Wednesday, January 6th, 2010 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Andy Beaulieu presented Line of Business Apps with Silverlight 4 [download slides + demos] We'll look at the great new features coming to Silverlight 4 and Visual Studio 2010 for Line of Business Application Development. We'll see how RIA Services and Cider Designer support make Silverlight 4 a first class application platform in VS2010. Andy Beaulieu is a professional software developer and trainer with over 15 years of experience building applications for Windows and the Web. Located in Syracuse, New York, he is well versed in many Microsoft technologies including Silverlight, ASP.NET, ADO.NET and WindowsForms. Andy has been awarded a Microsoft MVP Award for Silverlight, and is a member of the WPF and Silverlight Insiders group. This meeting was sponsored by Intertech (providing some nice swag) and Telerik (providing the Pizza and Soda and swag!) WE HAD LOTS OF SWAG! COURTESY OF TELERIK  1 Telerik Premium Collection for .NET ($1299 Value!) COURTESY OF INTERTECH 1 Free Class Entrollment Certificate (Value up to $2495)! 1 $50 Barnes and Noble Gift Certificate Various Mugs, Pens and Swag COURTESY OF MICROSOFT 1 Copy of Office Project Standard 2007 1 Microsoft Arc Mouse 1 Copy of Windows 7 Ultimate 1 Copy of Office Standard 2007 2 XBOX 360 Games: Halo3 and PGR4 2 Copies of Introducing Microsoft Silverlight 3 by L. Moroney

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

David Stevenson presented LINQ to XML LINQ To XML vs. XmlReader, XSLT, MSXML, XPath   Functional Creation                 XDocument, XDeclaration, XElement, XAttribute classes                 XProcessingInstruction, XComment, XText, XCData classes   Loading or Parsing XML Documents Explicit XElement and XAttribute Operators (direct casting) Namespaces - XNamespace and XName classes   The large XML File problem - XStreamingElement class                 C# Yield statement review                 Deferred Execution and Lazy Evaluation                 Chaining Queries                 Intermediate Materialization   Using XSLT with LINQ To XML Validate using Schemas   XML Queries                 Grouping data Modifying XML Trees                 Add, Modify, Remove                 XML Tree Transformation Serialization (Output) David Stevenson is currently working at Data PAC Mailing Systems in Webster, New York as a Senior Software Engineer developing bulk mailing systems for the direct mail industry in Visual Studio 2008, using Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), ADO.NET and LINQ. David has over 27 years of software development experience, ranging from long distance cable data base system, process control systems, developing a web based content management system and a trouble ticketing system for a major satellite radio provider. An occasional speaker for Visual Developers of Upstate New York in Rochester, David has presented on topics including Windows Script Host, C#, VB.NET, ADO.NET, Object Oriented JavaScript and LINQ.  WE HAD SWAG! COURTESY OF MICROSOFT 2 XBOX 360 Games 1 Copy of Office Ultimate (software) 1 Copy of Programming SQL Server 2008 (book)

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Chris Bowen presented “What’s New in Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4.0” Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4.0 are on their way, bringing many new options and features for productivity and creating effective applications.  In this talk, we’ll take a turbo tour of the key features currently in Beta 2, both at the language level and in Visual Studio itself so you’ll have a head start on things when they’re released. Chris Bowen (http://blogs.msdn.com/cbowen) is a Developer Evangelist with Microsoft, covering the Northeastern US.  An architect and developer with over 16 years of experience, he joined Microsoft after holding senior positions at companies including Monster.com, VistaPrint, Staples, and IDX Systems, as well as consulting with others.  He is coauthor of "Essential Windows Communication Foundation" and "Professional Visual Studio 2005 Team System" and holds an M.S. in Computer Science and a B.S. in Management Information Systems, both from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. WE HAD SWAG! This meeting's swag was on Chris - he brought a "fascinating array of books and software!" Pizza and Soda courtesy of Microsoft User Group Support Services.

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Andy Beaulieu presented:   Behaviors in Silverlight 3.   GET THE DEMOS, SLIDES, and VIDEO   Overview: Behaviors allow you to add interactivity to your Silverlight applications without writing any code. Want to add drag/drop functionality to an element in XAML? Just add in a DragDropBehavior. Want Physics applied to your elements? Just drop in Physics Behaviors! In this session we'll first look at how well Expression Blend 3 supports Behaviors at design time, then we'll see how to write our own Behaviors, Triggers and Actions.   Andy Beaulieu is a professional software developer and trainer with over 15 years of experience building applications for Windows and the Web. Located in Syracuse, New York, he is well versed in many Microsoft technologies including Silverlight, ASP.NET, ADO.NET and WindowsForms. Andy has been awarded a Microsoft MVP Award for Silverlight, and is a member of the WPF and Silverlight Insiders group. This meeting was sponsored by Telerik -They covered the cost of the pizza and soda, and also some swag!   We had swag!   1 Copy of Telerik Premium Collection for .NET ($1299 value!)   1 Copy of Infragistics NetAdvantage for .NET 2009   A 1-Year Subscription to LearnVisualStudio.NET

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Michael Coles presented:   SQL 2008 Integrated Full-Text Search, Filestream and .NET.   LINKS FROM MICHAELS' TALK:   SLIDES on Integrated Full Text Search SLIDES on New Developer Features   http://www.apress.com, Downloads section, "Pro Full-Text Search in SQL Server 2008" = setup scripts for iFTS_Books sample database to demonstrate iFTS and FILESTREAM http://www.codeplex.com/Irony = Irony.net grammar parser; useful for creating your own search interface http://www.sergeantsql.com = My blog http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Full-Text+Search+(2008)/64248/ = Article about creating a search engine-style interface for IFTS   Overview: * New Integrated Full-Text Search (iFTS) in SQL Server 2008 - full-text search is highly integrated with the SQL Server query engine in SQL Server 2008. This makes administration easier, improves performance significantly, and increases scalability.   * The new filestream data type attribute in SQL Server 2008 - takes advantage of Windows NTFS transactions and streaming to improve performance and provide greater manageability for binary large object (BLOB) data.   * SQL Server 2008 provides several new dynamic management views and functions, and new catalog views, to make full-text search processing fully transparent to developers.   * We'll demonstrate how to quickly and easily create a Google-style search interface in C# to search your SQL Server 2008 iFTS-enabled databases.   Michael Coles is a Microsoft MVP (SQL) with over 15 years' experience designing and administering SQL Server databases. A prolific writer on all aspects of SQL Server, particularly on the expert use of T-SQL, Michael has written dozens of published articles and several books including Pro SQL Server 2008 XML, Pro T-SQL 2008 Programmer's Guide, and Accelerated SQL Server 2008. Currently he is contributing chapters to a Microsoft MVP charity book project and working on a project to detail SQL Server 2008 encryption technology. WE HAD SWAG! Courtesy of LearnVisualStudio and TraininingSpot: - A 1-Year subscription to LearnVisualStudio.NET - A 1-Year subscription to TrainingSpot.com Courtesy of Infragistics - 1 Copy of NetAdvantage for .NET 2009 Vol 1

