Since getting back from TechEd things have been a bit crazy. The rest of the week there was a blast. I got to meet many more community members and catch some really interesting presentations. I am currently fascinated with the SQL Server 2008 Data Mining tools and am in search of a good problem. I'd like to turn this into a presentation for the local User Group.
One of the other highlights was using the Certification Testing at the conference. After sorting out some issues with the name on my certification, I was able to finally get this logo:
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That was not a pleasant test. The tool just has so many facets to it and it's really impossible to have used all of them. But the test prep senter at the conference and some reading got me a pass on the first try.
When: Wednesday June 11, 2008 @ 6:30PM
Where: Space Coast Credit Union Corp Headquarters
Want to know what you need to do to keep your DBA happy and make your application run really fast? Wondering if stored procedures are really faster than dynamic sql? Need some good guidelines for adding indexes? We'll spend an hour talking about performance in this very interactive presentation.
Andy Warren of End to End Training will be speaking.
Register if you plan to attend this event
Then will be pizza and magazines available for those who attend. We will be raffleing off a Technet plus subscription at the end of the meeting.
These are odd months for the User Groups with the kids getting out of school. You're never sure what you'll get. We had a crowd of 15+ attendees. Some regulars and some designers who were new to the group. Jeff's presentation was quite extensive but paced to not bore.
Next month is going tobe SQL Guru Andy Warren - more info to follow.
Microsoft Architecht Evangelist Jeff barnes will be presenting Siverlight 2.0 on Wednesday May 21st for the SCDNUG. We last saw Jeff with Joe Healy on the Tiki Hut Tour. Jeff is a great presenter and I am looking forward to getting up to speed on Silverlight 2! More Info Here.
So Microsoft comes to the Orange County Convention Center for two weeks in June (aka TechEd). They paid for the thing for two whole weeks. The weekend between the IT Pro Week and the Dev Week is part of that two weeks and the aforementioned facility will be sitting idle. What so you do? Let the community have it...
Microsoft Commmunity Summit 2008
Orlando Convention Center, June 7 and 8
So what is it? Basically, the Florida User Group Communities were asked what would they do with the Orlando Convention Center for a weekend? What they came up with was a FREE weekend with loads of great content. Get all the latest information and registration at http://www.floridatweener.com.
I hope to be there. I am attending Tech Ed on the first week. It looks like it is going to be an amazing event. Joe Heally put the call out to the community and this is what happened. Take a look at the agenda and you'll be amazed. Hope to see you there.
I got the word today that my manager would sign off on me attending TechEd this year! Very excited! I've attended VS Live in the past and am anxious to see how Tech Ed compares. Just looking at the conference agenda makes me think I will be burning out by Day 4. If anybody from the Space Coast .Net User Group is going, drop me a line so we can hook up. I am on the Tech Ed community site as well.
I am speaking tonight with a colleague at the Space Coast .Net User Group. The meeting is at 6:30 PM at the Space Coast Credit Union's Headquarters Building. George Tomek will be presenting on WF and I will be doing Practical Adapter Pattern. Hope to see some familiar faces.
When:
2/20/2008
6:30 PM - 8:30 PM
Where:
Space Coast Credit Union Corp Headquaters
8045 N. Wickham Road
Melbourne, FL 32940
What:
The ADO.NET Entity Framework, part of ADO.NET components of the .NET Framework, is an Object-Relational mapping technology from Microsoft. It is geared to solving the mismatch between the formats data is stored in a database and in which it is consumed in an object-oriented programming language or other front ends.
ADO.NET Entity Framework will be released in the first half of 2008, separate from .NET Framework 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008.
John Papa, Senior Consultant for ASPSoft, Inc., a Microsoft MVP [C#], MCSD.NET, and an author of several XML, ADO and SQL books will be speaking. John has over 10 years experience in architecting and developing Microsoft technologies as a consultant and a trainer. He is the author of the Data Points column in MSDN Magazine and can often be found speaking at user groups, MSDN Web Casts, and industry conferences such as VSLive.
