CINNUG Blog

Hey Folks!

Sarah Dutkiewicz and Chris Barth spoke at CINNUG’s February meeting.

Some of us usually meet for a beverage and a little geek talk after the monthly meeting. This month we had about 20 people meet at Claddaugh’s!  Sarah felt like one of our own, though it was her first trip to Cincinnati.

Sarah gave us the 101 on Python for the .Net Developer.  If you are interested in Sarah’s talk on Python, her presentation and code samples are posted here.

Chris gave the grok on SQL Server 2008 R2 and discussed the Master Data Services (MDS).

The CINNUG team

What’s in this Newsletter?

• March CinArc – 03/18/10
• March CINNUG – 03/23/10
• April BitSlingers – 04/05/10
• Cincinnati Programmers Guild – 03/04/10
• Next Generation Testing with Visual Studio 2010 – 03/04/10
• Day of Mobile – 03/06/10 (Chicago, IL)
• Mobile Development Firestarter – 04/24/10
• CiNPA Tech Fair – 04/24/10
• Stir Trek 2010 – 05/07/10 (Columbus, OH)
• Our sponsors – they pay for the pizza

UPCOMING MEETINGS:
March CinArc
Thursday, March 18th - 6:00PM at MAX Technical Training in Mason, OH

This CinArc we are breaking from the norm and will have a guest speaker.  Mark Harris from Microsoft will talk to us about how Microsoft ships software.

The first portion of the evening Mark will present the flow of development at Microsoft and, after pizza, we'll start with open discussion.

If you ever wondered how your development practices stack up against Microsoft's, this meeting will be a great opportunity to find out.

As usual, pizza will be provided at no charge thanks to our sponsors!


March CINNUG – MIX Highlights by Jeff Blankenburg
Tuesday, March 23rd - 6:00PM; Social Time, 5:30PM - MAX Technical Training - Mason, OH

Jeff Blankenburg is coming to speak to us about all the cool announcements and highlights from the Microsoft MIX conference.

MIX Highlights: This presentation will cover the highlights of Microsoft’s Mix 2010 conference.  We will discuss development for Windows Phone 7 Series, Silverlight 4, ASP.NET MVC 2, and Visual Studio 2010, among other topics.  This will be an overview of these subjects, and will also include demos as well.

Our own Joe Wirtley will be giving the grok talk as an Introduction to Continuous Integration with Teamcity.


April Bitslingers
Monday, April 5th - 6:00PM at Panera Bread on Mason Montgomery in Mason, OH

What is Bitsligners?

This is an informal meetup of people interested in learning from one another. Bring your laptop and pair up with someone to work on an open source project, learn a new technique, or even dabble in a new language. There is no agenda or specific topic, just a time set aside for people to pair.

The meetup officially kicks off at 6:00PM, but lasts until the last pair breaks up, or they kick us out. Feel free to come and join us for as long, or as short, of a time as you want to.

NOTE: There will be no food provided, but hey, we're at Panera.


Cincinnati Programmers Guild
Thursday, March 4th – 6:30PM to 8:30PM - MAX Technical Training - Mason, OH

Guild founder Troy Davis will rededicate the Cincinnati Programmers Guild and its mission of education on Thursday, March 4th, 6:30 PM at Max Technical Training in Mason, Ohio.

He'll show off some code recently written for Amazon's S3 and SimpleDB services, written in PHP and Ruby, as well as talk a bit about Merb, a framework that is being merged with Rails to create Rails 3.

Check out http://cincypg.org for more information.

UPCOMING EVENTS:
Next Generation Testing with Visual Studio 2010
Thursday, March 4th – 5:30PM to 8:30PM – Microsoft Offices – Mason, OH

Join us for a sneak peek at some of the new capabilities in Microsoft(r) Visual Studio(r) 2010, a landmark release of the premier development and testing toolset for Windows(r), Web and Cloud development.

Microsoft has made significant investments to improve the Testing/QA tools in Visual Studio 2010.  The Next Generation Testing Event is your exclusive opportunity to experience the incredible power and capabilities these new tools bring to the QA and testing process.  At this event, you'll get a comprehensive overview, as well as a deep dive, into the range of new tools and how they can enable you to improve the way you develop and test software on the Microsoft platform.

