.NET

What's new in VB 2010

Chris Williams — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:35:30 GMT

Hello VB Folks,

These sessions are designed to be a primer for getting started using various features in Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4.0. (Yes, some have already occurred... you can still watch them, just not live.)

·         Nov 3rd 10:00-11:00AM -Getting Started with IntelliTrace (formerly the “Historical Debugger”) by Habib Heydarian and Justin Marks
·         Nov 4th 10:00-11:00AM - Getting Started with SharePoint Development in Visual Studio 2010 by Boris Scholl
·         Nov 5th 9:00am-10:00am - A Lap Around Visual Basic in Visual Studio 2010 by Lisa Feigenbaum
·         Nov 5th 10:00am-11:00am - Getting Started with Managed Extensibility Framework by Glen Block
·         Nov 6th 10:00-11:00AM - Getting started with Design and Discovery Tools (Architecture) by Mark Groves

All times listed are PST and all these sessions will use the same LiveMeeting connection information.

LiveMeeting:
https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/0000000379_103/join?id=76P755&role=attend&pw=p%2C%2Fzk2K%7CM

Conf call:
Toll Free (US Only): 866-500-6738
Toll: 203-480-8000
Participant code: #198585

WPF / Silverlight Tooling Quick Poll
Finally, Mark Wilson-Thomas put together a few follow-up questions after last week’s WPF / Silverlight tooling session. If you would like to volunteer answers to these questions please email Mark at mwthomas@microsoft.com. And as always, lots of great WPF/Silverlight designer discussions taking place in the forums.

1.       Do you see yourself using Visual Studio 2010’s WPF and Silverlight tooling to build a line of business application in the next 6-12 months?
2.       Do the features for building these applications make sense to you?
3.       Is there anything clearly missing from the tooling in Visual Studio 2010 for getting the job of building line of business applications missing that you would like to see? If so what is it?
4.       Do you intend to try the Beta 2 release? If you’ve already tried it, what did you make of the WPF and Silverlight designer features?

Mark would love to hear your answers!

Worldwide numbers for the Extra Credit Homework
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United Kingdom
Reading (Non-VoIP):+44 118 909 2000

VB / C# Language Parity

Chris Williams — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 21:03:00 GMT

As a VB MVP and someone who really loves VB in general, this kind of news really makes me smile…

Microsoft has heard your feedback that VB/C# content parity is a top priority for the VB community. Given that, this issue has become a top priority for the languages team.

The Approach
We’ve gone about a prioritized approach, in order to fill holes for the most important technologies and content types first. Here are some general guidelines we’ve used… Technologies are prioritized by the number of current VB.NET users, as well as how “hot” the area is (i.e. Windows Azure or Windows 7). Content types are prioritized by how “core” they are to the official product. For example, first the product needs to support VB.NET, then the official MSDN Help documentation needs to be available in VB.NET, and then the Microsoft samples and training kits (including videos, tutorials and hands on labs) need to be available in VB.NET.

The Content So Far…
Below is the list of projects that are being done as partnerships between VSL and partner teams. Many teams have stepped up in the past year to improve their VB.NET support, and other teams have been doing this all along. In the coming year, we still have a lot more work to do.

·         MSDN Magazine Code Downloads
·         Entity Framework Samples
·         Visual Studio Express Samples
·         WPF “Prism” Quickstarts, Samples, Hands On Labs
·         WPF MSDN Help Documentation (Started)
·         WPF Hands On Labs (Started)
·         WindowsClient.NET WPF Video Code Downloads
·         WindowsClient.NET WPF Video Code Downloads
·         Windows7 API Code Pack Samples
·         Silverlight MSDN Help Documentation (Started)
·         Silverlight Toolkit Samples
·         Silverlight Hands On Labs (Started)
·         Silverlight.NET Full Tutorials
·         Silverlight.NET Video Code Downloads
·         ASP.NET Tutorials
·         ASP.NET Video Code Downloads
·         VS2010 / .NET Framework 4.0 Training Kit- Hands On Labs & PowerPoints (Started)
·         Windows Azure Training Kit- Hands On Labs (Started)
·         Windows Azure Video Code Downloads
·         .NET Services SDK Samples
·         .NET Services Video Code Downloads
·         DotNet-U Presentation Materials
·         RampUp courses
·         MEF & VS Extensibility Hands On Lab

DotNet U

Chris Williams — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:47:11 GMT

Over the years, I have met many user group leaders (and been one myself a few times) and I often hear this question, or a variation of it... "I'm in a pinch, I can't find a speaker, I've got a new guy who wants to try speaking... Where can I get already prepared presentation materials to use at code camps and user group meetings?"