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Chris Meredith presented:   Learn how to leverage your .NET skills to create Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) using Microsoft Silverlight 3.   Description: In this session you will learn how Silverlight can be used to create rich interactive applications for the web. The session begins by explaining the different parts that make up a Silverlight application and demonstrates how to create an application. After that, the session shifts to a real world example which demonstrates how to create an online store catalog. Throughout the creation of the online store catalog application, the primary focus will be on the latest Silverlight technologies including page layout and adding controls using XAML, data binding using Microsoft LINQ, and customizing our controls using styles and templates.  This session will give you a clear understanding of what Silverlight is and how to leverage these new technologies to create cutting edge RIA’s that end users will enjoy using for years to come.   Chris Meredith manages all aspects of ComponentOne’s development tool product line in his role as project manager. During his tenure with ComponentOne he has worked in IT, customer engagement, and sales. Chris is a well traveled speaker and is known for his technical presentations on topics such as Microsoft Silverlight, ASP.NET, and Windows Forms. Chris is an author of many whitepapers, which provide Microsoft Visual Studio developers solutions through the use of third party controls.   WE HAD SWAG!   Courtesy of ComponentOne - 1 Copy of ComponentOne Studio for Silverlight - Mouse Pad Paper   Courtesy of LearnVisualStudio and TraininingSpot: - A 1-Year subscription to LearnVisualStudio.NET - A 1-Year subscription to TrainingSpot.com Courtesy of Infragistics - 1 Copy of NetAdvantage for .NET 2009 Vol 1

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Markus Egger presented "The State of .NET Technologies"  What is the state of .NET today? Which of the many .NET technologies have gained traction? Which ones can you ignore for now? What is new in .NET 3.5 and the coming .NET 4.0? What other Microsoft technologies should you include in your development efforts? This event is It is designed for developers as well as (IT) decision makers. Specific prior knowledge is not required. Topics will include the following: ·         Silverlight 2.0 and 3.0 ·         WPF and Visual Styles ·         Expression Blend 3 ·         Microsoft Surface ·         Windows Azure and Cloud Services ·         WCF ·         SOA Markus Egger is the President and CSA of EPS Software Corp. and its associated brands and companies, such as CODE Magazine, CODE Online, Xiine, Tower 48, EPS Austria GmbH, JockTock, and others. EPS is a custom software development and consulting firm located in Houston, Texas (USA) and Salzburg (Austria). He specializes in consulting for advanced business applications built on the Microsoft platform. EPS does most of its development using Microsoft Visual Studio (.NET) and SQL Server (among other technologies). EPS has worked on numerous software projects for Fortune 500 companies including Philip Morris, NEC, Qualcomm, Shell and Microsoft. Markus has also worked on campus as a contractor for the Microsoft Visual Studio team. Markus is an international speaker having presented sessions at numerous conferences including a number of conferences in North America, Europe, and South America. Markus has written numerous articles for publications including CODE Magazine, MSDN Magazine, Visual Studio Magazine, ASP.NET Pro Magazine, FoxPro Advisor, Fuchs, FoxTalk and Microsoft Office & Database Journal. Markus is the publisher of CoDe Magazine, a .NET publication focusing in technologies such as .NET and Web Development. Markus has written a book about Advanced Object Oriented Programming. Markus also received the Microsoft MVP Award (consecutively, from 1996 to 2009, making him one of the longest-running MVPs) for his contributions to the developer community. Markus has also been named a "Tablet PC Influential Developer", ( a.k.a. "Tablet PC Guru"), an honor Microsoft awarded to the 10 most influential developers in the worldwide Tablet PC market. Visual LandPro, one of the applications Markus was in charge of, was nominated for the Microsoft Excellence Awards three times. You can contact Markus via email (megger@eps-software.com) or visit him online (www.eps-software.com and www.MarkusEgger.com). This meeting was sponsored by INETA. They covered the pizza and soda, as well as Markus' visit.   WE HAD SWAG! Courtesy of Microsoft/Codezone: 1 Copy of Windows Vista Ultimate 1 Copy of Silverlight Animation by Jeff Paries Courtesy of LearnVisualStudio and TraininingSpot: A 1-Year subscription to LearnVisualStudio.NET A 1-Year subscription to TrainingSpot.com ...and some assorted magazines and goodies

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Kathleen Dollard presented "Your Application in Pieces – MEF and MAF (300 level)"  Decoupling portions of your application has tremendous payback during both development and maintenance. Your application becomes more testable and flexible and can more easily evolve to meet changing demands. Decoupling your application also allows a new level of partnership with external groups because you can safely incorporate their code in your application without recompiling or releasing source code. Microsoft has exposed different provider models in many areas of the framework and libraries, and this year has moved toward consolidating its efforts at decoupling with the Managed Extensibility Framework, or MEF. This tool differs from an IoC container because its focused directly at simplifying the extension of applications and focuses at extensibility, discover, and composition. The underlying engine can support Microsoft efforts like Visual Studio and your own applications. MEF comes up short when you encounter isolation and versioning issues, such as wanting that external code to run in its own AppDomain. The Managed Add-In Framework, or MAF, focuses on these problems and the significant complexity they bring with System.AddIn namespace of .NET 3.5. You’ll learn more about architecting applications in pieces and the sweet spot of using MEF and MEF together. You’ll leave ready to evaluate the role of MEF and MAF in your applications. Kathleen Dollard is a consultant, author, trainer, and speaker. She’s been a Microsoft MVP for over ten years and has spoken about .NET in 28 states and 5 countries. She’s written dozens of articles including the “Ask Kathleen” column in Visual Studio Magazine. She also wrote “Code Generation in Microsoft .NET” (Apress). Her passion is helping programmers be smarter in how they develop by learning to better use .NET languages, libraries and platforms. She works with WPF, WF, as well as core technologies including System.AddIn. She’s currently creating template infrastructure for code generation using VB XML literals. After working on the problem of capturing business intent in metadata and test definitions for years, she’s working with industry improvements in these areas. She’s also working on full life cycle improvements, such as unit testing, better debugging and static analysis (FxCop). When not working, she enjoys woodworking, snowshoeing, and kayaking depending on the outdoor temperature. This meeting was sponsored by INETA. They covered the pizza and soda, as well as Kathleen's visit. WE HAD LOTS OF SWAG! Courtesy of Microsoft/Codezone: 1 Copy of Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2 Copies of Windows Vista Ultimate Courtesy of LearnVisualStudio and TraininingSpot: A 1-Year subscription to LearnVisualStudio.NET A 1-Year subscription to TrainingSpot.com 1 Copy of Pro ADO.NET Data Services

Wednesday, April 8th, 2009 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Abraham Sultan presented "Software+Services Applications via .NET 3.5, Sql Server & SaaSGrid" [DOWNLOAD SLIDES + DEMO] Software+Services applications require unique architectural approaches to solve many specific issues like multi-tenancy, transaction metering, and high availability. Understanding architectural pitfalls and designing to focus on a cloud based delivery model are key in successfully moving business applications to the cloud. The talk will focus on application architecture discussion for cloud deployed business applications, and how cloud runtimes like Apprenda’s SaaSGrid can help. The talk will also take a hands on walkthrough on leveraging Windows Communication Foundation, Sql Server, LINQ and ASP.NET to build cloud applications on top of the SaaSGrid cloud runtime.                                                                     This meeting was be sponsored by Aprrenda. They covered the pizza and soda, and Abe's visit! Abraham Sultan, Vice President of Engineering, Co-founder, Aprrenda Abraham focuses on coordinating engineering efforts and making technology choices. Previously, Abraham worked at SaaS vendor Informz and held a role as Director of Java Development at Eden Communications. Prior to that, he worked at SUNY as a lead engineer on a finance application that supported 40,000 users distributed across approximately 50 SUNY campuses. Abraham holds a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. WE HAD LOTS OF SWAG Courtesy of Microsoft/Codezone: 1 Microsoft Fingerprint Reader 1 Copy of Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 1 Copy of Inside SharePoint Services 3.0 1 Copy of C# 2008 Step by Step Some assorted t-shirts and trinkets Courtesy of LearnVisualStudio and TraininingSpot: A 1-Year subscription to LearnVisualStudio.NET A 1-Year subscription to TrainingSpot.com Courtesy of Infragistics: 1 Copy of Infragistics NetAdvantage for .NET (+1 year subscription)

Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Andy Beaulieu presented: "Silverlight Design and Animation"    [DOWNLOAD SLIDES, DEMOS, LINKS]        Get on your black turtlenecks and berets, and leave your pocket protectors at home! We're going to learn how we can use Silverlight and Expression Blend to create unique and highly interactive web experiences. We'll start by showing the ins and outs of Expression Blend, then look at the details of XAML, Storyboards, code-driven animation, and even how to add Physics to your animations.                             Andy Beaulieu is a professional software developer and trainer with over 15 years of experience building applications for Windows and the Web. Located in Syracuse, New York, he is well versed in many Microsoft technologies including Silverlight, ASP.NET, ADO.NET and WindowsForms. Andy has been awarded a Microsoft MVP Award for Client Application Development, and is a member of the WPF and Silverlight Insiders group. He is also involved in the .NET community and is the Group Leader for the Central New York .NET Developers Group, as well as the INETA Membership Mentor for much of the Northeastern United States.                                                                                       This meeting was sponsored by Welch Allyn. They covered the pizza and soda! WE HAD LOTS OF SWAG   Courtesy of Microsoft/Codezone: 1 Microsoft LifeCam VX-7000 1 Copy of Microsoft Office Standard 2007 1 Copy of Programming Visual C# 2008: The Language 1 Copy of Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation: Step by Step 1 Copy of Introducing Microsoft LINQ Courtesy of LearnVisualStudio and TraininingSpot: A 1-Year subscription to LearnVisualStudio.NET A 1-Year subscription to TrainingSpot.com Courtesy of Infragistics: 1 Copy of Infragistics NetAdvantage for .NET (+1 year subscription) Courtesy of SyncFusion: 1 Copy of SyncFusion Essential Grid ($595 value)

Wednesday, February 11th, 2009 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Jim O'Neil, Microsoft Developer Evangelist, presented: "Developing Applications Using Data Services"           In the near future, applications will be developed using a combination of custom application code and online building block services, including data-centric services. In this session we discuss advancements in the Microsoft development platform and online service interfaces to enable seamless interaction with data services both on-premises (e.g., ADO.NET Data Services Framework over on-premises SQL Server) and in the cloud (e.g., SQL Server Data Services). Learn how you can leverage existing know-how related to LINQ (Language Integrated Query), data access APIs, data-binding, and more when building applications using online data. Jim O'Neil is a Microsoft Developer Evangelist for the Northeast District, including New England and Upstate New York.  He joined Microsoft in April 2008 after nearly twelve years at Sybase as a support engineer, sales consultant, and evangelist for developer tools including PowerBuilder, DataWindow .NET, and EAServer (a J2EE application server).  Jim is an MCPD and co-authored two books and multiple articles on application development using PowerBuilder.  Prior to Sybase, he worked as a software engineer for MITRE and BDM International, Inc., developing prototypes and simulations for various DoD organizations.                                                                                                                   This meeting was sponsored by Welch Allyn. They covered the pizza and soda! WE HAD LOTS OF SWAG! Courtesy of Microsoft/Codezone: 3 Copies of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Standard 1 Copy of Windows Vista Ultimate 1 Copy of ASP.NET 3.5 Step by Step 1 Copy of WCF Step by Step 1 Copy of Introducting Microsoft LINQ Courtesy of LearnVisualStudio and TraininingSpot: A 1-Year subscription to LearnVisualStudio.NET A 1-Year subscription to TrainingSpot.com Courtesy of LogicNP Software: A 1-Developer License of Shell MegaPack.Net ($299 value) Courtesy of Infragistics: 1 Copy of Infragistics NetAdvantage for .NET (+1 year subscription)

Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Jim Spignardo of New Horizons presented: Introduction to Server Virtualization This session will start with a general introduction to server virtualization, and then focus specifically on Microsoft’s Hyper-V virtualization technology. Topics will include: Introduction to Server Virtualization Uses of virtualization Configuring Hyper-V: Virtual machines, virtual networks, virtual hard drives. Jim Spignardo is a full-time employee of New Horizons of Syracuse where he has been the lead instructor for technical training since the franchise opened its doors.   In the past three years he has managed the Mentored Learning program, an innovative learning program pioneered by New Horizons.   This meeting was sponsored by Tek Systems! We had some great SWAG   1 Server Virtualization Resource DVD courtesy of New Horizons Syracuse 1 Copy of Windows Vista Ultimate 1 Copy of Introducing Microsoft Silverlight 2 1 Infragistics NetAdvantage for .NET 2008 1 one-year Subscription to LearnVisualStudio.NET Courtesy of LearnVisualStudio.Net 1 one-year Subscription to TrainingSpot Courtesy of TrainingSpot.com 1 Microsoft Travel Mug

Wednesday, October 15th, 2008 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

David Stevenson of Data PAC Mailing Systems presented: LINQ To SQL and the Object/Relational Designer   The Presentation focused on using the Object/Relational Designer tool in Visual Studio 2008 to demo LINQ To SQL. Topics covered: Object/Relational Designer Entity Pane Methods Pane DataContext class Create LINQ to SQL Classes Mapped to Tables and Views Create DataContext Methods Mapped to Stored Procedures and Functions Assign Stored Procedures to Perform Updates, Inserts, and Deletes Changing the Return Type of a DataContext Method Adding Column and Row Update Validation to a DataContext partial class Configuring Entity Class Inheritance by Using the O/R Designer Associations Between Entities SQLMetal David Stevenson is currently working at Data PAC Mailing Systems in Webster, New York as a Senior Software Engineer developing bulk mailing systems for the direct mail industry in Visual Studio 2008, using Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), ADO.NET and LINQ. David has over 27 years of software development experience, ranging from long distance cable data base system, process control systems, developing a web based content management system and a trouble ticketing system for a major satellite radio provider. An occasional speaker for Visual Developers of Upstate New York in Rochester, David has presented on topics including Windows Script Host, C#, VB.NET, ADO.NET, Object Oriented JavaScript and LINQ.  WE HAD SOME GREAT SWAG! 1 Microsoft LifeCam VX-7000 Courtesy of Codezone/INETA 1 copy of Office SharePoint Designer 2007 Courtesy of Codezone/INETA 1 copy of Programming Microsoft LINQ Courtesy of Codezone/INETA 1 copy of Infragistics NetAdvantage for .NET 2008 Courtesy of Infragistics A one-year Subscription to LearnVisualStudio.NET Courtesy of LearnVisualStudio.Net A one-year Subscription to TrainingSpot Courtesy of TrainingSpot.com

Wednesday, September 10th, 2008 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Paul Sheriff presented: Architecting ASP.NET 3.5 Applications Putting together an ASP.NET Application so that it is easy to maintain, easy to change the look and feel of, and is flexible can be a real challenge these days. In this seminar you will learn how to take advantage of Master Pages, Themes, Skins and CSS for building the front end UI. In addition, you will be exposed to other concepts like the use of Providers for maximum flexibility in dealing with exceptions and configuration management. You will also see an example of using N-Tier LINQ to SQL classes. You will Learn 1. Creating maintainable Master Pages 2. The appropriate use of Themes, Skins and CSS 3. Effective exception management 4. Flexible configuration management using the Provider model 5. N-Tier LINQ to SQL Testing .NET 3.5 Applications in the Real World Everyone knows that they should be writing better test cases for their applications, but how many of us really do it? In VS.NET 2008 testing is an integrated part of the development environment. So there is no longer any reason to avoid not doing test driven development and automated unit testing. In this seminar you will learn how to architect your applications to make testing quicker and easier. You will learn to use the tools in VS.NET 2008 to help you do the testing. You will Learn 1. How to architect for test driven development 2. Creating test cases 3. Using the VS.NET 2008 testing tools. Paul D. Sheriff is the President of PDSA, Inc. (www.pdsa.com), a Microsoft Partner in Southern California. Paul acts as the Microsoft Regional Director for Southern California assisting the local Microsoft offices with several of their events each year and being an evangalist for them. Paul has authored several books, webcasts, videos and articles on .NET, SQL Server and SharePoint. Paul can be reached via email at PSheriff@pdsa.com or at Paul Sheriff's Inner Circle (www.PaulSheriffInnerCircle.com). This meeting was sponsored by INETA. We had some great swag to give away! Two (2) Free vConfernce Passes courtesy of Bits on the Wire, Inc. [SEE A VIDEO INTRO] One (1) TechEd 2008 Conference DVD Set ($195 value) One (1) one-year Subscription to LearnVisualStudio.NET One (1) one-year Subscription to TrainingSpot Three (3) Infragistics T-Shirts One (1) one-year Subscription to Infragistics NetAdvantage for .NET