This will be an invaluable opportunity to learn how to take software development to the next level with Visual Studio 2010's new testing features.

Registration information


Day of Mobile
Saturday, March 6th – 8:00AM to 4:00PM – Illinois Institute of Technology – Chicago, IL

Day of Mobile (www.dayofmobile.com) is an all day event for mobile developers and enthusiasts that will take place at IIT on March 6, 2009. The overall goal of the event is to better prepare both Chicago's application development community and companies with mobile initiatives for the upcoming mobile revolution. We will cover a myriad of different topics relative to mobile development and strategy such as platform SDKs, cross platform development, multimedia, CMS/SMS, mobile business models and many more. The event will begin with a breakfast at 8AM and conclude after a keynote speech and hackathon awards ceremony at 4PM. Throughout the day, there will be talks running concurrently with one another in two adjoining ballrooms.

Sign up today for only $39.95. They are also offering a student discount ticket price of $29.95 if you bring a student identification along with you the day of the event. Registration for the event is at http://techinthemiddle.eventbrite.com/.


Mobile Development Firestarter
Saturday, April 24th – 9:00AM to 5:00PM – Microsoft Offices – Mason, OH

We are targeting the first quarter of 2010 for a Mobile Development Firestarter. This firestarter will cover how to get started in mobile development across three platforms: Windows Mobile, iPhone and Android.  We wanted to cover multiple platforms so that people could get a good view into the tools and technologies used across all three.

This event will be hosted by CINNUG and the iPhone Developer's Group which also meets at MAX. For more information see our Special Events page.

This event is being sponsored by Pillar Technologies, Cincinnati Bell Technology Services, Sogeti and PSI Group.

Register Now!


CiNPA Tech Fair
Saturday, April 24th – 9:00AM to 5:00PM – Crowne Plaza North Hotel – Cincinnati, OH

The Cincinnati Networking Professionals Association (CiNPA) will be having an all day Tech Fair at the Crowne Plaza North on Chester Road in Sharonville, OH. There will be valuable breakout sessions, opportunity to meet and talk first hand with many vendors of IT Hardware, Software and Services, a GREAT Keynote presentation by Paul Thurrott of WindowsIP Pro Magazine and a catered lunch all for only $10.

Registration is at the CiNPA web site.


Stir Trek 2010
Friday, May 7th – 8:00AM to 6:00PM – Marcus Crosswords Theater – Columbus, OH

Stir Trek is an opportunity to learn about the newest advances in web and mobile development. There will be 20 sessions, in four tracks, so you’ll be able to pick the content that interests you the most. In addition, the day will include lunch, a raffle with some significant prizes, and a private screening of the new IronMan 2 movie, which opens in theaters the day of this event.

There is a $25 fee to register. Check out http://stirtrek.com for more information.

A group of local visionaries are working on a project to help bring some insight into all the nooks and crannies of interesting places, people and history of Cincinnati – Secret Cincinnati.  They are planning a weekend on March 5th, 6th & 7th to bring together designers, planners and developers to produce a viable web presence for their project.  If you are interested you should check out the site to learn more.

This is somewhat like the “In One Weekend” events, but the goal isn’t to produce a company at the end.  This won’t lead to a new job, but it will be a chance to work with some other developers on a cool project you can point to and say, “I helped code that”.

Hey Folks!

CINNUG is looking for some feedback. We’re working on topics for our Firestarters, Special Events and One-day Events. What would you like to see?  Send your suggestions to marketing@cinnug.org.  

This month Sarah Dutkiewicz will be traveling down from Cleveland to talk to us about IronPython, one of the dynamic language options in the .NET platform.  We'll also have a grok talk by Phil Japikse on new developer features of SQL Server 2008.

The CINNUG team

What’s in this Newsletter?

