Greg Blogging On .NET

Tech Ed 2008- in summary

2008-06-06T21:34:00Z

Here are some final thoughts on my experiences at Tech Ed 2008:

Regarding location:

Orlando is one of the better venues for Tech Ed if you have family that wants to come along.
A little spread out but with the bus routes, you're never waiting more than 15 minutes to go from A to B
The weather sure is hot in June! But fortunately the conference center was very well air conditioned

Regarding the party:

The all-you-can-eat food is always a hit with me
It was a perfect evening, the weather cooperated
Most of the rides were shut down, and the ones that were open had 30+ minute waits (not good for a 3 hr party)
The extra $110 per ticket was disgusting. They know we bring our families, why make us pay through the nose (I didn't)? I purchased a 7 day pass for my wife and two daughters for a grand total of $140. That's only $30 more than a 3 hour pass for a one night, one ticket cost.
MS, if price is such a concern for the party and you have to cut back like you did, please do something different next time- throw a nice party at the conference center.

Regarding the content:

Overall I was happy with the content. Most of the sessions I went to achieved the purpose of getting me motivated to dig deeper.
I also felt like I got caught up on many of the latest and greatest trends- Silverlight, Entity framework, MVC pattern (gag), Silverlight, Sharepoint.*, etc. and also some good tips / tricks on existing technology. Overall I thought the balance was pretty good of new vs. current technology. There was something for everyone.
Kudos to the "multi-modal" learning opportunities. Traditional sessions, hands on labs, the new interactive theaters, birds of feather sessions, one-on-one with product managers / mvp's / experts, etc. Again, something for everyone.
I went to a few good sessions later Thursday and got to talk one-on-one with a product manager (Kathy Kam) on the Silverlight team on Friday morning. She went through her presentation with me (as a dry run) and I got the benefit of hearing her talk and expertise directly. That really made me appreciate why Tech Ed is truly a great conference and that Microsoft truly does care about helping and listening to developers.

Regarding community:

It's always great to get to catch up with others that are passionate about community and have similar interests. I spent a lot of time in the INETA community area and got to talk to other UG leaders, people on the speakers bureau, MVP's, etc. We had some good times chatting, and there was also something pretty funny that happened the last day (I won't get into that here)

In summary I definitely encourage anyone who is learning Microsoft technologies or wanting to get ramped up on the new stuff coming out to consider Tech Ed. I heard a lot of people talking about being overloaded with all the info- that is a good thing. For me, It was a nice break from the grind, but I think I am probably about done with Tech Ed unless I get invited to present there in the future. I will probably stick to community events.

Tech Ed 2008 Updates

2008-06-05T14:53:00Z

Things are going well at Tech Ed, I'm pretty pleased. This is the 7th Tech Ed that I've been to, but the first one in a few years.

Here is a brief summary of the first few days at Tech Ed.

Day 0 - INETA Summit. I got to meet up with some old friends, and met a few new ones. Lots of good conversations about running user groups and what some of the current challenges are. We also talked about code camps, Day of .NET, codemash, etc. and shared some of our experience for the events. I was pretty pleased overall

Day 1 - Keynote & Sessions. Got to sit through Bill Gates last keynote while a full time employee at Microsoft. The highlight of they keynote was the "ballmer bot" - a two-wheeled robot that said "Developers, Developers, Developers". It was pretty cool. I also enjoyed the silverlight portion- and the announcement that 2.0 should be released by end of week.

Day 2 - spent some time at a few sessions. Ramping up on silverlight internals. I also spent a lot of time in some of the community areas, including MVP, INETA, and Zune which were all in the same area. I'm really impresed with the 80 GB Zune model and think I will probably get one.

Day 3- went to a ASP.NET performance session, and hit a scrum session in the AM. Both very good sessions- the scrum session got a little specific on tools (using Visual Studio Team System) but gave me a few ideas on what others are doing on scrum projects. Interesting statistic mentioned- using scrum on average is 6 times more productive than traditional waterfall.

What I really like about Tech Ed this year:

Birds of a Feather sessions (BOF)- put on by community volunteers (eg. INETA). Great interaction and the content is good.

