CINNUG Blog

TDD Talk this week at CincyPG

MikeWo — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 01:05:00 GMT

Phil Japikse, who is a regular at the CINNUG and CinARC meetings, will be presenting his Test Driven Development in .NET talk for the Cincinnati Programmer's Guild (CincyPG) on Wednesday, July 20th (that's this Wednesday!). If you aren't familiar with the CincyPG they are non-platform specific user group that meets at MAX on the third Wednesday of the month at 6:00 PM. We have some cross over of members from our groups so if you want to learn more about the group ask Joe W. or Maggie L. about it at the next meeting. You can find out more about the group at their website: http://cincypg.org/.

Try Safari Books Online...for free!

MikeWo — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 21:21:20 GMT

You can try out the Safari Online service for a 10 day free trial. Here's some info on it:

"Safari ® Books Online Library is like having your own personal reference library filled with content from thousands of books and videos by the most respected authors and publishing brands in the industry. Get online access to more than 6,000 books from top technology publishers, including Addison-Wesley Professional, Cisco Press, Exam Cram, IBM Press, Prentice Hall, Que, and Sams. Start your free trial today!

URL: www.Informit.com/safaritrial"

DevLink Bus

MikeWo — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 01:21:43 GMT

For those interested in riding the bus to DevLink there is now an official DevLink Bus page! Go fill in the contact form so that you can get your name on the list. More information is forthcoming as the organizers are soliciting sponsors to help offset the cost. If you know of a company that is interested in getting their name one the devLink bus page and on a banner/sign for the bus then please contact us so we can forward the information on to the organizers.

If you have been waiting to buy your devLink pass (registration) then don't wait too much longer. The early registration deadline ends July 3rd. Right now the cost is $50.00 while starting July 4th it bumped to $75.00.

June 2008 Meeting Recap

MikeWo — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 02:13:20 GMT

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The June meeting went off really well. This month we had Tim Wingfield come talk to us about ASP.NET MVC. It was great to have Tim drive down from Columbus to share with us. After the pizza Leon Gersing gave a quick pattern talk on the Single Responsibility Principle.

Attendance (47): Once again average attendance is picking up! This is great. We are thinking of starting another membership drive. Last year we gave away an Xbox 360! We'll see what we can rustle up this time.

Announcements:

Please remember that starting this month our monthly meetings shifted to the Fourth Tuesday of every month (switching nights with CincySQL). Our next CINNUG Monthly meeting will be on July 22nd.
Starting with the July CinArc meeting the SIG will meet monthly on the second Tuesday of every month! Thanks to MAX Technical Training for again providing us a space and night to meet. Next time you're in MAX be sure to thank Stacey for her time.

Upcoming Events

Would you like to give to charities but don't have the cash? What about sharing your coding or design skills instead? Check out the Ann Arbor Give Camp! On July 11th-13th developers from around the Heartland district will be coding to help charities. They really need help with this so if you can spare some time they are even willing to get remote help. Donate your code to charity and skip the drive to MI. Contact me immediately if you are interested in helping.
CodeStock is a one day event similar to a Day of .NET. It is in Knoxville, TN on Saturday, August 9th. Get registered and find out more at their website.
devLINK bus! If you are interested in going to devLINK, but don't feel like driving there is a bus-share being organized by Amanda Laucher. Let me know at admin@cinnug.org if you are interested and I'll get your name to Amanda. More information about the bus will be hopefully be out later this week.
There will be a Kentucky Day of .NET in Louisville, KY on August 30th. They are in the process of getting things squared away but keep an eye on this site. Speakers: They will be putting out a call for speakers soon.
September 6th: Chicago Day of .NET. Notice a pattern? These things are popping up everywhere!
Do you want to discuss improving software development? Oh, do you want to do it while camping? Then this is just the thing for you. The Agile Summer Camp is the weekend of September 5th-7th in Brighton, MI. They have a cabin reserved.
The Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC) has opened registration! This is a huge conference out in LA that is only held when Microsoft has big announcements to make. http://www.microsoftpdc.com

July Meetings:

We have three CINNUG related meetings coming in July! Mark your calendars it's going to be a busy month.

CinARC Meeting (Tuesday, July 8th)

Come join this new special interest group as we discuss topics related to software architecture. This meeting is run using the 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!

The CinARC meeting will be held on Tuesday, July 8th at 6:00 PM at MAX Technical Training in Mason, OH.

