John Blumenauer's Blog

FredNUG is pleased to announce that we have another great speaker lined up for November.  On November 18th, we’ll start with pizza and social networking at 6:30 PM.  Then, starting at 7 PM, John Baird will present “Building Silverlight LOB Apps.”  With so many software development teams trying to make the switch from Winforms to WPF/Silverlight, I’m sure this talk will be very useful and informative.

The scheduled agenda is:  

• 6:30 PM - 7:00 PM - Pizza/Social Networking/Announcements
• 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM - Main Topic: Building Silverlight LOB Apps with John Baird 

Main Topic Description:  Take a look at the newest incarnation of UI building tools from MS.  This presentation will look at the basics of WPF/Silverlight.  We will look at switching a program from Winforms to Silverlight and topics including Data Binding, Entity Framework, ADO .Net Data Services, Styles and Themes."

 

Speaker Bio: John Baird began his computer programming career while in the US Navy. In 1982, he helped form and direct the first PC-based computer processing department for training and manpower in the Department of Defense. After leaving the military in 1988, John began a varied career as a consultant developing business applications ranging from computer-based training to vertical market software for resellers.

Today, John is working for the industry leader in financial software for fund administration. John was recently awarded MVP status for device application development.

•  8:30 PM - 8:45 PM – RAFFLE!

Please join us and get involved in our .NET developers community!

Thanks to all the attendees who came to my session on Exception Handling and Memory Management at Philly.NET Code Camp.   Exception Handling and Memory Management are often overlooked when developing .NET applications.  Hopefully, the session brought to light a number of best practices for .NET application development.  It was my first time doing a session in the Beginner track.  It was a great deal of fun to present the material to an audience filled with enthusiasm about the framework.

The slides can be found HERE.  If you experience any problems downloading the slides or code, please let me know.

A big THANKS to everyone who attended my session on Developing WPF Applications with Prism at Philly.NET Code Camp.  Hopefully, I provided attendees with at least an introductory knowledge of Prism and how they can start developing modular applications using its extensible framework.

The slides can be found HERE.  If you experience any problems downloading the slides or code, please let me know.

A big THANKS to everyone who attended my session today at NoVA Code Camp.  Hopefully, I provided attendees with at least an introductory knowledge of Unity Application Block, Dependency Injection and Inversion of Control that will allow them to start loosening dependencies in their applications.  Please feel free to contact me with any questions.

The code samples and slides for both sessions can be found HERE.  Also, lately I’ve been experimenting with posting my code via my Windows Live SkyDrive account.  If you experience any problems downloading the slides or code, please let me know.

Thanks again to everyone who attended my sessions yesterday at Richmond Code Camp.  Attendees in both sessions had some very inquisitive questions and comments which leads me to believe they were already contemplating ways they could utilize the technologies in their own applications.  Please feel free to contact me with any questions.

The code samples and slides for both sessions can be found here.

Yesterday’s Richmond Code Camp was a very well-executed and quality event for the development community!  Attending primarily as a speaker, it was clear to see there had been a great deal of work and thought put into organization of sessions, registration, and logistics.  The entire event was run quite smoothly and was over in a flash (probably a result of how organized things were run).  It was great to speak with so many folks (speakers and attendees) I’ve grown to know this year from attending other code camps in the area.  It was also nice to finally meet some folks who up to now I’ve only known through tweets.  I thoroughly enjoy presenting and sharing topics that have led to successful projects in my professional career.  At the same, there is so much that I’ve obtained through sitting in on sessions or speaking with folks during breaks.  There is so much to be gained by attending events such as this all for a FREE price – they even provided breakfast and lunch! 

Again I want to give a big THANKS to the folks who organized the event, the talented speakers presenting the sessions, the generous sponsors, J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College for allowing the use of their facility and to all the attendees who came for the day.  I’m already looking forward to next year’s Richmond Code Camp.

Woohoo!  I won another Community-Credit prize!  If you’re unfamiliar with Community-Credit.com, check it out here and find out how you too can track points you rack-up for making contributions to the development community.  My points this month were mostly from speaking at various code camps and user groups in the area, plus tasks associated with running FredNUG.  I’m sure this gem will provide some needed stress relief during those intensive sprints in the future.

3rd Place:  The Live Action Flying Duck Hunt.

This is the live-action shooting game that lets you hunt a flying duck with a harmless infrared gun. A 10-second charge on the barrel of the gun energizes the mechanical duck for a 30-second flight (Play Video). The duck's 6" long mylar wings flap up and down nearly 500 times per minute, and it can be set to fly in an erratic left- or right-turning circle or a level, straight line. Sharp-eyed hunters take aim with the infrared gun--the first two hits merely stun the waterfowl, momentarily interrupting his flapping; the third hit downs the duck for good. The single-shot blaster has a 20' range and makes a loading sound with each pump.

