Rob Windsor's Weblog : User Group

ASP.NET AJAX Tips and Tricks Session Materials

windsor — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 12:21:00 GMT

Thanks to all of you who came out last night for the August meeting of the Canada's Technology Triangle .NET User Group. It was nice to see such a large turnout, particularly considering it was a beautiful summer night.

You can download the slides and demos I used in my session by clicking the link below.

ASP.NET AJAX Tips and Tricks

Using Visual Studio 2008 with SharePoint 2007 at Toronto SharePoint UG on December 19

windsor — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 16:06:00 GMT

Fellow ObjectSharpee and all around good guy, Barry Gervin, will be presenting at the next meeting of the Toronto SharePoint User Group. Here's the announcement:

Please join your peers on Wednesday, December 19 at 6:00pm for a presentation on “Using Visual Studio 2008 and .NET 3.5 with SharePoint 2007.” Visual Studio 2008 introduced new templates for dealing with SharePoint. Based on Windows Workflow Foundation, the new workflow template eases the process of incorporating custom workflows into SharePoint including design time support, automatic deployment and integrated debugging without resorting to heroic efforts. We’ll look at creating workflows, attaching them to document libraries or lists, and walking through the developer experience with Visual Studio 2008. Time permitting, we’ll also show how the new Language Integrated Query functionality of .NET 3.5 can be used with SharePoint to avoid using CAML directly to query your SharePoint data.

For more details and to register, please visit:

http://www.tspug.com

What is ALT.NET?

windsor — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 18:31:00 GMT

ALT.NET has been getting a lot of play on blogosphere these days but a lot of people are still unclear on what it really is. In an interview by Wally McClure on the ASP.NET Podcast, David Laribee gives a great explanation of the origins of the movement and the direction it's taking for the future.

http://weblogs.asp.net/wallym/archive/2007/11/01/asp-net-podcast-show-103-alt-net-with-david-laribee.aspx

For those of you in the Toronto area who are interested in exporing the topic further I suggest you come on out the Metro Toronto .NET User Group on November 20 to hear Donald Belcham discuss "Developing with the Alt.NET Mentality".

Toronto VB User Group Announces VB FUN-damentals Sessions

windsor — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 16:50:00 GMT

I'm pleased to announce that, beginning in November, the Toronto Visual Basic User Group (TVBUG) will be adding a new feature to it's meetings called VB FUN-damentals.

Update (Nov 2): Due to a scheduling mix-up, the VB FUN-damentals sessions will not begin until our December meeting.

VB FUN-damentals will be a thirty minute informal presentation or discussion that will take place prior to the main meeting. The topics covered will focus on fundamental concepts and will be targeted to those who are fairly new to .NET development. The goal is to widen the user group audience and to provide a comfortable forum for members who wish to try their hand at presenting.

The idea for VB FUN-damentals comes from Beth Massi and the East Bay .NET User Group who have been doing something similar for more that two years.

The new timeline for TVBUG meetings will look like this:

6:10 to 6:40 (VB Fundamentals)
6:40 to 7:00 (Pizza - Meet and Greet)
7:00 to 7:10 (Group Business)
7:10 to 9:00 (Main Presentation)

TVBUG meets monthly between September and June and all meetings are free for anyone to attend. To find out more about the meetings and the upcoming topics, please visit: http://www.tvbug.com/

Toronto SharePoint Camp Session Materials

windsor — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 13:04:00 GMT

Thanks to all of you who came out this weekend for the Toronto SharePoint Camp. It was a fun and informative day and I know plans are already underway to make next year's event bigger and better.

You can download the slides and demos I used in my session by clicking the link below.

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0: A Developer's Primer

SharePoint, SharePoint, SharePoint

windsor — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 03:32:00 GMT

SharePoint is a hot topic right now and there's a lot going on in and around Toronto on the subject. I thought I'd take a moment to highlight a few.

