Rob Windsor's Weblog : DevTeach

Dev Teach/SQL Teach Education Stimulus Package

windsor — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:42:00 GMT

DevTeach Vancouver is only a few months away, and there’s another great new promotion for you to consider. As if the user group and early bird discounts were not enough, there is one more way you can save. If your user group or organization registers two people for the conference, you’ll get a third registration for free.

This promotion can be combined with the other discounts and will run until June 8th.

For more details, visit the DevTeach website: www.devteach.com

Tech Days or DevTeach - Which Should I Choose?

windsor — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 20:35:00 GMT

A colleague of mine was considering attending a conference this fall and, knowing that I'm pretty connected with the community, asked if he should go to TechDays or DevTeach. I thought other people may be wondering the same thing so I decided to put together a comparison chart to assist in making an informed decision.

	Tech Days Canada	DevTeach
Web Site	http://www.microsoft.com/canada/techdays	http://www.devteach.com
Where and When	Toronto (Oct 29 and 30) Montreal (Nov 6 and 7) Ottawa (Nov 27) For other locations and dates see the Tech Days site	Montreal (Dec 1 to 5)
Length	One or two days of breakout session depending on location	Three days of breakout sessions plus pre and post conference sessions
Sessions	Two Day: 40 sessions in five tracks (16 Developer and 24 IT Pro) One Day: 30 sessions in five tracks (12 Developer and 18 IT Pro)	136 sessions in eight tracks (119 Developer and 17 IT Pro) Note: Some of the sessions will be delivered in French
Speakers	Microsoft Canada Developer and IT Pro Advisors Local Community Members You'll see speakers like those you would see at your local user group or code camp	Microsoft Redmond Product Team Members Canadian and International Speakers You'll see speakers like those you would see at the largest conferences (e.g. TechEd) mixed with speakers from the Canadian Developer/IT Pro community
Cost	Two Day Early Bird: $299.99 Two Day Full: $499.99 One Day Early Bird: $129.99 One Day Full: $249.99	Early Bird: $949.00 Full: $1,249.00 You can get $50.00 off the prices noted above through your local user group or selected Microsoft Partners
Atmosphere	Community oriented Easy access to speakers/community experts	Community oriented Easy access to speakers/community experts

So, I guess the choice comes down to what you're looking for. While DevTeach is more expensive, it offers more that three times the number of sessions and covers a much wider range of topics. Both are more than worth the cost to attend - just make sure you check out the session lineups before deciding where to spend your conference dollars to ensure you get the experience you are looking for.

Technorati Tags: [DevTeach], [TechDays_CA]

DevTeach Toronto Session Materials

windsor — Wed, 21 May 2008 08:21:00 GMT

Thanks to all of you who came out to DevTeach and cudos to the organizers for running a great event. I hope to see you in Montreal in December.

You can download the slides and demos I used in my sessions by clicking the links below.

Introduction to Windows Communication Foundation
Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is Microsoft’s next generation API for developing distributed applications and connected systems. It combines and extends the four distributed programming technologies (ASMX web services, remoting, message queuing, and COM+) used in previous versions of the framework. This session will provide a solid overview to WCF. It will describe the essential programming concepts that are core to the technology and will demonstrate how build, configure and consume simple services.
http://shrinkster.com/13es

Strategies for Moving Your Microsoft Visual Basic 6 Investments to .NET
Co-presented with Beth Massi
Visual Basic (VB) 6 was used by millions of developers world-wide to build applications ranging from thousands to millions of lines of code representing significant organizational investments. The path from VB 6 to .NET has not always been clear, there is no one size fits all approach. We’ll cut to the chase, exploring the pros and cons of each option using real world examples. You will leave this session with the framework and tools to develop the right strategy for your organization to leverage your existing investments while taking advantage of the power and productivity the .NET Framework provides today and .NET Framework 3.0 will provide going forward.
http://shrinkster.com/13et

