Meetings

February 2010 Meeting

sswienton — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 04:37:00 GMT

Our February 2010 meeting will be held on MONDAY February 22nd, 2010 6pm at Justin Brands.

Please join us as Zeeshan Hirani will present on "Entity Framework".

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Entity Framework
In this session, Zeeshan will start by covering how Entity Framework works under the covers by explaining the conceptual model, Storage Model, Mapping Layer and how a linq query leverages the model definition to generate the correct SQL statement to the database. We will cover basic modeling concepts like inheritance, entity splitting, functions, stored procedures, POCO and code-only. If time permits we may dig into tips and tricks to improve EF performance.

Speaker Bio
Zeeshan Hirani (http://weblogs.asp.net/zeeshanhirani) is a senior developer at CheaperThanDirt.com. He specializes mainly in ASP.NET, AJAX, OR mappers like LINQ and Entity Framework and how to apply these tools to build rich business applications. He has written several articles for CodeProject.com, is an active member in the user-group community in Dallas/Fort Worth. He is a frequent blogger. Additionally he contributes substantial amount of time helping developers on Entity Framework Data Access Forum. Lastly he and his co-worker have been working on Entity Framework Recipes Book for Apress targeting .net 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010. The books covers wide variety of recipes that help solve day to day problems which a developer may run into when learning and extending Entity Framework beyond its boundaries. The book is currently available in Alpha form and works with the Visual Studio 2010 RC just recently released. For more info on the book visit the Apress site below.

http://www.apress.com/book/view/1430227036
or you can pre-order the book on amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Entity-Framework-Recipes-Problem-Solution-Approach/dp/1430227036

Please visit the following post which contains more information on our RSVP procedures.

January 2010 Meeting

sswienton — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 08:52:00 GMT

Our January 2010 meeting will be held on Tuesday January 26th, 2009 6pm at Justin Brands.

Please join us as Don High will present on "Validation with Data Annotations".

Validation with Data Annotations
Don will discuss validating business objects using Data Annotations introduced in .net 3.5. Data Annotations are a collection of attributes located in the System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations and can be used to mark up data classes with conditions.

Speaker Bios
Don High is currently a Principal Consultant/.Net Practice Lead for Texas with Neudesic and was previously a web architect at Microsoft. Don holds several Microsoft certifications, including the following:

Microsoft Certified Technical Specialist (SOA & Distributed Applications & WCF)
Microsoft Certified Solution Developer(C# &VB.NET)
Microsoft Certified Application Developer(C# &VB.NET)
Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (VB 6)
Microsoft Certified Database Administrator (SQL 2000)

Please visit the following post which contains more information on our RSVP procedures.

December 2009 End of Year Party!

sswienton — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 09:03:00 GMT

Please join us on Monday December 14th at Main Event in south Forth Worth for the FWDNUG End of Year Party! We will be providing pizza and Discounted Gaming* (see details below) that can be used for unlimited bowling, laser tag, billiards, shuffleboard, and video games (as well as food/drinks)!

Along with the fun and games, we will be raffling off many cool prizes! Every attendee to the event will be eligible for the following prizes:

Windows Vista Ultimate
"Heroes Hapen {here}" Launch Kit:
- Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition
- Visual Studio 2008 Standard Edition
- SQL Server 2008 CTP5 (includes NFR voucher for SQL Server 2008 Standard)

======================================================
The FWDNUG will again be collecting money to donate to Toys-for-Tots www.toysfortots.org to make this a very special holiday season for children less fortunate than ourselves. The FWDNUG will give you 1 prize ticket for every $10 you contribute that will go towards the following
special prizes:

Microsoft Wireless Notebook Optical Mouse 3000
Microsoft LifeCam NX-6000
Windows Vista Ultimate
Visual Studio 2008 Standard Edition
"Heroes Hapen {here}" Launch Kit:

Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition
Visual Studio 2008 Standard Edition
SQL Server 2008 CTP5 (includes NFR voucher for SQL Server 2008 Standard)