Open Spaces Event (Wednesday, July 9th)

The Dayton .NET Developer Group and CINNUG are teaming up to put on an Open Spaces Event! MAX Technical Training is graciously hosting the event at their Mason facility. Open spaces events are not about "eyes front" presentations, but rather about sharing the views of the attendees on topics they've chosen. Several talks will be going on at once throughout the building, so come join us! As usual, pizza will be provided.

The Open Spaces Event will be held on Wednesday, July 9th at 6:00 PM at MAX Technical Training in Mason, OH.

CINNUG: Creating a Silverlight 2.0 Presentation in Silverlight 2.0 (Tuesday, July 22nd)

Get ready for a recursive experience! This presentation is actually a Silverlight 2.0 application which gives a presentation about the features of Silverlight 2.0 and how to use them to build a presentation about Silverlight 2.0. Got that? You'll learn about the XAML elements, dynamic languages, data binding and networking support available in Silverlight 2.0 Beta.

This is the same presentation Matt gave at CODODN, however with the newest release of Silverlight 2.0 at MIX his talk has been updated.

Presented by:

Matt Casto

Matt Casto is a Developer for the Application Development consulting practice at Quick Solutions, Inc. He has been designing and programming web and windows applications on the Microsoft platform for 10 years. Recently, Matt has been focusing on learning all things Silverlight and also wrote the CodeMash Session Scheduler (http://www.codemash.org/sessionscheduler/). Matt maintains his blog at http://programwith.net/

The CINNUG meeting will be held on Tuesday, July 22nd at 6:00 PM at MAX Technical Training in Mason, OH.

Special Event tomorrow night

MikeWo — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 10:58:00 GMT

Don't forget that Bill Steele will be presenting topics on XNA and Robotics Studio tomorrow night (Thursday, June 19th) at MAX Train starting at 6:00 PM. We'll have pizza between the sessions.

Test your SQL Skills

MikeWo — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 12:07:15 GMT

ReviewNet has posted a SQL skills test that you can use to review your SQL abilities. Here is the announcement they sent the group:

"ReviewNet would like to extend an opportunity to your user group members to take our new SQL Server skills tests to evaluate their skill level. Individuals that complete a beta test will be credited as an advisory panel member on our website at http://www.reviewnet.net/meetexperts.cfm. Individuals receive their test results and can see where their skills compare with other test takers. Participants also qualify for our Advisor Rewards program and a chance to receive quarterly cash prizes. You can learn more by visiting http://www.reviewnet.net/advisor.htm. I would like to extend this opportunity to you and your members."

CodeStock rideshare?

MikeWo — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 21:49:32 GMT

For anyone interested in going to CodeStock in Knoxville, TN in August you may want to check out the message board thread that has started regarding carpooling.

Special Announcements!

MikeWo — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 15:37:00 GMT

A few new things have cropped up since our May Recap newsletter that I wanted to share prior to the June meeting.

June Special Event: XNA & Robotic Studio with Bill Steele! (Thursday, June 19th)

If you like to tinker with electronics or are interested in learning how you can code games for your PC, Xbox 360 or Zune then you won't want to miss the CINNUG Special Event this month! Bill Steele from Microsoft will be giving us an introduction on XNA and Robotics Studio. This special event is for the hobbyist in all of us and while it most likely won't lead you to that break through answer at work it will be a lot of fun! There will be two presentations with food (yes, pizza) served between them.

Since this will occur before our next meeting please help me spread the word by forwarding this information on to your co-workers and friends who may be interested.

The June Special Event will be held on Thursday, June 19th at 6:00 PM at MAX Technical Training in Mason, OH.

Other Announcements:

Please remember that starting in June our monthly meetings will shift to the Fourth Tuesday of every month (switching nights with CincySQL).
Would you like to give to charities but don't have the cash? What about sharing your coding or design skills instead? Check out the Ann Arbor Give Camp! On July 11th-13th developers from around the Heartland district will be coding to help charities.
Speaking of giving to charity. Do you have some older hardware that you want to get rid of? Stacey at MAX Train has been working with a charity to get computers to needy kids locally as well as to class rooms in 3rd world countries. If you have some old hardware you'd like to donate be sure to talk to Stacey the next time you're at MAX.
devLINK bus! If you are interested in going to devLINK, but don't feel like driving there is a bus-share being organized by Amanda Laucher. Let me know at admin@cinnug.org if you are interested and I'll get your name to Amanda.
Pluralsight and Microsoft are putting on a half-day presentation on the "Next Web Roadshow". There will be topics on WPF, Silverlight and ASP.NET. Find out more and register at http://shrinkster.com/ycd.
Save the date of Wednesday, July 9th from 6:00 PM to 8:30 PM. The Dayton .NET Developers Group and CINNUG are hosting an Open Spaces event at MAX Training in Mason. Look for more information to come on this.
Starting with the July CinArc meeting the SIG will meet monthly on the second Tuesday of every month! Thanks to MAX Technical Training for again providing us a space and night to meet. Next time you're in MAX be sure to thank Stacey for her time.
The Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC) has opened registration! This is a huge conference out in LA that is only held when Microsoft has big announcements to make. http://www.microsoftpdc.com