Integrating ASP.NET AJAX with SharePoint
SharePoint provides a great infrastructure for quickly building intranet and Internet applications. ASP.NET AJAX provides a foundation for creating highly productive Web interfaces. Combined they are two great tastes that taste great together! In this session we will cover the basics of working with ASP.NET AJAX inside of SharePoint 2007. We will take a look at how to prepare a Web Application for ASP.NET AJAX, and how to use various ASP.NET AJAX tools such as the JavaScript libraries, JSON-enabled Web services, and UpdatePanels to build add rich interactivity to your SharePoint sites.
http://shrinkster.com/13eu

Technorati Tags: [DevTeach, WCF, Visual Basic, SharePoint, Ajax]

DevTeach Toronto Recap

windsor — Sat, 17 May 2008 16:47:00 GMT

Another DevTeach has come and gone and, as always, it was a great week. I just finished reading the comments for the conference as a whole and they were unanimously positive. Here's just one example:

What can I say. You'll definitely see me next year. I hope its still in Toronto. This was one of the BEST training conferences I've been on in quite some time. The "take-away's" from all the sessions were astounding. My mind is still spinning. Anyway, great job, nice prizes, great orgranization, absolutely no negative thoughts or comments.

Another great quote was from one of the speakers, Oren Eini:

Now that it is officially over, I can look back and say that DevTeach is still my favorite conference. Leaving aside the great speaker and talk line up (thanks James, and thanks Scott for doing it on the last two DevTeach confs), what I really like about DevTeach is the interaction with the attendees and the amount of face to face time that you get with everyone. I haven't been able to crack what it is that makes DevTeach special in this way, but I have been to other big conferences, and they were good, but they weren't the same. In short, in you have can make a conference, you really want to make it DevTeach.

The day before the conference was a busy one for me. It started and ended with DevTeach traditions, the Canadian .NET User Group Leader Summit and the Party with Palermo. This year one thing was different, sandwiched in between the summit and the party was a TVBUG meeting with two of the conference speakers: Beth Massi and Scott Hanselman. I have to say it was more than a little hectic attending the summit, making sure Beth and Scott got into town OK and had someone helping them get to the meeting, and then getting everyone from the meeting to the party. In the end it went off without a hitch thanks to help from fellow ObjectSharpees Barry Gervin, Tony Cavaliere and Ted Hoffman.

The conference days were pretty standard, lots of great conversations while prepping for sessions or catching up on email. The conference nights were also pretty standard, lots of great conversations over dinner and drinks followed by drinks and drinks. Of course this lead to the very standard conference morning...

My sessions went very well. I did have some issues getting the demos for my SharePoint/Ajax talk to work properly. That session was the last of the day so I figured if I got to the conference hotel at 9:00 am I could have them taken care of by lunch time. I hit some road blocks (it wouldn't be SharePoint without road blocks) and finishing with only 10 minutes to spare. Dave Laribee caught me on video part way through this process.

The most fun of the three sessions was the "Strategies for Moving Your VB 6.0 Investments to .NET" talk I did with Beth Massi. I've done a few tag-team sessions lately and I really enjoy them. I find playing off the other presenter helps make things more interactive and it opens more opportunities for my style of humor.

The highlight of the week (other than receiving a piece of birthday cake at the speaker's dinner) was a surprise we pulled on Sasha Krsmanovic. Sasha was the user group liaison for MSDN Canada and is now the Canadian regional MVP lead and he's done a ton for developer community in the country for several years. We decided we wanted to show our thanks publicly so we asked him to come to DevTeach at lunch on Thursday for an MVP Q/A Panel. Of course there was no panel, instead we showed a video tribute done by several people from the community (expertly edited together with a lead-in and credits by Barry Gervin) and gave Sasha a plaque and Superman trophy.

I have the video tribute as well as video of the presentation and Sasha's speech. I'm going to edit those together and post the result somewhere. I'll blog it when I do.