We will be accepting donations at Main Event (please bring exact change and/or make checks Payable to "Ft. Worth .NET Users Group"). We will provide you a receipt for your contribution and the FWDNUG is an official Non-Profit Organization. You do NOT have to be in attendance to win the special charity prizes.
======================================================

The event will start at 6pm and continue on until Main Event closes. We'll raffle off the prizes at 7:00. Directions for Main Event can be found here:
http://www.maineventusa.net/locations#fort-worth

*Monday night at Main Event is "Monday Night Madness" - from 4pm till closing all non-video games are free to play for a $20/person fee - this includes Bowling, Billards, and Laser Tag. The entry fee also nets you a $10 Video Game Card. The FWDNUG has a fixed budget and will subsidize as much of the $20 as possible and is dependant upon the number of people that RSVP for the event. Based on last year's end of year party, the FWDNUG will most likely cover $10 of the $20 fee. This will leave members responsible for any remaining balance (~$10). You *MUST* RSVP by Monday at 3pm for the FWDNUG to subsidize a portion of your $20 fee.

Note: You do NOT have to participate in the "Monday Night Madness" offer to attend the party - everyone is welcome to attend and will still be eligible for the free food and prizes. If you are coming to the party, but not participating in the gaming - please leave us a note during the RSVP process so we can budget accordingly.

Please visit the following post which contains more information on our RSVP procedures.

November 2009 Meeting

sswienton — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 03:49:00 GMT

Our October 2009 meeting will be held on Tuesday October 20th, 2009 6pm at Justin Brands.

Please join us as a special out of town guest and INETA Speaker Bureau Member, Rachel Appel, presents on one of the following THREE topics:

Web Forms vs MVC
jQuery
ASP.NET/Developer Security

We're going to try out this format again that worked with Cory Smith's presentation in September. Rachel has 3 active presentations she can give - the members that attend this months meeting wil pick which presentation they want to hear.

We are giving away some great prizes this month including 2 copies of Windows Vista Ultimate and 1 copy of VS.NET 2008 Standard Edition!

Speaker Bio
Rachel has been working as a mentor, instructor, software developer, architect and DBA for nearly 20 years. During her career, Rachel has worked with a variety of languages, technologies and systems and has contributed to projects of all sizes including large scale enterprise applications at some of the world’s leading companies.

Rachel is the Vice President of the .Net Valley user group, as well as a leader and regular speaker in the Philly.NET and Central Penn.NET user groups of Pennsylvania. She can also be found speaking at code camps, user groups, community events and conferences.

Rachel’s expertise lies within developing solutions that align business and technology using the Microsoft .NET family of products, particularly ASP.NET & SQL Server. She is also an ASP.NET MVP, ASPInsider and holds the Microsoft Certified Trainer, MCAD & MCSD certifications.

She is also a member of the INETA speakers bureau.

In 2008 Rachel has joined the team at Wintellect as a hired gun.

Please visit the following post which contains more information on our RSVP procedures.

October 2009 Meeting

sswienton — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 04:57:00 GMT

Our October 2009 meeting will be held on Tuesday October 20th, 2009 6pm at Justin Brands.

Please join us as Shannon Davidson & Tom Dupont from CodeSmith will lead a code-heavy discussion around the PLINQO project - focused on "supercharging" LINQ to SQL.

Everyone in attendance will receive a fully-licensed copy of CodeSmith Professional 5.0!

PLINQO - Supercharged LINQ to SQL
In the time that LINQ to SQL has been available, we have been identifying ways to make LINQ to SQL better. We have compiled all of those cool tips and tricks including new features into a set of CodeSmith templates. PLINQO opens the LINQ TO SQL black box giving you the ability to control your source code while adding many new features and enhancements. It's still LINQ to SQL, but better!

