Jason Townsend

Ok I had to do it.  This is a lot of fun and can be used to pass some time.  Check out ElfYourself.com, and Elf Yourself :)

We had out November Bartlesville .NET User Group Meeting on 11/14/2008.  It was an amazing meeting!  We had 55 people in attendance.  There were 48 developers and 7 recruiters.  This was an amazing turnout.  I was actually a bit nervous going into the meeting as only 25 people had RSVP'd.  However, I knew with the reminders and the marketing I put out the weeks before the meeting that we would have a great turnout.  And we did!!  It was an amazing presentation by Raymond Lewallen on Behavior Driven Development.  Raymond does a great job in presenting Behavior Driven Development and I have had a lot of feedback telling me that everyone loved Raymond's presentation.  I really appreciated Raymond taking his day off and driving from Oklahoma City to Bartlesville, roughly a 2.5 - 3 hour drive one way.  My desire to have Raymond was two-fold.  I had the pleasure of seeing Raymond present at School of Dev in May in Tulsa.  I knew at that point that I needed to get Raymond to Bartlesville for the user group.  Why?

1) I needed others to hear the benefits of BDD from someone besides myself.

2) I wanted the Supervisors in our group to hear about BDD from someone besides myself.

The presentation worked.  I have had some great discussions with my supervisor about BDD and may even be able to pilot BDD in the near future on a project.  Hopefully this is a sign of change as one of the biggest problems I see in our group is the inefficiencies of rework.  Thanks Raymond!  If you guys get a chance check out Raymond's blog and see if you can get him to present at your group.  You won't be sorry!

Being a user group leader (Bartlesville .NET User Group) I get a lot of messages for recruiters looking for jobs.  Given the current market situation I like to pass these on.  This one looks pretty interesting.  If you are interested give Darbi a call and let him know I sent you:

Know anyone (maybe you) who might be interested in the following position?  It is located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.  It is a direct hire position with a great company.  If you are interested or know someone who is, send me a current resume in word format.  THANKS!!

Senior Developer in OKC

• .NET 2.0 Framework (ADO, ASP)
  • Heavy experience with Web Services and SOA
  • Web User Controls
  • MS Security Provider
• MS Enterprise Libraries 2.0
• SQL Server 2005
  • Reporting Services
  • Writing Stored Procedures
• MS Team System (would be a plus)
  • Load Testing
  • Unit Testing
  • Team Builds
• Experience with Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM), (would be a plus)
  • Custom Performance Counters and Agents
• DHTML
• XML
• AJAX
• CSS
• JavaScript
• Telerik Web Controls

Darbi Newman

Professional Recruiter

JOCO

Philtower Building

427 S. Boston, #12C

Tulsa, OK 74103

918-398-7593 x102

918-637-7070 (cell)

dnewman@jocotulsa.com

www.jocotulsa.com

http://www.linkedin.com/in/darbinewman

Manning Publications Co. has some great books.  Ever since I first heard that MVC was coming to ASP.NET I was extremely excited.  I have always preferred the MVC pattern over the MVP pattern that ASP.NET used.  Most of the information on MVC for ASP.NET is limited or not as in depth as I would like.  I have created multiple MVC applications just by using Reflector to learn more about the runtimes.  However, being a book junky, and one that really enjoys the early access program at Manning Publications Co.  I recently purchased the early access to this book, ASP.NET MVC in Action.  I am very excited about this book.  From looking through the early access chapters I can tell it will be a great book and will reserve a space on my desk for my copy when it gets published sometime around April 2009.  This definitely appears to be a resource that those interested in MVC should take a look at.  Now if I could just figure out how to get Jeffrey Palermo to do a presentation at a Bartlesville .NET User Group meeting.  I guess I will  put down the book and start creating an action plan for that. :)

I received the following email the other day:

Jason,

We would like to extend our thanks for your participation in the INETA Community Champion program and your commitment to the developer community.  You faced some challenging competition yet your accomplishments speak for themselves.  The Community Champion team is thrilled to inform you that you are one of our top ten winners for Q3 2008.  Congratulations Jason!   

