Geekette's Blogette

PCMagazine recently lists 10 Great Microsoft Technologies that Failed

.NET is on the list -- figure that one out

Congrats to my friend and mentor Chris Williams on publication of his article on Twitterverse in the most recent issue of CoDe magazine.  Not only is Chris great, the magazine's great and yes -- Twitter is great too.  If you haven't yet joined a tribe or become a tweep; read Chris's article. 

My addition to Chris's article:

If you haven't tried Twitter -- you're missing out.  I'm new to Twitter -- less than 1 month.  Friends had been telling me for a long time to try it out.  In fact, Chris probably has asked me since the day Twitter launched!  I figured, I don't blog as I intend; why add something else to my list of things I won't do.  But then, I attended a UG Leader Summit in North Carolina.  During the entire summit; everyone in the room (except me) was twittering (and chuckling).  I began to realize I was missing out on something. 

One Friday afternoon, I joined.  Andrew, my DE,  warned me that very day -- Twitter can be addictive.  Yes, it can but it can also be beneficial.  Not only can you follow other geeks; you can follow organizations such as a particluar Code Camp or User Group.  You can even follow Community Megaphone.  It's fun to tweet -- but even more fun to follow.  So cool.

Tweeting is a great way to grow a community.  Here are several benefits of user group leaders (and members) tweeting:

• You keep up with what's going on in other user groups in your region
• You keep up with what your DE knows (and doesn't know -- like how to wire his garage)
• You grow friendships with the folks you only see at Code Camps
• You get help when you run your local Code Camp
• You know when the Code Camps are before they are officially announced

Twitter does have technical information or requests for help; but I still find blogs better for that.  Tweeting for the community, 140 characters at a time, has turned out to be way more beneficial and FUN than I imagined. 

RV.NUG is focusing on the networking aspect of user groups tonight.  We are hosting Wii night.  What's it take to host a Wii night?

• 3 Wii consoles
• 3 Projectors
• 3 sets of speakers
• 2 Mario Cart Wheels
• 1 Wii Guitar
• 12 Wii Remote Controllers
• 4 Wii Nunchuck Controllers
• 24 AA batteries
• 3 Power strips
• 12 Wii games
• RV.NUG & RVSPUG members and friends
• Pizza

If you want more information visit www.rvnug.org

Just in time to get certified in Visual Studio 2008 -- second chance exams are back.  The good news is that exam 70-536 carries forward from the Visual Studio 2005 (.NET Framework 2.0) cert. 

More information on second chance is here

More information on certification on Visual Studio 2008 here

This month I tested the new INETA Community Champions program.  Contributions recorded here give you Community Credit points.  I won a DIY MP3 Alarm Clock!

To find out more (and see what cool prize you could have won in July) go here:

Testing the Casino

The July meeting of the Roanoke Valley .NET User Group was one of the best ever! 

During the summer months, user group attendance is usually low.  Therefore, we try to have meetings that are a little less formal and require less preparation for the presenter.  This July we not only had a HIGH ATTENDANCE but we had 100% MEMBER PARTICIPATION during the meeting.

Here's the formula:

• Take the Black Jack Starter Kit
• Add Bugs
• Deliver a brief presentation on Unit Testing in Visual Studio 2008
• Divide the user group into teams.  Each team has
  • Prearranged team leader
  • Laptop with buggy starter kit
  • Projector
• Each team then writes unit tests to try and find the bugs
• Meeting presenters (and bug adders) assist each team and offer guidance as needed
• Give goofy prizes to the team that finds the most bugs

Some additional comments:

• Interestingly enough, each team found the same number of bugs - EVERYONE did a GREAT JOB!!!  We gave goofy prizes o everyone. 
• Some sample bugs added:
  • Comment a line of needed code (like we might do when testing -- and then forget to uncomment)
  • Change the operator of a For loop from "< 0" to "< = 0"
• There was a consistent difference between the VB.NET and C# developers on how to correct a line of code.   VB vs C# note:  The VB developers changed it to: "< = -1"; the C# developers changed it to "< 0"

