Code Camp and have been complaining about the great event you missed out on ever since!)

GO REGISTER! http://www.codecamp.org

Posted in TRINUG  | Comments [0] 

The Triangle .Net User Group leadership (www.trinug.org) has just announced CodeCampRDU that we will be holding a Code Camp in the Raleigh Durham area of central North Carolina on Saturday June 23, 2007. If you're interested in seeing some of the best and brightest of the local .Net Developer Community, this is a must attend event!

More information on the Raleigh Code Camp event is available at www.codecamp.org . We are currently accepted speaker proposals and working with organizations wishing to contribute to the event which will be held at the ECPI campus in Raleigh.

Attendee registration is not yet open, but be sure to visit the site to subscribe to the RSS news feed

Posted in TRINUG  | Comments [0] 

This month our feature speaker at the Triangle .Net User Group (www.trinug.org) was Brian Hitney, our favorite local Microsoft DE. We've all heard a lot about Vista's new wiz-bang features like Aero GUI, .Net 3.0, IIS7 and other exciting stuff, but Brian dug deep and took as on a guided tour of changes to the kernel in Vista. The presentation was great. Even convinced me to turn UAC back on!

We also had a number of people promoting job opportunities to group, most exciting of which was Galen from Veracity Solutions was in town promoting a number of WPF opportunities in the area. It's cool to see people specifically asking for skills that we have been working so hard on learning. Great inspiration to keep up on the learning front. If you're interested, check their web sire or drop me a note for contact info.

Posted in TRINUG  | Comments [0] 

A BIG thank you goes out to INETA for sponsoring a visit by Juval  Löwy of IDesign to speak to the Triangle .Net User Group (TRINUG) on the Windows Communication Foundation (

). It was an excellent presentation that left us all wanting to attend his master class and get our hands on his upcoming book! (Which is currently available thorugh Safari Rough Cuts)

Thanks!

Posted in TRINUG | wcf  | Comments [0] 

 Sorry for the late notice, but I just got back to town myself.... Juval Lowy will be speaking at the Triangle .Net User Group meeting TOMORROW Wednesday Jan 10th. This is one of those must see presentations.

Speaker: Juval Lowy
Programming Windows Communication Foundation - a Developer's Primer
How do you actually build and consume WCF-based services? At its core, the WCF programming model is simple and straightforward, requiring actually very little work on behalf of the developer. The session describes the essential WCF programming concepts: clients, services, contracts and end points, and shows how to build, configure and host simple services. After attending this session you will be able to start programming and exploring WCF.

Source: Triangle Dot Net Users Group > Home

Please also note the NEW MEETING LOCATION! http://www.trinug.org/Default.aspx?tabid=29

Posted in TRINUG  | Comments [0] 

On Wednesday November 8, 2006 our favorite sharer of cool technology, Glen Gordon will be presenting on Microsoft's new XNA Game Studio. If you've always wanted to make that wicked gamed idea come true, or just need a break from "real" work, check it out.

Details from Joe's Blog:

XNA is Coming to TRINUG

Glen Gordon is coming to talk about XNA Game Studio Express at TRINUG for the November 8th general meeting.  It looks like it is going to be an awesome technology.  Based on Visual C# Express, it will allow anyone to develop 3D games that target both Windows and the Xbox 360 -- and here's the good part -- with free tools!!!  To develop/debug/play games on the Xbox 360 requires a subscription to the XNA Creator's Club at a cost of $99/year or $49 for 4 months.  But, did I mention, the tools are FREE!!!  If you are in the neighborhood, come out and listen to Glen at TRINUG and see what XNA is all about.

Posted in Rant | TRINUG  | Comments [0] 

Sorry for the short notice on this, but if you're a .Net developer in North Carolina you'll be interested to know that the Triangle .Net User Group is hosting Jeff Prosise at a special event Monday April 3rd.

Power ASP.NET 2.0 Programing
Speaker: Jeff Prosise

By now you've seen the countless new features that debuted in ASP.NET 2.0. But how well do you REALLY know ASP.NET 2.0? Let Jeff take you under the hood and show you the cool new stuff that isn't documented anywhere else. Among other things, you'll learn how to use AJAX to perform real-time screen updates, build asynchronous pages and do asynchronous data binding, extend ASP.NET 2.0 with custom expression builders and custom Web events, store site maps in databases, and much more. Amaze your friends and confound your enemies with your deep knowledge of ASP.NET 2.0!