Well... I am thrilled to announce that Doug Turnure from the Microsoft Marketing team has been leading an effort to compile these materials. He’s made about 40 presentations available across Visual Studio, the .NET Framework and other Microsoft technologies. You can download these materials from the following location:

http://dotnet-u.com/Courses.aspx

The presentation materials include powerpoint slides, video recordings, demo code and demo script available in VB.NET & C#.

Check it out!!

CSLA Light

Chris Williams — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 19:29:36 GMT

Rocky Lhotka has just released Beta 1 of CSLA .NET for Silverlight framework (and a corresponding version for Windows).

If you are unfamiliar with CSLA .NET, it is one of the most widely used business application development frameworks for the .NET platform. I expect it will be extremely widely used in Silverlight as well, since it provides even more direct benefits to Silverlight developers! CSLA .NET for Silverlight abstracts many of the complex issues faced when building business applications in Silverlight, and helps provide the same level of productivity and power developers are accustomed to on the .NET platform.

You can read an overview here:
http://www.lhotka.net/weblog/OverviewOfCSLANET36ForWindowsAndSilverlight.aspx

And you can find download links here: http://www.lhotka.net/weblog/CSLANET36ForWindowsAndForSilverlightBeta1Released.aspx

To my knowledge, CSLA .NET for Silverlight is the first major framework targeting Silverlight 2.0 to enter the beta phase, and Rocky expects to release the final version of CSLA .NET for Silverlight as Silverlight 2.0 itself is released.

And best of all, all the sample apps are in VB (as well as C#). And he's been primarily using VB in the demos when speaking about the framework, and the various issues he’s had to address in building such an ambitious project on Silverlight 2.0. (so all you folks wondering about the future of VB w/ CSLA can rest easy.)

XNA 3.0 Beta is out

Chris Williams — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 15:36:40 GMT

http://creators.xna.com/en-us/3.0beta_mainpage

http://creators.xna.com/en-us/3.0beta_mainpage

What I do...

Chris Williams — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:34:52 GMT

Occasionally, people ask me how I became an MVP... or they ask me what do I do besides consulting, that keeps me so busy. Here's a list of stuff I've done over the last year, and what I have scheduled through the rest of 2008.

The List!

If you want me to come speak at your event, it would be a good idea to check here first to see if there's a date conflict.

Twin Cities Developers Guild - tomorrow night!!

Chris Williams — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 16:30:30 GMT

Quick reminder, tomorrow night is the Twin Cities Developers Guild meeting featuring Rocky Lhotka!

If you're in the area, or just really love CSLA (and who doesn't?) come on out and get your first public look at CSLA Light (as in, Silverlight, uh-huh... that's right!)

http://www.twincitiesdevelopersguild.com

Please RSVP for an accurate food and beverage count.

NINE Questions with Rod Paddock

Chris Williams — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 14:58:28 GMT

We're kicking this week off with an interview with my good friend Rod Paddock. Aside from being one of the coolest dudes on earth, Rod's also the editor of a little mag you developer types may have heard of: CoDe Magazine. I shot Rod some questions, and he shot me some answers. Here you go:

1. Where are you from? (especially if its not where you are now, geographically.)
I’m from California. I graduated from Palmdale High School in 1987. I lived in Bend Oregon for a few years when I went to school. Then moved to the Seattle area around 16 years ago.

2. Who do you work for / What do you do? Give me the 10 second pitch on you/your company/your product...
I am the owner of Dash Point Software, Inc. a Seattle and soon to be Austin, TX based company. Our company provides software services specializing in Visual Studio .NET and SQL Server. We do end to end development services. Meaning we help companies architect and develop software to run their business with.