• February CinArc - 02/18/10
• February CINNUG - 02/23/10
• Software Engineering 101 Event - 02/27/10 (Franklin, TN)
• March BitSlingers – 03/01/10
• TechNet & MSDN Event – 03/02/10
• Next Generation Testing with Visual Studio 2010 – 03/04/10
• Day of Mobile – 03/06/10 (Chicago, IL)
• Mobile Development Firestarter – TBA
• CiNPA Tech Fair – 04/24/10
• Our sponsors – they pay for the pizza

UPCOMING MEETINGS:
February CinArc
Thursday, February 18th - 6:00PM at MAX Technical Training in Mason, OH

Come join this new special interest group as we discuss topics related to software architecture.  This meeting is run using an open discussion or open fishbowl technique where the attendees are encouraged to share their thoughts with everyone while keeping the meeting from becoming a free for all. :)  What topic will we cover?  Well, that's up to the attendees!

NOTE:  We had to reschedule our planned guest speaker, Mark Harris, to next month's meeting.  He will be our guest on the March 18th CinArc meeting instead.  We will have our normal open discussion for the February meeting.

As usual, pizza will be provided at no charge thanks to our sponsors!


February CINNUG – Python 101 for the .Net Developer by Sarah Dutkiewicz
Tuesday, February 23rd - 6:00PM; Social Time, 5:30PM - MAX Technical Training - Mason, OH

The first part of the session will cover the basics of Python - its history, how its data structures compare to the those we're familiar with in the primary .NET languages, its strong and weak points, who's using it, and why you as a developer - both generally speaking and as a .NET developer - should care about Python.
 
The second part of the session will get into the demos - starting with some basic Python scripts and getting into IronPython scripts, if time allows.

Phil Japikse will give the grok talk on the new developer features of SQL Server 2008.


March Bitslingers
Monday, March 1st - 6:00PM at Panera Bread on Mason Montgomery in Mason, OH

What is Bitsligners? This is an informal meetup of people interested in learning from one another. Bring your laptop and pair up with someone to work on an open source project, learn a new technique, or even dabble in a new language. There is no agenda or specific topic, just a time set aside for people to pair.
The meetup officially kicks off at 6:00PM, but lasts until the last pair breaks up, or they kick us out. Feel free to come and join us for as long, or as short, of a time as you want to.

NOTE: There will be no food provided, but hey, we're at Panera.
 

UPCOMING EVENTS:
Software Engineering 101 Event
Saturday, February 27th – 8:00AM to 5:00PM – Microsoft Offices – Franklin, TN (Webcast available)

This is a one-day, FREE event focused on core skills that modern developers need to have to be successful today.  This isn’t about learning the basics of Silverlight, WPF, or <insert_new_tech_of_day>, rather, this conference will help you understand how to build software that is better designed, more maintainable, and more testable.

They will also be webcasting the whole event, so if people can't make it, they will be able to participate online.

For more information please check out the links below:
Live event: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032441781&Culture=en-US
Online: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032441780&Culture=en-US

TechNet and MSDN Events
Tuesday, March 2nd – Microsoft Offices – Mason, OH

1.  Windows Azure, Hyper-V and Windows 7 Deployment presented by TechNet Events - 8:30AM to 12:00PM. Register information.

2. Visual Studio 2010, .NET Framework 4.0 & SharePoint Development presented by MSDN Events - 1:00PM to 4:30PM.  Register information.

Join your local MSDN Events team for a lively tour of our latest version of Visual Studio and the .NET Framework. We’ll start with an overview the IDE and explore how you can use the latest features to develop great applications in a flash. Next, we’ll look at the newest changes to the .NET Framework and how you can leverage them today. Finally, we end the day by looking at the new tools in Visual Studio that will supercharge your SharePoint development.

Next Generation Testing with Visual Studio 2010
Thursday, March 4th – 5:30PM to 8:30PM – Microsoft Offices – Mason, OH

Join us for a sneak peek at some of the new capabilities in Microsoft(r) Visual Studio(r) 2010, a landmark release of the premier development and testing toolset for Windows(r), Web and Cloud development.

Microsoft has made significant investments to improve the Testing/QA tools in Visual Studio 2010.  The Next Generation Testing Event is your exclusive opportunity to experience the incredible power and capabilities these new tools bring to the QA and testing process.  At this event, you'll get a comprehensive overview, as well as a deep dive, into the range of new tools and how they can enable you to improve the way you develop and test software on the Microsoft platform.

This will be an invaluable opportunity to learn how to take software development to the next level with Visual Studio 2010's new testing features.

