jengriff.com

Southwest Ohio Give Camp Volunteer Registration

jengriff — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 15:09:00 PDT

Ready to connect with the local tech community for a good cause?

Give Camp needs your support. For one weekend in October, we’ll take on the technology wish lists of 10 non-profit organizations, and we’re looking for about 60 volunteers, both technical and non-technical, to help us do it.

http://southwestohiogivecamp.org

We need:

· Developers (any language)

· Web and User Experience Designers

· Data Base Administrators

· Project Managers

· Anyone who wants to help!

You will:

· Create custom software for non-profit organizations

· Donate your time

· Work as part of a team and meet new colleagues

· Share your skills and learn new ones

· Walk away knowing that the world is a better place

When and where:

From 5pm on Friday, October 22 to 5pm on Sunday, October 24, 2010 at Miami University's Voice of America Learning Center in West Chester, Ohio (http://www.muohio.edu/voalc).

Are you a non-developer?
There are many ways that non-developers can help.

· Before the event Business Analysts can help review the Charities requirements to help them organize their ideas and get them ready for the developers.

· On the day of the event, volunteers are needed to help set out food, stocking the refrigerator, blogging, podcasting and generally just checking up on the teams to see how they’re doing.

· The bottom line is – if you want to participate in a Give Camp event, we’ll find a way for you to do it!

To sign up, go to http://southwestohiogivecamp.org/Volunteer/Signup

Central Ohio Day of .NET 2009 - Registration

JGriffin — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 19:35:00 PDT

Registration is now open for the Central Ohio Day of .NET. You don’t want to miss it. Register for this event now!

This event, for .NET developers, will be held in Wilmington, Ohio on April 18, 2009. Click here learn more about this event.

This was the first event that I attended last year. It was a great learning experience and the beginning of some great friendships. If you missed it last year, here’s a great video by Andy Erickson that recaps the day.

June CINNUG Meeting

JGriffin — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:07:00 PDT

I attended the CINNUG meeting on June 24, 2008. Tim Wingfield was the guest speaker. The topic was MVC and this is one I also missed at CODODN . Tim gave a good explanation of MVC and it's history.

Tim also had great TDD demos. He really showed each step of the process (the behind the scenes) to creating your test. He then walked through the results of the test after running the program. It was interesting to see the testing process. It gave me a totally different perspective of the application.

I can see how this would initially take time to set up the testing environment but it can also save tons of time at the end. You wouldn't have to do such rigorous testing because you've already tested your functions as they were being built. This could also catch errors better than traditional testing. Each section of the application that you are creating will be associated with a test.

I know I'm not on this level yet but still enjoyed the presentation and seeing more of the MVC framework. This reinforced what I learned from Alan Steven's MVC talk at IndyCodeCamp.

I was glad to finally meet Tim face-to-face because I've followed him on Twitter since the CODODN event. It was also WAY cool to hang out at Claddagh's after the meeting with a few local tweeps.

It felt really good to just sit back and talk to people that are interested in the same things I am interested in. I can talk about things that I do without getting the "oh boy, I hope this isn't one of the 'nerd' talks again" or the "I have no idea what you talking about" stare.

Update: Leon Gersing also gave a quick presentation at the end of the meeting. He discussed separation of responsibilities. I'm really embarrassed that I neglected to add this information. Even though it was a brief presentation it really got me focused. Many apologies to Leon. :)

How did you get started in software development?

JGriffin — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 22:54:00 PDT

This post is for my tweeps. :) This was really difficult for me to answer because I really haven't developed much software but here goes...

How old were you when you started programming? I created the cube in sixth grade and when I was in high shcool I remember writing a few intro programs and I was hooked. I started college at age 18 but I really wasn't sure what I was getting into. I remember taking Lotus 1-2-3 and C++ but I didn't learn much.

How did you get started in programming? Most of my programming was written in the computer lab. Many, many hours of computer lab. I didn't have a home PC (didn't know too many people that did).

What was your first language? I'm not sure but I'm guessing QBASIC (and DOS). First languages I had a chance to use were years later during college (round 2). I used Contorl Language (CL) and Reports Program Generator (RPG). My degree was focused on the AS/400 (lucky me).

