Tech Community

Philadelphia IT Architect Regional Conference 9/23-24 call for speakers

Stan Spotts — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 04:05:43 GMT

The Philadelphia chapter of the International Association of Software Architects (IASA) is pleased to announce the IT Architect Regional Conference, the largest event in the Philadelphia area to address the pressing needs of IT architects today. There are over 15 seminars and two tracks separated by specialty: Enterprise and Software Architecture. Architects of all levels can take their skills to the next level.

Enterprise Architecture Track:
Learn efficient strategies for linking your enterprise strategy to implementation, create and articulate sound ROI, prioritize your objectives, inspire employees to share your vision, dive in to governance concepts, and enhance your agile strategies.

Software Architecture Track:
Increase alignment between architecture, business and development, troubleshoot your software architecture, assess architecture and software maturity, drive architecture evolution by effectively selecting next generation technology through a rigorous evaluation process, integrate with dynamic management processes, governance for the successful software architect, and enhance design with realistic software architecture toolsets.

Call for Presentations
If you are in or near the Philadelphia area and would like to speak at our upcoming conference, please download the Presenter Form.

New Philadelphia chapter of International Association of Software Architects (IASA)

Stan Spotts — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 14:38:45 GMT

Mitch Ruebush, Don Urbanic, Brian Mitchell and I met a few months ago to initiate a local chapter of the IASA. and the time has now come to have our first meeting. Our chapter president, Mitch Ruebush, will be moderating the first meeting. Here are the particulars from his invitation e-mail:

You are invited to IASA - Philadelphia's first meeting on February 6th, 2008 at the Microsoft Malvern office. We have set up an official IASA Web site at http://www.iasahome.org/web/Philadelphia/home to provide more information on IASA and the Philly chapter. Please use this site to keep up with the Philadelphia IASA community.

Agenda:
Refreshments & Network
Introductions
What do you want from an architecture professional group?
How do you want to help?

Topic:
What is Architecture?
Join us for a moderated discussion on the practicality of what IT architecture is. We will discuss what is the meaning of IT architecture, roles and responsibilities, approaches to IT architecture, common architecture processes and artifacts and what should be in the architecture toolkit.

Moderator:
Mitch Ruebush is the Architecture Team Leader at ING DIRECT, fsb. He is responsible for defining and coordinating the architecture for the applications and infrastructure at ING DIRECT. He has written a number of books and articles on .NET and enjoys spending his time as a father of two great kids, a hobbyist film maker, playing piano and saxophone and trying to write a video game.

Date: Feb. 6th, 2008
Time: 6:00pm - 8:00pm

Location:
Microsoft Corporation
Great Valley Corporate Center
45 Liberty Blvd., Suite 210
Malvern, PA 19355

IASA (International Association of Software Architects) is the premier association focused on the IT architecture profession through education, advocacy, events, and the development of best practices.

The 2007 Software Best Practices Webinar Series

Stan Spotts — Wed, 02 May 2007 01:00:23 GMT

My company, Computer Aid, Inc., is the sponsor for The IT Metrics and Productivity Institute (ITMPI), and the ITMPI is hosting some interesting webinars during the course of the year. I'm going to be presenting in October on Test Driven Design, using VSTS and other tools to show examples of TDD cycles. This is going to be fun for me since I used to do many presentations and just started getting into webinars before leaving Microsoft at the end of 2005.

From the webinar info web site: The Software Best Practices Webinars Series is a not-for-profit educational program aimed at improving the practice and management of software development and maintenance worldwide.
Topics covered in 2007 will include:

Software Measurement
Software Project Estimation
Software Testing
Software Project Management
Software Benchmarking
Rapid Application Development

Legacy Systems Support
Agile Development
Software Six Sigma
IT Project Governance
IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)
Outsourcing Best Practices

Each webinar will feature an expert speaker who has extensively researched and successfully applied best practice principles to the development and maintenance of software.

These webinars are free, as is the newsletter that you can sign up for at the ITMPI web site.