Registration information


Day of Mobile
Saturday, March 6th – 8:00AM to 4:00PM – Illinois Institute of Technology – Chicago, IL

Day of Mobile (www.dayofmobile.com) is an all day event for mobile developers and enthusiasts that will take place at IIT on March 6, 2009. The overall goal of the event is to better prepare both Chicago's application development community and companies with mobile initiatives for the upcoming mobile revolution. We will cover a myriad of different topics relative to mobile development and strategy such as platform SDKs, cross platform development, multimedia, CMS/SMS, mobile business models and many more. The event will begin with a breakfast at 8AM and conclude after a keynote speech and hackathon awards ceremony at 4PM. Throughout the day, there will be talks running concurrently with one another in two adjoining ballrooms.

Sign up today for only $39.95. They are also offering a student discount ticket price of $29.95 if you bring a student identification along with you the day of the event. Registration for the event is at http://techinthemiddle.eventbrite.com/.


Mobile Development Firestarter
Monday, TBA – Microsoft Offices – Mason, OH

We are targeting the first quarter of 2010 for a Mobile Development Firestarter. This firestarter will cover how to get started in mobile development across three platforms: Windows Mobile, iPhone and Android.  We wanted to cover multiple platforms so that people could get a good view into the tools and technologies used across all three.

This event will be hosted by CINNUG and the iPhone Developer's Group which also meets at MAX.

CiNPA Tech Fair
Saturday, April 24th – 9:00AM to 5:00PM – Crowne Plaza North Hotel – Cincinnati, OH

Saturday, April 24 the Cincinnati Networking Professionals Association (CiNPA) will be having an all day Tech Fair at the Crowne Plaza North on Chester Road in Sharonville, OH. There will be valuable breakout sessions, opportunity to meet and talk first hand with many vendors of IT Hardware, Software and Services, a GREAT Keynote presentation by Paul Thurrott of WindowsIP Pro Magazine and a catered lunch all for only $10.

Registration is at the CiNPA web site.

This is a 2-day deep dive program to help prepare you to deliver solutions on the Windows Azure Platform. We have worked to bring the region’s best Azure experts together to teach you how to work in the cloud. Each day will be filled with training, discussion, reviewing real scenarios, and hands on labs. Snacks and drinks will be provided, however we advise you to make your own lunch arrangements prior to the event. You will need to bring a computer loaded with the software listed below.

For more information please visit www.azurebootcamp.com, or email us at info@azurebootcamp.com.  The specifics about the Cincinnati edition can be found at http://azurebootcamp.com/cityCincinnati.aspx. 

What do I need to bring:

During the boot camp you will have opportunities to practice what you learn with labs. Having all of your software ready will make it easier to dive into the yummy goodness of exploring the labs. The lab files package will be given to you during the event .If you want to have everything loaded into a virtual PC that would be even better.  Check out What to Bring on the Azure Boot Camp site for more information about what you’ll want preloaded before you arrive.

Register now for this event!  Space is limited.

Hey Folks!

Our first social gathering was a success! We had several members arriving early to socialize with fellow members before the meeting.

We had a good turn-out this month. David Giard gave us a great introduction to Microsoft's Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF).  He also gave us a crash course on the differences between MEF and Dependency Injection.

Nino Benvenuti groked on Mercurial distributed source code.


The CINNUG team


What’s in this Newsletter?

•    February CINNUG
•    February CinArc
•    March BitSlingers
•    TechNet and MSDN Events
•    Our sponsors – they pay for the pizza


February CINNUG – Python 101 for the .Net Developer by Sarah Dutkiewicz
Tuesday, February 23rd 6:00PM (Social time starts at 5:30PM) at MAX Technical Training  in Mason, OH

The first part of the session will cover the basics of Python - its history, how its data structures compare to the those we're familiar with in the primary .NET languages, its strong and weak points, who's using it, and why you as a developer - both generally speaking and as a .NET developer - should care about Python.
The second part of the session will get into the demos - starting with some basic Python scripts and getting into IronPython scripts, if time allows.


February CinArc
Thursday, February 18th - 6:00PM at MAX Technical Training in Mason, OH

This CinArc we are breaking from the norm and will have a guest speaker.  Mark Harris from Microsoft will talk to us about how Microsoft ships software.  The first portion of the evening Mark will present the flow of development at Microsoft and, after pizza, we'll start with open discussion.