"Theater" sessions- kind of like a BOF but a little more formal and presentation oriented. I'm really digging them though the seating was too limited for the session I went to. The audio was also weak. The theater session reminds me a lot of a user group presentation- a more intimate crowd. One thing to be weary of is the one or two people that want to hijack the presentation based on their specific questions or "expertise". This can also happen in a BOF but I think its up to the presenters to ensure that this doesn't happen.

Community area- always a great way to get one-on-one interaction if you have specific questions. I really enjoyed talking with the developers at the Zune booth. You get some really good info, or provide direct feedback when you can talk to product managers or even developers (SQL booth).

Overall layout of how the convention center is set up is good. Most of my time spent is in the "big cavern" between the north and south sections. Most of the sessions are on the south side, so I'm not having to walk back and forth all day.

Breakfast / Lunch variety. The food has been pretty good. No complaints. I haven't got sick on anything yet either.

What I don't like as much about Tech Ed this year:

No bottled water. You have to go up to these jugs of water and use a plastic cup to drink out of. The intent is good- protect the environment- but the reality is, it's a royal pain to find water and that's about all I drink.

The grazing stations are non-existant. I've yet to see cookies, popcorn, fruit etc. actually stocked at the white tables near the session rooms. This has "cut backs" written all over it.

Not as many vendors, and most of the give-aways are "must be present to win". With the split of developer and IT pro this year, the bulk of the vendors are not getting here until next week, or so I'm told. Boo! The vendors that are here for the developer week are not bad but just not what I'm used to in terms of pomp, swag, and fun.

Theme. There doesn't really seem to be much of a theme this year, or if there is I'm missing it. At past Tech Ed's I can remember themes (windows DNA for example). It's probably because there is just soo much technology out there now. Even the key note didn't seem to themed- it had about 4-5 different areas it covered.

I'll post more updates later.

Tech Ed 2008

2008-06-01T21:43:00Z

First apologize for the staleness of the blog. I've been on facebook recently, so a lot of my blogging has been done there lately.

However, I thought I'd update my community blog, and I plan on updating it while at Tech Ed. I am also twittering- greghuber if you want to follow.

What have I been up to lately? I've been presenting on "Real World Agile Development" lately, most recently in Findlay (May meeting). Jason Follas and I went down there and had a blast, it was nice seeing some familiar faces that I hadn't seen in a while. Going to head out to the INETA summit for a bit- hope to see some old friends there as well.

Ok, so that's it for now. Got to finish packing.

Rant on HD-DVD losing the format war

2008-02-19T17:49:00Z

As many of you know I am a fan of the Xbox 360, Media Center, etc. and have given presentations combining the two technologies in the past. I am an avid media geek, and the HD-DVD format wars has been near and dear to me. I felt I needed an outlet to express my thoughts and concerns on the matter, so here I go.

By now most of you following the "Format wars" (Blu-Ray vs. HD DVD) have heard that HD DVD has lost.
http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/19/official-HD-DVD-dead-and-buried-format-war-is-over/

I personally was hoping HD DVD would be the "winner", or at least continue to be relevant as a format. Unfortunately, many retailers (Best Buy, Wal-mart, etc) have announced that they will no longer sell HD DVD. In addition, Toshiba just announced they are going to cut their losses on HD DVD and move on to the next thing.

On the surface, one might think "yay, this is great news! the format war is over!" and they'd be right in a certain sense. I just wish I would not have been an early adopter of the HD DVD- I got the drive for Christmas this year, and not 2 weeks later there was the announcement from Warner Brothers that they were defecting from the HD DVD format and going Blu-Ray exclusive. I believe that was the turning point for the format wars.

