October 2007 - Posts
The November meeting of the Birmingham .NET User Group will be Tuesday, November 13th. The meeting will begin at 6:30PM at New Horizons.
I will be presenting a WCF presentation entitled "WCF and the Programmable Web". If you were at my code camp presentation, this is some of the same material, but it is more of a deep dive with a focus on the new support for REST services in WCF 3.5. Here is the abstract:
The programmable web is a popular term often used to refer to the web as a platform for building and consuming applications. Web services are one of the core components of the platform that make this possible. In this presentation, we will examine the programmable web from WCF’s perspective by taking a look at new features included in the 3.5 release that easily enable developers to leverage services as part of the web platform. This will cover topics such as RESTful services, syndication feeds, and AJAX.
This will be a good opportunity to get a preview of some of the new WCF 3.5 features if aren't familiar with them. I hope to see you there.
The November meeting for the Internet Professionals Society of Alabama (IPSA) will be on Thursday, November 1st. The meeting will be held from 12PM to 1PM at the St. Vincent's Bruno Conference Center in classrooms two through four. There will be designated networking time from 11:30AM to 12PM prior to the beginning of the presentation.
Dimitri Glazkov will be presenting "How HTML5 and Google Gears Are Changing the Web". Here is the abstract:
Just a year ago, it was unheard of. Now, it's a reality: a SQL server instance, running inside of your browser. Threading and isolation model. Cross-origin XMLHttpRequest. Finally, the browser is becoming the user agent for building first-class applications. Join us in
exploring the new HTML5 specification with some freshly baked code and trying to glean the future of Web.
This should be a great presentation. I've been hearing a lot of cool things about Google Gears, but I haven't had an opportunity to explore it. If this sounds interesting to you, be sure to come by and check it out.
I will hopefully see you there...assuming I can slip away from the office.
In case you haven't heard, Microsoft is trying to get the word out that a problem has been discovered with the Visual Studio Beta 2 VPC images. The images aren't supposed to expire until March 15, 2008. Unfortunately, the images are going to expire on November 1, 2007. When the image expires, you may not be able to access any information in the image. Be sure to back up any projects and data prior to November 1st.
Stay tuned to http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/aa700831.aspx for additional information. If I receive any updates, I will be sure to pass them along.
For those of you in or near the Birmingham area, the next TechMixer event is scheduled for Tuesday, November 6th. It will be held at the Innovation Depot of the McWane Science Center in downtown. The event is scheduled to begin at 5:30PM.
This will be the fourth edition of the event over the last two years. However, the format will be a bit different this time. There will be no booths. It is strictly a casual networking event with free food and a cash bar. This will be an excellent opportunity to relax and talk with a wide range of professionals in the area.
If you are interested, visit the TechMixer site for additional information and details about registration. Be sure to look me up at the event.
Well, I think it was another successful Code Camp. Everything seemed to go very smoothly, and I heard several attendees comment on how much they liked the venue. I can't speak for anyone else, but I enjoyed myself. It was great to get together with some of other speakers that I don't see very often, such as Jim Wooley and Keith Elder, and their sessions that I caught weren't too bad either. ;)
At any rate, I appreciate those who attended my "What's New in WCF 3.5" presentation. Overall, it seemed to be well received. Although, I was admittedly a bit scattered since I gave it a try without using any slides to keep my on track. However, everyone seemed to like the aspect of it being very code focused. I will probably try this approach again in the future, but I will have a better organized outline to keep things on track and avoid too many tangents.
If you are interested in the demo, you can download the code here. Keep in mind this is a Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 solution and requires .NET Framework 3.5.
Also, I will be doing an expanded version of this talk at the next Birmingham .NET User Group meeting. It will be more of a deep dive into the support for REST and syndication in WCF 3.5. The title of the talk will be "WCF and the Programmable Web".
Don't forget that Alabama Code Camp will be held on Saturday (Oct 6th) in Birmingham at UAB. This is a premium opportunity to get some free training, network with other developers across the area, and walk away with some free stuff. There is a nice lineup of sessions with something to interest just about everyone. Go to the website for more information and register.
Look me up on Saturday and we will chat about WCF! :)
Yesterday, I was notified that I have been awarded as a Microsoft MVP for 2008! This is a significant privilege and I feel very honored to have even been considered. My MVP award is for the category of Windows Server System - Connected System Developer. If you are wondering why I fell under that category, the answer is WCF, which falls under the realm of Connected Systems. It is certainly my favorite technology and I spend a lot of time trying to convince people that they can't live without it. If you don't believe me, try having a conversation with me and count the number of times that WCF will come up in the first 60 seconds. :)
I would like to express my appreciation to Microsoft for recognizing my efforts in the community over the last year. This has given me even more motivation to work toward promoting continued growth of our developer community across the area. I am looking forward to coordinating some cool stuff with my fellow MVP, Todd Miranda.
For those of you that have no idea what the MVP award is all about, here is a link to the Microsoft MVP FAQs with more detailed information. In short, it is essentially recognition of exceptional contribution to the developer community over the course of the previous year.
Disclaimer:The opinions and views expressed within this blog are solely my own and do not represent those of my employer or anyone else.