After submitting several abstracts for the code camps in the surrounding area, I now have my October planned and what a busy time it will be!  Having recently returned from the Raleigh Code Camp, which was a fantastic event(many thanks to the organizers for putting together such a well run event for the developer community), I learned that I’ll also be speaking at the NoVa and Philly.NET Code Camps.  So in addition to attending some excellent sessions and catching up with some geek friends, I’ll also have the opportunity to share some of my favorite .NET topics with folks taking time out of their busy Saturdays to enrich their .NET knowledge.

Hope to see you at some of the upcoming events…

Richmond Code Camp 2009.2

On October 3rd, Richmond Code Camp (RCC2009.2) will be held at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College.  I attended this code camp in the spring and met several great folks in the community while attending some insightful sessions which proved useful over the summer at work.  The folks at Richmond run a great event and their hard work shows.  It looks like this fall’s Richmond code camp is going to be even better!  The session list is amazing.  I will be presenting “Developing WPF Applications with Prism”  and “Building Loosely Coupled Applications with Unity – Dependency Injection and Inversion of Control” at Richmond.  I love both of these topics because I’ve found them to be useful for developing applications at the office, plus I love pluggable architectures.

NoVA CodeCamp 2009.2

Nova Code Camp will be held at the Microsoft Office Facilities in Reston, VA on October 10th.  A few years ago, I attended this well executed quality event and I’ve been participating in the developer community ever since.  I be presenting my “Building Loosely Coupled Applications with Unity – Dependency Injection and Inversion of Control” session.  I cannot express in words how much I love this topic.  You might say I’m a BIG fan of pluggable architectures.  Come to the session and you’ll see why.

Philly.NET Code Camp 2009.2

On October 17th, Philly.NET Code Camp will be held at DeVry University in Fort Washington, PA.  This code camp was awesome in the spring and from the looks of the schedule, fall will be no different.  I have at least one coworker making the trip with me this fall.  The lineup of speakers/sessions is phenomenal.  With this lineup, I think the only quandary is which sessions to attend.  Regardless of which session you attend, you cannot go wrong.  I’ll be trying something a little different at Philly.NET by presenting a beginner session on”Exceptional Exception Handling and Automatic Memory Management.”  So many times I’ve seen applications lacking good exception handling, so I thought I would try to bring some attention to the topic.   

FredNUG

Okay…a shameless plug for the Frederick .NET UG October 28th meeting.  Antonio Chagoury is scheduled to present “Mash-Up Your DotNetNuke Using RESTful APIs.”  DotNetNuke has not yet been presented at a FredNUG meeting and I know numerous folks are already excited to find out more about it from an obvious expert on the topic.

PGHDOTNET

On November 10th, I’m scheduled to speak at PGHDOTNET on “Building Loosely Coupled Applications with Unity – Dependency Injection and Inversion of Control.”  I did a variation of this talk at several spring code camps.  This is another one of those topics that evolved because of the amount of dependency injection used in today’s applications.  While it still seems to be a niche topic, many attendees told me after my spring sessions that they really had a much better understanding of the topic.  I spoke at the spring PGHDOTNET Code Camp and I look forward to seeing the folks again.

Get Involved in the Development Community

Last, but not least, get out and participate in the development community!  I was surprised how many user groups and code camps were located not that far away.  You can check-out Community Megaphone or INETA and find the events or user groups near you.  I encourage you to attend or maybe even speak at an event.  You will not be disappointed, there’s always some nugget or granule to be found at a community event session.

Wow!  Last month’s meeting was terrific!  Claudio Lassala’s presentation rocked.  Also, the format of the meeting worked so well we’re going to stick with it for the Wednesday, October 28th meeting.   

This month FredNUG has another great speaker lined up.  We’ll start with pizza and social networking at 6:30 PM.  Then, starting at 7 PM, Antonio Chagoury will present Mash-Up Your DotNetNuke Using RESTful APIs.  This sounds like an informative presentation covering a variety of key technologies.

The scheduled agenda is:  

• 6:30 PM - 7:00 PM - Pizza/Social Networking/Announcements
• 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM - Main Topic: Mash-Up Your DotNetNuke Using RESTful APIs with Antonio Chagoury

Main Topic Description:  You heard of "Web 2.0"... Google Maps, Windows Live, Twitter, Facebook... now let's build a mash-up of these services and programmatically interact with them using their published APIs.

During this session we will be developing creative DotNetNuke modules mashups and demonstrate the multitude of integration possibilities that help provide richer user experiences.