However, being a big fan of Microsoft technology, and particularly the Xbox 360, I am very disappointed by MSFT's response. Maybe they are too busy thinking about a forced takeover of Yahoo right now :) But I really don't think Microsoft yet realizes what it means. They are sticking to the mantra that "games sell consoles, not high definition discs":

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/business/news/e3i759fab371cec787336690de1202691ab

http://www.macworld.com/article/132151/2008/02/xbox360.html

Of course there is some truth to that, but how do you explain PS3 sales shooting through the roof? Could the 60% increase in sales at Amazon be related, or is this just coincidence? Maybe PS3 all the sudden was releasing some great games? A halo 3 equivalent perhaps? I may be off base here, but I am guessing the increase in sales may have at least SOMETHING to do with the recent HD-DVD announcement.

http://news.punchjump.com/article.php?id=5584

When I read the Toshiba press release about canning HD DVD, the first thing that entered my mind was "now I need to buy a Blu-Ray player". I am an early adopter. I want to enjoy HD content on my HDTV's. I will never buy another "standard" DVD knowing that things are coming out on in the HD format. Why should I? There is such a drastic difference. The only logical thing for me to do is buy a Blu-Ray player. And if I buy one, what are my choices?

Anyone following Blu-Ray players will know that the PS3 is one of the few (if not only) players that is "future proof". This is due to the ever changing Blu-Ray standard. People who early-adopted non-PS3 players supported only the earlier "versions" (aka profiles) of Blu-Ray, and are now stuck with paper weights (welcome to the club!).

http://www.about-electronics.eu/2008/01/21/ps3-only-future-proof-blu-ray-player/

So... again what are my choices? If I am smart, my ONLY current choice is a PS3 if I want to protect my investment. This is where Microsoft is not seeing clearly. The PS3 is a Trojan horse to get Blu-Ray into the home, and as a result, a way to get game consoles in the home. If I buy a PS3 as a Blu-Ray player, I'm also going to be tempted to buy some PS3 games. What does this ultimately mean for the console wars? It means that high definition discs DO sell consoles.

If Microsoft wants to maintain the lead in the console market, I think they are going to have to take some drastic measures, and VERY soon. First of all, it may not be enough just to announce a new add-on device. By the time Microsoft comes to market, PS3's will have gained significant ground and the argument of "we have the best games" may not hold as much water. Microsoft is probably going to need to offer incentive. Personally I'd like to see a free Blu-Ray drive for anyone who can prove they purchased an HD-DVD drive. That is about the only thing that would prevent me from buying a PS3 at this point. And the drive would need to be rolled out by the time all the HD-DVD discs are liquidated (I'm guessing a 2-3 months time frame).

I hear a lot of talk about Microsoft hoping to make digital distribution the next big thing, and to compete against the physical formats. I download a lot of videos through Xbox Live, but it doesn't compare to HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. There are two big reasons why: the download is compressed video, and I can't "keep it". It appeals to a different market. When I download something, it's because I needed a quick fix and didn't want to go to the video store. I never really own a download, and it can't sit on my shelf. Once I download it, I have a window of which I can watch it. This really doesn't work out well for my family- especially my kids. They like to watch the same thing over and over again for months at a time. I'm certainly not going to pay a rental price each time I want to re-download the same video. Ok, so maybe Microsoft could let me "buy" the download. Not a good option either, because now I am going to have to over pay for a hard drive to keep all my videos on, with no way of archiving them off. In order for downloads to work, they need to be full-fidelity and archiveable without DRM hassles- I don't see that happening any time soon.

Hopefully someone is listening, or at the very least Microsoft comes up with a better strategy. If not, prepare to watch market share erode.

One other final comment that makes me feel a little better abut my investment in the HD-DVD add-on- it's always good to end on a positive note. Toshiba seemed to indicate it is going to review support for HD-DVD drives in notebook PC's. It sounds like the format MAY not go entirely the way of the dodo bird, at least for those of us wanting to use it on PC's. For those of you not aware, it is entirely possible to burn an HD-DVD today with a traditional (red-laser) DVD burner and watch it on any HD-DVD player. I've been doing that with my home video collection. There are software packages out there (such as Ulead Media Studio 11) that will let you burn these DVD's- giving you about 30-45 minutes of content in high def (playable only in an HD-DVD player). I'm a little nervous about continuing to burn in this format- what happens when my player is done for? How will I replace it? However, if Toshiba commits to keeping the PC players alive that may not be a concern and it could still be an area for growth.

