If you haven’t already registered, be sure to check out the upcoming Windows Azure Boot Camp that’s taking place Wednesday June 23rd in Durham, NC. This free training event is a great opportunity to get your feet wet with Windows Azure. Microsoft DE Brian Hitney and Jim Duffy from TakeNote Technologies will be presenting the content.

This is a hands on workshop, so show up laptop in hand and ready to learn. More information and registration information is available. Once again, it’s a free event but you must register to attend.

Save the date! Please plan to join us on Wednesday, June 2, at 8:30 AM at the Jane S. McKimmon Conference & Training Center for an OData workshop.

Free registration: http://odataworkshop.eventbrite.com/

Recommended Audiences: Solution Architects, Software Developers, Developers, Architects

Abstract

The Open Data Protocol (OData) is an open protocol for sharing data. It provides a way to break down data silos and increase the shared value of data by creating an ecosystem in which data consumers can interoperate with data producers in a way that is far more powerful than currently possible, enabling more applications to make sense of a broader set of data. Every producer and consumer of data that participates in this ecosystem increases its overall value.

OData is consistent with the way the Web works - it makes a deep commitment to URIs for resource identification and commits to an HTTP-based, uniform interface for interacting with those resources (just like the Web).   This commitment to core Web principles allows OData to enable a new level of data integration and interoperability across a broad range of clients, servers, services, and tools.

OData is released under the Open Specification Promise to allow anyone to freely interoperate with OData implementations.

In this talk Chris will provide an in depth knowledge to this protocol, how to consume a OData service and finally how to implement an OData service on Windows using the WCF Data Services product.

Agenda

· Introductions (5 minutes)
· Overview of OData (10 minutes)
· The OData Protocol (1 hour)
· 15 minute break
· Producing OData Feeds (1 hour)
· Consuming OData Feeds (1 hour)

Bio

Chris Woodruff (or Woody as he is commonly known as) has a degree in Computer Science from Michigan State University’s College of Engineering. Woody has been developing and architecting software solutions for almost 15 years and has worked in many different platforms and tools. He is a community leader, helping such events as Day of .NET Ann Arbor, West Michigan Day of .NET and CodeMash. He was also instrumental in bringing the popular Give Camp event to Western Michigan where technology professionals lend their time and development expertise to assist local non-profits. As a speaker and podcaster, Woody has spoken and discussed a variety of topics, including database design and open source. He is a Microsoft MVP in Data Platform Development. Woody works at RCM Technologies in Grand Rapids, MI as a Principal Consultant.

Woody is the co-host of the popular podcast “Deep Fried Bytes” and blogs at www.chriswoodruff.com. He is the President of the West Michigan .NET User Group and also is a co-founder of the software architecture online portal nPlus1.org.

Woody has worked in many arenas throughout the years, including healthcare, manufacturing, publishing, promotion execution and the automotive industry. He has experience with starting and running new ventures, including past work with technology startups. Woody continues to develop his expertise by learning & developing new technologies to better meet the needs of his clients, while devoting his free time to improving the development community at large, and giving back to the community in which he lives.

Now better watch out,
you better code right.
You better test first
and refactor that right!
Carl and Richard are coming to town!

The .NET Rocks! Visual Studio 2010 Road Trip is headed back to RTP for a special LIVE event Thursday May6th and will be joined by a special surprise guest. If you’re still kicking yourself for missing them last time, sign up before it’s too late to see them again this time!

Where are they now?

What's this all about? (Their text)

Carl and Richard are loading up the DotNetMobile (a 30 foot RV) and driving to your town again to show off the latest and greatest in Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4.0!

And to make the night even more fun, we’re going to bring a mystery rock star from the Visual Studio world to the event and interview them for a special .NET Rocks Road Trip show series.

Along the way we’ll be giving away some great prizes, showing off some awesome technology and having a ton of laughs.

So come out to the most fun you can have in a geeky evening – and find out what’s new and cool in Visual Studio 2010!

Register to attend! (The event is FREE, but you must register to attend!)

Today on the Official Microsoft Silverlight site http://www.silverlight.net is the announcement we have all been waiting for:

It’s been just three short years since the first release of Silverlight, and truly amazing to see where things are at. I’ve been extremely privileged to have had opportunities to work with the product team along the way through a number of releases now, and it’s been a remarkable experience. The teams involved represent an amazing group of talented individuals  with an unbelievable passion for their work, and it shows. My hat goes off to each an every one of them for being a part of reaching such a major milestone in a very short period of time. Well done my friends, well done!

Silverlight 4 is a major release with many new features including:

Local Fonts, Printing, Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF), Webcam and Microphone support, Audio/Video Output protection, Multitask Networking, Offline DRM, Trusted Applications, IDistpatch COM interop, Group policy object support, Full keyboard in out-of-browser for trusted applications, Cross-domain network access for trusted applications, Custom window Chrome, Out of browser window settings (Position, size, etc), Web Browser Control and Web Browser Brush, Notification Toast, and Right-to-Left / BiDi text.

In addition, Silverlight’s support for major browsers included Firefox, Safari, IE has been increased to include Google Chrome on both the Mac and Windows.