This should get product of the year from every such award giver

Stan Spotts — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 19:49:07 GMT

I wish I knew about this the last time I bought a box from Dell. This has got to be nominated for product of the decade.

http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/

From their site:

So, you're the proud owner of a new PC. You anxiously open the box, dumping out the contents, casting the instructions aside. You feverishly push your old PC off the desk and get the new one set up. On the floor lies a pile of plastic wrap and twist ties. Your brand spanking new PC boots up only to greet you with a plethora of pop up advertisements pestering you to pay for anti-virus software or sign up for a music service. Your desktop is littered with website links for 'special offers.' The system tray is already full of programs that continuously use your internet connection to make sure that you're 'up to date.'

"When did I ask for this?" you ask. Well, you didn't and that's where the PC Decrapifier comes in. The PC Decrapifier attempts to remove all of the crap on your PC that you never asked for or wanted. To manually remove all of this stuff by hand can take at least an hour (depending on the severity of the infestation.) The PC Decrapifier will detect the 'crap' on your system, you choose what to uninstall, then sit back and let the PC Decrapifier work its magic.

Tech Ed 2007 - signed up!

Stan Spotts — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 00:50:00 GMT

Since my twins were born in 2005, I haven't done even one overnight trip. Tech Ed 2007 better be worth it :).

Philly Code Camp II: Application Server Edition

Stan Spotts — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 20:17:00 GMT

The speakers are set, and registration is open for the Philadelpha Area Code Camp II: Application Server Edition event. For the BizTalk track, we've got the following sessions:

10:00-11:30 Stan Spotts (Computer Aid, Inc.) Intro to BizTalk Orchestrations

11:30-1:00 Geoff Snowman (Microsoft) Deploying BizTalk Applications Using the Management Console and Other New Features of BizTalk 2006

1:30-3:00 Dave Hoerster (Ciber, Inc.) Calling the Business Rules Engine from Your Applications

3:00-4:30 Tom Beerley (Microsoft) BizTalk 2006 Best Practices

4:30-6:00 Dave Ateek (Microsoft) Providing Process Visibility through Business Activity Monitoring

Be sure to sign up early, these Code Camps fill up quickly!

Community Credit web site

Stan Spotts — Wed, 31 May 2006 03:33:00 GMT

The Community Credit Site is an interesting place for people who are active in the developer community. You can amass points for speaking, blogging, writing, and even attending events. Silly prizes are awarded, and it's just plain fun.

Philadelphia Code Camp II: Application Server Edition

Stan Spotts — Tue, 23 May 2006 15:02:00 GMT

These fill up quickly, so be sure to register for the next Philadelphia Code Camp that's focused on application servers like BizTalk 2006 and SharePoint.

I'm looking for speakers for BizTalk topics, so if you're interested please respond to this blog post.

Speaking engagements

Stan Spotts — Mon, 15 May 2006 21:09:00 GMT

You'd think I'd remember to do this ahead of time... last month I gave a presentation about BizTalk Server 2006 at the Philly .NET user group. We covered basics as well as some of the new features, especially with regards to packaging and distribution.

This last Saturday, we had the Philadelphia Code Camp II: SQL Server Edition event. I gave a talk on SQL Management Objects on SQL Server 2005. We had over 120 people at the event, and sessions went from 9am to 4pm or so. There were a lot of other great local speakers at the event as well - Mark Scott, Bill Wolff, Mitch Ruebush, Chuck Urweiler, Reed Sutton, Chuck Boyce, Sharon Dooley, Vince Napoli, and Joe Toscono.

June's Code Camp II: Application Server Edition event will be focused on SharePoint and BizTalk Server.

If you want to give a presentation about BizTalk at the event, please leave me a comment. I need to flesh out the agenda and get the topics lined up for the BizTalk track.

BizTalk Server 2006 RTM in MSDN Subscriber Downloads

Stan Spotts — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 17:06:00 GMT

Congratulations to the BizTalk team! While the news isn't posted on the MSDN Subscriber page, the bits are available in subscriber downloads! I've been chewing on nails since the March 23 RTM date waiting to get access to these bits.