Technorati Tags: [DevTeach]

DevTeach is coming to Toronto in just a few more weeks!

windsor — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 04:15:00 GMT

I copied this blog post from Julie Lerman's blog. Julie copied it from Guy Barrette's blog. I'm sure someone will copy it from me and add their own little flair.

If you live in Toronto and don't attend DevTeach, Guy Barrette is going to make you code in Clipper for the remainder of your career (BTW - that's Clipper development with no Multi Edit and no Norton Guides. Ah, there, now you're shaking). Seriously, DevTeach has a great lineup of speakers from Toronto and across the globe. Where else can you hear, see, ~~touch, feel~~, talk to, describe your problems (IT/Dev related or not) and have a beer with these guys/gals?

And that's only half of them!!!

Need more reasons?

Keynote by Scott Hanselman
Scott is one of the most prolific, renowned and respected bloggers (http://www.hanselman.com) and podcasters (http://www.hanselminutes.com) in the .NET world. Scott is a hands-on thinker, a renowned speaker and writer. He has written a few books, most recently with Bill Evjen and Devin Rader on Professional ASP.NET. In July 2007, he joined Microsoft as a Senior Program Manager in the Developer Division. In his new role he'll continue to explore and explain a broad portfolio of technologies, both inside and outside Microsoft. He aims to spread the good word about developing software, most often on the Microsoft stack. Before this he was the Chief Architect at Corillian Corporation, now a part of Checkfree, for 6+ years and before that he was a Principal Consultant at STEP Technology for nearly 7 years.
http://www.devteach.com/keynote.aspx

Silverlight 2.0 Workshop
For the first time an independent conference is having a workshop on Building Business Applications with Silverlight 2.0. Join Rod Paddock and Jim Duffy as they give you a head start down the road to developing business-oriented Rich Internet Applications (RIA) with Microsoft Silverlight 2.0. Microsoft Silverlight 2.0 is a cross-browser, cross-platform, and cross-device plug-in positioned to revolutionize the way next generation Rich Internet Applications are developed. Microsoft’s commitment to providing an extensive platform for developers and designers to collaborate on creating the next generation of RIAs is very clear and its name is Silverlight 2.0. In this intensive, full-day workshop, Rod and Jim will share their insight and experience building business applications with Silverlight 2.0 including a review of some of the Internet’s more visible Silverlight web applications. This workshop is happening on Friday May 16 at the Hilton Toronto.
http://www.devteach.com/PostConference.aspx#PreSP

Bonus session: .NET Rocks hosts a panel May 14th at 18:00
This year the bonus session (Wednesday May 14 at 18:00) will be a panel of speakers debating the Future of .NET. Where is .NET going? How will new development influence .NET and be influenced by .NET? Join Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell from .NET Rocks as they moderate a discussion on the future directions of .NET. The panellists include individuals who have strong visions of the future of software development and the role that .NET can play in that future. Attend this session and bring your questions to get some insight into the potential future of .NET! This bonus session is free for everyone. Panelists are: Ted Neward,Oren Eini ,Scott Bellware
http://www.devteach.com/BonusSession.aspx

Party with Palermo, DevTeach Toronto Edition
Jeffrey Palermo (MVP) is hosting Monday May 12th in Toronto is acclaimed "Party with Palermo". This is the official social event kicking off DevTeach Toronto. The event is not just for the attendees of Toronto it’s a free event for everyone. It’s a unique chance for the attendees, speakers and locals to meet and talk with a free beer. The event will be held at the Menage club location and you need to RSVP to attend. Get all the details at this link:
http://www.partywithpalermo.com/

DevTeach Toronto is going to be a lot of fun and a great chance to learn from the best minds in the industry. Register now - you don't want to miss out.