Last night's NWNUG meeting

2008-01-23T14:32:00Z

I was pleased with the format of last night's user group meeting. We had a smallish crowd, but considering the weather and that we had rescheduled the meeting it wasn't too shabby. We even had at least one person drive a good distance to make the meeting- glad you made it out Michael!

I spoke on Real World Agile development, and Jason presented on some new features of SQL 2008. My goal was to make my portion of the presentation interactive. My temptation is to do "normal presenter mode", but fortunately about half way through the presentation I realized it was me doing most of the talking. So I probed the group and we had some pretty good interaction. The majority of the group had at least heard of agile (though a few had not), but only a few had actually used it. I found that kind of interesting. If I end up taking this presentation on the road I plan on conducting a little more market research to determine what other dev teams are using, and why. Anyway, the agile approach that I reviewed was based on my own personal experiences at several clients and former employers- it is most closely aligned with "Scrum". I basically walked through the agile process, how I came to use it, and the benefits of it.

I've learned that there are a lot of nay-sayers to agile projects, especially if you use the term "agile" in front of someone used to waterfall, and especially people who are PMP certified. In past places I've worked, I hear things like "agile = chaos" ... "cowboy coding" ... "no planning". In some cases they are right- if agile is not implemented properly, or you have too junior of people on the team, etc. you can get into some sticky situations. I've learned to avoid some of the negative connotation by speaking about agile using other descriptions, like "Sprint Cycles" or "Quick Hits". These terms seem a little more business friendly, and PMP's eventually understand that the process is still structured and planned, it's just set up to do more frequent releases.

If you think your user group or event might be interested in a real world agile talk, please let me know!

Jason's talk was also really great- he showcased some awesome new features of SQL 2008. I was particularly interested in the intellisense available in the query window- that will certainly save when typing queries, functions, etc. Another cool feature that stuck out was user defined table types. You will now be able to pass a table as a parameter into stored procedure. This will save you from having to do multiple inserts / updates / etc. I can remember in the past trying to pass in delimited strings with a limit of 4000, which was a real pain. Or, inserting a bunch of stuff into a temp table and running a proc against that table. Jason also showed us some the new UPSERT functionality- which is also really slick. You can very easily synchronize your table up with a data feed. Last but not least was the new spatial functionality of SQL Server. Since I am geocacher, I thought this one was also interesting, though I zoned out a little toward the end when he started talking about trig. :)

Come on out... NWNUG meeting tonight

2008-01-22T22:40:00Z

If you can make it, please come out to the Northwest Ohio .NET User Group meeting-

http://www.nwnug.com

Jason Follas and I will be tag-teaming it up and presenting. Jason is talking about new things in SQL Server 2008 that he found interesting from the developer perspective. I am going to be presenting on Real World Agile development. I'm sure it will be fun! We're playing around with the user group session format and going for something a little more interactive- this will be a good chance to test it out.

Codemash continued

2008-01-11T19:32:00Z

Day 1 of codemash was stellar and here are a few more highlights.

- Dustin Campbell's F# talk. It was at the end of the day, and probably my favorite session so far. F# is not a brand new topic, but it has been getting a lot of attention lately because it is a functional programming language, and things are just going that way (see my previous entry). Dustin presented what could have been a very esoteric, academic talk and boiled it down to something very understandable and pragmatic. I heard many other positive comments on the presentation- even Scott Hanselmen was in attendance, and rumor has it there may be a podcast coming soon :)

- Meeting with others in the community and getting pumped up. It was great to see so many familiar faces, and meet several new ones. It seems like there is some great momentum being generated here at codemash to keep the community going and growing. I'm also glad to "fresh blood" in the user group community. Looking forward to growing NWNUG this year with Jason Follas. Got a few speakers lined up for the UG as well.

- Quick Solutions set up Rockband for Xbox. Kudos to them for having the best booth by far! I got to play the game a few times and even got to jam with Scott Hanselmen and some other .NET legends (not even realizing who I was playing with). I think we played the "Wheezer" song at least 5 times (apparently the only one he knew?). It was a ton of fun. I think I'm going to have to get that game :)

- Brian Prince's Agile talk. I really enjoyed sitting through this and he gave me a few good ideas for fine tuning some of the agile processes tha twe are implementing with clients. I like his suggestion of trying to implement one new process element a time, getting in the habit of doing that process, and rinse /repeat until you are satisfied.