What was the first real program you wrote? Again, no clue. Most of my programs were written in a college environment and nothing more than an assignment at the time. Since I was a mainframe programmer I took my focus off of the PC and the internet was still pretty new. America Online (AOL) was a buzz word.

What languages have you used since you started programming? I have used several languages or at least jumped into someone else's code: QBASIC, CL, RPG, COBOL, PHP, and C#.

What was your first professional gig? My first IT job was backing up tapes on an IBM-3850. My next job was working at the company I currently work for doing website design for an affiliate program the company runs.

If you knew then what you know now, would you have started programming? Yes. I love programming and look forward to creating websites and some software in the future.

If there is one thing that you've learned along the way that you would tell new developers, what would it be? Stick to one specific area until you are an expert. Don't bounce around and become too generalized.

What's the most fun you've ever had programming? The most experience (and fun) I've really had was sadly during college. I just haven't had to opportunity to do my thing yet but I know this is changing and I'm looking forward to the real fun beginning.

So, I guess the bottom line for me is I'm a jack-of-all, master of none. However, I'm working hard on this every day so this won't always be the case.

Update: I also had some intro to Visual Basic during college (round 2).

May CINNUG Meeting

JGriffin — Sun, 25 May 2008 22:38:00 PDT

I attended the CINNUG meeting on May 20, 2008 and it was a open panel discussion on Software Development as A Career. There were a many people at the meeting and it was a great discussion. The guest speakers were Jim Holmes, Tim Apke, and Ed Summerfield. I finally got a chance to introduce myself to Jim. I've heard good things about him and Dayton .Net Developers Group is so close. I saw him at CODODN but I was too shy to introduce myself with it being my first event.

It's difficult to really cover this one because there were so many things being discussed but I got so much out of it and it was very inspiring. Some of the things that really stood out, they discussed the difference between working for a small company and working for a large company. They discussed certifications and gave their honest opinions and experience from the field. They answered many of the questions I had. They also talked about consulting. Another topic I was interested in and I was able to get a better understanding of the consulting world. I was able to talk to some my tweeps during the break.

After the break Mike Levy gave a quick presentation on Pattern Grok. This is something new the .NET Group is trying. There will be short sessions at the end of the meeting to allow people to get a chance to present a topic their interested in to the group. The discussion was on pipes and filters and was interesting as well as funny. I think the short sessions are a great idea. It gives people an opportunity to speak to a group of people. This may allow them to be comfortable enough to become a speaker or give a presentation in the future.

May CincyPG Meeting

JGriffin — Sun, 25 May 2008 11:57:00 PDT

I attended my first Cincinnati Programmers Guild (CincyPG) meeting on May 21, 2008. Joe Wirtley was speaking. I really enjoyed this group. It's a smaller group which gave me a chance to relax a bit and actually talk to people. Before the meeting started I got a chance to speak to Leon Gersing, Matt Brewer, and Joe Wirtely (tweeps). I feel like I'm getting to know people a bit so now I not as stressed. A step forward in my journey.

The topic was Pragmatic Architechture and the Role of the Architect. Joe did a great job defining an architect as well as discussing the role(s), responsibilities, and some overall challenges. There were many good discussions that went along with some of the topics. This meeting had a more open format than some of the other I've attended. I really enjoy both. It does depends on the size of the group. For this group, it worked. I didn't jump into the discussion. I know I was welcome to but I'm not quite ready for the spotlight. :)

I hope to attend more CincyPG meetings. I was able to get a better understanding of what software architech's role is and some of the expectations. This related to the CinArc meeting I attended recently perfectly.

Cleveland Day of .NET

JGriffin — Sun, 18 May 2008 23:26:00 PDT

I attended the first annual Cleveland Day of .NET on May 17, 2008. I arrived in Cleveland around 10:00 P.M. and went to the room to meet my roommate (and a tweep), Maggie Longshore. Very nice lady with some great experience. So cool to finally meet another female programmer.