Technorati Tags: [DevTeach]

DevTeach Toronto - Call for Speakers

windsor — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 01:53:00 GMT

It seems like DevTeach Vancouver was just last week... uh, OK, it was just last week. That fact aside, the call for speakers for DevTeach Toronto (May 12 to 16) has just gone out. My two compadres, Barry Gervin from ObjectSharp and Chris Dufour from the East of Toronto .NET User Group join myself and veterans Mario Cardinal and James Kovacs as Tech Chairs for the event. The tracks will include Web Development, Smart Client, Agile, .NET 3.0/3.5, Architecture, SharePoint, SQL Server IT, SQL Server Development, and Server Products. The deadline for submissions is January 15.

For full details, check out the DevTeach web site:

http://www.devteach.com/TechChair.aspx

DevTeach Vancouver 2007 Recap

windsor — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 23:31:00 GMT

Another DevTeach has come and gone and, like the past events, this one was fun and informative. This was the first time the conference ventured out of Montreal but it felt very much the same - very intimate and community focused. The other thing that felt like Montreal was the weather, it held around freezing for most of the week and snowed pretty heavily over the weekend.

The day before the conference started Microsoft hosted two day-long events at their offices in city. There was the Canadian .NET User Group Leader Summit and an MVP Open Day. When I first heard that the two events were running concurrently I was concerned. Many of the group leaders are also MVPs and I thought forcing them to split time or choose one event over the other would end up detracting from both. In the end my fears were unfounded, the summit was the our largest ever and the interaction with the MVPs added value that would have been impossible to get any other way.

After the summit most of the group leaders and MVPs headed over to Steamworks for dinner and the Party with Palermo. Jeff (along with party sponsors) always throw a great bash but this one ended a little differently than the others. Just after last call was announced Jeff realized that we hadn't quite hit the amount allocated for the bar bill so he got on the mike and encouraged the remaining guests drink up. This led to a rush on the bar and the ordering of rounds of shooters (many of them being a deadly combination of Tequila and Tabasco called a Prairie Fire), it also led to a bunch of nasty hangovers the next morning.

In terms of the conference itself - well, it was a busy three days. I didn't get to as many sessions as I wanted to but that's generally the case when you're a speaker. Of the sessions I did manage to see, two stand out: Richard Cambell and Kent Alstad's excellent talk on ASP.NET Scalability and Dave Laribee's session on Domain Driven Design. I also had some great conversations in the hotel between sessions and in the evenings during dinner and drinks. Look below for a couple clips from one chat with Mario Cardinal, Donald Belcham, Dave Woods and John Bristowe.

Video: DevTeach Vancouver 2007 - Visual Studio 2008 Features
Video: DevTeach Vancouver 2007 - XNA

Finally, DevTeach would not be DevTeach without some kind of hijinx. Late on Thursday our old friend The Mad Mexican returned to pay a visit to Beth Massi during her Conquering XML with LINQ talk. Evidence of the strangeness that ensued has been documented elsewhere:

http://geekswithblogs.net/dlussier/archive/2007/11/29/117242.aspx
http://weblogs.asp.net/bsimser/archive/2007/11/29/devteach-day-3-the-mad-mexican-strikes-again.aspx

Oh, and even more finally, here are some quotes overheard at the conference:

Data is just a happy side effect. -Dave Laribee
IT Pros are pissed because the best they get is a C for keeping the infrastructure running where Devs get A's for shipping. -Richard Campbell
Strippers are not scalable. -Name withheld to protect the not so innocent
No, I would not like a refill of my coffee. -Donald Belcham at Earl's after the Party with Palermo
Dude, put on a shirt. -Pretty much everyone who witnessed the Mad Mexican incident
Pass the buns. -Jeffrey Palermo

DevTeach Vancouver Sessions

windsor — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 05:19:53 GMT

I just submitted my final set of abstracts for DevTeach Vancouver. Thirteen in all, with a mix of topics including Discoverability, ClickOnce, Acropolis, Design Patterns, VB Fusion, Windows Communication Foundation, and SharePoint 2007 development. I felt really good about my chances - at least I did for the two minutes between sending the email and reading this. Hold on, there are four or five tracks going on simultaneously, so unless Justice can figure out how to clone himself the rest of us still have a chance. I just hope I don't get booked in the same slot as Drunken Design Patterns - that's a session not to be missed!