As usual, pizza will be provided at no charge thanks to our sponsors !


March Bitslingers
Monday, March 1st - 6:00PM at Panera Bread on Mason Montgomery in Mason, OH

What is Bitsligners? This is an informal meetup of people interested in learning from one another. Bring your laptop and pair up with someone to work on an open source project, learn a new technique, or even dabble in a new language. There is no agenda or specific topic, just an time set aside for people to pair.
The meetup officially kicks off at 6:00 PM, but lasts until the last pair breaks up, or they kick us out. Feel free to come and join us for as long, or as short, of a time as you want to.

NOTE: There will be no food provided, but hey, we're at Panera.
 

TechNet and MSDN Events
March 2, 2010 – Microsoft Offices – Mason, OH

1.     Windows Azure, Hyper-V and Windows 7 Deployment presented by TechNet Events - 8:30AM to 12:00PM. Register information.

2.    Visual Studio 2010, .NET Framework 4.0 & SharePoint Development presented by MSDN Events - 1:00PM to 4:30PM.  Register information.

Join your local MSDN Events team for a lively tour of our latest version of Visual Studio and the .NET Framework. We’ll start with an overview the IDE and explore how you can use the latest features to develop great applications in a flash. Next, we’ll look at the newest changes to the .NET Framework and how you can leverage them today. Finally, we end the day by looking at the new tools in Visual Studio that will supercharge your SharePoint development.

It's that time of year again...school delays, school closings, winter weather advisories Oh My!  

I know what you're thinking - "What if we have bad weather on a scheduled meeting night?  I don't want to miss any of the great content, but how will I know if the meeting is canceled?"

Our primary concern is everyone's safety, so we will be making our decisions based on that.  After alll, we can reschedule speakers!  Here are the guidelines for the meetings:

• Max follows University of Cincinnati.  If UC is closed, Max is closed, so we are cancelled.  Tune to your fave news or web site to get the school closing lists.
• If Max decides to close on their own (but UC is still open), we will also not have a meeting.
• If the Directors decide to cancel the meeting (with the ultimate decision maker being the Lead Director), then the meeting will be cancelled.

Ok, so now we know the policy, but how we will be notified?

• This web site - we will update this page as soon as we know we are cancelling a meeting
• Twitter - follow www.twitter.com/cinnug or any of the directors - besides, they are all cool folks and you should follow them anyway!
• Phil Japikse - www.twitter.com/skimedic
• Mike Wood - www.twitter.com/mikewo
• Matt Brewer - www.twitter.com/mattbrewer
• Jen Griffin - http://twitter.com/jengriff

So, here's to hoping for just enough to make it a fun winter, but not enough to cause any problems!

Did you miss the Professional Developers Conference in November?  If so, join us as we bring the “highlights” from the PDC09 conference to you!  At this special FREE event we will cover the latest Microsoft technologies and exciting announcements from PDC09 and deliver over 16 sessions presented by Microsoft, Partners, MVPs and Community Leaders.  The keynote will be delivered by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, and will cover Microsoft’s three screens and the cloud strategy.

Microsoft is releasing more than 25 products and frameworks over the next six months, more than at any other time. Our goal is to get you up to speed on what is coming, and how it can help you do more with what you have. The sessions will cover multiple technologies such as Microsoft® Windows® Azure™, Visual Studio® 2010, .NET 4, Silverlight™ 4, SharePoint Server® 2010, SQL Server® 2008 R2, Windows® 7, and Windows Server® 2008 R2.

During the event, we encourage you to network with your peers and chat one-on-one with the speakers at the “Ask the Experts” area to get all of your questions answered. You can also visit the Customer Showcase area to see how customers are using the latest technologies in real world applications, and the amazing results they are seeing. We will also showcase the latest Windows powered gadgets and mobile devices in the Customer Showcase area.

If seeing isn’t enough, we will also have a fully staffed Hands-On-Lab area packed with PCs, labs you can practice with, and expert staff to help you learn the new tools.

We will be hosting the event at Vanderbilt University Student Life Center in Nashville, TN. Specific information about event parking and shuttle service will be posted on the registration site and emailed to you prior to the event as well.