June Meeting:

CINNUG: Getting Started with ASP.NET MVC (Tuesday, June 24th)

Are you finally tired of trying to maintain state in your web forms? The event model and page lifecycle finally pushed you too far? Fear not, ASP.Net MVC is on its way. In this talk we'll investigate getting started with the MVC Framework, how it differs from Web Forms, and all with an eye towards TDD.

Presented by: Tim Wingfield

Tim has been involved in web design and development for over 10 years. For the last three years Tim has been a developer with the Business Solutions Group at Quick Solutions Inc. in Columbus, OH. Tim has a wide range of knowledge in .Net but focuses on the user interface and the user experience in ASP.Net applications. He has been involved with many successful projects for clients in health care, government, and consumer services, among others. In what time is left over, Tim enjoys coaching his sons' hockey teams and playing a little hockey himself.

The June CINNUG meeting will be held on Tuesday, June 24th at 6:00 PM at MAX Technical Training in Mason, OH.

Lansing Day of .NET

MikeWo — Fri, 23 May 2008 10:30:00 GMT

This one was left off the announcements by accident. The first ever Lansing Day of .NET will be held next month on Saturday, June 21st in Lansing, MI. This is a free event and is like the Central Ohio Day of .NET. You can find out more about the event on their website at : http://www.dayofdotnet.org/Lansing/2008/Default.aspx.

There are some local speakers who will be presenting at the event including Phillip Japikse (CINNUG), Carey Payette (CONDG), Amanda Laucher (CONDG), James Bender (CONDG) and myself (CINNUG). The full list of speakers and sessions are posted to the LDODN website.

People interested in ride shares can try to set up arrangements on our forum in this thread.

Next Web Roadshow - June 12th

MikeWo — Thu, 22 May 2008 21:08:07 GMT

Join Microsoft and Pluralsight in a timely discussion on Next Web

In this seminar, you will take part in a technical exploration of the latest technologies Microsoft has to offer, and how you can take advantage of those technologies to provide a truly next-generation user experience in you Windows and web client applications. During the seminar, the instructor will guide you on a technical walkthrough of each technology, demonstrate the technologies' capabilities, and show the tools and techniques used to provide those capabilities.

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) -- WPF is Microsoft's next-generation presentation platform. WPF is built into Windows Vista and also runs on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. WPF allows rich client applications to take full advantage of the graphical capabilities of a modern PC. Its powerful and flexible programming model integrates support for flexible layout, high-quality text, resolution-independent graphics, animation, video and 3D. While it is designed to exploit the full capabilities of today's high-performance graphics cards, it offers high-level abstractions that offer great power to the developer for less development effort than ever before.

Microsoft Silverlight -- Silverlight is the Microsoft's latest technology for delivering rich, cross-platform, interactive experiences including video, audio, animation, and graphics for the Web and beyond. Utilizing a subset of XAML (eXtensible Application Markup Language)-based Windows Presentation Foundation technology, Silverlight enables the creation of content and applications that run within multiple browsers and across multiple operating systems (Windows and Macintosh) with a standard programming model. Consistent with Web architecture, the XAML markup is programmable using JavaScript (in version 1.0), or any .NET language (in version 2), and is able to work in tandem with ASP.NET Ajax.

ASP.NET -- ASP.NET has established itself as one of the most productive environments for building web applications and more developers are switching over every day. The 2.0 and 3.5 releases of ASP.NET builds on the same componentry of 1.1, improving productivity of developers even further by providing standard implementations of common Web application features like membership, persistent user profile, and Web parts, among others. With more than 50 new server-side controls and many new pieces of web infrastructure, ASP.NET brings more new features than any web development technology in recent memory.

Pluralsight

Pluralsight is a premier Microsoft .NET training provider and home to many of the top authorities on .NET today. Pluralsight instructors can be seen speaking at the top conferences, writing for the leading journals, and delivering professional training classes on .NET topics to companies around the world. http://www.pluralsight.com

Speaker

Mike Henderson is an instructor for Pluralsight specializing in the .NET framework, WPF, and Silverlight. He also works as an independent consultant (operating as DotEverything, LLC -- http://doteverything.net), providing design, system engineering, and technology migration in WPF and Silverlight along with additional expertise in Windows kernel mode development and reverse engineering.