Speaker Bio: Antonio Chagoury is the CEO and Chief Software Architect of Inspector IT Inc (www.inspectorit.com), a .net and DotNetNuke solutions provider based in the Washington DC Metro Area.
Inspector IT’s main core competencies range from large scale e-commerce applications architecture and development to mash-ups, social networking components and Web 2.0 solutions. To learn more about Inspector IT visit www.inspectorit.com.

Antonio is a Microsoft MVP and the Founder and President of the Capital DotNetNuke User Group (www.capitaldug.org) an effort intended to get DotNetNuke Enthusiasts in one room once a month to discuss a wide range of topics as well share ideas knowledge and experience on the platform.

Antonio is a member of the DotNetNuke Core team of developers and leads the development of the Blog module as well as the Installer utility.

Antonio’s technical specialties range from Enterprise Software Architecture and Engineering, Business Systems Integrations, SOA Strategies.
He considers DotNetNuke Software Development and Consulting, Web 2.0, Office 2.0, and Enterprise 2.0 his hobbies.

Antonio has lived and travelled extensively in Europe, Africa and the Middle-East.
He settled in the Washington DC area in 1999.
He speaks English, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic.

• 8:30 PM - 8:45 PM – RAFFLE!

Please join us and get involved in our .NET developers community!

Wow, what a fast summer!  It seems like just yesterday several of us were saying our goodbyes at the May NoVA Code Camp in Reston, VA.  I remember how excited I was on the way home from NoVA code camp.  It was a great way to finish up spring code camps.  While the schedule seemed a bit crazy at times, it was well worth it.  The variety of sessions offered and incidental knowledge obtained via hallway, open spaces and speaker lounge conversations with other professionals makes the trek to each event very worthwhile.  On the heels of the NoVA Code Camp, I spoke about Mesh and Live Framework at the June North Delaware User Group meeting and then it was time for summer vacation and a busy summer at the office. 

Now that fall has arrived, it’s time for another round of code camps and visits to various user groups in the area.

RockNUG

This will be my first session at a Rockville .NET User Group meeting.  The meeting is Wednesday, September 9.  In the past, there have been many great talks at RockNUG meetings. Hopefully, I can keep the streak of quality sessions alive.  I will be presenting “Understanding Windows Live Framework and Mesh.”  I had hoped to make this my “bright and shiny” topic this fall. Unfortunately, with the Live Framework being pulled September 8th as a part of its migration to Windows Live , this will not be the case.  However, I think Wednesday’s talk will still provide much insight as to what the future holds for developing applications for Windows Live.

RDU Code Camp

Raleigh Code Camp is September 19th at ECPI in Raleigh, NC.  This year I will be attending and speaking for the first time at the event.  While attending Richmond Code Camp in the spring, I spoke with several folks who heavily recommended RDU Code Camp.  I will be presenting “Developing WPF Applications with Prism” at RDU Code Camp.  Being an architecture and framework geek, I really love presenting this topic because it can be so useful for developing business applications.

FredNUG

While I’m not scheduled to speak at the Frederick .NET User Group September 22nd meeting, I want to make a shameless plug for the meeting.  We have the privilege of having INETA Speaker Claudio Lassala presenting on Refactoring, Patterns, new language features, code quality, and more!  I’ve not heard Claudio speak, but I’ve enjoyed reading many of his articles in various developer magazines.

Richmond Code Camp

On October 3rd, Richmond Code Camp (RCC2009.2) will be held at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College.  I attended this code camp in the spring and met several great folks in the community while attending some insightful sessions which proved useful over the summer at work.  The folks at Richmond run a great event and their hard work shows.  I will be presenting “Developing WPF Applications with Prism” at Richmond.  Again, I love this topic because I’ve found it useful for developing applications at the office.

PGHDOTNET

On November 10th, I’m scheduled to speak at PGHDOTNET on “Building Loosely Coupled Applications with Unity – Dependency Injection and Inversion of Control.”  I did a variation of this talk at several spring code camps.  This is another one of those topics that evolved because of the amount of dependency injection used in today’s applications.  While it still seems to be a niche topic, many attendees told me after my spring sessions that they really had a much better understanding of the topic.  I spoke at the spring PGHDOTNET Code Camp and I look forward to seeing the folks again.

Get Involved in the Development Community

Last, but not least, get out and participate in the development community!  I was surprised how many user groups and code camps were located not that far away.  You can check-out Community Megaphone or INETA and find the events or user groups near you.  I encourage you to attend or maybe even speak at an event.  You will not be disappointed, there’s always some nugget or granule to be found at a community event session.