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I found out a few days ago that I've been selected to speak at TechEd EMEA in Barcelona. I'm really excited as this is not only my first time speaking outside of North America, it's my first trip to continental Europe. My session is on using ASP.NET AJAX with SharePoint 2007.
Integrating ASP.NET AJAX with SharePoint.
SharePoint provides a great infrastructure for quickly building intranet and Internet applications. ASP.NET AJAX provides a foundation for creating highly productive Web interfaces. Combined they are two great tastes that taste great together! In this session we will cover the basics of working with ASP.NET AJAX inside of SharePoint 2007. We will take a look at how to prepare a Web Application for ASP.NET AJAX and how to use various ASP.NET AJAX tools such as the JavaScript libraries, JSON-enabled Web services and UpdatePanels to build add rich interactivity to your SharePoint sites.
If you're attending the conference and find the session interesting the please feel free to go to the session list and rate it. I don't know for sure but I think that your rating and the number of people who give a rating have an effect on the scheduling of the session. I'm positive that the number of ratings you receive helps determine if your session will repeat.
I'm not going to be able to attend the PDC this year (this event and the PDC were too close together) so I'm glad there's a PDC track at TechEd. From all reports PDC is going to rock so at least I'll be able to get a taste of the content.
I'll be Twittering (http://twitter.com/rob_windsor) and hopefully blogging from the conference. If you're there feel free to look me up or better yet drop by my session.
A colleague of mine was considering attending a conference this fall and, knowing that I'm pretty connected with the community, asked if he should go to TechDays or DevTeach. I thought other people may be wondering the same thing so I decided to put together a comparison chart to assist in making an informed decision.
| |
Tech Days Canada |
DevTeach |
| Web Site |
http://www.microsoft.com/canada/techdays |
http://www.devteach.com |
| Where and When |
Toronto (Oct 29 and 30)
Montreal (Nov 6 and 7)
Ottawa (Nov 27)
For other locations and dates see the Tech Days site |
Montreal (Dec 1 to 5) |
| Length |
One or two days of breakout session depending on location |
Three days of breakout sessions plus pre and post conference sessions |
| Sessions |
Two Day: 40 sessions in five tracks (16 Developer and 24 IT Pro)
One Day: 30 sessions in five tracks (12 Developer and 18 IT Pro) |
136 sessions in eight tracks (119 Developer and 17 IT Pro)
Note: Some of the sessions will be delivered in French |
| Speakers |
Microsoft Canada Developer and IT Pro Advisors
Local Community Members
You see speakers like those you would see at your local user group or code camp |
Microsoft Redmond Product Team Members
Canadian and International Speakers
You'll see speakers like those you would see at the largest conferences (e.g. TechEd) mixed with speakers from the Canadian Developer/IT Pro community |
| Cost |
Two Day Early Bird: $299.99 Two Day Full: $499.99
One Day Early Bird: $129.99 One Day Full: $249.99 |
Early Bird: $949.00 Full: $1,249.00
You can get $50.00 off the prices noted above through your local user group or selected Microsoft Partners |
| Atmosphere |
Community oriented
Easy access to speakers/community experts |
Community oriented
Easy access to speakers/community experts |
So, I guess the choice comes down to what you're looking for. While DevTeach is more expensive, it offers more that three times the number of sessions and covers a much wider range of topics. Both are more than worth the cost to attend - just make sure you check out the session lineups before deciding where to spend your conference dollars to ensure you get the experience you are looking for.
I guess I am - at least according to Cuil.
[via Paul Andrew]
[Microsoft is] doing lots of things around introductory SharePoint development for .NET developers over the next few months. Here is the schedule for a series of MSDN web casts on 10 introductory SharePoint development topics for .NET developers. If you are a .NET developer then chances are these are the most interesting ten introductory things you can do on SharePoint Products and Technologies.
http://blogs.msdn.com/pandrew/archive/2008/05/12/sharepoint-developer-msdn-web-cast-series.aspx
Technorati Tags: [SharePoint]
The spring conference season keeps on chugging along. The MVP Summit and DevTeach just finished and TechEd is just around the corner.
It will be interesting to see what effect splitting the conference into a developer week and an IT Pro week will have. I've been spending a lot of time with SharePoint lately and that's a topic that has firm roots on both sides. I'm sure there are many other disciplines (SQL Server and VSTS come to mind) that are in the same boat.
This year I'll be taking it easier on the "networking" than I have in the past. I'm moderating a Birds-of-a-Feather (BoF) session and co-presenting an early-morning TLC talk and want to do so with a clear head. I'll also still be in the process of upgrading our ASP.NET course from 2.0 to 3.5 which will be delivered for the first time the week following the conference.