- Kalahari water park. I skipped out on the morning key note and was the first one in the water park. It was a TON of fun. I was here last year, and they have basically doubled in size. I went down this new water slide that is very similar in concept to a toilet bowl. You go down the slide and spin around in a big bowl area for a bit, and then drop about 4 feet into a pool. It was fantastic and very refreshing. Afterwards I spent a little time in the hot tub and went to a few sessions.

At this point there are a few sessions left in the day. I am going to hit up a few, and then its off to the raffle. I'm hoping to win something again this year (won the Xbox 360 last time!).

CodeMash 2008... in full force

2008-01-10T15:26:00Z

I arrived at Kalahari, in Sandusky, OH Weds night (Jan 9th) for CodeMash 2008. I was pretty amazed to see all the attendees for the pre-conference that went from 7-9. We've got quite a crowd this year- close to 350 from what I've heard.

This morning kicked off with Neal Ford- entitled "Software Engineering & Polyglot Programming". Neal did a great job and there seemed to be a lot of energy in the crowd. My interest was piqued when mentioned multi-processor programming, and how functional languages (such as F#) will really help developers avoid some of the difficulties of traditional OO languages. The majority of the time he spent talking about Java, but there were a lot of parallels for the C# crowd.

Another highlight in the talk was the push for moving to new functional languages. Something that has always bothered me about functional languages (ruby, groovy, etc) is that there isn't just a whole lot of enterprise rollout right now. Nealspecifically addressed this and compared it to building bridges at the turn of the century. Many nay-sayers genereated a lot of FUD about reinforced concrete bridges- but today that is how bridges are built. The best way to introduce new technology and combat the nay-sayers, similar to bridge building, is to test and show. The math may not prove it out, but the testing will- and testing is a key component to building any kind of software. Kudos to Neal for presenting this thought process. I think it was a great way to kick of CodeMash- there are a variety of "new" dynamic and functional programming languages that will be presented. I'm looking forward to digging in to a few of them after the conference.

Heartland Area User Group Summit Event

2007-12-10T13:50:00Z

I had the opportunity this past Friday of attending the Heartland Area User Group Summit. It was great to get to see some fellow UG leaders, MVP's, and friends- a few of whom I haven't seen since Codemash this past January! <tangent>Speaking of Codemash, don't forget to register. It is going to be an AWESOME event and you can't beat the price. Though I didn't submit an abstract this year, we may try and do some informal things in the vendor area (my new Employer, Perficient, will have a booth). Please stop by and say hello if you are planning on attending! </tangent> So back to the UG summit.. It was great- Jason Follas and I drove up together, and I got to catch up with Brian Prince, Darrel Hawley, John Hopkins, Josh Holmes, Bill Wagner, Martin Shoemaker, Jay Wren and others (sorry if I forgot to mention you). Also got to meet some new faces- and it's good to see the caliber of people stepping up to the plate to help make community a success. I think this year will be very exciting- we as a community have some cool stuff planned. I think events like Day of .NET, CodeMash, etc. are really helping the community and buzz around what we are so passionate about- developing with Microsoft technology.

Back in the saddle...

2007-11-27T14:23:00Z

It's been quite a while since I've made the time to blog, and for that I apologize! I've been quite busy this year- CodeMash in January, on the road a lot, had a child in April, and made a career change in Oct. Boy does time fly!

So what have I been up to... During most of 2007, I spent a lot of time internally managing many of the software development projects, including a pilot implementation of MOSS (SharePoint) and projects from an SOA proof of concept to implementing BI. In October I decided it was finally time to move on (after 5 1/2 years) and started in a new role as a technical architect and engagement manager with Perficient. I am very happy with this move, and especially excited to be working with a fellow MVP, co-user group leader and friend- Jason Follas.