Wednesday, August 6th, 2008 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Gary Depue and Melody Branigan of Summit Software presented: Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Applications Summit Software will perform a sample integration of Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Applications version 2.0. In this technical presentation, we focus on providing an end-to-end walk-through of the integration process, leveraging Summit's integration expertise and utilizing the tools available to assist with a successful integration of Visual Studio Tools for Applications 2.0. As part of the discussion, learn how integration has been significantly improved in the 2.0 version of Visual Studio Tools for Applications. Gary Depue, Lead Developer Gary started his career in computer engineering with microprocessor-based digital hardware design, before progressing to embedded systems programming, then to Windows programming. He began working as a software engineer for Summit Software in 1998, contributing to the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) software development kit (SDK) and helping independent software vendors (ISVs) integrate VBA. Today, Garys integration efforts are aimed at assisting ISVs integrate Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Applications (VSTA).   Melody Branigan, Software Engineer Melody is an integral part of the Summits VSTA integration support team.  She joined Summit in 2007 and works closely with ISVs on their integration of VSTA into their applications. Webucator sponsored this meeting. They covered the pizza and soda as well as some swag. Webucator provides Silverlight training and SharePoint training in addition to training on many other Microsoft technologies We had some great swag! A Cup full of Candy for each attendee courtesy of Webucator (who are also supplying Pizza and Soda) 1 MSDN Premium Team Suite Subscription (MSRP $10,939!) courtesy of Integral Thought & Memory A 1-year subscription to LeanVisualStudio.NET courtesy of LearnVisualStudio.NET A 1-year subscription to Infragistics NetAdvantage courtesy of Infragistics.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Rik Bardrof presented: OO Design Patterns In this session we will be examining three object oriented design patterns and their interaction; the patterns are Model View Presenter, Separated Interface, and Inversion of Control. A solid understanding of object oriented design patterns provides leverage of the power of .Net in the creation of maintainable and extensible solutions. The combination of these three particular patterns helps to remove complexity and provides an excellent foundation for unit testing. While the demos will be in C# they are applicable to and reproducible in VB.Net.  Rik Bardrof is a senior software developer for Xclaim Software, located in Central New York. He has a widely varied background in computer science with experience ranging from systems maintenance through application development (lot’s of stuff in between). Currently he’s practicing agile development in a .Net shop which focuses heavily on Domain Driven Design, Test Driven Design, and integration of Open Source tools. His earnest hope is to one day become a Jedi of OO Patterns.                                                                  Xclaim This meeting was sponsored by Xclaim Software, who covered the pizza and soda! We had some great SWAG, Courtesy of Codezone and Infragistics:   SOFTWARE: 1 Copy of Visual Studio 2008 Standard Edition 1 Copy of Office Ultimate 2007 1 Copy of Windows Vista Ultimate 1 Copy of Infragistics NetAdvantage 2008   BOOKS: 1 Copy of "Professional LINQ" 1 Copy of "Windows SharePoint Services 3.0" 1 Copy of "6 Office Business Applications for Office SharePoint"   ... and some cool T-shirts...

Wednesday, May 7, 2008 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Andy Beaulieu presented:   Silverlight 2 for Data Applications Silverlight 2 holds great promise for building data-centric applications that are more robust and capable than their AJAX cousins. This session will give a quick start to creating Line of Business type applications using Silverlight 2. We will use WCF and LINQ to SQL for the Web Service and Data Access Layer, and Silverlight 2 data controls to build the UI. Andy Beaulieu is a professional software developer with over 10 years of experience building applications for Windows and the Web. Located in Syracuse, New York, he is well versed in many Microsoft technologies including Silverlight, ASP.NET, ADO.NET and WindowsForms. Andy has worked on many applications for the financial, medical, and scientific communities and is a member of the WPF and Silverlight Insiders group. He is also involved in the .NET community and is the Group Leader for the Central New York .NET Developers Group, as well as the INETA Membership Mentor for much of the Northeastern United States.                                                                                       This meeting was sponsored by Welch Allyn. They covered the pizza and soda! WE HAD LOTS OF SWAG!   Courtesy of our Microsoft Launch Event: Five (5) Heroes Happen Here Launch Kits, each containing:      Windows Server 2008      Visual Studio Standard Edition      SQL Server 2008 CTP5      1 Voucher for SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition Two (2) Windows Vista Ultimate with Windows Live Services Three (3) Vouchers for a 1-year subscription to TechNet Plus One (1) Windows Server 2008 Application Readiness Kit A Bunch of Microsoft Learning Solutions 40% Off Exam Vouchers One (1) SQL Server 2008 Technical Readiness Kit One (1) .NET Framework 3.5 Developer Resource Kit 40% Off TechNet Plus Subscriptions for All Attendees Courtesy of Infragistics: Two (2) Copies of NetAdvantage for .NET 2008 Two (2) Infragistics T-Shirts

Wednesday, April 2, 2008 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Chris Bowen, our friendly neighborhood Developer Evangelist, presented:   "Shall We Play a Game?" - An Introduction to Game Development with XNA   Like games, but don't know much about how they're created? Fear not! XNA is a game development platform based on the .NET Framework that helps to make developing 2D and 3D games for Windows and Xbox easy. Using the free XNA Game Studio 2.0, you can put those same C# skills that pay the bills by day to creating your own games by night (or whenever you'd like.) We'll introduce XNA, show you around the XNA world, then create a simple 2D game from scratch to give you a feel for the mechanics of XNA. This session requires no game development experience, only a passion for gaming and coding!   Chris Bowen (http://blogs.msdn.com/cbowen) is Developer Evangelist for Microsoft's Northeast district.  An experienced software architect and engineer, Chris joined Microsoft after holding senior positions at companies such as Monster.com, VistaPrint, Staples, and IDX Systems and consulting on web presence and eCommerce projects with others.  He is coauthor of "Professional Visual Studio 2005 Team System" by WROX and specializes in application architecture and building highly-scalable transactional web systems.  He holds an M.S. in Computer Science and a B.S. in Management Information Systems, both from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.                                                                                        This meeting was sponsored by ISSI.   We had some great swag!     Courtesy of Codezone/Microsoft: 1 Microsoft LiveCam NX-6000 1 Copy of Inside Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Courtesy of Infragistics: 1 NetAdvantage for .NET License

Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

This was our Community Launch Event for Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008! We had two mini-talks at this meeting: Matthew Roche - What's New in SQL Server 2008 Andy Beaulieu - What's New in Visual Studio 2008 This meeting is being sponsored by New Horizons of Syracuse. They will be covering the Pizza and Soda! We had some great swag!     Courtesy of New Horizons Syracuse: 1 Microsoft Zune 1 Coupon for 20% off your next Microsoft Technical Class Courtesy of Codezone/Microsoft: 1 Copy of Windows Vista Ultimate 1 Copy of Programming Web Forms Courtesy of Wintellect: 1 Conference Pass to Devscovery New York 2008 ($900) Value! 5 Wintellect T-Shirts

