Here’s the info on the next .NET Dojo. Did you think it’d be gone? Well, I hope not and I’m working with Zain to transition the program over to him. That said, I will be doing my very first Dojo! The topic is Windows Azure (duh!) and it promises to be a good time for all. 

Event Overview

Windows Azure is the cloud services operating system that serves as the development, service hosting, and service management environment for the Azure Services Platform. Windows Azure provides you on-demand compute & storage to host, scale, and manage Web applications and services on the Internet in Microsoft data centers.

In this Dojo, we'll dig into how to work with Windows Azure to build applications that run in the cloud ... using the skills you have and the tools that you are familiar with. We'll introduce the key concepts in lecture and then immediately apply those concepts in hands on labs. At the end of the Dojo, you'll be able to create applications to leverage this platform and its functionality, including tables, blobs, queues and, of course, web sites.

Attendees will be expected to bring their own laptops with the prerequisites (below) to participate in the hands-on labs.

Prerequisites:

· Windows Vista SP1 or Windows Server 2008 SP1

· IIS 7.0 (with ASP.NET, WCF HTTP Activation and optionally CGI)

· Visual Studio 2008 Professional  (Trial OK)

· Visual Studio 2008 SP1

· Sql Server Express (2005 or 2008)

· Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio March 2009 CTP

· KB967631: Update for Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Debugger

Dates, Locations and Registration:

Houston: June 19, 2009 1PM-5PM @ the Houston Microsoft Office

Austin: June 26, 2009 1PM-5PM @ the Austin Microsoft Office

Hope to see you there!!

We’ve got the next .NET Dojos scheduled - Todd Anglin will be presenting Silverlight! There will be a dojo in Austin as well as Houston. Here are the details:

Overview:

Microsoft officially released Silverlight 2.0 in October 2008 as a platform for .NET developers to build rich internet applications (RIAs) that run cross-browser and cross-platform. Silverlight 2.0 introduces a whole new way of developing .NET applications. It is blurring the lines between what it means to develop for the web and the desktop, enabling .NET developers to rethink how they build and distribute applications. Topics covered include: Silverlight tools, Silverlight controls, Silverlight APIs, data access, and some security.

What you will learn:

Todd Anglin will guide you through a combination of lecture and hands-on labs where you will learn everything you need to know to get started with Silverlight 2.0. Specifically, you’ll learn how to work with Silverlight in Visual Studio and Expression Blend, how to use Silverlight controls, how to interact with the HTML DOM, how to access and manipulate data, how to use isolated storage, and secure your Silverlight applications. We’ll go from Silverlight 101 to 301 in about 4 hours and you’ll leave with all the essential tools you need to start building real applications with Silverlight today.

Prerequisites:

To fully participate in this workshop, attendees will need a laptop with the following:

·        Visual Studio 2008 Professional or higher (trial is okay) with Service Pack 1 installed

·        Expression Blend 2.0 or higher (trial is okay) with Service Pack 1 installed

·        Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio 2008 SP1 installed (free)

·        Deep Zoom Composer installed (free)

·        Silverlight Toolkit December 2008 or higher (available on CodePlex)

Times, dates and registration links:

Austin (Microsoft Office): March 9, 2009 1:00 – 5:00 PM. Register now.

Houston (Microsoft Office): March 13, 2009 1:00 PM – 5:00 PM. Register now.

Finally getting caught up on getting my presentation content posted.

First, there’s the “Building your First Cloud Service” that I delivered at the Aggieland .NET User Group and the North Houston .NET User Group.

Next, there are 2 presentations from Houston TechFest: The OWASP Top Ten Review and the ASP.NET Url Routing demo. Enjoy!

Sessions, that is, that I’m doing or participating in. :-)

First, I’ll be participating in Zain’s session on VIrtual Worlds and Virtual World Evangelism. I’ll only be showing a bit of stuff for a few minutes … really just to showcase some of the things that can be done in Second Life.

Next … the one that I signed up for originally … the OWASP Top Ten. This will review the vulnerabilities on the OWASP Top 10 (duh!), explaining each one and explaining how the .NET (and ASP.NET) platform can help you mitigate these vulnerabilities. It’s been very well received when I’ve done it on other occasions and it’s security … something that I’m pretty passionate about.

Finally … this just in and HOT off the presses (as in, I just finished writing the demo!) … I’ll be doing a session on add Url Routing (from Fx 3.5 SP1) to existing applications. It’s already the magic goo behind MVC and Dynamic Data … but there’s no reason that you can’t use it for your current apps to provide clean, purty Urls in your applications. I’ll start at the very beginning with an ASP.NET app with all kinds of ugly Urls - they grew organically, so there’s no consistency in the names which, of course never happens in the Real World(tm). Then I’ll add routing in step by step by step … culminating in adding in a configurable (as in, from the web.config), reusable routing component for adding to these types of applications. Should be pretty cool. I’ll post the code for this when I’m done and I’m certainly using this in CSK.

So … with that, I’m outta here and I’ll see (some of) you tomorrow at TechFest!!

Hello Houston … we have a new user group in town. After some delay due to an unwelcome visitor whose name begins with “I”, the Houston Developer 2 Designer (D2) SIG is holding its inaugural meeting this Thursday. Regular meetings will be on the first Tuesday of the month, but this first one was moved to Thursday so that it didn’t prevent anyone from voting (which you are doing, right???).

Inaugural Houston-Area D2 SIG Meeting for Silverlight & WPF Designers and Developers Announced (Free)
When: First Tuesday of Each Month 6:00 – 8:00 PM (First meeting is Thursday, November 6, due to Election Day)
Where: Microsoft-Houston Offices (2000 West Sam Houston Parkway)
This special interest group (SIG) is a community effort open to all interested participants. Each month, a different presenter from various organizations will present to interested attendees. The group is dedicated to exploring modern user experiences (UX) which are part computer programming and part artistic design. While traditionally there has been little overlap in the two disciplines, users now expect a good experience with a professional look. Covered topics will range from development in Silverlight, WPF and related technologies such as Microsoft Surface to design of rich interactive experience for graphical designers. The group strives to provide a good balance of content that appeals to both developers and designers.
The inaugural meeting, to be held on Nov. 6th, 2008 introduces the SIG and the covered topics and technologies in general, before proceeding into this month’s presentation delivered by industry renowned expert, author, speaker, MVP, President of EPS Software Corp., and Publisher of CoDe Magazine, Markus Egger. Markus’ presentation will include the following topics:

• Introduction to Silverlight ans WPF (Windows)
• Creating a Silverlight Application
• Silverlight and WPF news from PDC!
• A first look at Microsoft Surface

RSVP Requested
Attendance of the SIG meetings is free. To allow us to plan the meetings better and to judge interest ahead of time, we ask people to RSVP here. (Signup through VPF Conversion is temporary and will be replaced in the future with www.d2sig.org.)