For more information pleae visit the TRINUG web site.

Posted in TRINUG  | Comments [0] 

For all of those that know Greg from the Triangle .Net User Group, he has starting a blog over at LimeInTheCoconut (http://www.limeinthecoconut.com/blog) with an initial post on using SQL Profiler.

Posted in Rant | TRINUG  | Comments [0] 

On Wednesday February 8, 2006 Kate Gregory will be presenting an Advanced Click Once topic at the monthly Triangle .Net User Group meeting as an INETA guest speaker, that will take us much deeper than the previous VS2005/Click Once demos that have been shown. I've had the privilege of hearing Kate speak a few times in the past and can guarantee this will be a must see event. She is an extremely knowledgeable and enjoyable presenter. See you there!

Smart clients offer many advantages over web applications but they must be deployed and installed on the end-user’s computer. The new ClickOnce technology in Visual Studio 2005 and the .NET Framework 2.0 makes this much simpler than it once was – at least in demos. What happens when ClickOnce meets the real world? How can you combine ClickOnce with SMS, or with an MSI install that updates the registry? How can you ensure the prerequisites for your application, including the framework itself, are on the end-user’s computer? This talk will cover these and other advanced ClickOnce scenarios.

Kate Gregory is the Microsoft Regional Director for Toronto and a founding partner of Gregory Consulting Limited (www.gregcons.com). Based in Peterborough, Ontario, Gregory Consulting provides mentoring, consulting, and development services throughout North America, using the .NET Framework, XML, Web Services, Visual C++, Visual Basic, C#, ASP.NET, Java, and Perl. Migration, conversion, and integration of existing applications are a current focus. Kate is the author of numerous books, most recently Visual C++ .NET KickStart. Kate teaches (and develops courses on) .NET, XML, UML, C++, Java, and the Internet. She has a Visual C++ column at codeguru.com, is an adjunct faculty member at Trent University, serves on numerous advisory boards and has spoken at Tech Ed USA, Tech Ed Europe, and VSLive. She serves on the executive of the Toronto .NET Users Group and leads the East of Toronto .NET Users Group

Posted in Rant | TRINUG  | Comments [1] 

Despite Glen Gordon and the MSDN team continuing to pack the house, I always hear from people that somehow missed hearing about the events so I decided to make this post early. If you are in the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill area of North Carolina and are interested in learning more about Visual Studio 2005, .Net 2.0 and other exciting technologies, go signup now before it's too late! At the last event in November a number of people were lined up at the door hoping for an empty seat after the registration was full. Don't let this be you. Go signup now for the March 2, 2006 event at http://www.MSDNEvents.com

The schedule for the March event appears to include:

Smart Solutions with SmartClients
- Session 1: Building Mobile Applications with Visual Studio 2005
- Session 2: Creating Office Solutions with Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office
- Session 3: Introduction to the Windows Presentation Framework

The gang from TRINUG will be there as well, so please come by and say hello!

[Note* If Greensboro is closer or you really can't wait, there is an event there on Feb 28th]

Posted in Rant | TRINUG  | Comments [0] 

If you missed the MSDN launch in town, or just can't get enough of .Net 2.0 don't miss this event!

What? Community Launch of Visual Studio and SQL Server
Where? Triange .Net Users Group (www.trinug.org)
When? Wednesday January 11, 2006

Details: Speaker: Joe Bennett
Developing Windows Applications in Visual Studio 2005
Microsoft has provided some new and improved controls for Windows development with Visual Studio 2005. We will look at some of the most interesting and develop a simple application using them. Once the application is developed, we will see how to make it a smart client for initial deployment and automatic updating.

PS - LOTSA FREE STUFF TO BE GIVEN AWAY!

