User Group

Augusta Code Camp Nov. 7th

Bill Jones Jr. — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:15:45 GMT

Augusta Code Camp Nov. 7^th

Augusta has been kind enough to schedule me to speak at their code camp. I’ll be sharing what every C# developer needs to know about VB XML data types and in a separate session, discussing Windows Mobile development. The list of speakers includes many of “the usual suspects”, so if you can find a way to join us, you are bound to have a good time while learning lots of new things and how to do some old things better.

Bill J

Carolina Code Camp Fall 2009

Bill Jones Jr. — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:13:29 GMT

Carolina Code Camp Fall 2009

We had an outstanding code camp earlier this month. Greensboro NC, Greenville SC, Columbia SC and Charleston SC all joined with Charlotte to produce a regional event. We had over 230 in attendance, a new record. As always, CPCC afforded us an incredible venue. We had a nice assortment of Hands on Labs and an incredible array of presentations. Thanks again to all the user group leaders, MVP and local experts that shared their talent and passion with .NET geeks from across the southeast.

Bill J

How time flies!

Bill Jones Jr. — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:04:27 GMT

How time flies!

Monthly Guild meetings, several code camps, an MVP Summit and oh yeah, that mobility app we did at work. We consumed 2008 and much of 2009 working with Microsoft on a serious development effort using Visual Studio 2008, SQL Server 2008, Sync Framework, SQL Server CE, Windows Mobile 6, Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows Communication Framework, Windows Workflow, LINQ – have I left anything out? Learning our application requirements put Microsoft and the end of the fire hose for a change. Deploying the mobility app put the fire hose back in the usual position. To get all that done meant “something had to give”. Guess it was this blog.

Now if I can just get back in the habit of bloggin’ ….

Bill J

Code Camp was GREAT

Bill Jones Jr. — Sun, 20 May 2007 02:06:09 GMT

Charlotte .NET University Code Camp was a great success

Have you heard about .NET University (www.dotnet-u.com)? It provides presentations and hands on labs for WPF, WCF, WF and Cardspace. We built our spring 2007 Code Camp on that content. We started by offering two .NET U tracks but had to expand to three. We also offered a presentation track and an XNA hands on lab track. Our presentations included Orcas and LINQ, SharePoint and ASP.NET sessions. All sessions were very well received.

Our facility was awesome as usual. Central Piedmont Community College and the campus chapter of the Association of Computing Machinery work with the Charlotte Chapter of the Enterprise Developers Guild to create a world class event. CPCC has an excellent licensing arrangement with Microsoft and computer labs than must be used to be believed. All the hardware and software we could possibly need. Who could ask for anything more?

Our total registration was 145. Based on head counts at the key note we estimated about 119 in attendance. Using evaluation form counts and staffing levels, end of day attendance was 110. Either number is very satisfactory. Our “no show” rate was under 20%, again a very satisfactory number compared to our other Code Camps.

Over 65 focused .NET University sessions while 18 people crossed tracks. Presentation attendance held fairly steady at about 20 per session. Most of the eight to ten XNA attendees spent the entire day in that track. Several .NET U attendees expressed future interest in XNA.

All evaluations indicated the participant would definitely or most likely attend the next Code Camp. Two participants did not answer that question. Even those who made suggestions for improvements are most likely to attend our next event. We interpret that as success and that conclusion is verified by the quality ratings.

Instructors received overall high marks but Brian Hitney of Microsoft was the only instructor singled out for praise by name. Guild member Karl Shifflett was very pleased with Brian’s Cardspace presentation and lab.

A consistent request for future topics includes WPF, WF, WCF and Cardspace. Thanks to Todd Fine and Steve Porter, a lot of interest was generated in Silverlight. SharePoint 2007 was specifically called for in the requests for future topics for both meetings and events. Orcas and LINQ were commonly linked together and often requested as future topics.