INETA will be announcing the winners this week in our November INETA Newsletter as well as posting announcements on our web site.  At your earliest convenience, please send us a photo and bio for permanent placement on the INETA Community Champion honors list.  The list will be formatted similar to the Speakers list (see http://www.ineta.org/Speakers/Speakers.aspx for an example). 

Besides the photo and bio, we need your shipping address, the full name you would like us to use on the award certificate and which one of the following prizes you would like to receive:

· MSDN Professional Subscription (download)

· Xbox 360

· $300 Gift Check

As a winner of this annual award, you will not be eligible to win again until Q3 2009, however we encourage you to continue entering your community related activities.  These entries can be used as an effective tool to show what you have accomplished.  This in itself could be highly beneficial.

The Community Champion team is continuously enhancing the system.  One of the first changes we implemented was the ability to allow you to enter an activity and apply it to multiple dates.  And just recently we added a new Silverlight tool to make the process of entering submissions even easier.  We’re sure that you can think of a few other enhancements you would like to see.  Jason, we value your feedback in helping to create a better online experience so please contact us any time with your comments/critiques.

Best Regards,

INETA Community Champion Team

noram.champs@ineta.org

Morgan Baker | morgan.baker@ineta.org

INETA North America, Vice President | www.ineta.org

INETA – “The Face of .NET”

This was extremely exciting for me as I have been working very had with the Bartlesville .NET User Group, speaking engagements for TulsaTechFest and the Tulsa .NET User Group, planning a GiveCamp for Oklahoma, volunteering for the upcoming WeAreMicrosoft event, mentoring speakers and developers, as well as being a husband and parent to 4 kids.  It was rewarding to see that my labors were appreciated!  All you Dot Netters out there sign up at INETA and get involved in your local communities, you really can make an impact and make the .NET world better.

I recently updated my web hosting from MaximumASP to Mosso.  This was primarily because MaximumASP does not allow MySQL on their virtual dedicated servers, and I cannot afford a full dedicated server.  MaximumASP always provided great service, and I still use them for my websites that requires solutions such as Windows Sharepoint Services, or other packages that must be installed via Remote Desktop.  However, for the majority of my sites I have moved them on to Mosso and I will not look back.  Mosso has a really easy interface that allows me to run all sorts of applications.  I can now create applications using Ruby on Rails, PHP, and ASP.NET.  I can also run all of these technologies under the same domain name!  I found this to be a really cool feature.  The only catch I have found with Mosso so far, and from reading their releases it may soon be fixed, is that for applications that require special rights on the file system, I have to have my ASP.NET application impersonate my FTP user account.  I can then set the rights on the folder using my FTP client (Filezilla).  This isn't too big of an issue as I can have unlimited FTP users and can give them access to only specific folders.  The biggest benefit I have found is that with Mosso also has media accelerators, so now I can host my own media instead of putting it on YouTube or other sites.  On the downside, I did find their information misleading on the inclusion of MSSQL.  I found out once I got signed up that MSSQL was an additional monthly fee of $5 per database.  This wasn't too big of a deal as I like MySQL and am fluent in it.  If you have been looking for a great hosting site (especially for developers) check out Mosso.  It really is worry free.  In fact here is the review that sold me: http://matthewsacks.com/techblog/2008/09/23/rackspaces-mosso-hosting-cloud-review/  For once I don't have to setup everything by hand and I finally get to work with multiple development platforms without multiple hosting accounts.  It really is nice.  For developers it is close, and getting closer, to the Holy Grail of hosting.  You can use this code to get a $100 credit on your second month.  Just put it in the referral box when you sign up REF-CODEMONKEY.  Also, if you have to have remote desktop access checkout MaximumASP (use referral id: CRAB-6573), they have a great platform and great support!