When:
2/20/2008
6:30 PM - 8:30 PM
Where:
Space Coast Credit Union Corp Headquaters
8045 N. Wickham Road
Melbourne, FL 32940
What:
The ADO.NET Entity Framework, part of ADO.NET components of the .NET Framework, is an Object-Relational mapping technology from Microsoft. It is geared to solving the mismatch between the formats data is stored in a database and in which it is consumed in an object-oriented programming language or other front ends.
ADO.NET Entity Framework will be released in the first half of 2008, separate from .NET Framework 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008.
John Papa, Senior Consultant for ASPSoft, Inc., a Microsoft MVP [C#], MCSD.NET, and an author of several XML, ADO and SQL books will be speaking. John has over 10 years experience in architecting and developing Microsoft technologies as a consultant and a trainer. He is the author of the Data Points column in MSDN Magazine and can often be found speaking at user groups, MSDN Web Casts, and industry conferences such as VSLive.
If you came to the Visual Studio 2008 Install fest, then come to the Intro class. Joe will be giving the guided tour. If you already know the product, wait until the end of the presentation and hit Joe with the hard questions... he can take it.
Introduction to Visual Studio 2008
Presenter: Joe Healy, Microsoft Developer Evanglist
Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2008 delivers on Microsoft’s vision of smart client applications by enabling developers to rapidly create connected applications that deliver the highest quality, rich user experiences. With Visual Studio 2008, organizations will find it easier than ever before to capture and analyze information to help them make effective business decisions. Visual Studio 2008 enables organizations of every size to rapidly create more secure, manageable, and reliable applications that take advantage of Windows Vista™ and the 2007 Office system.
Where:
Charlie and Jakes Brewery Grill
6300 N Wickham Rd
Melbourne, FL 32940
USA
driving directions
When:
1/22/2008
6:30 PM - 8:30 PM
Welcome Time:
1/22/2008 6:15 PM Eastern Time
I am in the middle of a medium size BI project where we chose Microsoft for ETL with the SSIS component of SQL Server 2005. For various factors, we decided on Cognos 8 for the Cube and Presentation layers. As part of the analysis we took in to account things like cost, Gartner, In-House skill sets and so on. It was a pretty even race for Cognos & MS Performance Point Server (PPS) and we ended up going with Cognos.
Some background information on our Cognos implementation. It came in-house with a product called Agile. So since we were licensed, we went with it for basic reporting needs. Now we're at the point we're we are really looking at BI - time analysis of data, ad hoc analysis, KPIs, and so on. We made an assumption that we could leverage our existing Cognos skill sets into the world of Cognos 8 BI. It wasn't a great bet. We sent some people to training and they took away what most take away from a week long course based on a vendor curriculum (This is not just a Cognos issue, we have a real challenge finding solid training for the Microsoft stuff too).
Now, I was in the same position our Cognos talent was in when I went to work on BizTalk. I had a strong background in the fundamentals of .Net languages and Web development. I went off to take the one week training course (much love to Mark Berry at Dunn Training) and came away with a strong set of basic tools. When I went up against the kind of problems we're hitting in Cognos right now, there was a difference.
Searching for help on Cognos technical issues is really difficult. There is very little out there in the way of web based community. And a lot of what you do find refers to Cognos' KB which is protected by password. I am not sure what the hurdle is to getting the password setup... a call to our account representative and some paperwork. When you're slugging out a technical issue this is not the best customer experience to have.
On the other hand, Microsoft's community is unbelievably rich and returns many hits when searching for answers. BizTalk is a pricy tool and is seldom afforded by those outside of serious enterprise grade businesses – which makes is developer base quite small compared to C#, SQL, ASP.Net, etc. Never the less, there is a rich and vibrant community of users who post and share tremendous amounts of technical insight and know how. I have become truly active in my local developer community in the pas couple of years and I see now why Microsoft pours so much effort into these folks. As a direct result, I typically can solve most of my technical glitches or unknowns with a minimal amount of time on Google or Live Search.
