TPN :: The Microsoft Developer Show

Perth .NET User Group - Everything you need to know about Ajax

Nick — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 08:16:15 +0000

The next recording was taken at this month’s session of the Perth .NET Community of Practice where David Gardner (Chief Architect at Intilecta) discussed the good, bad and the ugly of Ajax. The slides from this session should be available shorly

Everything you need to know about Ajax

Perth .NET User Group - Synchronisation Technologies

Nick — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 00:45:22 +0000

It’s been so long I’ve almost forgotten the process for getting new shows on the air. Anyhow I’m back and have a couple of pre-recorded sessions to upload before we get onto new content. The first of these was recorded at the March meeting of the Perth .NET Community of Practice where I covered a range of Microsoft synchronisation technologies such as RDA, Merge and the new MS Sync Services. I repeated this session at the recent Code Camp Oz and the slides will be available on my blog in the next couple of days.

Microsoft Synchronisation Technologies

Perth SQL Server User Group - An Overview of Linq from a Database Perspective

Nick — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 04:03:15 +0000

Last week both the Perth SQL User Group and the Perth .NET Community of Practice had the privilege of having David Lemphers present. Whilst Mr DotBoto got a bit of publicity at the .NET group, Dave saved the discussion of Linq and the future of data access layers for the SQL group. Luckily I was lucky enough to attend this session and managed to capture it via my iPod (isn’t technology great!). Unfortunately the audio quality is not that great (actually it’s more of a volume issue) but hopefully you will find it useful.

Grab the session here

Get ready for SQL Code Camp (NZ)

Nick — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 03:46:52 +0000

This weekend The Microsoft Developer Show is proud to bring you SQL Code Camp (NZ). Most sessions are to be skypecast with recordings being available on this show shortly after. More information here

The Microsoft Developer Show #10 - The Dave Lemphers Show….

Nick — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 03:39:01 +0000

This week Dave Lemphers was in New Zealand so it was a perfect opportunity to sit down and have a chat about life as a Developer Evangelist with Microsoft. The general theme for the show was around the continual learning cycle that all developers have to engage with just to keep up with what is going on in the industry. However we travelled a bumpy road discussing a range of technologies, thoughts and projects on the way.

And the show goes a little bit like this….[Listen to the Podcast]

[Opening music - big thanks to the guys of Minder for the use of their track Chess which can be sampled at TripleJ]

00:10 - Introduction - Dave Lemphers
03:05 - L(ive) O(ffice) V(ista) E(xchange) tour
08:05 - .NET Framework v3
08:10 - Indigo (Windows Communication Foundation)
08:20 - Windows Workflow Foundation
08:55 - Avalon (Windows Presentation Foundation)
09:15 - Cardspace
09:35 - Visual Studio Tools for Office
11:40 - Developer roles are changing
13:10 - Getting started with new technolgoies
14:00 - MSDN Documentation / MSDN Wiki
15:40 - Live services
17:45 - User groups
18:35 - Guidance automation (Project Glidepath - not explicitly mentioned but worth looking at)
19:40 - Martin Granell at Code Camp OZ
20:50 - Linq
21:10 - XAML
22:50 - Keeping abreast of the current, old, new and bleeding edge technologies
27:40 - Daily Developers - what its like to be a daily developer (thanks to Mitch, Alastair, Rob, WDG - Karl and Tony, and of course ScrewTurn)
31:10 - Sharepoint and the issue of licensing
33:50 - Building multi-threaded applications to take advantage of dual/multi core processors (thanks to Intel)
36:05 - With assistance from Joe Duffy on the CLR team
41:40 - Mr Dot Boto - using Robotics to assist learning
43:50 - Lego Mindstorm
44:35 - The .NET Serializer board
45:45 - UWA, thanks to Sarah Hatton

Listen to the show HERE

User Group Resources

Nick — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 19:25:50 +0000

Following Dave L’s blog about providing useful resources for the community I thought I would add some resources and comments that I think should help:

Firstly in the show Athena mentions the Microsoft Australia site that lists the user groups. I hadn’t been to the site for a while so I was pleasantly surprised when I went there and saw that it has a Windows Live Local map indicating the location of the user groups - very cool!