Community wise, I just presented at the last Northwest Ohio .NET User Group meeting on the topic of "Developing with Windows XNA for the Xbox 360". It was more of a high-level presentation that covered many of the basics. I walked through a great example called "Cops and Robbers", created by George Clingerman, an XNA MVP. George did a great job illustrating good design and a straight forward approach to development using XNA. You can check it out by going to his site- http://www.xnadevelopment.com/tutorials/copsandrobbers/copsandrobbers.shtml . Additionally, the Northwest Ohio .NET User Group (which I founded and co-lead with Jason) is growing and we are planning on taking things to the next level in 2008.

Northwest Ohio .NET User Group (2/20 meeting) summary

2007-02-21T20:47:00Z

We had a great meeting at the Northwest Ohio .NET User Group last night. I was pleasently surprised by a larger-than-expected crowd. We had our "launch event" so I'm guessing some of the extras were due to that. Our launch event consisted of me presenting a quick session on IIS 7 and its virtues. Looking forward to using IIS 7- lots of good benefits and Vista allows users to get ready for deploying web apps on Longhorn Server. I jokingly mentioned that since IIS 7 on vista no longer has the 10 connections limitations that developers could run IIs 7 apps in production. I really was kidding- please don't run apps in production from Vista!! Development only! :) In all seriousness, the new management console, web.config options for web site configuration, ease of extensibility and creating custom ISAPI filters is way cool. I particularly liked the demo that came on the launch presentation CD that showed how to automagically append copyright notices to every image that came through the pipeline with a few lines of C# code.

We also had Ken Kutz and Reuben Ahmed speak on code generation and agile development methodologies. They've done some really cool stuff with DotNetNuke. Simply create a database schema, and point the code generator tool at it. It will generate a DNN friendly module that can be plugged right in. On a related note, Jason Follas mentioned a similar tool called CodeSmith. I have heard of it but never used it, but just downloaded it and will be playing around with it. Jason says he uses it regularly for developing the data tiers. I'm looking forward to trying it out.

ASP.NET Ajax

2007-01-25T13:16:00Z

In case you haven't heard yet, ASP.NET Ajax 1.0 has been released! This is fully supported by Microsoft. It's great to see the culmination of effort by the ASP.NET team.

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/01/23/asp-net-ajax-1-0-released.aspx

The great news about ASP.NET Ajax library is that it caters to "both" kinds of developers- Client Centric, as well as Server Centric.

Client centric developers can very easily plug in to the javascript library. For those of you who have been writing Javascript and remember technologies like remote scripting, the web service behavior, etc. you can now tap into a very powerful library that is cross browser compatible and abstracts usage of making remote rpc calls.

The great news for traditional ASP.NET developers, as well as those who despise writing Javascript, is that EVERYONE can now easily harness the power of rich client web applications. The ASP.NET team has really made it painless to add this type of functionality. If you want to be able to do cool things like automatically update a portion of a web browser without visibly posting back the entire page, you can easily add ASP.NET Ajax to your EXISTING web application with the UpdatePanel control. That is the great news about this- you're not re-writing your application to implement Ajax. In addition, the ASP.NET control toolkit (http://ajax.asp.net/ajaxtoolkit/) integrates with the ASP.NET Ajax Library and provides server centric developers with some great out of the box controls, from drop down extenders (pick a state, get back a list of cities from a web services w/o having to preload everything) to adding cool DHTML code (such as draggable panels and animations). It's shared source and hosted on CodePlex.

Hope you enjoy this release. Now go and make your apps ajax'd!!

Codemash Summary

2007-01-20T00:27:00Z

Codemash was a really great conference. Kudos to all the planners- you guys did an awesome job. It totally blew my expectations away!

I'd say the highlight today was hearing Scott Guthrie. He is by far one of my favorite presenters (I LOVE his tips and tricks sessions) and delivered a great keynote. It was more "down in the weeds" with the new LINQ stuff, which I think as Dustin says, will be the next "darling of .NET". I thought it was very applicable and I'm sure developers from other backgrounds found it interesting. I was a little bummed I couldn't make his talk on ASP.NET Ajax Tips and Tricks, but I happened to be presenting at the same time on Intro to Ajax. I was actually pleasantly surprised there was a showing in my session- it was more geared on the abstract/ conceptual and I think that helped.

