Central Ohio .NET Developers Group

Sponsorship

This meeting is being sponsored by Cardinal Solutions. Food and Beverages will be provided !

Topic

Decomposing the ADO.NET Entity Framework

Abstract

As Microsoft continues to evolve the data access stack, the outlook continues to improve for developers. This presentation explores Microsoft's latest offering: ADO.NET Entity Framework. We'll cover what the Entity Framework promises and what it delivers v1.0 as well as how it compares with other data access frameworks. Learn how you can transpose the physical database model into a more developer-friendly, application-centric model.

Speaker

Jeff Hunsaker

Jeff is a managing consultant and team lead in the Microsoft and ALM practices for Cardinal Solutions Group in Columbus. Working for a variety of consultancies and firms for the past dozen years, he typically plays the architect or lead developer role (yes, he still codes). Jeff gets excited about efficient, resourceful, and elegant technology solutions, agile development techniques, and providing value for clients quickly and regularly. He's constantly looking for faster and more -able: (scalable, maintain, reliable, secure, etc.) ways of delivering software and loves learning new things. In his spare time, Jeff enjoys his family (two boys, wife Lisa), reading, and writing.

When

Thursday, 5/22/2008, 6:00 - 8:00pm

Where

Microsoft Office - Columbus

We had another amazing meeting!  93 people showed up to learn the tools and techniques used to debug production applications.  A thank you goes out to our meeting sponsor TDCI , they provided us with swag, food and beverages. 

As promised, the link to Scott's blog is here .

Thank you all, and see you next month on May 22nd !

Sponsorship

This meeting is being sponsored by TDCI . Food and Beverages will be provided !

Topic

Production Debugging: Tools & Techniques for when things go *really* wrong

Abstract

This session explores tools and techniques to resolve software issues occurring in production environments in the most efficient and least disruptive fashion. We will cover the basics of using tools such as WinDBG, SOS and ADPLUS to explore some common types of application issues from identifying the problem to the ultimate resolution.

Speakers

Scott Walker

Scott Walker is a Team Lead with TDCI Inc. Scott is currently leading two teams at TDCI. One responsible for the development of the BuyDesign Channel Sales quoting solution, and the other responsible for third level customer support as well as research activities. He has been working with .NET since the first release candidate version and has been involved in development of enterprise level web and desktop applications for the law enforcement, banking, and manufacturing industries. He is a Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer (MCSD.NET).

Bryan DeMuth

Bryan is a physicist who makes his living as a Senior Software Engineer at TDCI where he develops .NET web applications and is one of two resident DBAs.   He is a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCAD.NET, MCDBA) and a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (SQL 2005).

When

Thursday, 4/24/2008, 6:00 - 8:00pm

Where

Microsoft Office - Columbus

Once again the room was overflowing with attendees, there were over 90 people in attendance.  James did a wonderful job presenting and fielding questions from the crowd, overall it was a great learning experience for all !

As a recap, feel free to invite friends to these meetings so they can enjoy the professional growth that the group has to offer.  Also, if your company would like to support the overall developer community and gain visibility, feel free to point them to our the sponsorship policy.

As promised, James posted his slides to his blog... so go get them!

Topic

Getting Started with WCF

Abstract

An introduction to WCF which will illustrate its differences/advantages as compared to ASMX web services and remoting, and demonstrate how to start writing services for your application now. All the basics will be covered, as well as an overview of some more complex topics that will highlight the power and extensibility of this new framework from Microsoft.

Speaker

James Bender

James has been involved in software development and architecture for over 13 years. He has worked as a developer and architect on everything from small, single user applications to Enterprise scale multi-user systems.

When

Thursday, 3/27/2008, 6:00 - 8:00pm

Where

Microsoft Office - Columbus

The lightning talks when over spectacularly!  We had 80 people in attendance and all the content presented was awesome! ... Please provide some feedback here on what you liked/disliked about this format, and if you'd like to see more of this type of meeting in the future!  See you all on March 27th !

This month's meeting will be Lightning Talks. There will be seven topics presented with each presentation lasting approximately 15 minutes - just enough to give you a taste of a variety of topics near and dear to the .NET world, all in one sitting.

The speaker schedule for the meeting is as follows:

Speaker(s)	Topic
Steve Horn	ADO.NET Data Services
Matt Casto	Silverlight
Amanda Laucher / James Bender	F#
Steven Harman	Rhino Mocks
Brian Sherwin	Cool things to do with Log4Net
Jon Kruger	LINQ to SQL
John Vottero	PowerShell for Devs

When

Thursday, 2/28/2008, 6:00pm - 8:00pm

Where

Microsoft Office - Columbus

One of the first things the board voted on, was to approve the draft Sponsorship policy. We had written this months ago, and distributed it at a meeting for feedback.

CONDG is often approached by companies that either want to support us and the community, or want to reach the audience we represent. We felt that in order to set guidelines, and to make sure each sponsor is treated the same way, we had to have a policy.

Please read the policy, and let us know if you have any feedback. We are limiting the annual sponsorships to five, so if you know a good company that wants to support us, please let us know.

 

Monish Nagisetty (mnagisetty@quicksolutions.com) has volunteered to help get our MOCSDG (Mid Ohio Connected Systems Developer Group) sub group off of the ground. We have found that we can not drill deep enough with some topics during the general sessions that some of our members want to. We have started this sub group to focus on WCF, WF, SOA, ESB, BizTalk Server, and other related technologies.