Wednesday, February 6th, 2008 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Kevin Murray presented   Dynamic Code Compilation using .NET   [DOWNLOAD KEVIN'S PRESENTATION MATERIALS] Kevin will discuss techniques for managing background processes using .NET scripting. The .NET platform contains the code compilers for the .Net languages, so it's possible to use VB.Net, C# etc as a scripting language by compiling source code on the fly from within any .Net application. A sample VB.Net application demonstrates several scripting approaches plus the mechanics of compilation, execution and sharing data between "statically" and dynamically compiled code. A second sample implements a simple command line driven scripting host. The discussion will then turn to using dynamic code compilation to intellegently manage background processes stressing high reliability and flexibility. An actual multi-component production application (which runs a server farm among other things) is used as the basis for discussion. Demonstrated will be the Script Editor component that allows users to create a bank of routines stored as VB.NET source in a SQL database. The Job Builder component allows users to sequence stored routines and control program flow providing extremely flexible automation capability. A behind the scenes code writer writes the executable source code for the job on the fly. Dynamically compiled jobs run in a framework that manages program flow, errors, logging, record keeping and provides a large library of common functions. The discussion will end with the intellegent scheduler component which implements feedback and control, dynamic management of the schedule and other advanced techniques. Kevin is the Manager of Software Development for Dumac of East Syracuse.. Dumac is the master dealer for Panasonic, NCR and other Point of sales devices in the Northeast Region.   This meeting was sponsored by Welch Allyn, who will be covering the pizza and soda!     WE HAD SOME GREAT SWAG: 1 Microsoft Wireless Desktop Pro 1 Copy of Infragistics NetAdvantage 1 Copy of Inside T-SQL Programming 1 2GB USB Key with Expression Studio Goodies

Wednesday, January 9th, 2008 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Rik Bardrof presented NHibernate Rik will provide an overview of the Active Record and Object Model patterns and where NHibernate fits in. The discussion will be followed by a demo of an application using NHibernate as the backend data store. The remainder of the evening will consist of questions and answers on incorporating NHibernate into existing applications.   Rik Bardrof is a senior software developer for Xclaim Software, located in Central New York. He has a widely varied background in computer science with experience ranging from systems maintenance through application development (lot’s of stuff in between). Currently he’s practicing agile development in a .Net shop which focuses heavily on Domain Driven Design, Test Driven Design, and integration of Open Source tools. His earnest hope is to one day become a Jedi of OO Patterns.       This meeting was sponsored by Tek Systems - they covered the Pizza and Soda!   We also had some great swag: Tek Systems gave away mugs filled with tasty treats! 1 Copy of Programming Microsoft SQL Server 2005 1 Copy of Infragistics NetAdvantage for .NET

Wednesday, December 5th, 2007 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Matthew Roche presented SQL Server Integration Services [View Matthew's Blog Entry regarding the talk & Book Recommendations]   In this session Matthew will provide a guided tour of SQL Server Integration Services, covering core features such as Control Flow, Data Flow, Package Configurations and Property Expressions and core tools such as Business Intelligence Development Studio and DTEXEC. The focus will be on getting the most out of SSIS as an ETL platform, with lots of demos and time for Q&A. Matthew Roche is a data architect with systems management innovator Configuresoft, Inc., and is also Chief Software Architect of Integral Thought & Memory, a BI-focused consultancy. Matthew has worked with Microsoft SQL Server since the mid 90s, starting with SQL Server 6.0 and 6.5, and has been falling deeper and deeper in love with SQL Server with each passing year. As a Microsoft Certified Trainer, Matthew has taught hundreds of database administrators and database developers how to better utilize SQL Server’s capabilities. As a software developer and architect, Matthew has built dozens of applications that use the SQL Server platform. Matthew has been using SQL Server 2005 since its early beta days and has been learning SQL Server 2008 since June of this year. Matthew’s current focus is on the SQL Server Business Intelligence stack, specifically SQL Server Integration Services. This meeting ws sponsored by Welch Allyn - they covered the Pizza and Soda!   We also had some great swag from Codezone/Microsoft:  1 Copy of Windows Vista Ultimate 1 Microsoft Wireless Desktop Pro 1 Copy of Windows Workflow Foundation: Step by Step   And from Infragistics: 1 Copy of Infragistics NetAdvantage 2007

Wednesday, November 7th, 2007 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Mike Amundsen presented Programming The Internet - Why HTTP Rocks You can download Mike's Demos HERE. HTML, XML, Javascript, ASP.NET, C#, SQL Server - building web applications can get pretty involved. But the secret to building dependable, scalable web apps lies not in any of the typical technologies or buzzwords, but in an oft-forgotten, sometimes maligned aspect of the Internet - HTTP programming. It's HTTP programming that makes web applications from companies like Google, Yahoo, and others so successful. In this talk, you'll learn how the designers of the HTTP protocol envisioned the way Internet programming would work. You'll learn the four parts of every HTTP message; the power of HTTP methods (and why they are so often ignored); the importance of Content Types and Status Codes; and how to control how other servers on the Internet find and store your content. Finally, you'll learn how easy it can be to use ASP.NET to build programs that take full advantage of HTTP's power and scalability.If you want to build web apps that rock, you want to become an HTTP programmer. Mike Amundsen is a Deep Training instructor and the founder of eraserver.net, a .NET hosting company. An internationally known author and lecturer, Mike Amundsen travels throughout the United States and Europe speaking and teaching on a wide range of topics including .NET, the Internet, team development & leadership, and other subjects. He has more than a dozen books to his credit. His most popular titles are ASP.NET for Developers, Teach Yourself Database Programming with Visual Basic in 21 Days, 3rd Ed., and Using Visual InterDev. Mike is a member of the International .NET Association (INETA) Speakers Bureau. This was an INETA sponsored event. They covered the pizza, soda, and Mike's visit! We also had some great swag!!  1 Copy of Windows Vista Ultimate 1 Microsoft LiveCam NX-6000 1 Copy of Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2005: Query Tuning & Optimization   And from Infragistics: 2 Copies of Infragistics NetAdvantage 2007

Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

David Laribee and Rik Bardrof presented   Ping-Pong Pairing You Got Served: Ping-Pong Pairing Pair Programming is a central method of a high-functioning Agile team. It amplifies Test-Driven Development (TDD) and promotes Collective Code Ownership. Despite the numerous benefits, installing Pair Programming often fails with first attempts perceived as frustrating for more experienced developers and flat-out boring for the non-coding partner. Wouldn't it be great if pair programming was easy, engaging, and (dare to dream) fun?! Enter Ping Pong Pairing (PPP)! Join Dave Laribee and Rik Bardrof for a match of PPP. Serving the rules of the game, Rik and Dave will start a long volley of TDD and share key tips for putting a little backspin on your solutions! David Laribee is President of Xclaim Software, an ISV offering document, claim, and policy management software for the commercial property and casualty insurance industry. He has 10+ years experience designing, developing, and architecting enterprise applications with Microsoft technologies. David has worked with the .NET Framework since the zero-day in internal IT, product development, and rapid prototyping contexts across a wide variety of industries. He writes about agile practices, software architecture, and the business of software on his blog at http://laribee.com/.     This meeting was sponsored by ISSI! We also had a bunch of swag courtesy of Microsoft and Codezone! 1 Copy of Microsoft Expression Web 1 Copy of Windows Vista Ultimate 1 Microsoft Fingerprint Reader Plus a bunch of Microsoft Press books!!