Toronto SharePoint Camp - October 20

The good folks over at the Toronto SharePoint User Group are organizing the first Toronto SharePoint Camp. They're looking for speakers, sponsors and volunteers. For more information, to register, or to submit an abstract for a talk, visit:

http://www.torontosharepointcamp.com

ObjectSharp SMART Breakfast: Achieving Agility with SharePoint 2007 Technologies

Grab a hot breakfast and join your peers in a round table discussion about Microsoft’s widely distributed SharePoint 2007 Technologies. Microsoft Regional Director Barry Gervin will lead the round table in exploring how SharePoint can be used to achieve greater business agility, even in the face of disruptive change in your organization. Events will be held in Toronto, North York, Mississauga, Etobicoke, and Kitchener-Waterloo starting October 16. For more information, and to register visit:

http://www.objectsharp.com/smart/default.aspx

ObjectSharp Announces their New Course: Inside Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 for Developers

This intensive 4-day course explores design and development techniques used when building business solutions with Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. The lectures and lab exercises dive into the WSS object model, developing WSS features and creating solution packages to deploy your development efforts in a staging or production environment. The first public course is running November 19-23. For more information on the course visit:

http://www.objectsharp.com/training/coursedetail.aspx?id=6010

Okdevberfest

windsor — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 06:35:16 GMT

Break out the stein, dust off the lederhosen, and get ready to geek out German style at Okdevberfest! The guys and gals from the Canada’s Technology Triangle .NET User Group just announced that this code camp style event will be running in Kitchener/Waterloo on September 29.

For more information, check out their site at:

http://www.okdevberfest.com/

Understanding WCF Contracts and Bindings at East Bay.NET - September 12

windsor — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 03:09:00 GMT

For those of you in the San Francisco area, I'll be doing a talk on WCF at the East Bay.NET User Group on September 12. This will be my first time in the Bay area and I'm looking forward to mixing geeky stuff with touristy stuff.

http://www.baynetug.org/DesktopModules/DetailXEvents.aspx?ItemID=284&mid=143

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]

Rob Windsor's Western User Group Tour 2006

windsor — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 15:17:00 GMT

That's right folks, I'm saddling up the team and hittin' the dusty trail with Cookie and Slim...

As a member of the MSDN Canada Speakers Bureau I'm lucky enough to get to travel across the country doing user group talks. The last two years I've gone east to New Brunswick so this year I decided to see if I could arrange a trip out west. Normally, organizing two or more talks in the same week is tricky but, with the help of the leaders of the groups I'm visiting, the tour plans came together very smoothly. Hopefully, the less than ideal weather the west has been experiencing of late will change so my travel from city to city will be as pleasant.

Here are the details of my trip. If you're in the area drop by and say Hi.

Regina .NET User Group
Monday, December 4 at 6:00pm
Introduction to Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)
http://www.reginadot.net/Home/tabid/36/ctl/Details/mid/384/ItemID/24/selecteddate/12/4/2006/Default.aspx

Victoria .NET Developers Association
Tuesday, December 5 at 6:30pm
Asynchronous Programming with .NET
http://vicdotnet.org/blogs/monthlymeetings/archive/2006/11/21/December-2006-Monthly-Meeting.aspx

The Calgary .NET User Group
Wednesday, December 6 at 5:00pm
A Lap Around the .NET Framework 3.0
http://www.calgaryug.net/

Edmonton .NET User Group
Thursday, December 7 at 5:30pm
Introduction to Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)
http://www.edmug.net/

Jean-Luc David Lays the Smack Down at EDMUG

windsor — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 10:28:00 GMT

Who knew that Jean-Luc had the biggest arms in software development?!?

http://graysmatter.codivation.com/JeanLucDavidAndJamesKovacsTheMEGAPOWERSCOLLIDEEDMUGInJuly.aspx

P.S. I have no comment on the second picture in the post but I can say that it will haunt my dreams for years to come.

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.

VSLive Toronto and DevTeach Montreal

windsor — Tue, 14 Feb 2006 20:43:00 GMT

VSLive returns to Toronto for the third year this spring. The conference will take place at the Toronto Congress Centre from April 24 to 27.

VSLive! Toronto will bring together Microsoft insiders and industry experts for four days of real-world insights and demonstrations on Visual Studio.NET, ASP.NET 2.0, Visual Studio 2005, SQL Server 2005, Windows Communication Foundation (Indigo), VB, C#, and more.

VSLive! Toronto is designed to address the issues developers face on a daily basis, providing practical code and architecture in dynamic sessions, keynotes and full-day workshops. VSLive! will also offer .NET Day, a full slate of sessions from the Microsoft VS development team on what to expect next.