Every attendee will receive a Visual Studio 2010 Beta2 DVD, a t-shirt and an event bag filled with a collection of product information, case studies and other great resources.  We will also be raffling off some great prizes at the end of the day!

Come spend the day with us and learn about the future of developer technology!

Nashville, TN

January 20, 2010

8:30am – 5:00pm
Vanderbilt University
Student Life Center
Commodore Ballroom
310 25^th Avenue South
Nashville, TN 37240
(615) 343-0371

7:30am - 8:30am
Registration & Breakfast

Register

It is with a sad mind and a heavy heart that I have to report that Ed Smith (@EdSharp) has passed away.  Ed, a longtime consultant with Sogeti, was successfully forging ahead as an independent consultant when his life was unexpectedly cut short.  A member of the Cincinnati .NET Users' Group (CINNUG) and the Cincinnati Software Architecture Special Interest Group (CINARCH) since 2008, Ed was a valuable part of our community, contributing knowledge, camaraderie, and a quick wit to conversations (technical or otherwise).  Beyond our official meetings, I know Ed was a friend to many of our members.  He will be greatly missed.

One of the family's wishes is for donations to be made to either Taylor University or the Cincinnati Zoo.  As such, CINNUG will be collecting donations for the Ed Smith Memorial donation for the Cincinnati Zoo.  Please contact myself or any of the other directors (Mike Wood, Matt Brewer, or Jen Griffin) through the contact form at http://cinnug.org/blog/contact.aspx if you are interested or need more information.  We will also have donation boxes at all of our meetings starting with our Dec 17th game night and continuing through all CINNUG and CINARCH meetings and events through the end of the March, 2010, and be taking donations via PayPal available as well (details to be worked out still).

Funeral services will be held this Saturday, Dec 5, at the Evangelical Community Church 2191 Struble Rd. 2 PM (friends may call as early as 1:00).  Ed's online obituary can be found here: http://is.gd/5b3XR.

So long Ed, and rest in peace.

Phil Japikse

• November CINNUG - A Deep Dive Into Azure
• December CINNUG - Game Night  
• December BitSlingers  
• December CinArc  
• SharePoint 2010 Now!
• Our Sponsors - they pay for your pizza!    

The presentation materials from the Stephen Toub tour have been posted to our download site.

This zip file contains two separate zip files.  One is the slides and the other are the demos.

Enjoy!

Microsoft and a host of local partners is throwing a two day FREE event on November 12th and 13th.  This event will cover a veritable cornucopia of technology, products and methodologies.  If you’re interested in SQL Server, TFS, Scrum, LINQ, SharePoint, Exchange, F#, Sketchflow, Silverlight, Azure, ForeFront, RIA Services, Secure Code (just to name a few of the topics covered) you’ll get some benefit from this event.  The speakers are pulled from Microsoft, community leaders, MVPs and MS Partners.  There will also be a group of “Experts” available to ask questions to.  You can find the agenda and registration links over on Jeff Blankenburg’s site (link below).

Check it out! 

"The goal is not to bend devs to the will of a specific pattern, but to get them to think about their work and what they're doing." They need to apply critical thought.

SOLID - Single Responsibility Principle, Open/Closed Principle, Liskov Substitution principle, Interface Segregation Principle, Dependency Inversion Principle

Have you had to maintain code that goes for more than one screen? Wow. Too many responsibilities in the code. As changes are made, and complexity introduced, then the quality degrades. Single responsibility is the rule.

How many times code breaks because you change the base class with unintended side effects. Should be able to extend classes but not modify them.

Liskov is coding to an interface. I shouldn't care where the instantiation came from.

Make fine grained interfaces to match specific needs. Create an interface that only applies to what I need.

Depend on abstractions, not concrete implementations. Use something, don't instantiate something unless using a factory.

So what are design patterns? GOF is a dry read. General reusable solutions to a common problem. Enables communication but may not be code. They are conceptual. Google SOLID and you'll find all sorts of resources.

Creational

• Singleton
• Factory - simple, factory, abstract

Structural

• Adapter
• Decorator
• Facade

Behavioral

• Command
• Strategy

Phil spent the rest of the evening walking through a number of design patterns in code.