Posted in TRINUG  | Comments [0] 

At last night's Triangle .Net User Group (TRINUG) meeting we were discussing issues when installing the RTM version on systems that previous versions were installed in. It is very important that you completely uninstall any previous beta or CTP versions before installing the release software. The tool that we spoke of is available here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/support/uninstall/default.aspx

Posted in Software | TRINUG  | Comments [1] 

Just a reminder that pod caster, internet talk show host star, developer trainer, and all'round great guy, Carl Franklin and the DNR gang are going to be in Raleigh at a live event as part of their cross country road trip sponsored by TRINUG (And others) talking about the upcoming VS2005 launch. It should be a blast! Mark it down, and go register as space is limited. You can signup at http://events.trinug.org . NOTE - YOU MUST REGISTER TO ATTEND! I hear they might even let Jim Duffy near a mic, and you don't want to miss that!!! Oh, and there's free pizza. FREE PIZZA!!! How can you resist that?

Did I mention you must sign up?

Also, while you're signing up for that, Microsoft Developer Champion Glen Gordon [With a title like that, what more can I say?!] will be hosting a MSDN Training Event in Raleigh on Nov 8, the day after the VS2005 Launch, showing off the new Visual Studio 2005. There is also a SQL 2005 event in the morning as well. To sign up or for more info visit http://www.msdnevents.com/launch . Glen's Blog says they might even be working on a Pub Club after the event. What free training and more free food??? How'd we get to be so lucky!

Posted in Rant | TRINUG  | Comments [0] 

Focus on .NET 2.0

* Introduction to Generics by Joe Bennett
* Getting things done with the 2.0 Background Worker Component and Asynchronous Pattern by Rob Zelt
* Introduction to the new Systems.Transactions Namespace by Josh Carlisle

When: Thursday August 25th 2005 at 5:30PM - 8:30PM
Where: Credit Suisse First Boston - Map...

The Local Speaker Night is a new effort sponsored by TRINUG to connect experienced local developers who want to share their knowledge and experience and develop their presentation skills with the local developer community and beyond.

PLEASE RSVP to: trinuglocalspeakers@viewfusion.com
If you’re interested in (or are even considering) attending let us know so that we can have enough food and refreshments for everyone.

Posted in TRINUG  | Comments [1] 

In Raleigh-Durham? Interested in what's new with Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition? If so, this Triangle .Net User Group meeting is a must for you!

TOPIC: Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Developers
SPEAKER: Eric Adams, Program Manager Microsoft Corporation.

Tell 'em Rob sent you!

Posted in TRINUG  | Comments [8] 

Tonight our local user group was “treated” to a “inspiring” and “insightful” look into how to “Tap Into Real World Web Services from eBay, Google, and Amazon.” by Jim Duffy, President Take Note Technologies, local radio personality, Dot Net Developer, INETA speaker, Trainer, and all around great guy. (I think his intro slide was much more detailed but I ran out of time to write down all of the things he had listed).

If you’ve never experienced a Jim Duffy presentation, I highly recommend it. Aside from being highly enjoyable and fun filled, Jim always makes sure we learn something. His look into web services, not so much the how, but the why, really got the ideas flowing on how this buzzword can really be used to make a difference.

Thanks Jim!

If you’re a Microsoft Dot Net developer in the Raleigh, NC area, be sure to check out the TRINUG user group for a list of the great speakers that are upcoming.

Posted in TRINUG  | Comments [0] 

Presenter BIO:

Glen Gordon
http://blogs.msdn.com/glengordon/
Microsoft Developer Community Champion
SouthEast District

Posted in TRINUG  | Comments [0] 

On Saturday we hosted our first CodeCamp event in Raleigh. I think that the day was a great success and I received a lot of positive feedback from those in attendance. If you missed it, you definately missed out of a great day of fun and learning. We had a great mix of local speakers and those that travelled from as far away as Chicago and Atanta to be with us. For some, it was their first time speaking in a conference environment like this, and was a great experience. As with other Code Camps, I was able to meet a lof ot new people! I am a big believer in the community driven focus of code camps.

As soon as I receive slides and code samples from the presenters I will be posting them on the www.codecamp.org website. Thanks to all of the speakers that presented! The list includes:

Chris Dix, Clay Birch, David Elliott, Doug Turnure, G. Andrew Duthie, Jason Storey, Jeff Atwood, Jim Duffy, John Shipway, Josh Carlisle, Keenan Newton, Mark Hutchinson, Mark Melsa, Maxim V. Karpov, Raj Das, Todd Fine, and Rob Zelt.

There's talk already about a second event in the fall!

