Community Update...
Dustin Campbell from DevExpress came out and presented at our user group last night. He did an excellent job, especially on such short notice (we were in a bind for a speaker this month!). The topic was gaining productivity for CodeRush and Refactor. These are two tools that every developer should consider- definitely worth the price! CodeRush basically allows you to write code faster- use a simple syntax to create stub methods, properties. Even better is the navigation. I've always wanted to be able to easily bookmark code and jump back and forth, and that is really easy to do with this tool. And this tool is also extensible. Refactor is similar. Highlight your code and press a key- the code you want will be converted to a method call. The call will also be coded.
More info here: http://www.devexpress.com/Products/Locator/ByPack.xml?packid=dxperienceent&grouptab=2&category=ide
Other community news...
Jason and I recently wrapped up our MCE 2005 presentation road show in Columbus last week. About 30 people attended. Presentation went well- got some great feedback. I'll be playing around with the latest Vista bits and MCML and I imagine we will be ready for another round next year touting the new features of MCE and developing with MCML. I am very excited about this new technology. It is quite similar to XAML, and renders a full-fidelity experience on extenders (meaning you will get the same interface, animations, etc as the rendering is done natively on the extender, currently only the Xbox 360). You can learn more about MCML and Vista by going to the Media Center Sandbox. I'm currently having issues getting the latest running on 5346 but that could be my own issues.
In other news, we have the Ann Arbor Day of .NET coming. There are some awesome speakers that will be presenting there. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say who yet, so I won't- not sure it's even finalized. Be sure to check out Day of .NET web site to keep up to date w/ the latest news. I am going to be working on an ATLAS presentation.
For all the NWNUG members out there there is also some news! Jason Follas will be taking a more active role and acting as President. I will continue to be heavily involved- "Chairman of the Board", aka Bill Gates as someone put it last night. However, Jason has been helping out quite a bit- has some fresh ideas and energy and I want to give him the opportunity to help move the group forward. Welcome aboard Jason! And thanks to theother leaders who have been making NWNUG work- Dave Claydon and Aaron Myers. This change will allow me to spend more time focusing on presentations, speaking, and other things that I've been wanting to do in the community. We've got some exciting initiatives that we're thinking about- web site changes, meeting format changes, additional activities (such as geek dinners), etc. If you want to volunteer to help w/ any of these, please contact Jason or I.