Oh, and things kept getting better as the day went on! After all the sessions were over, everyone was in a hurry to fill out the codemash conference eval. We filled up the Indigo room and the planners roled out the "swag waggon". It was quite impressive. I won a hard cover book entitled "Refactoring Databases- Evolutionary Database Design" by Scott W. Ambler and Pramod J. Sadalage. Scott was speaking at the conference, and I got to eat breakfast with him on the first day. I know this one will be a great addition to the library. And it gets better! I put my name in the box at the Microsoft booth... And sure enough, Josh Holmes called my name for the Xbox 360! The one with the hard drive, at that! Two more of the five individuals that went from my company also won great prizes, including an IPod and a portable DVD player.

What a great way to end the week.

Apparently...

2007-01-18T19:03:00Z

In order for blog entries to count towards Josh Holmes head shaving, you must be linked to Technocrati. Be sure to register!

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Codemash Day 1- Up and Running

2007-01-18T17:19:00Z

Codemash officially started today. I must say I have been very impressed by just about everything so far. The venue (Kalahari) is excellent. Jason Follas, a good friend of mine (and president of NWNUG) said it's like being on the west coast in terms of the facility. I would have to agree! I'd been to Kalahari some time ago but never got a chance to go in the conference area. Great choice, codemash organizers!

We kicked off today with a keynote by Neal Ford. The conference room was chocked full, and I think everyone that attended got something out of it. I particularly enjoyed the DSL (Domain Specific Language) stuff he was talking about, and comparing it to what we do day-to-day with various programming languages. I must say the "spirit" here at codemash is unique and this talk kind of typified it. Typically I go to a conference where it is platform specific- which is nice, but sometimes it seems like I am hearing the same thing all the time. Here, many of the attendees and presenters are from all kinds of backgrounds. So far I've made it a point to go to sessions that are language/platform neutral. I went to a turbogears presentation, briefly hopped in on a MySql talk, and even picked up on some python along the way. It's amazing to see the similarities in concepts, and that we are all solving problems in similar (and sometimes different) ways. I think it is a great learning process. I had a conversation with someone about technology who was more of an open source advocate, and didn't even realize it until about 30 minutes after we started talking about the virtues of Ajax.

So anyway... Codemash is great, and I really hope the community can continue great conferences like this. Hopefully the word will get out and we'll be able to do this again soon.

Oh, and BTW, if you are at codemash and reading this, be sure to blog your own entry. Apparently, Josh Holmes (Microsoft DPE) will be shaving his head if we get enough blogs! Now if that isn't motivation....

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Codemash... just a few more days

2007-01-15T20:27:00Z

Here I am on a Monday afternoon wrapping up my presentations for Codemash. Fortunately, I had the day off. Glad I did!

I'm going to be speaking on two sessions. The first one is an Intro to Ajax. If you have been living under a rock for the last few years you will want to see this one. This particular presentation is on the methodologies track. So it's going to be more conceptual and principle oriented- not as much hardcore code. Though there will be code! In addition to Microsoft ASP.NET Ajax, I'll also be presenting on using Ajax with Ruby on Rails.

My second session will be a deeper dive into Microsoft ASP.NET Ajax and the control toolkit. I've got about 7 demos, and I'm going to try to keep this one heavy on the code and light on the powerpoint. The demos are a good showcase through what is available on the Microsoft ASP.NET Ajax platform, SOON to be RTM (maybe ScottGu will announce it, as he is going to be there?).

Hope to see you there. Kalahari is going to rock. I am sure this will be a conference to remember.

MVP Award Renewed for 2007!

2007-01-01T16:00:00Z

Just got the e-mail.. My MVP status has been renewed for 2007! Awesome!