For more information, please check out the following:

Speaker Bios
Shannon Davidson lives in Grapevine, TX and has a bachelor's degree in Math and Computer Science from East Central Oklahoma University. Shannon is currently the General Manager for CodeSmith Tools and has over ten years of development experience that includes ASP.NET, C#, SQL Server and Smalltalk. Before CodeSmith, Shannon spent 5 years in the automotive industry at Reynolds Web Solutions/Third Coast Media working on CRM and websites and 4 years in the insurance industry at Cybertek working on GUI front-ends sitting on top of mainframes. In his spare time, he enjoys long walks on the beach while sipping a swiss mocha

Tom DuPont lives in the Dallas, Texas, where he is a Software Development Engineer at CodeSmith Tools, LLC. Tom is a .Net developer, specializing in C# and ASP.Net MVC; he is also well versed in Javascript and the ExtJS framework. Tom has a bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Software Engineering from the University of Texas at Dallas. While Tom doesn't mind long walks on the beach, he much prefers long rides across the country on his motorcycle. Please visit the following post which contains more information on our RSVP procedures.

Please visit the following post which contains more information on our RSVP procedures.

September 2009 Meeting

sswienton — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 05:52:00 GMT

Our September 2009 meeting will be held on Tuesday September 22nd, 2009 6pm at Justin Brands.

Please join us as our very own FWDNUG Vice President, Cory Smith, presents on one of the following THREE Topics:

LINQ - An Average Joe's Guide (or "It's not all about SQL")
ClickOnce - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
Comparing WinForms to WPF

We're going to try something different with this months topic. Since Cory has 3 active presentations he can give - we're going to let the members, that attend this months meeting, pick which presentation they want to hear.

LINQ - An Average Joe's Guide (or "It's not all about SQL")
Microsoft Language Integrated Query (LINQ) offers developers a new way to query data using strongly-typed queries and strongly-typed results, common across a number of disparate data types including relational databases, .NET objects, and XML. By using strongly-typed queries and results, LINQ improves developer productivity with the benefits of IntelliSense and compile-time error checking. In this discussion, Cory will demonstrate the basics of LINQ and how it provides much more than just the ability to query a SQL Server database.

ClickOnce - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
Now that you’ve built that perfect WPF and/or Windows Forms application, you need to get it on every computer in the world. ClickOnce might just be the answer. This will be a discussion that first introduces ClickOnce and continue into an open q/a session regarding leveraging ClickOnce in the real world.

Comparing WinForms to WPF

Speaker Bio
Cory Smith maintains a .NET related blog at AddressOf.com and is very active in the .NET community. His community involvement includes: President of the Dallas/Fort Worth DNUX group, Vice President of the Fort Worth .NET Users Group, VBInsider Member, Microsoft MVP, member of the South Central District Developer Guidance Council and a member of the INETA Speakers Bureau. A veteran developer (professionally writing software for almost 20 years) working on projects ranging anywhere from major e-commerce sites such as RadioShack.com and InterstateBatteries.com to applications that are at the heart and soul of over 4600 radio stations around the world. His work history includes working for Tandy/RadioShack, Rare Medium, Inc., Electric Works Corp., Scott Studios Corp. and Shiny Stone Digital.

In his spare time, Cory is also owns and operates a combative martial arts academy, coaches a MMA fight team, is an avid motorcycle enthusiast and attempts to watch every action movie ever released.

Please visit the following post which contains more information on our RSVP procedures.

August 2009 Meeting

sswienton — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 07:02:00 GMT

Our August 2009 meeting will be held on Tuesday August 18th, 2009 6pm at Justin Brands.

Please join us as David Penton presents: Deep Dive Into Microsoft Velocity

Deep Dive Into Microsoft Velocity
There are several external caching engines that are available. Now Microsoft is busy developing their own caching engine called "Velocity". This promises to provide the ability for application developers to horizontally scale their applications across numerous servers by providing unified cache across all application instances.

This presentation will give an overview of "Velocity", the basics of requirements & installation, and an explanation of the basic areas of interest within "Velocity" such as Named Caches, Regions and Cache Items. The samples in this demonstration include code for accessing cache, and how this can integrate with the ASP.NET cache.

