Don't forget about Seattle Code Camp v4.0 this weekend in Redmond.  For all the details, go to the Seattle Code Camp website.  This is a free weekend of presentations on a wide variety of software development subjects.  This isn't a 'Microsoft' only event, check out the list of sessions if you don't believe me.

Two South Sound .NET User Group members will be presenting:

Chris Bilson is presenting 'Getting Git'

Git is a distributed version control system. It's a little different than other source control systems you may have used (Subversion, TFS, etc.), and a little more powerful too. In this session we'll talk a little bit about what the big deal is with distributed revision control systems, which ones exist, git, some tools related to git, web sites that work with git, and go through a typical git workflow.

Camey Combs is presenting "What's the Big EFing Deal? Even Newbies can do Entity Framework"

Have you done anything with Entity Framework yet? Have you heard of it? Curious about it? if you're new to EF and want to do some coding utilizing it, this is the session for you. Come and see what a newbie (you and your presenter) can do with EF after only a few short lessons. Bring your laptop loaded up and ready to go and follow along, building your own simple applications using EF.

 

Please join us on Thursday, November 13th for a presentation on MVC by Chris Tavares.

Meeting Summary:
The ASP.NET Model-View-Controller (MVC) framework is a new web development framework that sits next to the existing ASP.NET WebForms framework. Rather than attempting to abstract away the Web, MVC embraces the web programming model. The result is a very different experience for writing web applications on the .NET platform. In this talk, we’ll look at what the MVC framework is, the basics of how to use it, why it exists, and how to decide whether to use it (or not).

Speaker Info:
Chris is a developer on the Microsoft patterns & practices team. He started his obsession with computers in third grade with an actual teletype taking to a mainframe. The job has gotten rather easier since. He’s worked in embedded systems, shrink wrap software, developer tools, consulting, and as a developer trainer before joining Microsoft. His current projects are as dev lead / architect for Microsoft’s Enterprise Library, and consulting software designer on the ASP.NET MVC framework.

Meeting Specifics:
November 13th, 7 - 9 PM
Olympia Center (222 Columbia NW)
All attendees are eligible for the prize drawings. Past prizes have included technical books, passes to Devscovery, copies of Visual Studio, Vista, Office 2007 and more.

Don't forget to let your friends and co-workers know about this meeting.  Feel free to forward this email and/or direct them to www.ssdotnet.org for more information.

 

If you don't know why, you are dead to me. I couldn't get a fanboy picture of myself with John Lam, but this totally made up for it.

 

I am currently attending the Devscovery conference on the Microsoft campus. So this is a perfect opportunity to meet up with my friends in the local ALT.NET group while I am here.

I turned on the batsignal and it was determined that Celtic Bayou was the location and this coming Thursday night at 5:30 is the time.

So if you are in town and have some free time, come join us and discuss all things software with fellow passionate developers. The beer is great and the food is even better. See you there.

 

What: Geek Dinner

When: Thursday, Aug 21st 2008 5:30 PM - Till we all leave

Where: Celtic Bayou

 

I will be attending the Wintellect Devscovery conference this week, August 19th - 21st, on the Microsoft campus in Redmond. If any ALT.NET people want to get together for lunch or dinner while I am there feel free to contact me via the plethora of options to the right. I will be in full on geek out mode and happy to talk with you.

Here is my schedule while I am there:

 

Tuesday
9:00 AM	Keynote - I am ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions and So Can You! - Hanselman
10:45 AM	Translating Architecture to Technologies - Dahlman
12:15 PM	Lunch
1:30 PM	An Overview of ASP.NET MVC - Haack
3:15 PM	An Introduction to TDD - Haack
Wednesday
9:00 AM	Windows Communication Foundation: Rest with WCF - Mehner
10:45 AM	Windows Communication Foundation: Debugging & Error Handling - Mehner
12:15 PM	Lunch
1:30 PM	Practical Workflow Foundation, Part 1 - Mehner
3:15 PM	Practical Workflow Foundation, Part 2 - Mehner
Thursday
9:00 AM	An Introduction to LINQ to SQL - Demsak
10:45 AM	An Introduction to LINQ to Entities - Demsak
12:15 PM	Lunch
1:30 PM	Unit Testing & Code Coverage Best Practices - Robbins
3:15 PM	.NET Performance Tips & Tricks - Robbins

 

Karl Seguin of CodeBetter.com released a 79 page ebook called Foundations of Programming yesterday. Browsing the table of contents, I found a ton of good information is covered here. Some highlights include: YAGNI & DRY principals, Explicitness, Cohesion & Coupling, Domain Driven Design... The list just goes on and on and on.

If you want to read about the stuff that a giant Wrox tomb will never mention, grab this ebook as a great launching point.

 

Please join us on Thursday, June 12th for a presentation on Silverlight 2.0 by Erik Mork.

