And so we ventured out for one last final 'Huzzah' after the final day of Dev Teach (not counting the post-conference).
We went to Dunn's for a splattering of smoked meat love. Afterwards we wandered to the Biggest Bookstore In The World (well, I don't know if it really IS, but that's what its called), and then back to the Hilton where we hung out in the bar.
Keep it classy Belcham ;)
Live blogging the session with Markus Egger and WPF. First of all, seriously, Markus needs to walk around with a claymore or a broad-sword. He's got that Highlander vibe going on.
Anyway...soon to start...gotta try and figure out how to land a hotel close to where Chris Williams is staying at Tech Ed...
Hmm...I didn't know Markus founded CoDe magazine...kewl.
Win-Forms is frozen in time...WPF is the new UI platform that investment will be made into.
Benefits of WPF
- Usage of graphics processor which reduces the load on the CPU
- Integrated vector based composition engine
- Declarative programming
- Ease of deployment
XPS - Modern version of PDF format
Hmm...so there's more than just a win-form replacement going on here...there's also document layout.
Ok, no more ppt...let's get to coding!
Very kewl demo showing how you develop with the applications...recommended to do the visual piece in Blend and the coding piece in Visual Studio (you can link the two via the two designers).
Blend is actually built WITH WPF, which is kewl.
We need to get more graphical with our data...get away from accepting tables and text for graphical replacements that communicate the ideas much better.
You can check out the Xiine digital reader at their website.
Silverlight Beta 2 will be possibly at Tech Ed, with a final release possibly at the end of summer.
Silverlight 2.0 is really Silverlight 1.1 (they changed the name to 2.0)
Great primer session to WPF, how it works, and where the technology is going. Thanks Markus!
The first DemoCamp will be happening in Winnipeg this May 29 at the King's Head pub! It sounds like it'll be a fun night. If you want more information, check out the post about it on the New Media Manitoba website, which you can get to here.
We left the restaurant and made it to our final destination just in time for our show...
That's right: Evil Dead - The Musical! We noticed the posters up for it around the city, and low and behold there was a show tonight and we got tickets for it! I decided to get one row after the "splatter zone", just to be safe. A word of warning to those buying tickets: the first row beyond the splatter zone is STILL IN the splatter zone..more on that in a second.
The Diesel venue was really kewl...had a very cabaret feel to it (you sat around small tables instead of just theatre style seating). They also had table side service for food and alcohol which was nice.
So there we were, me and my nice clean shirt...
The musical starts, and it was a fantastic performance. Very entertaining, very well performed, and with great homage to the original movies (the story seemed to span Evil Dead 1, 2, and Army of Darkness). Now, after the second intermission a guy came by passing out ponchos to people in the splatter zone (first two rows at the foot of the stage) and our row (first raised level). We declined...I mean, c'mon, we were far enough (besides, we thought it would be kewl if we did get splattered anyway).
So during the climactic final battle, we started seeing Ash take out zombie after zombie, with blood splattering goodness being passed around the audience. Then he started taking on his girlfriend, Linda, right in front of us! Uh oh...there goes her scalp...we can see her brain...and *GOOSH*: A stream of sticky red goop goes FLYING out from her, bathing the front two rows and ...well...
Now, I had to walk back to my hotel...and as you can expect, I got some odd looks and comments. For instance:
Weird Guy Holding Flowers: Oooh...Ooooooh...
Me: It's ok, its fake...we came from a show.
Weird Guy Holding Flowers: Oh, I thought maybe it was coming from your penis
Homeless Guy: Can I ask you guys a question, and it has nothing to do with change.
Us: Sure
Homeless Guy: First of all, what happened to you?! (he was talking to me...and he didn't want change, he wanted us to buy him food)
Police Officer: Shocked Look
Me: I'm ok, its fake
Police Officer: What did you do?
Me: I went to the Evil Dead show! (I realized after the cop might have not been so worried about me as much as whoever the blood may have belonged to)
Surprisingly, there were just as many, if not more, people who walked by without blinking an eyelash at me...like a guy walking around caked in blood wasn't something new to behold.
Anyway, it was a great show and you should check it out if you can. Thus ends the Wednesday in Toronto. Bring on Thursday!
D
So after we left The Hour, we met up with David Woods and Rod Paddock for dinner at Jack Astor's (a favorite of ours since getting to Toronto). We had a really great waitress named Kristen who was awesome in making sure we got our food with enough time to make our next stop on our Wednesday in Toronto (more on that coming up).