Speaker Bio
David L. Penton lives in the Dallas, Texas area and has a bachelor's degree in Mathematics from Northwestern State University, Natchitoches, LA. He currently is a Lead Software Development Engineer / Performance Lead at Telligent Systems, Inc. Before that, he was a technical lead for the International Systems Group and then in Merchandising Systems at JCPenney, Inc., in Plano, TX. Before that, he was a senior business and analysis analyst for Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control in Grand Prairie, TX. During that time he has worked on various technologies. He currently spends most of his time with C# and SQL Server. Database platforms he has dealt with (development and admin) include but not limited to SQL Server, Oracle, DB2. David is a member of the ASPInsiders and was formerly a SQL Server MVP for several years and is now an ASP.NET MVP.

Please visit the following post which contains more information on our RSVP procedures.

July 2009 Meeting

sswienton — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 05:32:00 GMT

Our July 2009 meeting will be held on Tuesday July 21st, 2009 6pm at Justin Brands.

Please join us as Chris Behrens presents: Entity Framework: Ready for Primetime?

Entity Framework: Ready for Primetime?
Entity Framework hit the development community in the 3.5 Service Pack, to the delight of some and the disdain of others. Facing withering criticism and the inevitable comparison to other, more mature O/R Mappers like NHibernate, developers are faced with the perennial choice for middleware technologies: invest and learn, or ignore?

This session will investigate what Entity Framework is (and what an O/R mapper is in general), how it works, and address the criticism leveled against it by the developer community.

Speaker Bio
Chris Behrens is a software architect, writer and speaker on technology topics. He is the Chief Software Architect at PartnerComm in Arlington, TX and lives in Kennedale, TX with his wife and four children.

Please visit the following post which contains more information on our RSVP procedures.

June 2009 Meeting

sswienton — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 04:54:00 GMT

Our June 2009 meeting will be held on Tuesday June 16th, 2009 6pm at Justin Brands.

Please join us as Rob Vettor presents: Developing Applications Using Data Services

Developing Applications Using Data Services
Engage early in learning how to develop applications that blend custom code with online data-centric services. Learn how to leverage recent advancements in Microsoft technology that enable seamless interaction with data services both locally and in the Cloud.

In this session, we’ll…

Gain a clear understanding of a data service and how the REST protocol plays a key role

Explore local, or “on-premises,” data services implemented with the ADO.NET Data Services Framework

Explore Cloud-based data services implemented with SQL Data Services

Walk through examples with Silverlight and ASP.NET Ajax

Show how the ADO.NET Entity Framework provides an underlying foundation for data services

Contrast the difference between SQL Data Services in the cloud and cloud data storage

You’ll walk-away with a clear understanding of how this technology works as well as what is available now and in the near future.

Speaker Bio
Rob Vettor is a Microsoft .NET Architect/Senior Solution Developer at Jack Henry and Associates. Rob has built systems for a number of corporations, including Avanade, Raytheon and American Express. Rob, an avid Toastmaster, founded the Dallas .NET Architecture study group (www.dotnetarch.com) and is a member of the Microsoft South Region Developer Guidance Council. Rob lives in Dallas, TX, with his wife, twin sons, three dogs and rooms full of NET computer books. You can contact Rob at robvettor@hotmail.com.

Please visit the following post which contains more information on our RSVP procedures.

May 2009 Meeting

sswienton — Mon, 18 May 2009 03:51:00 GMT

Our May 2009 meeting will be held on Tuesday May 19h, 2009 6pm at Justin Brands.

Please join us as our very own FWDNUG Treasurer, David Yancey, will be presenting: Test Driven Development Workshop

Test Driven Development Workshop
Taking a look at TDD, what it is, what it is not and a live workshop practicing TDD.

Speaker Bio
David is Sr. Agile Developer / Architect, specializing in C#, .NET 3.5 and other Microsoft Technologies and enjoys the challenge of finding solutions to difficult technical / design problems, often finding himself evangelizing Agile methodologies and XP practices. David's website: http://www.david-yancey.com

Please visit the following post which contains more information on our RSVP procedures.

April 2009 Meeting

sswienton — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 04:08:00 GMT

Our April 2009 meeting will be held on Tuesday April 21st, 2009 6pm at Justin Brands.