I don’t know where this will go, but the APAC sub of INETA has had a revamp (see http://apac.ineta.org). If you are running a user group make sure you are registered with INETA. In particular they are looking to do a community launch (which will hopefully tie in with what Microsoft Australia are doing this time around) for Vista/Office2007/.NETv3/Exchange.

Some other comments about getting started with a user group. One of the biggest difficulties we have experienced in Perth is the location of the events. Before you start a group, make sure you have a venue that can accommodate your needs and book it well in advance! Once sorted, the venue becomes one of the easiest things to deal with, but if not organised properly can be a continual headache.

As Athena mentions in her comments back to Dave it is vital to have a good working relationship with the local member of the DPE team at Microsoft. If you need an introduction, please feel free to contact an existing user group leader. In fact, I would highly recommend touching base with a couple of other group leaders as they are always more than happy to help out or even present if the opportunity arises.

SQL Server groups - ITPro or Dev?

Nick — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 21:13:02 +0000

Last night I was chatting with Rob Farley about user groups and he raised an interesting point: Where do SQL Server user groups fit - are they IT Pro or they Developer groups?

This touches on an interesting discussion that really questions the traditional role of a DBA. IMHO there are a number of roles that fit between a developer who is using data in their applications and a DBA who administers an operational database. For example, who is responsible for designing the DB schema - given some of the DBAs I’ve met I doubt that this is a function that fits in this role. What about writing queries to pull data from the database - is this a developer job. Again it is questionable as developers typically don’t understand the issues with indexes and performance around the way their application interacts with the database.

Instead of this problem getting easier, it seems to be getting worse with the introducation of Linq over SQL/Entities and the Entity framework proposed for ADO.NET Next. Hopefully the release of the “Data Dude” sku of Visual Studio Team System will aid organisations putting some sort of lifecycle around database development/maintenance.

For more information you can checkout the Australian SQL Server User Group website.

Microsoft Developer Show #06 - User Groups R Us!

Nick — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 19:05:04 +0000

After a few glitches here and there, the first show is all recorded and where possible the bumps have been removed. I this show I spend some time talking with Athena Pawlowski (dotNET solutions) and Adam Cogan (SSW) about User Groups. Having helped run the Perth .NET Community of Practice for a number of years I understand some of the difficulties of running meetings every month, trying to attract attendees and getting volunteers to present. Hopefully this show will give you an insight into why user groups are one of the best forms of developer resources available!

And the show goes a little bit like this….[Listen to the Podcast]

[Opening music - big thanks to the guys of Minder for the use of their track Chess which can be sampled at TripleJ]

00:27 - TechEd 2006 and the community driven Dev’Garten
00:42 - Canberra .Net User Group run by dotNET solutions
05:44 - Sydney .Net User Group run by SSW
08:14 - Sydney Deep .Net User Group run by Dan Green and Nick Wienholt
08:44 - Perth .Net Community of Practice
09:29 - Adelaide .Net User Group
09:44 - Victorian .Net Dev SIG
09:59 - Wellington .Net User Group run by Kirk Jackson
14:49 - Sponsorship by UnisysWest and Change Corporation
16:24 - Adam’s session on “10 best ways to ….”
17:54 - Charles “Chuck” Sterling
18:24 - Tatham Oddie or was it Ken Schaefer
20:44 - User group membership
23:14 - Victoria .NET, Canberra .NET
24:44 - .NET consulting companies - Readify and dotNET solutions
27:44 - NZ User Group consortium
28:00 - Australian .NET user groups
30:14 - Darryl Burling - DPE team here in Wellington
31:44 - Flash newsletter - a great source of Microsoft news
32:14 - MSDN Connection - the program that was never to be
34:14 - TechEd and the future of community activities
40:34 - Craig Bailey talks up the issues with paying money for developer events
42:34 - Adam suggests UNSW as a cheaper venue for TechEd

Listen to the show HERE