I was anxious to meet some of the tweeps that were in town. One problem. Some tweeps were at a karaoke bar and some tweeps were at the hotel. Decisions, decisions. I should have taken the entire day off to be better prepared, life lesson #1.

I ended up hanging out at the hotel bar with Maggie, Dan Hounshell, and Mike Eaton. Overall, I had a good time. It was difficult to hear them because the bar was JUMPIN'. I have never seen a hotel bar that lively. Cleveland, you really do rock!

I caught up with the second set of tweeps later, for a bit, and it was really great to see everyone. I was able to reunite with and/or meet Joe O'Brien, Amanda Laucher, Jeff McWherter, Alan Stevens, Dave Redding, Eric (sorry I cannot remember your last name), Justin Kohnen, and Leon Gersing. I wish I would have had more time to hang with everyone but it was still a great experience!

Let me just say this before I start my recap. Twitter is awesome and it was great to see all the twitter names on the badges at the event. Great idea! I met so many people that I didn't get a chance to hang out with. Too many to name. Perhaps another event.

The Event:

WCF Security by Richard Broida. I'm not real familiar with WCF (Windows Communication Foundation) yet but I'm interested in it and in security so I wanted to attend this session. When I think security I think SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), transport level protection, so it was good to hear the details of message level protection. Richard had some good demos and advice. There's a lot to learn about this topic. As a matter of fact, there was so much to cover I believe we only got through the first of four demos. I wish this would have been a two part session. I was really interested in seeing the other demos. Maybe next year. :)

LINQ to SQL by Joshua Clark. Joshua gave an overview of LINQ (Language Integrated Query) and went over the different ways you can use LINQ. He covered LINQ to Objects, LINQ to DataSets, LINQ to SQL, LINQ to Entities, and LINQ to XML. I still haven't found the right tutorial to really get my fire burning for LINQ but Joshua also suggested a couple of good blogs that may do the trick. I think the problem is I'm a SQL chick so I just don't see it yet.

Sofware Ninjitsu: Designing for Change by Nate Kohari. I'm interested in design and know the importance as efficient code so I decided to attend this presentation. I didn't know what to expect but I'm really glad I did attend this one. It got me thinking about making each program as flexible as possible. Getting the most out of each line, thinking of it as a piece of the jigsaw. I learned so much from the session. I need to review the material again before I'll be able to get a good grasp of everything. It was just packed full of good information.

A Look at F# by Amanda Laucher. This was a must attend. I've heard so much about Amanda, F#, and this presentation. She lived up to my expectations by far. Amanda did a great job of explaining what F# is and how to use it. She also showed some great examples that I will try soon. It seems pretty structured and I do like that. I'm really inspired to learn some F#. I enjoy command line programming. It reminds me of my roots. After attending this presentation I see why Amanda toots F#'s horn, because it's worthy. ;)

Understanding HttpHandlers and HttpModules by Joe Brinkman. This was a great presentation. Joe had some great graphics that broke down the "when, why, and how" of controlling each. He also gave some great demonstrations that dealt with Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0 and IIS7. I enjoyed seeing the difference between the two and how it interacts with ASP.NET. There was even a moment in the presentation when things didn't go so smoothly and Joe stopped and debugged on the spot like a true pro. I was really impressed. I also plan on launching a site using DotNetNuke soon so seeing Joe in person was exciting.

WPF for Developers by Joe Wirtley. I finally got a chance to see Joe's presentation of WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation). I missed him in Central Ohio and Indy. I had to catch him in Cleveland. On top of that the topic was exactly what I had on my mind. I've heard about this for so long but still couldn't help to think of this as more of a tool for graphic designers. I now realize there is a benefit for developers to learn some WPF. Joe covered a lot of ground in a short time and I was able to learn enough to feel comfortable trying a WPF project now.

When the event was over I wanted to go to dinner but couldn't do PF Chang's. I have food allergies. I wanted to go somewhere else and meet the crew after dinner but knew it would be getting late soon. I had a long drive back to Cincinnati so I figured it was best I get started. Life lesson #2, when going to an out of town be prepared to stay the night of the event. It was my first time in Cleveland but next year I'll be better prepared.