Please welcome back former FWDNUG member Matt Hinze as he presents on: Practical Inversion of Control

Practical Inversion of Control
Join Matt Hinze to talk about inversion of control, object-oriented principles, software architecture and how to develop quality software very quickly. In this intermediate to advanced level talk, Matt will present the basics of IOC and dive deep into some interesting usage scenarios...

Speaker Bio
Matt Hinze works at Headspring Systems, an Austin-based agile .NET consultancy. He's in the trenches on large government, commercial and open source software projects. Passionate about software and programming, Matt is active in the developer community and is an instructor in Headspring's popular Agile Bootcamp series.

Please visit the following post which contains more information on our RSVP procedures.

Directions

March 2009 Meeting

sswienton — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 20:09:00 GMT

Our March 2009 meeting will be held on Tuesday March 17th, 2009 6pm at Justin Brands.

Our very own FWDNUG Director of Hospitality, Roger Guess, will be presenting: An Introduction to Azure Services Platform

An Introduction to Azure Services Platform
An introduction and hands on demos of Azure - Microsoft's Cloud Operating System.

Speaker Bio
Roger Guess is a senior developer and consultant with over eleven years of software development experience (twelve if you count Logo on the TI9941) and seven years in professional services and consulting. Roger specializes in .net web application architecture and development using technologies including C#, ASP.NET, Silverlight and SQL Server. Be sure to follow his new site www.SilverlightAddict.com to keep current with the latest news and resources on Silverlight.

Please visit the following post which contains more information on our RSVP procedures.

Directions

February 2009 Meeting

sswienton — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 04:58:00 GMT

Our February 2009 meeting will be held on Tuesday February 17th, 2009 6:30pm at ThinkCash Financial.

We are taking a slight departure from the norm this month and co-hosting our meeting with the Agile Project Leadership Network (APLN). Agile software development has been a hot topic with our members and this month is the inaugural meeting for the Forth Worth Chapter of the APLN. We hope you will agree that jointly holding the meeting with the APLN this month is a benefit to our members as well as helping the APLN successfully start up their chapter.

Joseph Little will be presenting: Shock therapy, Scrum, and the Nokia Test: Is this really self-organization?

NOTE: This month's meeting will not be held at our normal Justin Boots Location.

When:
February 17, 2009
6:30 – 8:30 pm

Where:
ThinkCash Financial
Overton Center, Tower 2
4100 International Plaza
Fort Worth, TX 76109

Agenda:
6:30 – 6:45 Check-in / Networking
6:45 – 7:15 Survey / Gathering of ideas
7:15 – 8:15 "Shock therapy, Scrum, and the Nokia Test: Is this really self-organization?"
8:15 – 8:30 Wrap-up

Registration:
As with our regular FWDNUG meetings - this meeting is FREE to attend along with FREE food and drinks.
Please send an email to fortworthapln@gmail.com RSVP'ing so we can plan to have enough food and drink for everyone.

What is APLN?
APLN was founded in 2004 by a group of people who are active in writing about, practicing, and evangelizing the movement towards fast, flexible, customer value driven approaches to leading projects of many types. This group works closely with the Agile Alliance within the software community and with people and companies outside of software and IT to help them become better Project Leaders.

Speaker Bio
Joe Little is an Agile coach and Certified Scrum Trainer. His goal is to use Lean-Agile principles and practices to help firms deliver more business value for customers, to make workers’ lives better and to benefit stakeholders. Discovering business value is one of his passions. And helping teams discover new avenues to greater productivity. He is proud for several people he has mentored, who now themselves are very strong in Agile.

Joe learned Scrum from Ken Schwaber and later mentored with Jeff Sutherland, with whom he continues to co-teach. He also works with several other CSTs (and friends). He produces Lean Software training with the Poppendiecks. His preference is to practice Agile as a combination of Scrum, XP and Lean principles and practices. Joe was a speaker at Agile2007 and at Agile2008. He started Agile-Carolinas.