Wednesday, September 5th, 2007 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Andy Beaulieu presented   Playing with Silverlight 1.1   Silverlight 1.1 allows for the creation of Rich Internet Applications which are much more robust, capable, and maintainable than their AJAX cousins. We'll talk about how to quickly get started with Silverlight and Expression Blend and we'll look at some interesting game code and mashups. Andy Beaulieu is a professional software developer with over 10 years of experience in creating web and Windows applications. He has worked on many software projects in the financial and health care industries, and as a trainer for several companies and training centers, and holds MCT, MCSD.NET and MCSD certifications. This meeting was sponsored by Telerik. They will be covering the pizza, soda and had really cool t-shirts to give away at the meeting!!   We had lots of swag to give away! 1 copy of Infragistics .NET 2007 with 1 year subscription ($995 value!) 1 copy of Telerik r.a.d. Controls single developer ($799 value!) A big load of assorted swag (t-shirts, backpacks, etc) courtesy of Integral Thought and Memory 1 copy of Debugging .NET 2.0 Applications courtesy of Codezone 1 copy of Applications = Code + Markup courtesy of Codezone Some assorted mugs and other stuff

Wednesday, August 1st, 2007 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Alex Keh from Oracle presented   New .NET Features for Oracle Database 11g   This session provided details and in depth demos of the new .NET features for Oracle developers. New Oracle Data Provider for .NET features include user-defined data types/objects and ASP.NET providers. New features for the Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio .NET consist of native integration with Visual Studio 2005, including Server Explorer, Data Sources Window, and Query Builder; automatic code generation capabilities for ASP.NET; and the ability to manage and version control SQL and PL/SQL scripts. Here are some links from Alex's Demos: Demo Source Code Oracle by Example: Building ASP.NET Web Applications with ODT Oracle by Example: Building .NET Applications Using ODT Oracle by Example: Debugging Oracle PL/SQL from Visual Studio Alex Keh is a principal product manager at Oracle.  He focuses on Oracle data access and database integration with .NET and Windows.  He's spoken previously at many Microsoft and Oracle events, including Microsoft TechEd, Microsoft Professional Developers Conference, VSLive!, and Oracle OpenWorld.   This meeting was sponsored by Oracle. Oracle covered the pizza and soda, as well as our speaker's visit. They also gave away an iPod at the meeting!   We had LOTS of SWAG!!! 1 iPod courtesy of Oracle! 1 copy of Infragistics .NET 2007 with 1 year subscription ($995 value!) 1 copy of Telerik r.a.d. Controls single developer ($799 value!) 1 copy of ComponentOne Studio Enterprise ($999 value!) plus hats and Trial Disks from ComponentOne A big load of assorted swag (t-shirts, backpacks, etc) courtesy of Integral Thought and Memory.

Wednesday, June 6th, 2007 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Les Pinter presented "WinForms User Controls" Les Pinter is the most recognized name in the world of Visual FoxPro. Author of 6 books, he has also published a monthly newsletter, The Pinter FoxPro Letter (more recently Les Pinter's Database Journal), for over 10 years. He is a speaker at national and international conferences in the US, Canada, Mexico, France, Spain and Russia and is a member of the INETA Speakers' Bureau; currently scheduled to speak at user groups in Argentina, Colombia and Peru, with talks under development in Brazil, Venezuela and Mexico.   This was an INETA Sponsored Event. INETA covered the pizza and soda, as well as our speaker's visit.   We hadsome great giveaways: Courtesy of Microsoft and Codezone: 1 Copy of Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 1 Copy of "Programming ASP.NET 2.0 Applications" 1 Copy of "Programming SQL Server 2005"      ... and 1 license of Telerik r.a.d.controls Single Developer Subscription   ... and 1 license of Infragistics NetAdvantage for .NET 2007

Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Chris Bowen, Microsoft Developer Evangelist, presented “A Developer’s Introduction to Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)” Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is Microsoft’s new strategic User Interface technology designed to provide richer, high-fidelity, applications using an optimized developer/designer workflow.  Learn how to leverage the new features in WPF such as eXtensible Application Markup Language (XAML) to create visually stunning interfaces to enhance capabilities and user experience of your applications.   We’ll also talk about the WPF subset codenamed “WPF/E” used to create cross-browser and cross-OS applications.” Chris Bowen (http://blogs.msdn.com/cbowen) is Developer Evangelist for Microsoft's Northeast district.  An experienced software architect and engineer, Chris joined Microsoft after holding senior positions at companies such as Monster.com, VistaPrint, Staples, and IDX Systems and consulting on web presence and eCommerce projects with others.  He is coauthor of "Professional Visual Studio 2005 Team System" by WROX and specializes in application architecture and building highly-scalable transactional web systems.  He holds an M.S. in Computer Science and a B.S. in Management Information Systems, both from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. And we had some great giveaways... We gave away 1 copy of DevForce Professional framework ($3000 value) including 1 year support from IdeaBlade! ..and 1 license of Telerik r.a.d.controls Single Developer Subscription   ... and Chris brought 2 copies of APPLICATIONS=CODE+MARKUP and 1 copy of VS Professional to give away!

Wednesday, April 4th, 2007 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Craig Frey of Cornell University presented LINQ  LINQ is the biggest addition to the next version of Visual Studio (Orcas) and the .Net framework (version 3.5). LINQ adds query and set based operations to C# and VB. In this presentation we'll talk about LINQ, how we got here, why now, and most importantly how does it work. I'll also demonstrate how you can take the samples provided by Microsoft and get them to work in your own application. About the speaker Craig became an MCSE, MCSD, and MCT about ten years ago and taught the Microsoft curriculum for SQL Server, VB programming, and web development in Burlington, VT. He then switched to becoming a full time SQL developer, also teaching a full slate of CISSP security courses. Craig is now employed by Cornell University as a developer using Oracle, Cold Fusion, Java and .Net. His language of choice is C# and can now say with authority that SQL Server is better than Oracle.   We had some great giveaways! 1 license of Telerik r.a.d.controls Single Developer Subscription   Several books to give away from APress (but you must submit a short review!!!) Pro VS 2005 Reporting Using SQL Server and Crystal Reports Foundations of Security Beginning VB 2005 Databases Beginning C# 2005 Databases   and everyone got copies of the latest asp.net PRO magazine. PLUS TWO COPIES OF OFFICE 2007 courtesy of Microsoft MSDN Events!

Wednesday, March 7th, 2007 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Tom Kopcik, PTSI , presented “Row-level Versioning in SQL Server 2005“  DOWNLOAD THE SLIDE DECK HERE Row-level versioning is a powerful new technology in SQL Server 2005 that supports concurrent access to multiple versions of a specific row of data. It is the underlying technology that supports a number of new database features including snapshot isolation. Existing features such as triggers have also been reengineered to utilize the row-versioning infrastructure. Database snapshots, while using a different underlying infrastructure, provide another way to have alternate views of data. This presentation will explore the internals of the row-versioning technology, help developers utilize the related new features, and help administrators understand the performance issues raised by this new technology. We talked about: Underlying row-level versioning internals Snapshot Isolation Triggers under row-level versioning Tempdb and performance considerations  Database snapshots Tom is the founder of Pineland Technology Solutions, Inc., a software engineering and training company in the Syracuse area. Using 20+ years of software development and training experience, Tom delivers custom software applications and training throughout Upstate New York and beyond. He holds MCT, MCSD, MCSD.NET, MCDBA SQL Server 2000, and MCITP SQL server 2005 certifications and has been working with Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 since PDC 2003. This meeting was sponsored by Croop-LaFrance. They supplyied the pizza and soda.