May CincyBI (& CinArc) Meeting

JGriffin — Fri, 16 May 2008 23:51:00 PDT

I attended the Cincinnati Business Intelligence (CincyBI) meeting on May 13, 2008. The topic was Advanced Data Modeling: Simultaneous Type 1 - Type 2 Slowly Changing Dimensions and the guest speaker was Tommy Adams. Tommy went over Type 1, Type 2, and Type 3 SCD's and gave a good explaination of when to use each. He then went gave an introduction to Hybrid Type 2 / Type 3. This was a short presentation but I was still able to get a good understanding of when you would use these differnent types of SCD's. The demo was in Microsoft Access to simplify the demo but I would have enjoyed seeing this applied on a larger scale.

When the meeting was over it was still early but I still planned to go home. The first Cincinnati Software Architecture (CinArc) meeting was in the next room and they were having a panel discussion with Joe Wirtley, Leon Gersing, and Mike Levy. I really wanted to attend that meeting too but since I had to make a choice I went with Business Intelligence. I saw Mike Wood, the director of CINNUG, in the lobby because CinArc was on break too. Mike was nice enough to allow me to attend the second half of the CinArc meeting.

During the break I was able to chat with Andy Erickson. I was able to stand there and have a really nice talk. Enjoyable versus feeling so stressed out. This is one of the reasons I'm really trying to attend as many meetings possible. The more I come around the more comfortable I feel talking to people. Right before the second half started I was able to meet one of the tweeps, Matt Brewer, face to face.

The second half of the meeting was a FishBowl. Very interesting. There were four chairs and three people in the middle of the room and the rest of us sat around the outside in a circle. The group was defining "What Is An Architect?". If you wanted speak about the topic you had to go sit in the empty chair, the catch, someone had to get up. There always had to be an empty chair.

I really enjoyed this meeting. This looks like an exciting and passionate group. I am not an architect and don't see myself in that role in the near future but perhaps one day. In the meantime, I do want to know how they think, what they do, and how it relates to someone like me. I will attend these meeting in the future on a regular basis.

CincyBI meets every two months but they will not meet again until September, 2008. You can find more information about CincyBI at http://cincysql.org. CinArc meets every two months and the next meeting is in July, 2008. For more information on CinAr please visit http://cinnug.org.

New Media Cincinnati

JGriffin — Sat, 03 May 2008 20:19:00 PDT

Today I attended my first New Media Cincinnati meetup at Panera Bread. The topic for the meetup was Virtual Teams and Kristen Beireis was the guest speaker. I really don't know much about this topic and was able to learn many things are got some good tips in a short amount of time. Kristen did a great job explaining how to use virtual teams and the fact that you need to know what you want.

I remember the founder Daniel Johnson Jr. from junior high / high school days through a mutual family we grew up with. I wanted to connect with him because it's been many, many years and I also knew he was a SQL Server Developer. Daniel and I had some "geek talk" to break the ice and he introduced me to some of the members of the group. I ended up staying and chatting with a few members for a while.

I met a few people around me but things happened pretty quickly. I was really impressed and a bit freaked out. I know I'm a shy person until I get to know people better and this was a bit more difficult that I expected. Still a great experience and good preparation for PodCamp Ohio. Reconnecting with Daniel has given my hope that shy people can come out of there shell. I remember day as he was and was pleasantly suprised to find out who he is.

If you're interested in blogging, podcasting, and/or social networking this is a great group of people to connect with.

IndyCodeCamp

JGriffin — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 23:46:00 PDT

I attended IndyCodeCamp on April 26, 2008. This was another great event. I was able to see some of the speakers I missed at CODODN. I'll admit I had to dig down deep to find the courage to roll to Indy. I'm glad I did go. I was able to see the following presentations:

ASP.NET Performance and Optimization by Jeff McWherter. I originally planned to see this session at the Central Ohio Day of .Net but changed my mind at the last minute. I'm really glad I was able to catch this in Indy. Performance and optimization are two things I need to learn more about in regards to my job. This was the perfect presentation. He discussed when to cache data and when not to cache data, when to go to a web farm, scalibility, performance, web tests just tons of good stuff. I learned a lot about performance but still have a lot to learn. This gave me a great foundation.