3. How did you get there?
I started my business when I was laid off from Pinnacle Publishing (we used to sell Graphics Server and a ton of newsletters, the newsletters are owned by some hack POS company now) like 14 years ago. I was doing some work on the side when I had a “real” job. When I got laid off they said “Let us know when your last day is.” So I told em I wanna work 4 days a week at home and one in the office for the next 8 weeks or so. I worked 1-2 hours for them on the 4 days and the rest started my business. I basically called all the people I was moonlighting for and said I have a ton of availability now. They said cool. We have a lot more work. I was also a trainer for Application Developers Training Company (Now AppDev from your hometown of Minneapolis)

4. A lot of folks see you as a techie rock star type & code mag editor, but I know you're also a heavy duty gamer. What's your favorite game and how did you get introduced to it?
My all time favorite game is Dungeons and Dragons. When I started gaming I didn’t start with that game but with a game called Gamma World. In 7^th grade I played a keeshan (amphibious mutant) and blew our entire party up with a grenade of some type. After blowing the party up I learned how to play D&D. I was a big time gamer, writing articles, modules and attending a ton of conventions including GenCon twice. My first article was published in the RPGA newsletter when I was 17 or 18. I generally like to be a DM when I play. Probably why I like computers so much. Control freak I guess<G>

5. Speaking of rock star types, you're one of those folks others blog about. how does the aspiring developer get to be Rod Paddock? What does it take?
Wow this is a tough question. I really consider myself as a regular dude. Not a rock star. I think the key element of what I do for a living is passion. I really love what I do and have a serious passion for it. If I didn’t do this for a living I would definitely do it for fun. Another quality you need to possess is a desire to learn. This is a learning business where you need to keep adapting your skill set. I love to learn so this is the job for me.

I consider myself lucky. This profession has given me the ability to travel the world and hang out with some of the coolest people in the business.

6. I'm a social networking junkie, and I see you on sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, your blog, etc... what are your thoughts on the social networking boom and where do you see it heading?
You know what lately I am really digging the whole social networking thing. It’s a great mechanism for people to keep in touch when they are pretty much anywhere in the world. Heck I was seeing tweets from my friend Markus Egger who is in Egypt today. I used to give my wife grief about her whole MySpace deal. You know the web site where every page looks like a ransom letter. I really started to like it when I got into Facebook. I set up an account many moons ago and forgot all about it. I returned to it and had like 7 friend requests. I accepted them and then went about looking at the folks I was friends with and adding there friends to my list. It’s pretty cool and a good mechanism for keeping up with people that have crazy busy lives. My most recent foray into social networking is Twitter. It’s kind of an addicting platform.

7. You're a VB MVP and you were FoxPro before that, so what are some other areas of your technical expertise?
Yup I definitely live in a house that FoxPro built. I am a true computer junkie and have a passion for learning new technologies. My expertise is in ASP.NET, VB.NET, SQL Server, WinForms, Silverlight, Visual Basic 6, Visual FoxPro among others. In a former life I worked in Unix. I am also a fan of Linux (don’t use it but keep up on what’s happening in that space)

8. What's next for Rod? Any big plans / projects on the horizon?
Next step for Rod and family is our move to Austin, TX. Our house in Austin is almost done and we’ll be moved in by end of August, 2008. Once we get moved in my next project is to fully equip my media room. Along with being a computer geek I am probably a bigger movie geek.

9. Last of all, and thanks for the interview, any tattoos?
Yup…. I have two. Trying to figure out what the third will be.

NINE Questions with Dana Coffey

Chris Williams — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 20:36:11 GMT

I'm taking a break from this glorious day, with nice weather and grilled meats to bring you this interview with Dana Coffey (someone many of you know as @CrazeeGeekChick on Twitter.) Dana is from a place near and dear to my heart. The South. Every time I see her take the time to actually type out the word "y'all" I get a chuckle. So without further delay, here is Dana Coffey and her NINE Questions.

1. Where are you from?
Peachtree City, GA – land of the Golfcart paths. It’s just south of Atlanta

2. Who do you work for / What do you do? Give me the 10 second pitch on why I want your "product".
I work for McGuireWoods LLP (www.mcguirewoods.com) We’re a law firm that specializes in some high profile corporate level litigation. The technology used there is pretty impressive and innovative. Our CTO has a history with Sun Microsystems and is a big promoter of Open Source Software.