I am not saying Microsoft is perfect. I have my issues when I call in for Technical Support and deal with some of the first line folks. I here the same frustrations form my Cognos counterparts. The nice thing is that there is such a wealth of Microsoft product knowledge living both outside and inside Microsoft, that it’s one of those intangibles that is rarely given due weight in a product study. It certainly keeps the number of calls I’ve made to Microsoft to a minimum. As for which is the best product… another time and another blog post.
Comment: If anyone ever wants to experience the Microsoft community in full force – go to a local Code Camp. I’ve never gotten so many professional contacts in one place. And if there aren’t any near you, call you Microsoft Developer Evangelist and ask nicely for some help. You’d really be amazed.
Wes is putting on a mini-conference that is focusing on SQL Server technologies. $99 and on a Friday - A Training day from work and doesn't cost $1200. Serioously thinking about attending. http://dayofdata.com/default.aspx
I got my Evil Mastermind T-Shirt from SourceGear a few months ago and was looking for just the right occasion to fulfill my obligations to them. So last night at the Space Coast .Net User Group's VS 2008 Install Fest I snapped the picture. Also, chek out Eric Sink's Blog for all things Source Control, Software, and Marketing.
The Space Coast .Net User Group's VS 2008 Install Fest was a huge success. We installed all allocated copies of VS2008 and then some. We had about 40 people in attendance and a good time was had by all. Special thanks to Joe Healy of Microsoft (vitis him at DevFish.net) for playing Geek Santa Clause and delivering the software along with copious amounts of BBQ and apetizers. Also, thank you to the usual folks at Space Coast .Net User Group for the time and effort comitted to the event.
Joe has tentatively promised to come back in January and for the User Group meeting and show everybody even more cool VS 2008 tips, tricks and features.
I have included some photos snapped by attendees below. I'll post a link to Joe Healy's site when he uploads his photos.
Random Install Fun
More Random Install Fun!
Yours Truly.
http://scdnug.org/blogs/events/archive/2007/11/16/Visual-Studio-2008-Install-fest.aspx. Let me reitierate what free means here. First fo all it is free like beer (not free like a puppy). But... there is no glass for the beer. You must drink it right there and then from the tap. That is, you are not given install media or such at this event. You are only temporarily given a CD to install with and that is it. You are licensed for the instance of this installation only. Hope to see everyone there! Even if you don't need VS 2008, come by and have a beer and say Hello to everyone. Microsoft has been known to buy a beer or two... no promises.
The Space Coast .Net User Group is in the early stages of planning a load fest for Visual Studio 2008 with Joe Healy - MS Developer Evangelist. The tentative date is Dec. 18th and the first 20 attenddees can bring their laptops and load the product for free. We're looking for a location right now and since loading software (even free software) is so much fun (sarcasm) - it will hopefully serve alchohol. Stay Tuned here or to the Space Coast .Net User Group web site.
Drove over to Heathrow to the campus of SCC for the 2007 SQL Saturday. It was a great event and got to meet some of the regulars plus a whole new crowd of DBA geeks. I got some good information from the sessions but it was an excellent chance to do some networking. Joe Healy has put up a nice collection of photos from the days events at Live Spaces. Hung with Ken Tucker [MVP] from the Space Coast .Net User Group and got introduced to some other Enterprise Customers who come to community events. There seems to be a perception that Enterprise Customers don't participate in the community - it aint so!
Space Coast .Net User Group
Sorry I missed last night's presentation, I am very curious about the Amazon Web Services.
BizTalk Bug
Still waiting on Microsoft to see if this blocking bug can be fixed with their patch. It's taking longer than they expected for the hot fix.