Zen and The Art of Website Maintenance by Michael Neel. I definitely wanted to see one of Michael Neel's presentations. I missed "the sermon" in Wilmington, OH. Again another perfect presentation for me. Most of my experience has been web related and I know I'll get back to it again so I'm trying to stay in the loop. I really liked the opening of the presentation. It really was intriguing. Even the interuptions didn't really distract me from following along. There's a lot to this. You wouldn't think there would be but that's why I'm here to learn. Sometimes you don't know what you don't know. I realize I need to really get to know the history of the framework.

Silverlight - Your LINQ To A Better Experience by Chad Campbell. I was able to see Silverlight in action. Chad gave a great demo. It was helpful to see a project from start to finish. After this presentation I actually feel comfortable with trying some Silverlight in my spare time. I used Macromedia products for years before we went to VS2005. I also got to learn about some of the features Silverlight has to offer. I'm may try some XML or SOAP using Silverlight too.

Intro Test Driven Development With the ASP.NET MVC Framework by Alan Stevens. I wanted to learn more about TDD and the MVC framework and was looking forward to this presentation. Alan gave some great reasons why TDD is important. I could really relate to some of the questions he was throwing at the audience. He gave us the resources to get started so I need to at least take the 30 (60, 90, 180) day challenge. I didn't stay for the deep dive. I'm just too new to this topic but I hope to catch it in the future.

Intro to Windows Communication Foundation by Dan Rigsby. I didn't know anything about WCF when I attended this session. This was a bonus. Not only did I learn about WCF I also found out I could possibly use this on my next EDI project. Could not have been a better surprise. There's a lot to this. There's so much WCF can do. One of the best features I heard was it's better than web services. Dan provided a lot of material for this presentation and gave some great code examples. There was also a second session on WCF but again, being a newbie, I know my limits.

Line of Business Applications in Silverlight by Josh Heyse. I wanted to attend this session to catch a few more tips on Silverlight since the first presentation cleared up a few things in my mind. It started out well. We got a little background on Silverlight and some of it's features. I'm guessing Josh is new to presenting because his session was quickly taken over by questions. Lots and lots of questions that didn't have a whole lot to do with Silverlight. I wish we could have seen more of the demo he had ready but perhaps I can catch him at another event.

I saw Mike Wood there and I did meet Joe Wirtley, Dan Hounshell, and Michael Eaton (some of my tweeps) in the flesh. I actually had like a 3-5 minute conversation with Joe. I was very nervous but tried not to let it show. I'm getting there though. I also introduced myself to the speakers so I'm making progress. I wanted to go to Champps for the geek talk but had a headache and knew I wouldn't be able to enjoy myself. It had been a long day.

I look forward to next year's code camp and other upcoming events. It's been a pleasant surprise to find out the .Net community is so active and open to newcomers.

I'm really considering going to Cleveland to attend their code camp. If I do go I hope to meet more of my tweeps and hang out for some "geek talk".

April CincySQL Meeting

JGriffin — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 19:30:00 PDT

I attended the April CincySQL Meeting on April 22, 2008. I will be my last.

Day of .NET- Follow-up

JGriffin — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 19:35:00 PDT

I made it! I saw some really great presentations yesterday. I really learned a lot from each speaker. I changed up the schedule a bit and ended up attending the following sessions:

Why Ruby? by Joe O'Brien. I had to know what all the hype was about in regards to Ruby. I had a friend trying to pull me towards Ruby on Rails about a year ago. I just didn't get it. Now I get it, this thing has a life of it's own. The language is simple, straight forward and can make you more productive. What more can you ask for? I also like the IRB, just straight forward. One of the best tips I picked up from Joe was to learn a new language a year. Priceless information. Looks like Ruby will be my language of choice for 2008.