3. How did you end up there?
My fellow ASP Insider Steve Presley worked there and contacted me when they needed a Sr. Application developer. The position is a telecommuting position and he was familiar with my desire to work from home in order to care for my 3 kids. I was at Definition 6 at the time(www.definition6.com) and happy there, but McGuire Woods made me a sweet offer! I love the work, the team and have really been enjoying my time there so far.

4. I know you maintain the ASP for Blondes blog, but what other areas of technical expertise do you have?
My degree is in business management, but most of my technical skills revolve around ASP and ASP.NET. I’ve been a ASP.NET MVP twice, and I also dabble in other related Microsoft technologies. My newest love is the huge trend towards Web 2.0 and the social web. I’m currently in the planning stages of revamping ASPforblondes.com into another kind of site altogether – There will still be ASP related info, but mostly general technology and social web content. I’m one of those rare developers who speak “end user” very well, so one of my biggest assets is the ability to communicate between IT and end/business users. I think like a business manager.

5. So I know you mostly from your twitters and your blog, but that's just one part of the big picture. What's something the world at large doesn't know about Dana Coffey?
I’m a recovering alcoholic. I’ve long ago given up my anonymity on the subject, but most people don’t know that fact about me. I spend a lot of time giving back to those in early recovery and helping in any way I can. It’s a cause that is near and dear to my heart due to both personal experience and family history.

6. Speaking of twitter, what's your take on the whole social networking boom? Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc...
Well my previous answers might give it away. I think social networking is absolutely mind boggling! The whole paradigm has given the web a way to engage with people on a “tribal” and emotional level. It’s really opened my eyes to the importance of personal branding as a science, and I’m really excited about seeing where we go with it next! Coming from a business background, it gives me the total warm fuzzies just to think of the many ways business can use this model to help its customers. For instance, when I tweeted that I was having issues with Comcast Internet, the Comcast guy actually tweeted me and gave me his direct line to get my problem solved! How cool is THAT?

7. What’s the biggest challenge you face in your job?
We currently have several classic ASP applications for which I’ve had to provide support. I’ve begun the process of moving them all over to ASP.NET, which thrills me! In the meantime however, I realize how awesome ASP.NET is and how spoiled I am. Supporting and debugging a behemoth app done in classic ASP is a hairy business!

8. We've covered tech pretty well, so any non-technical interests or hobbies? What do you do for fun?
Well I’m a single mother, so I don’t have a lot of free time, but when I do get the time, I love to go camping, ride my golf cart, roller-skating, bike riding and going to the movies. I spend a lot of time playing with my doggies, a longhaired dachshund named Snoopy and a beagle puppy named Woodstock. I tweet about them quite a bit, and they’re regular attendants at our weekly staff conference calls J

9. So, last question... any tattoos?
Yep – I have a dancing teddy bear on my ankle. I’m currently designing my next tattoo, which will be either the Tibetan or Chinese symbol for Gratitude. (The Chinese symbol incorporates two symbols; “speak” and “love”)

Have Fun. Raise Money. Help Kids. I give you the Charity Fragathon

Chris Williams — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 15:06:33 GMT

so a few of you (including my parents) have been wondering what this "big idea" of mine was. It's not another game store, although don't rule that out permanently. It's not a video game studio, although again... never say never.

No, this is something truly magnificent.

I give you the Charity Fragathon. www.charityfragathon.com

The Twin Cities XNA User Group is throwing their first ever charity event! Admission to this event is $10 (ten bucks!!) and that covers entry into what just might be the biggest Halo 3 tournament you've ever seen. We'll also have a room set aside for Rock Band 2 and of course XNA games for anyone who wants to check out the new Xbox Live Community Games.

Is that it? Nope, not even close. In addition to all this gaming goodness, we're going to give away some awesome prizes for the tournament winners and random stuff throughout the night. We'll also be providing pizza, sodas and BAWLS Energy Drink courtesy of our sponsors.

So this is for charity? Yep, we're raising money for Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota. Magenic (one of our sponsors) has graciously committed to MATCH 100% of the first $3000 we raise, so we're going to hit them for every cent! The only way we can do that is with YOUR donations. If you can't make it, but still want to give... we can totally hook you up.