Resources:

The classic Gang Of Four book Design Patterns

The readable patterns book Head First Design Patterns

www.dofactory.com

Don’t forget that CINNUG will be hosting an ASP.NET MVC Firestarter event on Saturday, October 17th at the Microsoft Office in Mason, OH.  If you haven’t already registered you can do so at https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=140750.

What is an ASP.NET MVC Firestarter?  Well, check out the event description:

Have you heard of ASP.NET MVC, but just haven't had time to look into it? Are you ready to explore a different way to work with ASP.NET? If you've answered yes to either of these then the ASP.NET MVC event is for you! On Saturday, October 17th the Cincinnati .NET User Group, in co-operation with Microsoft, will be hosting a day long event designed to introduce you to ASP.NET MVC technologies.
The event will be broken down into introductory sessions that cover the basics for getting started with ASP.NET MVC development:

○ Keynote presented by James Bender
○ Introduction to ASP.NET MVC presented by Tim Wingfield (with special guest Steve Horn)
○ Testing with ASP.NET MVC presented by Phil Japikse
○ Using JQuery with ASP.NET MVC presented by Leon Gersing
○ ASP.NET MVC on Azure presented by Bill Steele
○ Panel Discussion: Compare Webforms with ASP.NET MVC

Come out and join us to learn about ASP.NET MVC. The event will take place at the Microsoft office in Mason, OH. Lunch will be provided. Please note that public wireless access will not be available.

Nerd Dinner the night before!

There will be a nerd dinner the night before for anyone interested in hanging out prior to the event.  The dinner will on Friday, October 16th at Dewey’s pizza in West Chester starting around 6:30 PM.  Please RSVP at http://nerddinner.com/1129.

Nominations for CINNUG Directors were taken at last month’s meeting for the 2010 year.  Elections will be held at the next regular CINNUG meeting, Tuesday, October 27th.  In order to vote you must have attended at least 3 meetings out of the last 6 months (both CinARC and CINNUG count). 

Phil Japikse will be the new Lead Director for CINNUG as he was the only one nominated for the position.  The remaining three (3) Director positions received quite a few nominations.  Below are the nominees who have accepted and are eligible for the positions:

• Matt Brewer
• Andy Erickson
• Nino Benvenuti
• Ernie Stormann
• Jennifer Griffin
• Mike Wood

Note that this is not a popularity contest in any way.  Please vote for the person you think will help lead the group well over the next year.  This person should be passionate about the community and interested in continuing to make CINNUG a great place of .NET developers to learn and share from one another.

Winners will be announced after the vote and will assume their roles in November of this year.

Microsoft Sync Framework

People do synchronization for a number of reasons. Perhaps you have to operate in a disconnected environment. Outlook is a good example of this. Peer-to-peer is another sync model.

SQL Server comes bundled with some powerful sync functionality. Merge setup is tough and not so flexible, but custom code is not really required. You do need administrator and DBA intervention, though. Sync Framework is very flexible but requires custom code. Sync Services for ADO.NET, what Nino covered tonight, sits nicely between these two extremes. It puts more control in the hands of the developer. Essentially, if you can write a provider for it, you can sync it.

Sync Framework ships with File System, ADO.NET, and FeedSync providers. Mesh runs off the FeedSync protocol, it's not using the provider but the protocol. The point is that the same protocol used in LiveMesh ships with the Sync Framework. You can write a custom provider, but it's not recommended. It's a lot of work.

The data store can be any data source in Sync. It is that simple. Configure a client provider, a server provider, and a sync agent and that's it. Instruct the Sync Agent to sync and you're done.

The Wizard Click, Drag, and You're Done

When using the synch-ing wizard, it creates a file with a .sync extension to hold configuration information. A Wizard starts up and allows you to configure data sources.  You'll see a "Use SQL Server change tracking" which is a useful option. This presents a number of aditional configuration options. After running the Wizard a number of SQL files get created that setup change tracking within SQL Server.

Some Notes

Not all data stores are created equally. A full participant will store metadata and you'll need a storage location. A partial participant will not store metadata. You'll need to make some decisions about the tradeoffs.

Sync Resources

For additional information on the Sync Framework take a look at these Sync resources

Sync Developer Center
Sync Forums
MSDN Code Gallery
This Sync Framework Blog and The Synchronizer Blog