Posted in TRINUG  | Comments [2] 

One week from today, Saturday April 9th is the 2005 Raleigh .Net Code Camp. [LINK]

What is Code Camp? Code Camp is a free day of Microsoft .Net related sessions, presented by speakers from within the .Net development community, on topics areas they are experts, or interested in. Some of these speakers are professionals, other are people with some very cool skills, ideas, and content on topics you might not find at a major, marketing driven conference. A list of sessions is available at www.codecamp.org/sessions.aspx

Did I mention it's free? Any you even get lunch! Free lunch? And .Net? What more could you add?

Fun! This event is not only full of learning, but good times and networking with other developers in the area. Don't miss out. To attend, please visit www.codecamp.org and signup, but hurry as the event is almost full.

See you there!

Posted in Rant | TRINUG  | Comments [0] 

Tonight, Wednesday March 2, the Triangle Dot Net User Group is holding a special meeting to hear Brad Abrams, Lead Program Manager, Common Language Runtime Team speak. If you're anywhere in the area and do anythign with .Net, this is a must attend event!  Ok, now go tell a friend.

Effective .NET Framework based development: Exception Handling and Memory Management
by Brad Abrams

Effective .NET Framework based development: Exception Handing and Memory Management

5:45-7:15pm: This talk will drill demystify two areas that cause many problems for C# and VB.NET developers. Correctly handling errors via exceptions and recovering gracefully when they occur is a deceptively simple problem. We will discuss time-tested guidelines for raising and handling exceptions and discuss changes for the soon to be release .NET Framework 2.0 product. The second topic is how to effectively deal with memory management in the CLR. We will take a look at how the automatic memory manager in the CLR really works and why it works that way and discuss best practices for writing code in that world. We will also touch on some new features coming in .NET Framework 2.0 in this area.

Posted in TRINUG  | Comments [0] 

Posted in TRINUG  | Comments [0] 

The plans for the Raleigh Code Camp 2005 are starting to take shape. The website is up so you can go register. Space is limited so register sooner than later. People interested in speaking should download the Call For Speakers document and send in their info.

Posted in TRINUG  | Comments [0] 

Thursday is our next planning meeting for Raleigh Code Camp 2005. If you are interested in speaking or have a topic that you would really like to help us find somebody talk on, please let me know. I was just looking at the great lineup of talks from the Florida Code Camp being held in February. So many good topics. Let's start the ideas flowing!

I hope to have registration details soon. Start spreading the word!

Posted in TRINUG  | Comments [0] 

it's official, we will be holding a MSDN Code Camp in Raleigh, NC on Saturday April 9th at NC State University 's  College of Management facilities at Nelson Hall.

The Code Camp is a community effort to promote learning through a series of talks on a variety of topics to the community, by the community, with content decided on through the community. Watch for announcments on the Triange .Net User Group website regarding requests for papers from those desiring to speak as well as registration details. Stay tuned and don't miss out. I hear the Florida Code Camp in February is full already and trying to make additional room. An new information will also be posted here.

Posted in TRINUG  | Comments [0] 

Hey .Net fans, it's going to be a busy week in Raleigh North Carolina!

On Wednesday Aug 11 is the Triangle .Net Users Group meeting featuring Dr Clay Birch stepping through the process of using a Windows Forms Datagrid and taking a look at the new VS2005 GridView control.

On Thursday Aug 12 (Happy Anniversary Erika!!!) Glen Gordon will be in town as part of his World Famous MSDN Tour. Topics include ASP.Net Custom Controls, ASP.Net 2.0 overview, and a look at Infopath using vs.NET. More Info... [If you want to get your hands on a copy of VS2005, this might be the place to be!]

On Friday Aug 13th (Hey, that will be Friday the 13th!!!) we will likely continue our .Net wifi luncheon tour. If you're interested in joining us for lunch and some good .Net /Technology conversation drop me a note!

Posted in Rant | TRINUG  | Comments [0] 

Ken Spencer will be presenting at the Triangle .Net Usergroup meeting on July 14th. If you are anywhere near the Raleigh-Durham area this is a must see event! Ken is one of the finest speakers around is always an entertaining and informative show! For more info in the meeting, or the group please drop me a note, or check out the TRINUG web site including our new .Net Developer Forums area.

07/14/04 Reflection with .NET Framework
This session will dive into the power of Reflection with the .NET Framework. You will learn not only how powerful it is but see several examples of why Reflection is so powerful and useful in your day to day lives as developers and administrators.