I'm really thrilled to continue to be involved in the MVP program. It is a great way to keep up to date with Microsoft and all the great new stuff they are putting out- and to have some input into future products, and to get some recognition for community activity. Most of my activity is "off-line" as a MVP, doing presentations (some very exciting ones planned this year!!) and helping lead the Northwest Ohio .NET User Group, and of course being involved as an INETA membership manager for Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

I know this year will be exciting. We've got some launch events planned early on (Feb) and of course Codemash, which I've been busily preparing for. Be sure to sign up if you haven't already. Looking forward to a great new year... Wishing everyone a happy new year!!

Codemash Conference

2006-11-16T19:55:00Z

If you're in the midwest, please consider coming to Codemash! This is going to be a rockin' conference. We are even going to have one of my favorite presenters, authors, and just all-around cool guys Scott Guthrie as a keynote speaker!

This event is being organized by several volunteers. I am very excited to have been involved in the early on planning of this event, and seeing how things are unfolding. This event will be held in Sandusky, OH at Kalahari, an indoor water park in January. What could be more fun than surfing in the winter and getting to learn about technology too??

http://www.codemash.org/

The really cool thing about this event is that it's turly a "mash" of many languages and technologies. You'll hear presentations from community leaders on all sorts of cool stuff including C#, Java (can I say that?), PHP, Python, Ruby, and others.

And... I just heard back today that two of my abstracts were accepted! I am very excited about that. I will be presenting an introduction to Ajax, and also "Using the Microsoft Ajax Library". If you read my blog you'll know that I've been doing a lot of work in this area. I think these will be some great topics and I am looking forward to presenting them. I hope you will consider coming out- we are shooting for 500 attendees at this conference! It's going to be HUGE!

Right now there is an early bird registration. So check out the site and hit "register" to find out more. You will get a room rate at Kalahari for $88 a night, which is REALLY cheap. Well worth it. Let me know if you plan on attending!!

Microsoft Ajax (Atlas) Presentation - Tuesday, Sept 26 in Toledo

2006-09-25T11:19:00Z

I will be presenting the "Atlas" bits in my home location of Toledo, OH Tuesday night. Jason Follas (president of NWNUG) will also be presenting on .NET Delegates, inspired by Julie Lerman where she presented at FANUG last month. More info at the user group web site.

For those of you who haven't heard yet, Atlas is going to be renamed to " Microsoft AJAX Library" which is the client-centric behavior. The server centric stuff is now "ASP.NET 2.0 Extensions". Of course, there are no bits yet to present with these new namespaces so you are going to see the July CTP at the presentation. Unfortunately it also means there is going to be some work when you upgrade to the latest bits. However, it should be relatively easy... (simple name changes of tags, in theory).

My presentation will be a quick 20 minute introduction, and then some code snippets and techniques for the remainder of the time. It is sure to be lots of fun. If you are in the Toledo area, please make it out! Our Developer Evangelist, Drew Robbins, is going to be there after all! (Sorry Drew, I'm not going to wear my hat!)

Oh, and if you keep seeing my mug under a sombrero, you can thank Jason Follas for that one. Apparently he couldn't find a better picture of me to use... :)

Atlas Presentation- Ann Arbor, Wednesday August 9th

2006-08-07T14:28:00Z

I will be presenting at the Ann Arbor .NET Developers group on Wednesday, August 9th.

Abstract

Greg Huber will be presenting on ASP.NET 2.0 and the latest Atlas bits. ASP.NET Atlas is a framework that integrates into Visual Studio developed by Microsoft. It enables you to develop web applications that can provide a more seamless user experience. In the tutorial portion of the presentation, Greg will cover the basics of Atlas as well as considerations of developing AJAX style applications. The second half of the presentation will include demonstrations, code snippets, and writing a simple AJAX application from scratch.

Bio

Greg Huber is the founder and chairman of the Northwest Ohio .NET User Group, established in 2001. Greg is a Microsoft MVP and was first recognized in 2004 for his role in community and expertise in Visual Studio .NET and ASP.NET. He is also a membership manager for INETA, the International .NET Association, where he enjoys helping the user group community flourish. Professionally, Greg has been developing software on the Microsoft platform since 1998. He is currently employed at TNS (a global market research firm) as the director of software development. Greg is an avid geek and enjoys spending time with his wife and daughter, geocaching, developing software, and gaming on the Xbox 360.