Wednesday, February 7th, 2007 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Greg Smalter presented “WPF Overview“  Greg Smalter graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology before co-founding Red Stapler Software, LLC; a company specialized in providing web applications to small businesses in order to automate their workflow.  Greg enjoys giving talks throughout the northeast on data access, validation, and web application frameworks.  He has also consulted for the Air Force Research Labs and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.. ... And we will raffled off some great SWAG courtesy of Microsoft Community Launch... 4 copies of Windows Vista Business Edition!! 3 Exam Vouchers good for your next Microsoft Certification Exam! Assorted Vista key chains, pens and trinkets We also gave away a large set of Geek T-shirts courtesy of Integral Thought & Memory

Wednesday, January 10th, 2007 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Andy Beaulieu presented “ASP.NET AJAX“ With ASP.NET AJAX (codename "Atlas"), developers can quickly create web applications with richer, more responsive UI's and more efficient client-server communication. This introduction to ASP.NET AJAX will explore many of the available features and controls and how to build both Server-Centric and Client-Centric AJAX applications using the framework. We'll also explore add-on tools that can greatly ease development using any AJAX framework. Andy Beaulieu is a professional software developer with over 10 years of experience in creating web and Windows applications. He has worked on many software projects in the financial and health care industries, and as a trainer for several companies and training centers, and holds MCT, MCSD.NET and MCSD certifications.   This meeting was sponsored by Telerik. They will supplied the Pizza, Soda, and 1 license of r.a.d.controls Single Developer Subscription ... And we also gave away ... 1 copy of "Accelerated C# 2005" by Trey Nash, courtesy of APress. 1 copy of "Foundations of WF" by Brian Myers, courtesy of APress. 2 Discs containing every asp.net PRO Magazine in digital form from 2002-2005. Plus everyone gets a free copy of the latest issue and a card good for a free 6 month subscription!

Tuesday, December 5th, 2006   1:00 PM - 5:00 PM Regal Cinema Theater, Carousel Mall

MSDN EVENT Susan Wisowaty was in town to present the following sessions: Session 1: Take Control of the Database Development Lifecycle with Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals Session 2: Windows Workflow Foundation Exposed Session 3: Create Cutting-Edge Web Designs with Expression Web   .NET PUB CLUB Microsoft in conjunction with our friendly neighborhood Developer Community Champion sponsored a .NET Pub Club immediately following the show at UNO Chicago Grill.

Wednesday, November 1st, 2006 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

David Laribee presented "CAB and the Smart Client Software Factory" View Session Materials Microsoft Pattern & Practices Team’s Composite UI Application Block (CAB) and Smart Client Software Factory (SCSF) ease the development of modular, extensible, and maintainable smart clients. Starting with a general, theoretical overview of smart clients, we’ll quickly move into a deep examination of CAB centered on working code. We’ll dig into the anatomy of CAB/SCSF, uncovering some key design patterns used in the toolset: Model-View-Presenter, Publish-Subscribe, and Dependency Injection. Throughout the talk we’ll share best practices and consider design decisions for achieving modularity and extensibility in your own smart clients with the CAB/SCSF tools and guidance. By the end of the tour, those new to CAB should find their learning curves greatly reduced. Intermediate-to-advanced CAB hackers will take away some hard fought tips-toward and tricks-to taking their composite smart clients and plug-in architectures to the next level. David Laribee is President of Xclaim Software, an ISV offering document, claim, and policy management software for the commercial property and casualty insurance industry. He has 10+ years experience designing, developing, and architecting enterprise applications with Microsoft technologies. David has worked with the .NET Framework since the zero-day in internal IT, product development, and rapid prototyping contexts across a wide variety of industries. He writes about agile practices, software architecture, and the business of software on his blog at http://laribee.com/.   This meeting will was sponsored by Tek Systems. They provided pizza, soda, and some great swag! ... And we also gave away ... 1 copy of Telerik R.A.D. Controls Single Developer   $799 value

Wednesday, October 4th, 2006 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Greg Smalter presented "Data Access Layers through Code Generation" Download the slides and sample project Data access is often a tedious and error-prone part of an application.  Greg will demonstrate the automatically generated data access layer his company built to address common problems encountered by all applications, but especially web apps.  He’ll also discuss the properties that any good data access layer should have, and compare the benefits of other data access layers that the audience has an interest in.  There will inevitably be some discussion of code generation and its benefits in general. Greg Smalter graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology before co-founding Red Stapler Software, LLC; a company specialized in providing web applications to small businesses in order to automate their workflow.  Greg enjoys giving talks throughout the northeast on data access, validation, and web application frameworks.  He has also consulted for the Air Force Research Labs and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.. This meeting was sponsored by Adecco Technical. They provided pizza and soda!   ... And we had the following swag! ... 1 copy of Telerik R.A.D. Controls Single Developer   $799 value     1 copy of FarPoint Spread Windows Forms $899 value 1 Box-o-Swag donated by Integral Thought & Memory

Wednesday, September 6th, 2006 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Julie Lerman presented Advanced Data Access Patterns with ADO.NET 2.0 Most demos and samples for ADO.NET deal with small amounts of data and simplistic functions. This session will take a look at how to design and code your data layer for dealing with real-world, high-end, data-intensive applications. We’ll look at some advanced patterns for handling more sophisticated scenarios such as updating huge amounts of data, leveraging middle-tier caching for heavy traffic Web sites, and an inmemory query processor that the ADO.NET team has built that we can use today. Much of what will be shown will leverage features of ADO.NET 2.0 as well as some of the performance improvements that have been made to the internals. Julia Lerman is an independent consultant who has been designing and writing software applications for 20 years. She lives in Vermont where she runs the Vermont.NET User Group. Julia is well known in the .NET community as an INETA Board member, Microsoft MVP, ASPInsider and prolific blogger. She is a frequent presenter at DevConnections, DevTeach and other conferences as well as writing articles for MSDN Magazine, CoDe Magazine and other well known technical publications. You can read Julia's blog at thedatafarm.com/blog. This meeting was sponsored by INETA  - They supplied the pizza and soda, as well as funding Julie's visit!      We had some great giveaways! 1 copy of Telerik R.A.D. Controls Single Developer   $799 value     1 copy of FarPoint Spread Web Forms $899 value 1 Box-o-Swag donated by Integral Thought & Memory

Wednesday, July 19th, 2006 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Sam Gentile presented "Service-Oriented Architecture with WCF"  The term Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) has become ubiquitous in our industry. Unfortunately, that has led to massive hype that makes it difficult to understand and distinguish the real value of adapting SOA principles.  The current definition also suffers from technology-centric views that are based on the technology environment in use today. Sam will concentrate on the Design Patterns that distinguish Service-Orientatation and how to apply them to your designs. Upon these principles, we look at their real-world implementation in WCF ("Indigo") and using WCF for real world demos. Sam Gentile is internationally known and recognized for his comprehensive expert Microsoft and .NET knowledge, and has been acknowledged by Microsoft as an Solutions Architect MVP. Sam is also an INETA Speaker, having delivered .NET training to user groups and companies all over the world. Sam is employed by a major international firm as an Agile Software Architect and Team Lead. His team utilizes full Agile practices as well as WinFX technologies like WCF, and WinFX to rapidly deliver business value. Sam has delivered over ten .NET based solutions into the market as well as provided expertise for a number of companies such as Microsoft, Adesso Systems, BCGI, Groove and Pacific Mindworks. This meeting was sponsored by INETA who sponsored pizzaand soda as well as Sam's visit.   We hadlots of SWAG - courtesy of Microsoft, INETA, and its sponsors! 7 Copies of "Working with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System" MSDN Events Resource DVD's AppDev Training DVD's Coupons for dotfuscator licenses T-shirts from Wintellect and Telerik A Full Version License for ComponentOne Reports for .NET

Wednesday, June 7th, 2006 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Jacob Cynamon , Microsoft Developer Community Champion for Illinois/Indiana/Wisconsin, presented “Overview of the Enterprise Library 2.0“ Jacob joined Microsoft in 2003 as a Developer Evangelist in the Industry Solutions group and became a DCC shortly thereafter. He's already hosted 74 in-person events and 25 webcasts for the Midwest community. Jacob is a self-proclaimed C# developer, but dabbles in other languages, from VB .NET and C++ to the more esoteric tongues, including Scheme and Pascal. His favorite development project? Working with a crack coding team to develop a wedding photographer robot, which ultimately became part of the Emerging Technology event at SIGGRAPH 2002. In his downtime, Jacob co-produced a film short that was aired at the 2003 St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase and earned him recognition on the (somewhat) exclusive IMDB.com. He has received less formal praise for playing the 'nose whistle' - a little-known natural talent. In addition to a great presentation, Jacob brought along some great swag: some t-shirts and a Pocket PC to give away!!