SPECIAL THANKS to those that helped make this idea work:

• Presenter Will "El Machio" Ashely
• • Why unit test
  • What to unit test
  • How to unit test
• Black Jack Unit Test Workshop with defects added by our own Brian "Cobra Kai" Johnston
  • Starter kit overview
  • Team / projector assignments
  • Team Leaders: Bret Shawn, Tolga Balci and Brian Lanham
  • Identify defects by writing unit tests (each team has a team leader that know a little about Unit Testing and Will is going to be available to assist all teams)
  • Awards from our geek treasure chest

Photos are posted here:

Code with the bugs and Code with Unit test project have been posted here:

This is from the May 2008 RV.NUG newsletter

User Groups and Blogs

Keeping current with technology continues to be a daunting task, especially if your job does not lend itself to tasks that help keep your skills current. One way to benefit from the trials and tribulations of others is via blogs. The blog search engine Technorati indexes over 112 million weblogs. With 112 million blogs from which to choose, how can you determine which blogs to use? More importantly, how can you determine which blogs are reliable?

First let's begin with the local user group. Are there members of your user group with their own blogs? This is a great place to start, because you have the advantage of knowing the blogger. If you don't know the blogger, someone in the user group will. Not only will this give you a reliability factor, you will likely have the opportunity to ask for additional information on posts of interest.

The next logical branch is to look for blogs for other user groups' members you have met (while attending other UG meetings or Code Camps). Once again, you can easily get a reliability factor. You might not see these bloggers as often as your local group, but you're likely to see them on occasion and likely to obtain an email address from them.

So how do you get to the high profile bloggers? You begin with your local user group and ask them which blogs they read on a regular basis. Then ask members from other user groups you know. Better yet, just read their blogs. They are likely to reference other blogs and/or have a blog roll. Then look for the ones that are mentioned most.

I have compiled a list of blogs using the above suggestions myself. If you would like to see which area user group members have blogs or which blogs their members are reading, check out the results on the RV.NUG web site here: RV.NUG Blog Roll.

Help us make this list more complete for the RV.NUG members by submitting your answers to the following questions to the newsletter at mailto:newsletter@rvnug.org

1. What blogs do you read on a regular basis?
2. What blogs do you consider reputable sources of information?
3. If you have a blog, what is the link for your blog?

As always, the more you provide to your user group, the more the user group will provide to you!

This is from the April 2008 RV.NUG Newsletter

RV.NUG -thon event

This June will mark the 4th annual RV.NUG -thon event. Just what is a -thon event? How did it originate? (Okay, perhaps you are more interested in "what it is" than a history lesson).

A -thon event occurs during an RV.NUG monthly meeting. A presentation topic is chosen. However, care is taken to select a topic that can be easily segmented. The 75-90 minute presentation time of the meeting is then broken into five or six 15 minute time slots. Each time slot is filled by a different presenter. One topic that has worked in the past is design patterns. There are many design patterns and in one evening you can hear a presentation on five or six different design patterns.

The RV.NUG is located in a small market area. This has always made it challenging to obtain speakers for monthly meetings. This was even more difficult four years ago when membership was smaller and.NET development was just beginning. The user group had to rely on members for many presentations; however, there was a very limited number of members who were comfortable delivering a 75-90 minute presentation. The solution was to encourage several members to deliver a 15 minute presentation on the same evening. The experienced presenters of the group would work with the -thon presenter; by providing any needed assistance - be it technical, public speaking, slide preparation or encouragement. An added bonus is that the nature of a -thon event also promotes collaboration and networking among members of the user group.

The first event was the Grid-a-thon. There were six presentations on the DataGrid . The presentations began with sessions addressing how to get started with the DataGrid; followed by sessions on using more advanced features of the DataGrid and ending with a couple of sessions on extending the DataGrid functionality with code. All of the presenters were first time presenters. The event was so well received that discussion of next year's -thon topic began before the evening was over.