New Data Warehouse project
Got to give have a technical proposal review with Harris' CIO this morning. Went pretty well. Had some excellent feedback and am looking forward to diving into my new HR Data Warehouse project!
SSIS Training in NY
Going to New York to get SSIS training on ETL for dimensional models. The class is called Data Warehousing with SSIS (SQL Server 2005 Integration Services) and is offered by Symphic. It promises to be a good class and I get to visit my brother in NYC at the same time. I've brought my daughters Pablo stuffed animal with me and he'll be posing for pictures while Daddy's away on his trip. Stay tuned....
I offered to give my VAB presentation to the Harris .Net Focus Group for both the experience and to encourage others to present. It turns out that the engineering manager who sponsors the gorup had some money to get it catered. And oh... they are also going to do it in conjunction with the knowledge transfer group. 40+ people to hear me speak. I must modestly admit that it may have been the free food that brought out the attendees and not just the drawing power of my name alone. It was a great experience and I trimmed the presentation down to 45 minutes which I think was perfect. I had the uncomfortable expereince of fileding questions from a ventriliquist. This guy kept asking questions and I could get not get a beed on his face to make eye contact. It was crazy! Thanks to all of those who attended and those who asked questions. My next goal is to present at the Orlando.Net Code Camp. Maybe a Data Warheousing primer.
The Jeff Barnes & Joe Healy travelling MSDN Quarterly Briefing Redux will be in Melbourne tomorrow at the Space Coat Credit Union Headquarters building. Link. I was hopeful to ba able to attend the full day, but despite the time savings, the meetings keep piling up. I am sure I will be able to stop in for a bit, but not the whole day. Looking forward to seeing everyone there!
The meeting was a success. Before leaving work to go to the meeting I checked the clicktoattend roster. 14 people signed up. I was hoping for a smaller group for my first presentation but was none the less suprised and delighted by the interest. The actual turnout was solid and all went fairly well. Lots of good questions and even got corrected on one or two points. The presentation went for an hour and a half and I only counted a few people dozing off. Here is the slide deck for those who are interested.
The User Group has had strong turn out the last two meetings and I think we will be having a strong next meeting with Cory Foy on Ruby for C# Developers. Used to be a half dozen folks sitting in the room. I am hopeful a combination of good technical content and community are really driving the groups success. I made a strong push to have more members deliver content and try to trim down on the Microsoft bleeding edge speakers. Not that I don't enjoy the Microsoft bleeding edge content, but most people won't get to implement Silverlight or LINQ for a while. The talks on subjects like WCF, Enterprise Library, Ruby, Extensibility Patterns, etc. seem to generate more genuine interest and leave attendees with value.
One more word of thanks for all who attended. If you have any feedback, please feel free to email me!
I will be be giving my first technical presentation at the Space Coast .Net User Group on this Wednesday night. If you are coming, don't forget to clicktoattend. Follow the link for directions too. I hope to see everyone there and you will be frisked for rotten vegetables at the door.
David McNamee will be presenting on Windows Workflow on May 16th @ 6:30 PM. The Sapce Coast Credit Union Building as usual. See http://www.scdnug.org for details. Hope to see everyone there.
Wow. The General Manager of the Microsoft Developer Division in Melbourne, FL. It was quite an enjoyable presentation. Scott typed away at the demo like he still was slugging code with the rest of us in the trenches. Everybody really appreciated Scott taking the time out of his schedule to come over from DevConnections in Orlando. Scott arrived just in time because somebody told him would only take 45 minuets to drive the Melbourne-Orlando gauntlet in rush hour. I wasn't paying attention, but I think he implicated one of the local evangelists.
The presentation covered all things Orcas. Scott covered lots of topics in a marathon 2 hour presentation. He enthusiastically made LINQ dance to the oohs and ahhs of the assembled crowd. Another big pleaser was a simple demo of the IIS configuration items that moved into the web.config file. The presentation had a couple of the prerequisite CTP crashes for which Scott took a little good natured ribbing. When an ASP.Net error page popped up in his browser mid demo, he was jeered - "Hey, I have that page in my program too!" When demonstrating the ability of IIS7 to track long running/hanging pages, Scott said this might be useful if we knew anybody who wrote software with bugs in it (wink wink).