Tags: [DevTeach]

Google Code Search

windsor — Sat, 19 May 2007 17:46:00 GMT

I don't how how I missed Google Code Search in the past. One of the attendees at my DevTeach talk on discoverability recommended it.

It's a search engine that allows you to find code posted on the Internet. Google Code Search helps you find function definitions and sample code by giving you one place to search publicly accessible source code hosted on the Internet. With Google Code Search, you can:

Use regular expressions to search more precisely
Restrict your search by language, license or filename
View the source file with links back to the entire package and the web page where it came from

In my brief tests, it appears that it only crawls code in source code files, not snippets in blog posts or web pages. I'll be looking into this tool more to determine if it's worth adding to my favorites.

DevTeach 2007 Recap

windsor — Sat, 19 May 2007 17:01:02 GMT

Another year, another DevTeach. Once again, a great week at a community oriented event. The big announcement this year is that upcoming events will be just six months apart and will be held in Vancouver and Toronto as well as Montreal.

As they have done in previous years, MSDN Canada and DevTeach organizer Jean-Rene Roy hosted the annual get together for the Canadian user group leaders. This is an invaluable event where the group leaders have a chance to share techniques they use to effectively run their groups and help their community. It's also a chance for the group leaders, as representatives of the developer community, to help MSDN determine how to best allocate the their budget for the upcoming year. This close communication is what makes the Canadian developer community one of the strongest in the world.

Doing three sessions on the first day and helping man the ObjectSharp booth the other two limited the time I had to attend sessions. I did have a chance to see a few that I found interesting, including Kate Gregory's talk on building Vista ready applications and Berry Gervin's on running Windows on a Mac. Both of these sessions took place in the most unusual conference room called Le Caf Conc, it is actually a theatre with two balconies and pictures of Can Can dancers on the wall.

The other notable events took place at the end of talks. At Beth Massi's on the future of VB, EDMUG member Dave Woods decided to forgo the normal technology questions and instead ask Beth how she stole his heart while presenting her with a bouquet of flowers (this was prompted by Donald Belcham telling Beth that Woodsy had a crush on her the previous evening). The other took place at one of the agile sessions (which I missed), Roy Osherove ended the talk with a song (fortunately this was captured on video and uploaded to YouTube).

For more on the conference, check out the coverage by Universal Thread. I hope to make it to the Vancouver event and I hope to see you there.

Tags: [DevTeach]

Guest Blog Post on the Canadian Developers Site: Discoverability

windsor — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 20:54:00 GMT

I've got a post up on the Canadian Developer's blog talking about Discoverability and the .NET Framework.

Hmm... since this material comes from the talk I'll be doing, I guess this is a good time to plug DevTeach. You still have time to register so you can check out a ton of great sessions given by some of the top speakers in the industry (you can check out my session too if you want).

If this hasn't enticed you enough, I hear there may be a reunion of the Mad Mexican and Johnny "the Pimp" Bristowe. If this happens you know the smack will be laid down - it's something you won't want to miss.

Update: According to the comment from Donald Belcham (Robin the Boy Wonder to the Mad Mexican's Batman), the Mad Mexican will not be able to make it to the conference. He's either involved in some Central American revolution or somewhere wrestling for the Intercontinental Belt.

DevTeach 2007

windsor — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 09:55:00 GMT

Ahhh, May in Montreal - what could be better? Well, geek talk in May in Montreal - that's what.

Yes my friends it's time again for my favorite conference of the year, DevTeach. It is a community oriented conference with a very friendly atmosphere and it features top quality speakers from Canada and across the globe. It's also very affordable, if you register before the end of January it will cost you $899. If you miss that deadline it's still less than $1,000 as long as you register before the end of February. User group members can get an additional $50 off with a discount code available through their group.