Bio
Ken has been developing and managing application development with VB since the days of VB 1.0 Ken spends his time these days providing input into our clients' development projects as a senior architect, and working with various types of technology. He spends time with clients helping them design the architecture for new applications using Microsoft technology. He also specializes in migrating applications of various types to the .NET Framework. Ken also has experience with roughly 20 other languages on a variety of operating systems.

He is a cofounder and Vice President of 2nd Genesis Software, a producer of software to migrate Access applications to .NET. He is also cofounder of 32X Corp, a provider of software development services.

Ken has experience developing applications with Visual Basic, Visual InterDev, Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Framework, and BizTalk Server. Ken was the team leader on producing the .NET Readiness training for Microsoft to roll out the .NET Framework. Ken served on the Software Development Roundtable for .NET and has thus been involved in the .NET Framework and Visual Studio .NET for over 2 years.

Ken has authored and co-authored numerous technical books and magazine articles. Ken also a column for MSDN Magazine from 1996 until mid 2004.

Ken also worked with Microsoft in 2000 to create several guides for creating and hosting applications. These guides involved a wide range of Microsoft technology and resulted in a set of guides for both developers and hosting companies.

Ken is also a frequent speaker. He has spoken at TechEd (US and Europe), Dev Days, PDC, Microsoft internal events, User Groups, VB Connections  

Posted in TRINUG  | Comments [0] 

This months guest speaker was Doug Turnure, Developer Evangelist, Microsoft and shared a great look at the "Vision" of Indigo and how we've moved from the start of object oriented programming to the service oriented models that are being put in place today. With the builds in flux as they are since PDC, Doug was unable to show us any live code, but it sounds like the Indigo team is on top of things. There was some good insight into the importance of standards and why Microsoft was waiting on some of them. (Microsoft waiting for standards? Haven't written that much in the past, but I think it's a great sign)

Some key points on Indigo:

 

Services Are Autonomous

Boundaries are explicit

Share schema, not class

Policy-based compatibility

If any of you know Doug, check with him next time you see him and verify if he really encrypted the notes he passed to the girls in school so the teacher wouldn't read them out loud and embarrass him!

It was a great presentation we look forward to seeing Doug back in the Triangle soon.

NOTE - The next MSDN event in Raleigh is on May 4th!

An audio replay of the WSV203 session from PDC that Doug referenced is available here and the powerpoint slides are available here. (If you're interested, all the PDC sessions are available here)

Posted in Longhorn | TRINUG | wcf  | Comments [3] 

April Triangle .Net User Group Meeting 4/14/2004

Preview of Indigo 

Service oriented architectures are becoming the norm for enterprise systems in today's distributed world. The heart of SOA is messaging standards, and the defacto standard for messaging is web services. Web Services are quickly moving to the forefront of corporate information exchange, and XML is the most common messaging format to describe the data. Indigo is the codename for Microsoft’s new messaging framework. It provides rich support for SOA that is complementary to traditional object-oriented approaches. Indigo represents the best of .NET Remoting, ASP.NET, .NET Enterprise Services, and web service Extensions (WSE), rolling them into a unified programming and administrative model. Indigo supports standards such as HTTP, XML, and SOAP, and delivers a mechanism for secure, reliable, transacted messaging. Indigo will be included in the next version of Microsoft Windows, code-named “Longhorn”, although it should be available independently at some time before Longhorn ships.

This talk will provide an introduction and preview of Indigo. It will include both the mechanics of using Indigo, and sufficient background as to address why Indigo is so important. Come and learn how to take advantage of the coming standard for SOA on the Windows platform.

Instructor Bio :
Doug Turnure is a Developer Evangelist with Microsoft Corporation, focusing on .NET technologies. He serves numerous enterprise clients as a developer, author, trainer, and occasional conference speaker. His specialties include .NET internals, memory management, and distributed communication, although he enjoys anything pertaining to .NET. Prior to joining Microsoft, he spent five years as an instructor and course author with DevelopMentor and Aggelos, Inc. His primary topics of instruction include VB.NET, C#, and ASP.NET. Doug is currently based in Atlanta, Georgia.  

For more information please visit the TRINUG Website

UPDATE: For some background info, check out this MSDN-TV show!