I went through the session builder earlier and there are a ton of things I want to see. I had two or three (sometimes even more) sessions per time slot that I wanted to see. This morning I deleted all those and later this weekend I'm going to go through and pick the sessions that I absolutely don't want to miss (my sessions for example) and put those in Outlook. Everything else will be done spur of the moment at the conference.
For those of you who are attending the conference for the first time, you might want to check out my Guide to Attending TechEd or PDC.
I'll be Twittering (http://twitter.com/rob_windsor) and hopefully blogging from the conference. If you're there feel free to look me up or better yet drop by one of my sessions.
WIN07-TLC Strategies for Moving Microsoft Visual Basic 6 Applications to Microsoft .NET
Wednesday, June 4 8:30 AM - 9:45 AM
Blue Theatre 1
BOF806 Strategies for Moving Your Microsoft Visual Basic 6 Investments to .NET
Thursday, June 5 1:00 PM - 2:15 PM
S330 E
Technorati Tags: [TechEd, Visual Basic, VB]
As I mentioned a while back, I had a long conversation with Derek Hatchard that was recorded for Devcasting. The second part of that discussion - where we discuss WPF, Silverlight, technology overload, and DevTeach - has now been posted.
http://devcasting.com/index.php/2008/05/16/devcasting-11-rob-windsor-on-many-things/
Happy listening.
Technorati Tags: [Devcasting]
No, I haven't decided to give up software development for the glitz and glamor of the Jet Set life. I'm just the poster child for our summer training promotion. If you're looking for .NET, SharePoint, VSTS, or BizTalk training in Toronto you should check it out.
This summer, ObjectSharp invites you to take advantage of reduced pricing on its premiere .NET training courses. Save up to $500/person on our real-world training destinations. All flights include complimentary breakfast, and are piloted by industry Top Guns - including six Microsoft MVPs and one Microsoft Regional Director. Book your trip today!
http://www.objectsharp.com/training/summer-seat-sale.aspx
Technorati Tags: [ObjectSharp]
ObjectSharp has always been very community focused. Our consultants run user groups; we speak at user groups, code camps and conferences; we man the experts areas at big Microsoft events; and we run our own community events like Visual Studio 2008 at the Movies. To extend our contribution to the community, we've added the DevLounge to our website. This is an area where we will post videos, articles, code, and tools so they are available on demand when you need them.
As a special kick off to the DevLounge, we are featuring a video taken at the recent Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Summit in Seattle. At the behest of ObjectSharp's Barry Gervin, Steve Ballmer donned a Team Canada hockey jersey to show Canadian developers some love.
While I was in Vegas for Un-Mix 08, I sat down with Derek Hatchard to record a show for Devcasting. About a week later Derek decided to repave his machine but unfortunately, he forgot to backup the recording of the interview. We got together over Skype to re-record a couple weeks ago. What started out as an interview on WCF turned into a 90 minute conversation on all things geek.
Derek's done some editing and has extracted the WCF interview part into a show which you can check out at the link below. Stay tuned for part two where we talk about Mix, WPF, and more.
http://devcasting.com/index.php/2008/04/10/devcasting-10-wcf-with-rob-windsor/
Happy listening.
If you're not familiar with the concept, a Birds-of-a-Feather (BOF) session is an open discussion lead by a moderator who is not a Microsoft employee. The sessions are not presentations, there are no projectors. Unlike the Keynotes and Breakout sessions which are mostly one to many communication, Birds-of-a-Feather sessions are many to many communication and don't necessarily focus on Microsoft products or technology. They are about people talking with people - connecting, sharing, networking, and creating community.
This year I'm doing a BOF session at TechEd Developer. From my expereince with the community at user groups and conferences it's pretty clear that there are lots of developers who still work with classic VB code at least part of the time. Many are still questioning what to do with this legacy code and how to move it forward or integrate it with .NET.
Strategies for Moving Your Microsoft Visual Basic 6 Investments to .NET: For years Visual Basic 6 (VB 6) was used by organizations world-wide to build key line-of-business applications and components. Now they have thousands to millions of lines of code representing a significant organizational investment. Many have struggled in the past trying to move this legacy code base to .NET, many are just starting that journey. The path from VB 6 to .NET has not always been clear - there are options but there is no one size fits all approach. One option is to rewrite your applications so you can re-architect and take advantage of all the features .NET has to offer. Another is to migrate the applications so automated tools like the Code Advisor and the Migration Wizard can assist you. Finally, you can use COM Interop and the Interop Forms Toolkit to continue leveraging existing working assets while phasing in new features built on the .NET Framework. In this session we will discuss all three options and explore the pros and cons of each. The goal is raise awareness of the choices and the tools available so you will be able to pick the best strategy for your organization going forward.