A LINQ to Everything by Leon Gersing. This was a presentation I was really looking forward to attending. I really got a chance to see LINQ in action. The demo of the blog site was great. Even without the internet access I could see how cool LINQ really was and some of the ways you can incorporate it into your site. The XML info was an added bonus I want to incorporate at work too. The biggest thing I'll take away from the presentation is the fact that you can use it against more than just SQL. Opens so many possiblities.

Exploit the XML Capabilities of SQL Server 2008 by Jason Follas. I originally attended this session to see some of the ways to use XML in SQL Server 2008 hoping to take away enough information to apply to SQL Server 2005. Boy was I in luck! The presentation was directed towards 2005 because you could use the XML capabilities in both. This was an information packed session and just what I needed. Best tip of the session...know the questions that will be asked of the XML. Wow, does that save some time and headaches.

A Quick Tour of the Windows Mobile Development in Visual Studio 2008 by Nino Benvenuti. I attended this presentation because I really don't know much about mobile development. Learned a lot from the walkthrough but I wish there was more time for this one. There's a lot that's new in Visual Studio 2008 and I'm not familiar enough with mobile development overall to really dive right into this one but I still plan to follow this topic to stay informed.

The C# Variety Show by David Redding. This is one skill I'm really need to push myself to develop. I'm really new to C#. In college I took a course or two on VB but am no longer interested in focusing on that language (no offense to the VB lovers out there). The presentation had some good information about the advanced uses of C#, more where I want to be than where I am. That was one of the reasons for attending this session. I want to push myself. I plan to look further into yield return, overloading operators, and using delegates.

SEO for ASP.NET Developers by Dan Hounshell. This presentation was right up my alley. I'll admit I used to share the "not my problem" attitude. I've been responsible for our affiliate program for years. I've been trained to place the burden of SEO on the affiliate. I'm starting to realize it's to my benefit to learn more about SEO as a developer. Dan gave so many great tips I couldn't take notes fast enough. On top of that my laptop battery died and I didn't have a spare. I quickly grapped my old school notebook and started jotting away. I've just purchased a few domains to experiment with so this was right-on-time information to get my sites established properly from the start.

This was my first event and I'm still new to the .Net community. After a twitter or two I received today, my thoughts on the way home were confirmed. In a way...I blew it. I really didn't meet as many people as I could/should have. This was my one moment in time. I'm just a bit shy until I get to know people. I know, how do you get to know people if you don't open up your month and speak? Well, in the past I've usually waited for people to speak to me. Need to change that, don't want to give people the wrong impression.

I may still attend IndyCodeCamp on April 26, 2008 so if you're there and you see me, please, stop me and introduce yourself. Anyone that attended CODoDN can follow me on twitter.

See you next year!

P.S. I did a quick interview after the sessions so perhaps you'll see me on a blog near you!

Update: Andy Erickson created a great video that really captured the spirit of the day. I've finally gotten up the nerve to share the link so enjoy!

April CINNUG Meeting

JGriffin — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 15:07:00 PDT

This meeting held on April 15, 2008 was the Hereos Happen Here Community Launch. I know I'm a bit late with this update however, I also attend the Central Ohio Day of .Net that same week. Two great events. In regards to the local launch, this was one meeting you had to register for and the place was packed. There were three presentations that night.

The first presentation, by Kirk Wilson representative of MAX Technical Training, was on the new features in VS2008. Some of the new features include Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Team Foundation Server (TFS), and Windows Workflow Foundation (WWF), and SharePoint Server. Even though this was a quick presentation I was able to learn about many of the new features.

The second presentation, by Stefan Kyntchev, was on LINQ. This was a great presentation. I really want to try a project or two using LINQ. It just looks fun. You need to think "what you want you want to search for, modify, etc. Stefan's approach to this presentation went over big with the audience. He shared his thoughts on the creation of LINQ in a very witty way. He also had some great code examples.

The last presentation by Dan Hounshell was on the new features of ASP.NET 3.5. Most of the questions that I had about 3.5 were answered that night. Even though Dan had some technical difficulties the overall message was there. He gave a demo on the new features of CSS and I found the overall concept a great time saver. I used to have a heavy focus on CSS but after watching this presentation I see I can let that take a back seat and focus on LINQ a bit more. I also like the concept of the nested master pages and plan to check into that further.