If you’re a member of a local .NET user group, you can purchase a Gold Passport for $1,250 USD which is more than $400 off the standard price. Each user group was given a priority discount code for its members to use when registering. If you don’t have the code you should contact your group leader to get it.

For more information please visit http://www.ftponline.com/conferences/vslive/2006/toronto/

DevTeach International Developer Conference will take place at the Marriot Chateau Champlain in Montreal from May 8 to 12.

DevTeach stands for Developers Teaching. It is a conference done by developers for developers. It offers the elements of an international conference and the elements of a community event. Sessions include both presentation material and, whenever possible, hands-on training. Again, this year, the developer community will meet in Montreal for this international event.

Local .NET user group members can get a $50 discount off the cost of registration. Each user group was given a rebate code for its members to use when registering. If you don’t have the code you should contact your group leader to get it.

For more information please visit http://www.devteach.com/

Toronto Code Camp and First Time Speakers

windsor — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 07:09:00 GMT

First off, the Toronto Code Camp was a big success. Thanks to Jean-Luc, Chris and all of the volunteers for such a well organized event. Your hard work definitely paid off.

One of the great aspects of this event, and of Code Camps in general, is the opportunity for anyone from the community to do a talk. There were several first-time speakers at this event and while most of them were nervous in the speaker’s room before their talks, I'm sure all of them thoroughly enjoyed themselves and would do it again in a heartbeat. Kate Gregory post links to blog entries from two of the first-timers, Paul Scarlett and Shaun Hayward, who describe their experiences.

Paul wrote to Carl and Richard at .NET Rocks! and he talks about his letter being read on the air [1]. Carl and Richard also have a sm=imilar discussion with Don Demsak (a.k.a. DonXML) following a New Jersey Code Camp last October [2].

If you have ever thought about doing a technical presentation you don’t have to wait for the next Code Camp, just find a local user group and let the leader know. It’s a great way to learn (you always learn more when you prepare to teach someone else) and a great way to market yourself.

[1] http://www.dotnetrocks.com/default.aspx?showID=163 (about 5 minutes in)
[2] http://www.dotnetrocks.com/default.aspx?showID=141 (about 40 minutes in)

My Toronto Code Camp Talk: Deploying Smart Client Applications with ClickOnce

windsor — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 03:49:00 GMT

Hey, I now get to do an additional talk at the Toronto Code Camp. I psyched because it's a topic I've very excited about, Click Once deployment of Smart Client applications. It looks like the schedule is still in flux so check out the website to find out the Bat Time and the Bat Channel for this talk (for those of ypu who aren't as old as I am, that's a reference to the campy Batman TV Show).

Abstract:
For several years now, organizations have chosen web applications over windows applications when building their internal systems. This choice has been made for one main reason; web applications are much easier to deploy than their windows counterparts. The disparity is so large that these organizations are willing to sacrifice the rich, interactive, and highly productive user experience that windows applications provide just to avoid the headaches in deploying and updating them.

With this issue in mind, Microsoft has added a new deployment technology to Visual Studio 2005. This technology, called ClickOnce, allows Windows Forms applications to be deployed as easily as web applications. The developer copies the updated application to a folder on a web server and the next time the user runs the application the updates are automatically downloaded and applied.

This session will introduce ClickOnce, discuss the basic architecture, and demonstrate how to deploy rich Windows Forms applications over the intranet or internet.

My Toronto Camp Talk: The Visual Basic Language - Whidbey and Beyond

windsor — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 23:49:00 GMT

I have the cleanup spot, the last talk of the day in the Futures track starting at 4:00pm. My talk isn't really a futures session since it's mostly (80 -90%) about the new language features in Visual Basic 2005. At the very end I cover the VB team's vision for the implementation of LINQ and the proposed addition of XML syntax directly in the language.

Abstract:
In this session we will discuss the additions made to the Visual Basic language in both the upcoming Whidbey version, now called Visual Basic 2005, and the following version which is know as Visual Basic 9.0.

For VB 2005 we will focus on the three most significant additions: Generics, the My namespace, and Code Snippets. Generics allow classes to be parameterized by the types of data they store and manipulate, the most common example being a strongly typed collection. The My namespace gives quick access to the most commonly used functionality from the Framework Class Libraries (FCL). Because this functionality is centralized under the one namespace it is much easier to explore using Intellisense. Finally, Code Snippets allow you to quickly add a commonly used snippet of code (e.g. declaring a property and it's backing field) and then easily edit the parts that are unique for what you're currently coding (e.g. the name and type of the field and the name of the property).