This year's -thon is titled: Ajax-a-thon. This event will focus on controls provided as part of ASP.NET AJAX and the AJAX Control Toolkit. ASP.NET AJAX was called ATLAS during beta release, and is included in ASP.NET 3.5. You can view the live Toolkit here to see what's included. (NOTE: This paragraph was contributed by Bret Shawn, Vice-President.)

We still have openings for presenters. If you are a first-time presenter or a presenter that's out of practice, we encourage you to take advantage of this low-risk opportunity. If you are looking for motivation to learn more about easy-yet-powerful ways to use AJAX into your web applications, seize this opportunity . (I know I work best with a deadline!) There are several RV.NUG members on standby to help in any way you need (technical or presentation). As an added bonus, it has been repeatedly shown that the person that learns the most from a presentation is the presenter! Don't miss this great opportunity. Contact any officer if you would like more details on being a -thon presenter.

This is a meeting you will not want to miss. It's a great learning and networking opportunity for everyone in attendance. Hope to see you there!

User Group contributors (not just the leaders, all of those members that pitch in and help in so many ways) often peform tasks for multiple meetings events -- their pay is $0.  If they do a great job, we double their pay. 

Thanks to INETA and David Silverlight, there is now a way for these folks to track their contributions to the user group and the user community at large.  The INETA Community Excellence Award program recently launched.  They have tired to make it easy to record everything sending meeting reminders to delivering the presentation. 

The true benefit of this will come at the end of a year (or quarter) -- you can see all of the contributions you've made (many you probably forgot), but INETA can also see them (and there will be awards for high contributors).  In addition, if you are interested in becoming (or maintaining) an MVP it will help with that as well.

For more information visit the INETA Community Credit here

• Speakers from beyond the region come to present. As a result, technical experts (most willing to contribute their knowledge again and again) learn of the user group and the community college.
• Attendees from beyond the region attend. We had attendees from over 2 hours away in each direction (from Charlottesville, VA to Greensboro, NC). I know several of these attendees have now joined the user group and I expect some of have also attended classes at the community college.
• Since Code Camp is not a sponsor event, the focus during the event is on the user group and the venue host. The user group gets the opportunity to talk with many new people. The college gets the opportunity to share information. In the case of Virginia Western, they were able to share information about programs beyond the degree program; such as certificate programs, professional training and leadership training opportunities.   
• Networking occurs during the event at a company level. I had several discussions with people that worked on a development team at a local company that had not heard of the user group or Code Camp before. They indicated they were going to encourage their team to attend a user group meeting.

• VWCC partnered with RV.NUG and .NET U to host a hands-on lab based training opportunity for 30 attendees. The event was held on two Thursday evenings in a college lab. Not only did the college provide use of the lab, they preloaded all of the machines with Visual Studio 2005, the 3.0 Framework and the lab files! 
• Any time the college has a special event or wants to distribute information, the user group shares this information with the group and monthly meetings. In addition, the college is able to include information in the monthly newsletter. 
• The college also promotes RV.NUG. This is done by various methods including instructors promoting during classes and flyers posted on the bulletin boards.
• User group leaders receive a lot of information from Microsoft. They in turn share this information with the user group mailing list (which includes the college). Recently our user group shared information on Microsoft Dream Spark (Professional Developer and Designer tools for students at no charge https://downloads.channel8.msdn.com )

Now that I have migrated a site from WSS 2.0 to WSS 3.0 I am discovering that the sites migrated do not necessarily have the same functionality as new sites created in WSS 3.0.  That's fine -- but I would like get a handle on what is different between the two sites.

Features seems to be an area with differences.  I began researching this with google.  Why oh why, did Microsoft call a feature a Feature in WSS 3.0.  I am returning more results with new features (meaning new functionality) than I am for "Features" in WSS 3.0.   When I first heard "Feature" was a formal name, I laughed.  Right now it's annoying. 

Following a recent upgrade of a WSS 2.0 to WSS 3.0 (using database migration due to moving to new hardware)  it was discovered that alerts set in WSS 2.0 were not firing in WSS 3.0.  It was strange because if you looked in Site Settings - User Alerts (under Site Administration column) it will look like the alerts migrated successfully. 