He started off as an English major and international banker, but after getting an MBA, got into the software industry and became a management consultant. Having worked on so many SW Dev projects over 20+ years, he is possibly a real geek now. He started his own firm in 1991. Many years ago, he was a Big 6 management consultant (Senior Manager). He has been a senior business and IT consultant to a small number of household names in New York, London, and Charlotte. He has worked with relatively few clients, since his clients tend to invite him back. He named his firm Kitty Hawk in part because of the Wright Brothers’ success in turning an idea into reality.

Born in Virginia, he lived in NYC for 20+ years. Joe now lives with his family in Charlotte. He has a BA from Yale and an MBA from NYU.

More Information:
If you have questions, please contact:
Charley Seaman (817-233-8962), Harry Long (210-995-2421) or Jaynee Beach Jaynee.beach@yahoo.com

January 2009 Meeting

sswienton — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 22:02:00 GMT

Our January 2009 meeting will be held on Tuesday January 20th, 2009 6pm at Justin Brands.

Our very own FWDNUG Vice President, Cory Smith, will be presenting: What's New in .NET 3.5 Service Pack 1

In addition to our normal great prizes - Cory has graciously donated a copy of MSDN Premium **WITH** Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Suite (street value $10,939)! Don't miss out on this great opportunity to start off the new year with the FWDNUG!

What's New in .NET 3.5 Service Pack 1
Will be going through an overview of all the features introduced in .NET 3.5 Service Pack 1. Of course will be showing a few demos.

Speaker Bio
Cory Smith is the founder of XboxFriends.com, maintains a .NET related blog at AddressOf.com and is very active in the .NET community. His community involvement includes: Vice President of the Fort Worth .NET Users Group, VBInsider Member, Microsoft MVP, and member of the South Central District Developer Guidance Council. A veteran developer (professionally writing software for over 15 years) working on projects ranging anywhere from major e-commerce sites such as RadioShack.com and InterstateBatteries.com to applications that are at the heart and soul of over 4600 radio stations around the world. His work history includes working for Tandy/RadioShack, Rare Medium, Inc., Electric Works Corp., Scott Studios Corp. and Shiny Stone Digital.

Please visit the following post which contains more information on our RSVP procedures.

Directions

December 2008 End of Year Party

sswienton — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 09:00:00 GMT

Please join us on Monday December 15th at Main Event in south Forth Worth for the FWDNUG End of Year Party! We will be providing pizza and Discounted Gaming* (see details below) that can be used for unlimited bowling, laser tag, billiards, shuffleboard, and video games (as well as food/drinks)!

Along with the fun and games, we will be raffling off many cool prizes! Every attendee to the event will be eligible for the following prizes:

Windows Vista Ultimate
Microsoft LifeCam NX-6000
"Heroes Hapen {here}" Launch Kit:
- Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition
- Visual Studio 2008 Standard Edition
- SQL Server 2008 CTP5 (includes NFR voucher for SQL Server 2008 Standard)

======================================================
The FWDNUG will again be collecting money to donate to Toys-for-Tots www.toysfortots.org to make this a very special holiday season for children less fortunate than ourselves. I'm proud to say that we collected over $500 last year and we look to match or meet that goal again this year! The FWDNUG is pleased to match any contributions from our membership, dollar-to-dollar, up to $200! The FWDNUG will give you 1 prize ticket for every $10 you contribute that will go towards the following
special prizes:

Microsoft Wireless Optical Desktop Pro (keyboard and mouse)
Scene IT? XBOX 360 Edition
Halo 3 Legandary Edition (Includes a Life Size Master Chief Helmet)
"Heroes Hapen {here}" Launch Kit:
- Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition
- Visual Studio 2008 Standard Edition
- SQL Server 2008 CTP5 (includes NFR voucher for SQL Server 2008 Standard)

The event will start at 6pm and continue on until Main Event closes. We'll raffle off the prizes at 7:00. Directions for Main Event can be found here:
http://www.maineventusa.net/newsite/broadband/ftworth/index.html

Please visit the following post which contains more information on our RSVP procedures.