It was a record crowd for the user group with strong attendance from ONetUG members. Looking forward to a good year of speakers.
It was wort the early morning drive to Seminole Community College from Melbourne. The directions provided on the flyer made it slightly challenging to find but all went well. The key note from Carl Franklin was a humorous retrospective on his career and the progression of Microsoft Technologies from earlier days. However due to technical difficulties with his guitar, we were not treated to a live performance (nor was there a live performance from old man Paul later that evening either).
I attended several good talks. My favorites:
- Wes Dumey - Great primer on EDW and SSIS. Looking forward to spending some time with SSIS, this was a good start.
- Richard Campbell - SQL Tips presentation. I understand this is one of his regular presentations and I understand why. Lot's of practical advice and an intro to some of SQL 2005's new features. Very Technical and very humorous... this is one session that went by in a flash and left me wanting another hour.
- Miguel Castro - Great Great presentation on extensibility patterns. Lots of practical information with backing code samples. I have never seen Miguel in person and was not disappointed. Top notch speaker.
Overall, it was a great way to spend a Saturday. Got to catchup with some developer friends I have not seen in a while. I also got to make some new friends in the 'There's no more pizza, just wait for the next delivery' forced networking session with my starving co-attendees. Lot's of thanks to ONetUg for a job well done!
The Space Coast Dot net User's Group has gotten Scott Guthrie to come talk at the March Meeting. This is amazing as the group has been in existance for only a short time but is growing. How did this happen? Well from what I can tell, Ken Tucker (group leader and MVP) just asked. And, Scott is in town for Connections. So rather than have Scott do some of the canned Microsoft .Net 3.0 PowerPoint decks, we have been tossing around the idea of doing an open Q&A. So, if you were at the meeting... What would you ask Scott? Comment or email me!
Come join the Space Coast .Net User Group to hear Russ Nemhauser speak about ASP.Net 2.0 Web Parts. Web Parts offer ASP.NET 2.0 applications the ability to provide powerful personalization functionality. In this session, you'll learn how Web Parts are implemented in ASP.NET 2.0, how to get up and running with Web Parts quickly, and how to extend the Web Parts framework. You will also learn how Web Parts functionality ties into the built-in membership features.
Johnathan Goodyear of ASPSoft will be speaking. MasterPages are one of the most useful features of ASP.NET v2.0. They are also pretty easy to learn. However, there are a number of things that you can do with MasterPages that you may not be aware of. This session will explore some of these advanced techniques, tips and tricks to help you get the most out of your MasterPages experience. Ineta is sponsoring this meeting.
More Info: http://www.scdnug.org/events_view.aspx?eventid=14
Joe Healy presented a great overview on Microsoft's Atlas framework. The turn out was excellent with atleast a dozen in attendance. Afterwards we adjourned back to the the lounge bar at the Imperial Inn for an improptu Pub Club. Looking forward to jonathan Goodyear at the next meeting!
When: Wednesday, August 16, 2006 at 6:00 PM
Who: Joe Healy, our local Microsoft evangelist (http://www.devfish.net/), will be giving a demo on Atlas (http://atlas.asp.net/). "Atlas" is a free framework for building a new generation of richer, more interactive, highly personalized cross-browser web applications.
What: Microsoft Atlas Framework
Where: Space Coast Credit Union Headquarters
8045 N. Wickham Road Melbourne, Florida 32940
Map
Unlike MSDN events and big conferences this will be a local event with lots of opportunities to ask questions and get down to business. Additionally, many of the attendees are employed by companies in the area and provide a great opportunity for professional networking.
See the Space Coast .Net User Group website for more information.
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