Our Spring Code Camp was a complete success. The Charlotte Enterprise Developers Guild wishes to thank all the staff, CPCC, Microsoft and the attendees for another outstanding event. Here’s a list of our presenters and event staff:

Code Camp Staff and Charlotte Presenters

Bill Jones, Jr., MCP, MVP, President, Enterprise Developers Guild, Code Camp Committee, Presenter

Bill assisted Eric by coordinating scheduling, presenters and volunteers. In the run up to Code Camp, Bill performed the email blasts to event staff, the membership and the final reminder to registered attendees. He also presented “Orcas and LINQ” introducing the upcoming features in the next release of Visual Studio and taking a shallow dive into the power of LINQ. The LINQ portion of the presentation was taken from the excellent slide deck presented by Scott Guthrie at Tech Ed 2006.

Eric Notheisen, MCP, Vice President Enterprise Developers Guild, Code Camp Chair, Presenter

Eric chaired the Code Camp Committee and provided the primary liaison between the Guild and CPCC. In addition to coordinating committee activities, Eric specified and then tested the image requirements on the .NET U lab computers. He arranged a guest wireless connection for Code Camp presenters. He also created the Code Camp CD and arranged to produce the copies handed out to all participants. And finally, after printing the staff name badges, Eric presented two Card Space sessions on one of three .NET U tracks.

Mark Wilson, Vice President for Facilities Management and webmaster Enterprise Developers Guild, Code Camp Committee

Mark carried the heavy load behind the scenes of making this event happen. His focus was to get attendees registered, get them oriented to the facility, get them to the morning coffee setup, get them into their registered sessions, and then get them feed at lunch time. He created signage and got the contributor banners hung. He even arranged to get the lunch paid for by a contributor. He also put up the Code Camp website, getting address lists published to Bill and keeping up with the registration counts. The counts were a critical element in scheduling the third track of .NET University. On “the day”, Mark arrived with name tags printed for everyone who registered. Then he and Brian Gough swung into action and “made it happen”. To put it mildly, Mark’s efforts on Code Camp day are critical to creating a successful event.

Brian Gough, Vice President Enterprise Developers Guild, Code Camp Committee, Presenter

Brian headed up an outstanding contributors effort. Our local support was outstanding. Thanks to Microsoft, O’Reilly and APress, every attendee was able to choose a book. Morning coffee setup, pizza for lunch and afternoon snacks and drinks were provided by local contributors. On the day of the event, Brian worked closely with Mark to “make it happen”. On top of all that, Brian made an excellent presentation on the new features available in Windows SharePoint Server 2007.

Sylvia Walker, Vice President Enterprise Developers Guild, Code Camp Committee, Presenter

Sylvia performed the critical function as a member of the Code Camp Committee of assembling and getting the lab manual’s printed. Our lab manuals include an opening statement by the Guild President as well as a list of contributors and their logos. For this Code Camp, Sylvia made her maiden voyage as a presenter, leading two Work Flow Sessions. Her efforts were very well received and we now have another Guild resource for our monthly meetings. Sylvia also presented two sessions on Workflow Foundation.

Dan Thyer, Board Member Enterprise Developers Guild, Code Camp Committee, Presenter and Contributor

Dan is a principal in Logical Advantage and draws most of his technical staff from the ranks of Guild members. He was one of our first webmasters and has been instrumental on our board for many years. Dan was an active member of the Code Camp Committee and his company provided the morning coffee setup, snacks and drinks for the event. He and Marty Elvidge also of Logical Advantage, worked together to run two .NET U sessions on WCF.

Brian Hitney, Microsoft DE, Code Camp Committee, Presenter

Brian is our “new” DE in the Carolinas. We put “new” in quotes because he hit the ground running and seems to have been our DE much longer than the calendar indicates. He has given us excellent support in all our user group efforts, but particularly with this Code Camp. In addition to arranging for outstanding “swag”, Brian presented a Card Space Session and arranged for some excellent presenters to join our efforts. Todd, Steve, Chris and Josh all ran excellent sessions and were on the bill thanks to Brian.

Ghayth Hilal, Board Member Enterprise Developers Guild, Code Camp Committee

Whenever the Guild has an event, Ghayth tells us “Whatever you need me to do, just let me know.” And then he does an excellent job no matter what we ask. He is well known at CPCC and very familiar with the facility, so he has become an even more critical resource this year since we moved our regular meetings there. For this Code Camp, he was moving all the time, helping where help was needed. He also acted as lab assistant for a Card Space session.