We thought that Kristen and Dave would make potentially great soulmates, so we decided to *help* Dave out a bit by expressing his love for Kristen on our table as well as leave some clues as to where she could find him later on (we later added "Woods" under "Dave" to even further help this match made in Toronto heaven become a reality)
After dinner we said goodbye to Don and Henry and proceeded to our last stop of the evening...(to be continued)
After dinner I went with Donald, Kelly, and Henry to a taping of The Hour, a late night talk show that tapes in Toronto at CBC.
We thought it was funny that CTV had big banners right across from the CBC building.
Enjoying the free energy drinks.
Waiting in line to get onto the set.
The set.
George getting makeup adjusted.
George and Sam Roberts
The taping was a lot of fun, and it was kewl to see how tv shows get put together (a lot of *magic* that goes into it). There was a LONG Q and A session that happened afterwards, which we left before it was finished, but that's more a testament to how kewl George (the host) is about talking with the audience and giving of his time. For more info on the show, check out http://www.cbc.com/thehour
After the show, we met up with Dave Woods and Rod Paddock for dinner...(to be continued)
Had a good day here in Toronto. Started off with the UG leadership summit. Had good discussion and good times. Looking forward to further discussion around how we're going to share information going forward between user groups.
Of course, it wouldn't be an event without a Party with Palermo, and so it was..
Derek Hatchard and Donald Belcham argued over who was more drunk...Donald won.
Scott Hanselman...and Donald's head.
Jeffrey Palermo, Kelly Cassidy, and Donald's finger (see a trend here?)
The Mennage venue was awesome!
Keep it classy Edmonton!
Kelly, Henry, James, and Kyle
After the party, we hooked up with this Belgian guy who was hungry too and we made our way to...you guessed it: FRAN'S! Best restaurant ev-ar!
K, gotta finish off my presentation...BIG day tomorrow.
D
So when my evening began, I had this in mind:
- Go for dinner with Rob Windsor and Donald Belcham
- Go back to the hotel to work on my presentation
- Go to bed by 12AM
Here's what happened:
- Went for dinner with Rob Windsor and Donald Belcham
- Stayed at restaurant until just after 11PM
- Met up with Jeffrey Palermo and Kelly Cassidy
- Found an all night diner and hung out while Jeff and Kelly ate
- Got back to the hotel sometime after 1AM
And now its 2AM Eastern...and I'm writing this.
Tomorrow is the Dev Teach user group summit, and we're doing an open-spaces sort of setup this time around which I think is great. Hoping to gleam a bit of what the issues are out East since the last one had a very Western slant to it.
I'm hoping that the weather improves for tomorrow...
D
I've got an early flight to Toronto this morning (6AM), so I'm up a bit early doing some final packing and what-not.
I've never been to Toronto before other than for a connecting flight to somewhere else, so this should be a great time to see what the center of the universe has to offer. ;)
I wonder if anyone *else* will be at Dev Teach...
If you live in...
Vancouver
Calgary
Edmonton
Winnipeg
Toronto
Montreal
or Halifax
There's a Zune launch party coming your way! Check out
this site to get more information about date, time, and venue in your city.
D
As the website says,
Estimate Goat will give you estimates with the same amount of thought that goes into some projects/designs/requirements.
Too funny...check it out here.
Telerik has partnered with Discount ASP to provide an unbelievable offer to INETA user groups: a FREE license for their Sitefinity CMS and FREE webhosting!
This is over a $1000 value being given away to user groups, and Telerik and DiscountASP should be commended for helping out the community in such a big way!
You can get more information at the link below.
http://www.sitefinity.com/product/features/free-offer.aspx
D
So we've had the first person hit 1000 blog posts here at GeeksWithBlogs, and I must be honest that although it wasn't me, I was still pretty jacked up to see what we'd get!
Unfortunately, what we got was a play by play of his enjoyment of a Cherry-Grape Slush and Tater Tots. Ho hum.
I was expecting something more along the lines of the flash and wow of his 500th post.
;)
D
I
blogged yesterday about the fantastic deals available on the Amazon.Com website.
Chris posted recently about how you can get the same great price in Europe for the ASP.NET 3.5 book.
Well I wanted to let all my Canadian peeps know that even though our dollar is on par or close to with the US, Amazon Canada is offering the same book to us for
the steal price of $37.79!
Thanks a lot Amazon.ca!
D
Bill and some others have posted about noticing their book on Amazon was selling for $16.00. Turns out that Amazon is having a huge sale on a bunch of tech books, some with pretty significant savings!
You can check out the entire list here.
D