It turns out, if you are using a different URL for the sites in 3.0 than 2.0, the alerts will not be correct.  The alerts are stored in a table in the content database and one of the columns contains the the Site Url - this site Url is the Url from the 2.0 installation. 

I think it is best practice to delete the alerts (which you have to do one by one) and then readd them (which you can add multiple users at one time) ... BTW, if you know of a way to delete multiple alerts for a list, please share. 

Microsoft provides a suggestion by using code and updating the SiteUrl column in the ImmedSubscriptions table.  More here

I reviewed the existing alerts in the table and then talked our DBA into updating the SiteUrl column in the ImmedSubscriptions table from myold.url.path.com to mynew.url.path.com.  

Time to test, after making the change in production :)     

I added an item to the list - the alerts all worked successfully.  I am NOT guaranteeing this will work in every situation, but I took my chances and it worked for me. 

This entry is from the RV.NUG March newsletter

You are the U in RV.NUG

Help define the group to be what you want it to be!

The Roanoke Valley .NET User Group recently turned 4. During the last four years, we have seen a lot of change in the users of the group. We have members that have been with the group since the very first meeting, members that joined during the Community Launch of Visual Studio 2005 and members that have joined in the last few months. One thing that has remained constant during the changes is the desire to obtain and share knowledge.

There have also been a lot of changes in .NET since it was first released. With the recent release of Visual Studio 2008, now more than ever, using .NET extends beyond writing Windows or Web applications; SharePoint and VSTO development are examples.

With all the new members and the new technology, we need to check in and see what you, the "U" in the Roanoke Valley .NET User Group would like to receive or contribute to the group.

Receive from YOUR User Group:

• Contact us by:
  • Talking with any of the officers during a meeting
  • Contacting any of the officers at any time, don't wait for a meeting
• Tell us:
  • What you liked
  • What you didn't like, but be prepared to tell us what you would like instead
  • When you want to hear more
  • What topics you would like to see presented
  • What you're doing at work
  • Ideas beyond the monthly meetings

Contribute to YOUR User Group:

• Present
  • During a meeting
  • During the annual -thon event (a 10-15 minute presentation with coaching if you want it)
• Refer
  • A presenter
  • A sponsor for a meeting
  • A new member - don't forget you'll each get a free raffle ticket
• Pay your dues - Annual dues are $20 per year, this helps cover costs of food, printing, Code Camps, launch events and more
• Tell us what you want from the user group
• Talk to other members of the user group
  • Tell them what you're doing at work and what interests you
  • Ask them what they're doing at work and what interests them
• Share announcements or information that might interest the group
  • Speak up during the meeting announcements
  • Give the information to any RV.NUG officer
• Write an article for the newsletter 
  • Tips & tricks you've discovered
  • Book review
  • Thoughts and musings
  • Jokes!
• Lead an event - this can be anything : study group, lunch series, group project, etc etc
  • We will be there to help and support you!

I see that the contribute list is much longer than the receive list. I think this is because the more you contribute the more you receive. Perhaps that list should be titled "How to receive even more from YOUR user group"!

Andy Leonard visited the RV.NUG for the April monthly meeting.  With Andy it's always a visit with a presentation.  I've known Andy a long time and he was instrumental in helping me (and the RV.NUG) network beyond the Roanoke Valley.  While visiting, Andy gave a presentation on "Testing the Database".  Even though it was a nasty, dreary, rainy night we had a good turnout and a lot of questions for Andy.  Andy's gotten to know several of us so he jokes with the person asking the questions; it makes for a great USER group experience. 

The timing of his presentation just happened to coincide with the user group receiving a shipment of CoDe magazine (May/June 2008).  In this particular issue, there was an article "Heard on .NET Rocks!  Andy Leonard on Unit Testing Your Database".  If you're not lucky enough to have Andy present at your user group; be sure and check out the magazine article on .NET Rocks episode #312.