Bill Plummer, Board Member Enterprise Developers Guild, Code Camp Committee

Bill was at the first Guild meeting back in 1998 and has been a great supporter and board member. For this event, he helped stuff the pick up truck with boxes of books to get them in place for the event. Then he went on to “lab assist” on a WF session and one of the presentations.

Carolyn I Konieczny, Board Member Enterprise Developers Guild, Code Camp Volunteer

Always an active supporter, Carolyn was a big help in the Friday night set up. On the day of the event, she acted as a “utility player”, doing what was needed, whenever it was needed.

Marty Elvidge, Enterprise Developers Guild, Code Camp Presenter

Working with Dan, Marty presented for two session of WCF. These sessions were an excellent fit as Marty is an architect who specializes in SOA and made a presentation on that topic at our January meeting.

Bert Gowens, Enterprise Developers Guild, Code Camp Volunteer

Bert works with Sylvia and assisted her with two well received Work Flow sessions. This is the first time Bert has participated in a Guild event, but we expect to see much more of him.

Pat Jones, Enterprise Developers Guild, Code Camp Volunteer

Pat has worked with SharePoint over the last several years and is involved in the design and management of the new Windows SharePoint Server version 3.0 site being constructed by US Software Developers in Charlotte. Pat helped with dinner reservations, registration and perhaps most importantly took numerous photographs at the event.

CPCC Code Camp Staff and Presenters

Farhad Javidi-Namin, Program Chair for Simulation and Gaming at CPCC, Code Camp Committee, Presenter

Farhard suggested an XNA Game Development track as soon as we started working on the Code Camp. His XNA Presentation to the Guild in March was well received, so we were pleased with the opportunity to provide hands on experience for our members.

Alberto Botero, Program Chair for Programming at CPCC, Code Camp Committee, Presenter

Working with Farhard, Alberto prepared the actual labs. As a CPCC professor, Alberto was well qualified to lead the Code Camp XNA Lab sessions. His efforts were well received.

Hal Lohn, Information Technology Project Leader at CPCC, Code Camp Committee, Facilities Liaison

Hal worked closely with Eric to get the facilities and resources needed to support our Code Camp. He even provided his own office as a place for to lock up our “swag”.

Page Kelly, Information Technology Technician at CPCC

Page acted as on-site network and lab PC support for the Code Camp

Scott Lewis, Supervisor, Infrastructure Systems at CPCC

Scott managed the development of the PC image used by the Code camp participants.

Nawal Hopkins, Information System Analyst

Nawal created the image for the PCs and with Page Kelly made sure the image was up and running on all 150 PCs available for the Code Camp.

Frank Granger, Director, Presentation-U

Frank made the copies of the CDs for the participants.

Columbia Enterprise Developers Guild Code Camp Staff

Chris Eargle, President Columbia Enterprise Developers Guild, Code Camp Volunteer

In the midst of launching a new user group in Columbia, Chris has been working with our Code Camp Committee to “see how it’s done”. Along the way he volunteered to help out so we were certainly delighted with his participation. His energy and willingness to do what it takes indicates he will have a successful new user group in Columbia.

Lide Winburn, Officer Columbia Enterprise Developers Guild, Code Camp Volunteer

After driving in from Columbia, Lide was working our registration table before 7:30 AM. Talk about “above and beyond”! Lide was a big help at the event and we were delighted to have his participation. He is an important asset to the new Columbia user group.

Guest Presenters

Todd Fine, MVP and Regional Director, Wintellect Atlanta, Code Camp Presenter

Due to a registration surge the week before Code Camp, we had to add a third .NET U Track. While we had staffed for a possible third track, we came up short on WPF instructors. Todd was kind enough to agree to do a third session. In Charlotte, we refer to him as “Iron Man”. Working with Steve, Todd was able to add a short Silverlight talk at the end of each WPF session that became one of the high points of our Code Camp.