I'll be doing three talks this year:

Discoverability and the .NET Framework
Some Specifics on Generics
Multi-Threading in Windows Forms Applications

For full details and to register, check out the conference web site at http://www.devteach.com.

See you there.

DevTeach Speaker Interviews

windsor — Fri, 19 May 2006 02:06:00 GMT

Mario Cardinal, who is one of the hosts of the Visual Studio Talk Show (which is recorded in French), spent a day at DevTeach walking around the Ballroom asking speakers and other luminaries (including myself) about their most favorite and least favorite feature of .NET. Mario posts the English answers on his blog.

http://www.mariocardinal.com/blog/Posts/20060516.html

DevTeach Day 2

windsor — Sun, 14 May 2006 15:17:00 GMT

The day started late (again). I missed the first couple sessions but made it to the Marriot in time to catch Mario Cardinal’s excellent talk on Sustainability and Inversion of Control. Mario discussed how to reduce dependencies between layers of your application with Dependency Injection.

I spent most of the time after lunch in the mini-lounge that had evolved in the ballroom talking with speakers (and whoever else would listen) about VB, Generics, Code Generation and a variety of other topics. I finished the conference day sitting in on Barry Gervin’s session on Building Location Aware Applications. It was a good introduction to a topic that’s important in the growing mobile application space.

The evening was spent watching parts of the Ottawa and Edmonton hockey games with the Mad Mexican’s posse (and Wings and Beer of course).

DevTeach - Special Report - The Mad Mexican

windsor — Thu, 11 May 2006 17:42:00 GMT

So the mystery of the Mad Mexican was revealed earlier today. He showed up at the conference to find his old wrestling partner, Johnny "the Pimp" Bristowe. The only problem was that the reunion ended up taking place at the end of a presentation that John was giving on WPF. Here's a photo story of the hilarity that ensued.

John has no idea what's about to happen:

The "Mad Mexican" appears:

John transforms into his alter ego:

The team is reunited:

DevTeach Day 1

windsor — Thu, 11 May 2006 01:27:00 GMT

The first day of seesions started a little late for me as I spent most of the night working. I missed the keynote but made it in time for the first of the breakout sessions. I decided to check out John Bristowe's session on VB 2005 and just before he started he asked if I wanted to come up and co-present. I took him up on his offer and it turned out to be a great talk (if I do say so myself), John covered each major section in his slides and then bounced it to me for some colour commentary. Thanks for the opportunity John. The rest of the day consisted of dropping by parts of sessions and hanging out in the ballroom with the speakers. There was more talk about this "Mad Mexican" but I saw no evidence of him.

The evening consisted of Smoked Meat for dinner (of course) and the a trip down to Old Montreal for with a bunch of user group leaders (D'Arcy, Nolan, Jason, Jen, Chris, and Donald) for some sightseeing and some beer.

DevTeach Day 0

windsor — Wed, 10 May 2006 21:11:00 GMT

The first day of DevTeach (for me) was consumed by the Canadian User Group Leader Summit. The summit is hosted each year by DevTeach and held before the first day of sessions.

This year we had an amazing turnout with almost the entire country represented. There were leaders from Fredericton, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Calgary, Edmonton, Victoria and Vancouver as well as four representatives from MSDN Canada. The discussion was very productive and it looks like there are going to be some changes that will extend Microsoft’s ability to help each group. There was also a very valuable discussion about techniques groups can use to raise money through sponsorship and donations.

Once again this year we went to Baton Rouge for lunch to continue discussions and to allow leaders separated geographically to get a chance to know each other. Other than the fact that I forgot a hat and burned the top of me head and that Chris Dufour (from the East of ~~Vancouver~~ Toronto .NET User Group) kept mumbling something about a "Mad Mexican", it was fun and interesting.