Wednesday, May 3rd, 2006 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Tom Kopcik, PTSI , presented “Developing Mobile Applications with the .NET Compact Framework – A Case Study” Tom's Slide Deck is available here. Visual Studio and the .NET Compact Framework provide a powerful environment in which to develop Smart Device/Mobile Applications. This session will utilize a Pocket PC application recently developed for a regional food distributor as a case study to discuss mobile application development with the Compact Framework. The application was initially designed to automate the order-taking phase of the supply-chain for customers with tightly controlled product lists.  Before the initial release was deployed, a company acquisition required that the application be extended to support UPC scanning of a much wider number of products. We will talk about:  Application Requirements/Challenges  Solution Architecture Compact Framework Development Concepts Compact Framework Development Best Practices – be prepared to share your experiences! What’s New in the Compact Framework 2.0  Tom is the founder of Pineland Technology Solutions, Inc., a software engineering and training company in the Syracuse area.  Using 20+ years of software development and training experience, Tom delivers custom software applications and training throughout Upstate New York and beyond. He holds MCT, MCSD, MCSD.NET, and MCDBA SQL Server 2000 certifications and has been working with Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 since PDC 2003.

Wednesday, April 5th, 2006 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

We hosted a "Chalk Talk" type session for this meeting.  Andy Beaulieu presented a sneak peak of Atlas, and there are notes from this meeting here A couple of attendees had sent in questions that were discussed, and we used the following list of subjects to generate more conversation. Code Generation Hosting Providers AJAX/Atlas Documentation (ndoc, xml comments)... Dotnetnuke Developer Resources - Websites, podcasts, etc. Upgrading VB6 to .NET Component Suites - Dev Express, Infragistics, Telerik... Application Blocks – Updater, Security, Data Access… Reporting Tools - Crystal, ActiveReports, .NET 2.0 Reports... Test-Driven Development Transaction Management ClickOnce Deployment We had SWAG: Some .NET T-Shirts, and copies of VS2005/SQL2005 from the Ready to Launch tour.

Wednesday, March 8th, 2006 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Susan Wisowaty, Microsoft Developer Community Champion, presented “Web Application Development with ASP.NET 2.0“ Visual Studio 2005 and ASP.NET 2.0 combine to form a rich platform for building, testing and deploying state-of-the-art Web applications. This session highlights ASP.NET 2.0's most compelling new features, from data source controls and master pages to membership and role management services – features that can reduce the amount of "plumbing" code required to create a typical Web site by up to 70%. This session also showcases the all-new Web development interface in Visual Studio 2005 that speeds the development process, while offering a rich design-time experience and seamless integration with the Visual Studio 2005 Team System.  We’ll build a complete Web application including: • Designing and using a master page in an ASP.NET 2.0 application • Working with declarative data sources • Creating typed datasets and table adapters • Using data binding with objects • Working with new data controls including GridView and DetailsView • Managing authentication and authorization for an ASP.NET application • Working with the new login controls and the membership API • Managing user specific data with Profiles • Using SiteMap data and Navigation controls Susan has more than 15 years experience as an application developer, database administrator and instructor. Throughout most of her career, Susan has been an independent consultant specializing in identifying core business needs and translating them into required technical deliverables. Susan lives in Burlington, Vermont with her husband and three sons and keeps them all busy with skiing and motocross racing. Thanks to Susan for giving away 2 MS Press books, T-Shirts, and Event DVD's! We also gave away 2 copies each of ReSharper and dotTrace from JetBrains! Everyone received a kewl Ajax t-shirt from Dart showing their PowerWeb Controls

Wednesday, February 1st, 2006 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Matthew Roche  presented “SQLCLR Integration in SQL Server 2005“ download the presentation slide deck The common language runtime (CLR) is the heart of the Microsoft .NET Framework and provides the execution environment for all .NET Framework code. The CLR provides various functions and services required for program execution, including just-in-time (JIT) compilation, allocating and managing memory, enforcing type safety, exception handling, thread management, and security.   With the CLR hosted in Microsoft SQL Server, database developers can author stored procedures, triggers, user-defined functions, user-defined types, and user-defined aggregates in managed code, extending the capabilities of the database. Because managed code compiles to native code prior to execution, you can achieve significant performance increases in some scenarios.   In this session Matthew will discuss the architecture of SQL Server CLR integration, the creation and use of managed objects and assemblies in the database and best practices for programming SQL Server 2005. Matthew is the founder and Chief Software Architect of Matthew Roche Software, a small consultancy based in Syracuse, New York. Using 10+ years of training experience and 20+ years of software development experience, Matthew delivers blended solutions of consulting, training and mentoring to his clients throughout Upstate New York and beyond.    Matthew has been developing software using SQL Server since 1996, using the .NET Framework since 2000 and has been immersed in SQL Server 2005 since the first public beta release. In addition to serving as hands-on lab proctor for SQL Server 2005 database development at Microsoft's TechEd 2005 conference in Orlando and Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference 2005 in Los Angeles, Matthew has contributed to numerous Microsoft Certified Professional exams and Microsoft Official Curriculum courses on SQL Server 2005 and .NET 2.0 Framework development. He spends most of his time building secure, high-performance applications for his clients, while working with the clients’ development teams to also build secure, high-performance .NET developers. This meeting was sponsored by Welch Allyn - with Pizza, Soda, Cookies and some really kewl water bottles! We also gave away copies of ReSharper and dotTrace from JetBrains!

Wednesday, November 9th, 2005 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Andy Beaulieu presented “Using RAD Tools for N-Tier Development in VS2005“ View the Article (with link to sample code) Download the Powerpoint Visual Studio 2005 provides great advances in its RAD tools and designers, making it possible to create functional applications with very little code. However, many of the new tools and designers are targeted towards creating 2-Tier applications where presentation, business, and data access logic are bundled into a single tier. This approach is bad for many reasons including scalability and reusability of business logic components. This presentation will describe how the new RAD tools in Visual Studio 2005 can be used to develop N-Tier applications.  Andy Beaulieu is a professional software developer with over 10 years of experience in creating web and Windows applications. He has worked on many software projects in the financial and health care industries, and as a trainer for several companies and training centers, and holds MCT, MCSD.NET, MCSD, and MCAD certifications. This meeting was sponsored by Ajilon Consulting Ajilon provided PIZZA and SODA and the following great Microsoft/.NET branded SWAG: a .NET Backpack, Microsoft T-Shirts, and Microsoft Clicker Candy (we also gave away 2 books from Addison-Wesley)

Wednesday, September 7th 2005 at 6:00 PM New Horizons, East Syracuse

Thom Robbins, Microsoft Developer Evangelist! Thom's topic was a Visual Studio 2005 Overview. Thom Robbins is a Developer Evangelist with Microsoft in New England. He is a frequent speaker at a variety of events including VS Live. Thom is also a regular contributor to various magazines including Visual Studio.Net, .NET Magazine and XML Web Services. He spends his time working with developers in New England. When not writing code he spends his time with wife Denise at their home in New Hampshire. Thom can be reached at trobbins@microsoft.com We had great swag. Everyone received a copy of: the book Introducing Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 For Developers the book The Microsoft Platform Ahead a copy of Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 on DVD an MSDN Events Developer Resource DVD ... and we raffled off some bonus swag from NaviSite: 5 NaviSite Stressballs 5 NaviSite Monitor Mirrors 5 NaviSite Baseball Hats  5 NaviSite Pens