Steve Porter, Wintellect Atlanta, Code Camp Presenter

Steve did an excellent job with a WF session. Being fresh back from the Mix conference, he was able to work with Todd to deliver quick Silverlight demo at the end of the WPF sessions that was extremely well received. We have invited Todd and Steve back to present Silverlight at one of our regular meetings.

Joshua D. Carlisle, Viewfusion Solutions LLC Raleigh, Code Camp Presenter

SharePoint is a hot topic in our market. The new release offers much better performance than previous releases. Josh presented SharePoint development from an ASP.NET point of view to a very interested audience.

Chris Love, Extreme Web Works Raleigh, Code Camp Presenter

While Windows development is becoming more prevalent in our market, ASP.NET is still the most frequently used .NET UI. Chris offered an excellent presentation on techniques, tips and tricks to create more professional ASP.NET websites.

Where has the time gone?

Bill Jones Jr. — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 00:21:00 GMT

April started with a BANG! Doug Tunure, our Microsoft Developer Liaison, recommended me for the MVP – Most Valuable Professional award in Visual Basic and I was accepted!!! Yes, I intended to post that immediately right here, but April was consumed with hardware issues and the Visual Studio 2005 Lab Fest.

Let me thank publicly all my friends and fellow Guild members for their warm congratulations. When folks who really know you concur with an award – well, it meant a lot to me. Thanks guys!

Lab Fest: My user group, the Enterprise Developers Guild, joined forces with Central Piedmont Community College, Microsoft and our Lab Fest sponsors to put on a “hands on” training event designed to provide a useful developer experience with new products and tools. Thanks to incredible support from CPCC, Microsoft, and our most able volunteer staff, we are able to provide a “priceless” world class training event for Guild members and the students and staff at CPCC. Please check out the Guild Lab Fest page and frequent our local sponsors.

By all measures, the Visual Studio 2005 Lab-Fest was a rousing success. We averaged well over 8 on a “Richter Scale” of 1 to 9 on our participant survey questions. Total attendance was 70 software developers in the following categories:

1 Lab-Fest Project Manager

4 Lab-Fest Instructors

5 volunteers

5 proctors

55 participants

One of our instructors, David Catherman, developed most of the code and training documents. The project manager was Brian Gough. He was also the spark plug that got the whole “hand on” training bit going. Our “closer”, the guy who pushed the event to completion, was Eric Notheisen. Eric took a couple of vacation days to pull all the materials together and work with CPCC to verify the machine images. David, Eric, Marty Elvidge and I performed instructor duties. Proctors included Brian Gough, Jonathan Jackson, Joe Walling (Greenville chapter), Larry Anderson and Ghayth Hilal. Sylvia Walker, Derrick Exum and Condy Giambertone provided the volunteer efforts all the events require to achieve success.

As you can see, the Enterprise Developers Guild is “covered up” with talented people willing to “turn to” to get things done. Initial planning is underway for a SQL 2005 Lab Fest in October or November. Go to the Guild site and register as a member to get on our mailing list so you can keep informed of our plans and progress.

Hardware: May was consumed with a hardware issue. I allowed my vendor to put “el cheapo” memory in my Acer Ferrari 64-bit laptop to take it from the standard two 512 mb chips configuration to the desired two 1 gig chips. Figuring out that is was a memory issue consumed weeks. If you get screen freezes or unexpected black screen crashes on a laptop, look to your memory. Don’t chase the overheating phantom like I did. Figuring out which chip took even more weeks. Understand, this was done on an after hours, weekend basis with insufficient local vendor support. Jerry P. (Chaos Manor column) has told us for years that we need to use Crucial memory to avoid issues. Wonder if I have finally learned?

Luckily, my primary development machine is a company supplied desktop. However, all of my Guild, MVP and personal emails were iffy for the entire months of April and May. There’s nothing quite like prepping for a major volunteer event when not sure if your email is going to work.

Did I mention I started a new gig in April? And then there was the beach trip in June. Ok, ok, so I’m whining. It’s a fine whine and it’s my blog.

Bill J