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A big thanks to Doug and all the speakers for putting on a very enjoyable and informative DevDays 2004 in Durham, NC.

Some of the key points that made it into my notes are:

• Security – Care about, learn about it, deal with it
  Service Pack 2 – Be ready for it. See the “Windows XP Service Pack 2 – Security Information for Developers document on MSDN
• Use stored procedures! At the very least, used parameterized queries. Dynamic SQL statements can be very, very bad. SPs are secure, fast, and easy to maintain.
• Strongly Name your assemblies – Versioning doesn’t work unless the assemblies are strongly named.
• Smart Clients – As defined by Todd Fine : “The best of thick and thin clients”
• Auto updating apps are super cool. Todd did a great demo of using MSI to deploy an application once and keep it updating automagically Check out the AppUpdater component
• Issue Vision, a sample source code application distributed at the event has some great smart client example code for handling semi-connected data access, threading, and much more.

The crowd was very excited by the Whidbey demos. Todd Fine and Ken Spencer did a great job of showing off some of the great new features, including many time saving shortcuts for developers. The Whitehorse modeling demos looked very slick, especially how it reacted to code changes.

Overall it was a great event that I hope continues to happen frequently. Thanks to everybody that stopped by the TRINUG user group table and said hello. On a semi-related note, Doug Turnure from Microsoft that did the opening keynote will be presenting Indigo (A must see!) at the April Triangle .Net Users Group meeting.

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Tonight at the Triangle .Net Users group we were treated to the best SQL Server Yukon presentation I've seen since PDC. Ok, so it's the only one I've seen since PDC, but it was worth the wait! Peter Debetta from Wintellect fame gave us an excellent look at the new .Net technologies that will be a part of Yukon and lead some great discussions on when and where using .Net code instead of T-SQL makes sense.

One of the key take aways from the presentation was that juts becuase you can .Net code, it doesn't mean it's always the right thing. T-SQL still remains the method of choice when simply dealing with the data.

Be sure to check out Peter's Blog and watch for his upcoming book. Thanks again from the group!

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Devdays is here!

Doug Turnure and a cast of others have started the day with a keynote. Following a couple video's about the IRL and Match.com using .Net technologies to “do more with less“, they are focusing on a number of new Microsoft products including Biztalk Server, SQL Reporting Serivices, and Whitehorse.  SQL reporting services is one of those great looking tools that I really need to take a closer look at. It looks like a very effective way to provide end users with reports on data. Whitehorse, shown by Ken Spencer is described as an “Integrated model-driven set of design tools to increase productivity and predicatability in design, development, deployment and maintenance of service-oriented distrubted systems“. Translation: Very Cool! It's far from just another code generator.

I'm going to be attending the Smart Client presentations and will post anything of interest.

Greg and I will be at the TRINUG user group table during the breaks meeting and hope to make many new .Net contacts.

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Jim Duffy Presents DotNetNuke

Wednesday, February 11, 2004

7:00 PM

Tonight at the TRINUG meeting Jim Duffy presented DotNetNule, a free content management portal.

A walk through in how simply it is to setup and administer a DotNetNuke portal. The Triangle .Net User Group site has recently been converted over. The framework provides a nice way to separate the site administration activities from the content entry/update roles.

One of the cool thing that Jim went on to discuss was the creation of your own modules for use within the portal framework. While the main portal code is in VB, you are able to use any .Net language to extend the portal to meet your needs, with the benefit of having built in security and administrative capabilities. Jim used DotNetNuke for his corporate website www.takenote.com. The coolest thing is that you can have info from the site automatically syndicated in RSS for aggregator consumption!

A new version 2.0 is apparently on it's way in the new future with skins and a new data provider model.

Tonight's meeting sponsor was SyncFusion who provided pizza and brought some great door prizes and product samples.

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3/9/2004 - Intro to the Prescriptive Architecture Group

Microsoft has bolted an extended event to the end of DevDays on March 9th in Raleigh-Durham. This extra session is open to the public. It will run from 5:30 to 6:30 and will be at the Marriott Durham at the Civic Center, Ballrooms 1 and 2.

A number of us from the Triangle .Net Users Group will be at the event promoting the group as a great information resource to the local developer community.

Posted in Rant | TRINUG  | Comments [0] 

For more information...

Next month... Developing Websites with DotNetNuke with Jim Duffy

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