Date and location

Thursday, June 12, 2008- 9:00AM - 12:00 PM

Microsoft Mason Office – (Cincinnati)
4605 Duke Drive, Suite 800
Mason OH 45040

Register

May 2008 Meeting Recap

MikeWo — Thu, 22 May 2008 21:05:07 GMT

This month we had a panel discussion on "Software Development as a Career" as our main presentation. Ed Sumerfield, Tim Apke and Jim Holmes were kind enough to sit on the panel and answer questions for the attendees. This is the second panel discussion we have done with the group and I think they go pretty well. As this was an open discussion there are no slides or materials from this month's meeting.

If you attended the meeting and have some feedback please post it to the Meetings board on this meeting's thread.

Attendance (47): Average attendance continues to grow! I would really like to have an average of 50/month at the end of the year. Please keep pestering your co-workers to come and blogging (if you have one) about the group.

Announcements:

Starting in June our monthly meetings will shift to the Fourth Tuesday of every month (switching nights with CincySQL).
The last local Heroes Happen Here launch events is being hosted by CincySQL. Topics will include SQL Server 2008 & VS.NET 2008 @ MAX Train on May 27th. http://www.shrinkster.com/vwy
Regional Conference: devLINK. This two day conference is a cross-discipline event which features tracks for DBAs, Developers, Project Managers, Architects and Business Analysts. The event is August 22nd and 23rd in Murfeesboro, TN (outside of Nashville). http://www.devlink.net.
Regional Event: CodeStock. This is much like a Day of .NET or Code Camp. The date is Saturday, August 9th. http://www.codestock.org.
Local Event: CiNPA Technical Fair. Saturday, May 31st at the Cincinnati State Technical College. http://shrinkster.com/y80 (that's a zero).
Starting in June our monthly meetings will shift to the Fourth Tuesday of every month (switching nights with CincySQL) (yes I know I repeated this...but it's important!)
Pluralsight and Microsoft are putting on a half-day presentation on the "Next Web Roadshow". There will be topics on WPF, Silverlight and ASP.NET. Find out more and register at http://shrinkster.com/ycd.
Save the date of Wednesday, July 9th from 6:00 PM to 8:30 PM. The Dayton .NET Developers Group and CINNUG are hosting an Open Spaces event at MAX Training in Mason. Look for more information to come on this.

Next Month:

CINNUG: Getting Started with ASP.NET MVC (Tuesday, June 24th)

Presented by: Tim Wingfield

The CINNUG meeting will be held on Tuesday, June 24th at 6:00 PM at MAX Technical Training in Mason, OH.

CiNPA Technical Fair! May 31st

MikeWo — Wed, 14 May 2008 23:31:28 GMT

Call it the resurrection of Hackers' Night! CiNPA (Cincinnati Networking Professionals Association) is bringing it back to life in a new iteration - the CiNPA Technical Fair.Would you pass this on to the appropriate folks on your staff and/or colleagues who would be interested in this a day of information exchange and new product trends in networking. Technical presentations include Novell, Cisco, IBM, Vmware, HP, Microsoft, Datacore and Systemax, Trend Micro, Storage Craft, and more. Training & Education organizations as well as Professional Associations will also be there.

Saturday, May 31 from 9am-4pm.

Cost is $5 for non-members (free to CiNPA members). Box Lunch provided. Lots of great door prizes!

Cincinnati State Technical & Community College,
Evendale Campus
10100 Reading Road (Directions)

NOTE: REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED: http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=126353

New CinArc forum created

MikeWo — Wed, 14 May 2008 03:33:00 GMT

The first CinArc meeting was a great success (in my opinion). I'll post more later, but for now I wanted to announce that I have added the CinArc forum to the forums list. Let's keep the discussions going!

CinArc is Tuesday night (May 13th)!

MikeWo — Mon, 12 May 2008 10:51:00 GMT

The first ever Cincinnati Software Architecture (CinArc) meeting will be held on Tuesday, May 13th. That's tomorrow night! We have a panel discussion regarding the role of the architect as well as an open discussion on what this group should be focusing on. Come out and join us at MAX Train.

Charity and Nonprofit Free Marketing Campaign!

MikeWo — Thu, 08 May 2008 23:58:59 GMT

If you work for a charity or non-profit organization then you may want to check out http://www.thinkbarefoot.com/grants. The Barefoot marketing company and Clear Channel Communications are working together to offer grants for a local charity or non-profit media campaign! Applications are due by May 30th. Winners will be announced in mid-June.