Please email him if you would like to be notified of when the meetings will start.

Over the history of CONDG, it has always been run as an un-official organization, with help from the leaders, and their direct employers (for cash). As CONDG has grown, we have developed a need to be fully recognized as a non-profit in Ohio. This will enable us to work with sponsors, and provide a stronger leadership structure to ensure the continued growth and strength of the group.

This week we have filed the neccesary paperwork with the Secretary of State of Ohio. We held our first board meeting last night. Elections were held for the officers, based on the current leaders of the user group.

Brian H. Prince was elected President, Nate King as Vice President, Carey Payette as Secretary/Membership, and Steve Harman as Finance/Technology. I want to thank our board for all of their hard work in the past, and all of the work I know we will be putting in over the next year.

As part of file for NP status, we now have to meet a higher bar with regards to how we run the organization. We now have to keep records for membership/voting purposes, as well as board meeting records.

Please sign in at the desk  when you come into each meeting. You can choose at that time to be on our mailling list or not. We are trying to keep it simple by using a spreadsheet for each meetings sign in. Of course, being geeks, we want to build a .NET powered, WPF, SOA, Smart Client, Restfull flashy system! But we will try to resist, and funnel our energy into things that will make the group stronger.

Our Articles of Incorporation.

Our Bylaws.

About 65 people showed up to hear Michael talk about the WF Rules Engine. There was some great questions from the group. I want to thank mike for coming up on short notice to be our speaker. About 25 people went the GeekDinner afterwards at Hoggy's.

Michael's content can be found on our site.

Our Welcome slide deck is here.

We had some big announcements, and I will break those into seperate posts.

Materials for Talk: download

 

Michael is a Senior Consultant for Strategic Data Systems (SDS) in Centerville, OH, but lives across the river in Kentucky. He has been working in .Net since pre-Beta 2 back in 2001. He has contributed to the "Visual Studio Hacks" book from O'Reilly and has recently started publishing a series of blog posts called the .Net Nugget.  Michael is a MCSD for both .Net and VB6 as well as a Director for the Cincinnati .Net User Group.  You can find out more about Michael and read his blog at www.mvwood.com/blog.
 

When: Thursday, 1/24/2008, 6:00pm - 8:00pm
Where: Microsoft Office - Columbus

Over 120 people showed up to our Decemeber meeting. Brian Prince did a lap around VS2008 and .NET 3.5. Jeff Blankenburg (MS Developer Evangelist) gave out a free copy of Visual Studio 2008 to all attendees. He also provided TWO rounds of pizza (the first was consumed quickly).

Most people hung around playing Rock Band (thanks William!) and Guitar Hero III with Jeff's Xbox 360 gear.

At the meeting we also announced that CONDG would be filing for non-profit status in Ohio. The paperwork is complete, and will be submitted to the Secretary of State this Friday. The Articles of Incorporation and our Bylaws will be posted once they are accepted. This does mean that we will have to start tracking member attendance at meetings. We hope to keep this as lightweight and easy as possible.

The December slides are here.

Topic:
A Lap Around Visual Studio 2008 & .NET 3.5

Abstract:
Visual Studio 2008 and .NET 3.5 were just released, after a very public and open beta process. We will run around the products, and discuss what the new features are. This will briefly cover VS, WCF, WF, C# and VB.NET features.

Everyone will receive (while supplies last) a 90 trial of VS2008 Professional. You can also download VS2008 Express for free!

After the meeting, MS will be providing several XBOX 360's for our annual holiday gaming party. We wil have several copies of Halo3, Guitar Hero 3, and Rock Band (and other games) to play with.

Come for the geeks, stay for the games.

Speaker:
Brian H. Prince 

Brian is the Practice Manager of the Application Development consulting practice at Quick Solutions, Inc.  He has achieved over 13 years Information Technology management and consulting experience including e-commerce, extranets, and business technology.  Brian has successfully implemented his technology expertise in numerous industries including real estate, financial services, healthcare, retail and state government institutions.

 

Brian has exceptional proficiency in the Microsoft .NET framework, Service Oriented architecture, building ESBs, and both smart client and web based applications.

 

Further, he has maintained numerous executive positions where he applies management capabilities in the field of developing marketing and strategy efforts to improve and enhance Web based technologies.

 

Brian is a member of the Microsoft BizTalk Virtual Technology Specialist team, and works with the Connected Systems division of Microsoft to assist them in the marketplace. He is also a recipient of the Microsoft MVP Visual Studio Solution Architect award.

 

Further, he is a co-president of the Central Ohio .NET Developers Group, and a founder of the non-profit organization CodeMash (www.codemash.org). He speaks at various regional and national technology events including TechEd.

 

Brian holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Computer Science and Physics from Capital University, Columbus, Ohio. He is also an avid gamer.

 

When: Thursday, 12/06/2007, 6:00pm - 8:00pm
Where: Microsoft Office - Columbus

There will not be a November, 2007 meeting. As announced at the last meeting, we will merge the November and December meetings.

OUR NEXT MEETING WILL BE DECEMBER, 6th, 2007 at 6:00pm-8:0pm.

The meeting topic will be Visual Studio 2008, and .NET 3.5. These have just shipped this week, and we want to do a lap around the new features, how to deploy it, and why should change. We will close the night out with an XBOX party.

Hint: Bring your laptop, if you can.

As usual, the meetings are open to the public, and there is no need to pre-register.