Meeting Specifics:

Erik Mork will be returning to Olympia in June to present Silverlight 2.0 to the South Sound .NET User Group. Our last visit from Erik was in July 2007, when he told us about Silverlight 1.0 and looked forward to what might be in version 2.0. Now, with Silverlight 2.0 released in Beta, he can come back and give us the next chapter in this ongoing story.

Erik was with Tranxition last year and looking toward self-employment. He's made that leap now, founding Silver Bay Labs. In addition, he and with his wife is producing a Silverlight podcast called Sparkling Client. Recent shows featured interviews with Adam Kinney aka The Silverlight Surfer and Jesse Liberty aka Captain Silverlight.

If you're into Silverlight, definitely check out what the Morks are up to and plan to attend the South Sound .NET meeting on June 12th with Erik and Silverlight 2.0.

 

Meeting Specifics:
June 12th, 7 - 9 pm
Olympia Center (222 Columbia NW)
All attendees are eligible for the prize drawings. Past prizes have included t-shirts, technical books, passes to Devscovery, copies of Visual Studio, Vista, Office 2007 and more.

Don't forget to let your friends and co-workers know about this meeting.  Feel free to forward this email and/or direct them to www.ssdotnet.org for more information.

 

Come out to the Thurston County Fairgrounds on Monday night and get 3 hours of great information on new and exciting technologies from Microsoft and other sources.

Adam Kinney will present information on Silverlight 2.0. Woody Pewitt will talk about Internet Explorer 8 and the Code Trip Bus Cam. Jason Mauer will take us Under the Hood of the code Trip, explaining the technologies used on the bus and on the website.

Thousands of dollars worth of software will be given away from Infragistics (NetAdvantage for .NET), Telerik (RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX, RadControls for WinForms, Telerik Reporting,Sitefinity CMS), Identity Mine (Blendables Essentials Mix) and copies of CodeRush by Devexpress. Along with all of that goodness, there will be some foam Code Trip Buses and Code Trip Laptop sleeves given away. Free stuff and free high quality presentations -- you don't want to miss this.

To answer a question posed by some of you, sorry, no food this time, but grab something on the way out to the fairgrounds and stuff your face while while Jason, Woody and Adam stuff our brains full of new and shiny information.

Monday, April 14, 2008
6:30 PM to 9:30 PM
Olympia is the last stop for the Code Trip before the end of the line in Seattle. In partnership with the South Sound .NET User Group, they'll be pulling out all the stops and unleashing a technical tour de force at the Thurston County Fairgrounds.

Location

Thurston County Fairgrounds
Expo Hall
3054 Carpenter Rd SE

 

 

I received the following message from my local DNUG, the South Sound .NET Users Group about The Code Camp coming to our area. I plan on attending and hope to see you there.

"Are you ready for the Code Trip to come to Olympia?  Jason Mauer is coming back to Olympia with a tour bus full of geeks.  They'll be pulling up to the Thurston County Fairgrounds on Monday, April 14th.  There will be giveaways, and great information on the newest technology from great presenters.

Have you been tracking the Code Trip?  They started in Las Vegas at MIX08 on March 7th and headed north.  They've made about 13 stops since then and Olympia will be the last one before arriving at the MVP Summit in Seattle on Tuesday, April 15th.  The capacity of our venue is 288, let's see how close we can get to that total, ok? 

Jason will be sending us a list soon of the roster of geeks we'll see performing on the 14th.  We're going to set up the Expo Hall so that multiple presentations can be happening at one time, to make the most of the time we have.

Other Code Trip events have featured talks on the newest technologies to emerge from MIX08, including Silverlight 2 Beta 1, Internet Explorer 8, SQL Server Data Services, Windows Live.  Some attendees have been treated to talks on the technology powering the Code Trip, both online and on the bus.  We'll update you as soon as we know what the recipe for the Olympia stop will be.

Tell your friends, drag your co-workers along, let's give the Code Trippers a big final event before they get back to the mothership.

For more on the Code Trip, including information on current and past events and where the Bus is now, see TheCodeTrip.com.  You can see profiles of the Roadies -- people who have spent time in the bus.  There's a behind the scenes section called 'Under the Hood' where you can get information on the technologies used on the Code Trip, the use of GPS information in tracking the route and current bus location and other technical goodness being used to keep them in touch with the rest of the world.  The Toolbox provides links to the tools used along the way to keep the Trip running smoothly.

The Travel Log is a blog contributed to by various people, mostly Jason Mauer and Tim Heuer.  Video blogs, info on participants and events gets you right into the action.  It certainly gets me fired up to see them in Olympia.  Makes me more than a little envious really, getting to ride a tour bus full of state of the art equipment and full of other geeks sounds like a lot of fun.

So, you coming or what?  Put it on your calendar, invite some other folks and we'll see you there.

Monday, April 14th, 2008
6:30pm - 9:30pm
The Expo Hall at the Thurston County Fairgrounds
3054 Carpenter Rd SE
for directions"