We will also take a brief look at the plans Microsoft recently unveiled for the version of VB that will follow Whidbey. The most significant of the proposed additions being Language Integrated Query (LINQ) which will allow languages to use SQL like syntax to query data from in-memory objects, XML, and traditional relational data.

[Toronto Code Camp]

The Toronto User Group Community Blog

windsor — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 23:31:00 GMT

For some time now I've wanted an easy way for cross promotion of the multitude of Microsoft focused user groups in the city (there are at least nine public groups at the moment), basically one place where a developer or IT Pro could go to see everything that's going on in the Toronto community. This resource would mostly be used for meeting information but would also be useful to spread information about Code Camps, Deep Dives, Webcasts, etc. I know several user groups, TVBUG included, has an "other meetings" page, plus we have the MSDN Canada website and we have the MSDN Flash. All of these are very good but incomplete resources.

During discussions at the user group booth at the Toronto Visual Studio 2005 Launch Event I came up with the idea of having one blog (to rule them all), somewhere where user group leaders could post information related to their groups as well as general information relevant to the developer and IT Pro community. This way interested parties would have one site to visit or perhaps more importantly, one RSS feed to consume, to get all the information they could possibly want about the happenings in and around the city.

With this in mind I created just such a blog at http://www.geekswithblogs.net/torontoug/. So far the response from the local user group leaders has been very positive and several have added content already. It’s my hope that this resource will make it clear what a vibrant developer community we have in Toronto and make it easy for people who want to attend user group meetings, MSDN events, conferences and the like to find out exactly what is available to them.

The Toronto Visual Studio 2005 Launch Rocked!

windsor — Wed, 09 Nov 2005 13:59:00 GMT

Kudos to the people from Microsoft Canada for putting on a great event.

I spent the pre-keynote part of the day talking with people at the user group booth. Myself and other group leaders were representing the 10 groups for developers and IT Pros in and around the city. I had some business cards made up with the group names and URLs on one side and the MSDN and INETA logos on the reverse. These worked really well because they were easy to distribute both at the booth and elsewhere around the event.

After the keynote I headed over to the Ask the Experts Cabana where I spent most of the day. Things were pretty busy during the first lunch session (TechNet) and they got very busy during the second (MSDN) lunch. It was a cool surpise to see that in additon to local experts (MVPs, RDs, and people from MSDN Canada), we had several product team members up from Redmond to help answer questions.

I spent most of my time around the Visual Studio experts but there were lots of SQL Server and BizTalk experts in the other parts of the room. On the Visual Studio side the hot topic was Team System so our VSTS go-to-guy Adam Gallant always had a crowd around him.

As the second lunch period finished the room thinned out but several attendees hung around to continue discussions through the final breakout session. Anthony Vranic had a group of six or seven people huddled around an impromptu mini-session on Windows Communication Foundation (a.k.a. Indigo).

I finished the day on stage with the presenters and several other experts for a panel Q and A session. I was surprised that many of the questions related to SQL Server since there was a TechNet Q and A going on in the other room. This a technology where the developer/IT Pro lines blur.

All-in-all it was a great day. I'm looking forward to seeing the video from the sessions and reading the email and blog posts with other peoples reactions to the event.

Tags: [Launch2005]

The Pre-Show Countdown to Launch

windsor — Tue, 08 Nov 2005 05:28:00 GMT

MSDN Canada held a little soiree (that's probably mispelled French for night party) in preparation for the Toronto Launch event. People from Micorosoft, event speakers, experts manning the Cabana, and several user group leaders and members got together to mingle and talk about tomorrow's event. It was a nice chance for me to talk to some members of my user group in a social setting as well as meet members of the other groups around the city.

Some of the people there had just come from the Congress Center and the word is that this event is going to be something special. If you're there tomorrow drop by the Cabana and say Hi.

Launch2005 Flickr Photos (for some reason I don't see my photos there)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/launch2005/

My Launch2005 Flickr Photos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/15413839@N00/tags/launch2005/

A shot of the TVBUG members in attendance

Tags: [Launch2005]