As you download the RTW (Release To Web) of the client, you may notice that some of the tools downloads are still RC. Fear not, the runtime is the finished SL4, but because the tools needed the runtime to complete before the could do a final wrap there’s a slight lag. Rather than wait to release everything, these pretty darn close to final tools (My words, not theirs) have been made available at the same time as the completed runtime so we can all get our SL 4 apps built for RTW and out on the web, with the final versions  of the tools expected in the near future as a “minor update”. (Tim Heuer has more details in the this post Silverlight 4 released. Availability of tools announcement )

The Silverlight Toolkit has also been updated with an April 2010 release which has a number of enhancements including new Charting Controls, a new Context Menu control, new Themes, a new PanelDragDropTarget, as well as other improvements. For more information check out the Silverlight Toolkit April 2010 changes

Now go my friends and code!

The Windows 7 / Office 2010 Bus Tour is going to be making it’s way through North Carolina in June (Raleigh June 2, Charlotte June 3) and is a great opportunity to learn more about both products from some great speakers, including Mr. TalkingAboutWindows himself Stephen Rose.

See you on the bus!

REGISTER

Get your Bus Tour updates first! Follow us on Twitter @thebustour

With the release of Silverlight 4 quickly approaching, there is more excitement than every around developing with Silverlight. While there’s a wealth of information all over the place on new features and how to do things, I strongly encourage anybody looking for Silverlight 4 information to start here:

What’s New in Silverlight 4?

READ FIRST

Want to know the feature-by-feature 'what's new' information? Read the What's new in Silverlight 4 whitepaper for more detailed technical information.

Silverlight 4 delivers a full suite of powerful capabilities to business application developers, bringing the best-of-breed .NET platform to browser-based experiences. Silverlight provides an ideal platform for developing and deploying modern business applications for both customer facing and staff-facing applications.

On Wednesday January 13, 2010 our local Microsoft Developer Evangelist will be presenting a sneak peak at some of the upcoming Windows Azure content. As we gather to talk about Azure, I thought it was only proper that we take a moment and say it together. Now, as much as I know all of my southern friends down here like speaking French, I hate to the one to tell you that the proper pronunciation can be done with use of a French accent. As a reference I give you this link to the Merriam-Webster dictionary site for an audio clip.  Wednesday night lets all say it together!

As a choice of a name for a Cloud Computing platform, I must admit I find it a little strange. According to the wikipedia entry it a blue color, specifically “The clear blue color of the sky”. No, it may just be my view of the world, but if you were wanting to promote cloud solutions, would want to not draw attention to the beauty of a clear blue cloudless sky? Anyways, enough about words, come check out the code!

More information about the event is available on the Trinug website.

Next week I’m going to be attending the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference or PDC.  I’m very fortunate to have been able to attend three PDC’s previously in 2003, 2005, and 2008. These events included the first looks at Windows Longhorn, Avalon, Aero, Indigo, IE7, Office 12 and “the ribbon”, first looks at Windows 7, Azure, and the Surface SDK.

PDC 2003 was the first time I was able to hear Bill Gates speak live (And never would have guess I’d have lunch with him less than 5 years later). PDC is also first met some of the developers that have helped shape my career, becoming highly valued mentors and friends.

For anybody attending PDC for the first time this year, I encourage you to take full advantage of the opportunity, but don’t feel the you need to attend every single session. While the sessions are great, this event brings together that absolute best minds and talent related to Microsoft technologies. Make some time to interact and ask some questions. Take a few moments and sit back and listen to what others are asking. I still tell people the story about listening to Don Demsak, Kirk Evans,  Peter Provost , and more debating over some minor aspect of the SOAP web service protocol, and during the course of that conversation having my eyes opened to more knowledge and viewpoints on a wide array of topics than any single session that week.

An excellent way to get out and meet some people is the INETA Birds Of A Feather sessions that are taking place during PDC. The list of sessions is on the conference schedule, so take a look at find a session that’s of interest to you. The BoF room is also a great place to stop in to see what’s going at PDC and meet some people actively involved in user group communities across the nation and around the world. For more information on the sessions, visit http://www.pdcbof.com/.

I’m looking forward to the technology surprises that lay ahead next week, but more importantly I look forward to the people I will share the week with, the things I will learn, and the opportunities that will be created by interacting with them. If you’re attending, I hope I get the chance to chat with you!

For anybody not attending, Channel 9 will be streaming the keynote sessions live and broadcasting live from the PDC with a variety guests. Many members of the developer community not attending are participating in www.notatpdc.com presenting a variety of sessions during the week via Live Meeting.

Last weekend I attended and spoke at the Atlanta Silverlight Firestarter. This free, day long event featured a wide range of content presented by a number of presenters. The organizers did an awesome job and deserver a big pat on their back for their efforts.

During the afternoon I presented a Design Tools talk, focusing on Blend 3’s new SkechFlow prototyping tools and sample data. Here is the SketchFlow sample that I used during my session.

Robby T-Shirt Sketchflow Demo and Code

Last weekend I attended and spoke at the Atlanta Silverlight Firestarter. This free, day long event featured a wide range of content presented by a number of presenters. The organizers did an awesome job and deserver a big pat on their back for their efforts.

During the afternoon I presented a Design Tools talk, focusing on Blend 3’s new SkechFlow prototyping tools and sample data. I’ll be posting my slides and samples here shortly, along with further details.