I also wanted to mention that this meeting included a hands-on lab that we were able to use during the break. CINNUG is really a great user group that I found recently with some really great people. I can see they're serious about their group in regards to helping the community grow and I really appreciate all their time and efforts.

Day of .NET Schedule - Revision

JGriffin — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 22:44:00 PDT

I know. I'm indecisive and it's killing you. How do you think I feel? I like to look at it as working well under pressure. When it's crunch time, that's when the best decisions are made for some. I'm one of those.

With that being said I think I'm going back to plan A as my tentative schedule.

Session: Why Ruby by Joe O'Brien

Session: Access to Your Data Anytime and Anywhere with the Microsoft Sync Framework by Nino Benvenuti

Session: Exploit the XML Capabilities of SQL Server 2008 by Jason Follas

Session: Looking out for IronPython by Darrell Hawley

Session: ASP.NET Performance and Optimization by Jeff McWherter

Session: SEO for ASP.NET Developers by Dan Hounshell

Being a woman, I of course, reserve the right to revise this revision.

Day of .NET Schedule - Update

JGriffin — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 23:42:00 PDT

The schedule has been released for the Day of .Net. I have to revise my schedule a bit now that the dates and times have been officially released.

I had to make some decisions between my wants and needs and here's the final results:

Session: Why Ruby - by Joe O'Brien

Session: A LINQ to Everything - by Leon Gersing

Session: What's New with ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions - by Jeff Hunsaker

Session: Looking out for IronPython - by Darrell Hawleyus

Session: ASP.NET Performance and Optimization - by Jeff McWherter

Session: SEO for ASP.NET Developers - by Dan Hounshell

Central Ohio Day of .NET - Sessions List

JGriffin — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 17:11:00 PDT

The list of sessions and speakers has been released. I have my tentative schedule chosen below. I'm really looking forward to this event. It will be my first mini-conference. I'm not sure what to expect but I'm willing to find out.

Session: Looking Out for IronPython - by Darrell Hawley

Session: Access to Your Data Anytime and Anywhere With the Microsoft Sync Framework - by Nino Benvenuti

Session: Exploit the XML Capabilities of SQL Server 2008 - by Jason Follas

Session: Why Ruby - by Joe O'Brien

Session: ASP.Net Performance and Optimization - by Jeff McWherter

Session: SEO for ASP.NET Developers - by Dan Hounshell

UCLA 76, Xavier 57

JGriffin — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 16:26:00 PDT

Well, March Madness is quickly coming to a close. I was very happy to see Xavier not go to the Final Four this year. I am a Huggins fan. I attended UC during the golden era of our Final Four days. It's just been bred in me to, and I'll be nice here, "dislike" Xavier. Think Crosstown Shootout. If you've had a chance to browse any of my other posts you should realize I'm a nerd. With that being said I was also in the Pep Band and attend all home games. Ah, the excitement.

If you also felt the sweet revenge watching UCLA as they wiped the floor with Xavier please feel free to leave a comment.

March CincySQL Meeting

JGriffin — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 14:38:00 PDT

I attended my second meeting on 03/25/08 and the guest speaker was Chris Barth. Chris gave a great presentation on tuning and troubleshooting queries in SQL Server 2005.

Topics

Steps in determining when a stored procedure should be tuned.
Seek or Scan? How to read query plans.
System tables that will help you determine what transact-sql is performing poorly.
Overviews of SET statements that will assist in troubleshooting transact-sql.
The negative performance effects resulting from poor performing update or delete queries and stored procedures.
Steps for writing better performing queries

This was a really good meeting in regards to what we’re doing with our database. I was able to learn a lot about when and when not to tune queries. The biggest lessons I can take from the meeting is to really know your system tables and think pages.

The Central Ohio Day of .NET

JGriffin — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 20:42:00 PDT

The Central Ohio Day of .NET is quickly approaching. This years meeting is in Wilmington, OH on 04/19/08. The Central Ohio Day of .NET is a joint venture between the Dayton .NET Developers Group, Central Ohio .NET Developers Group and the Cincinnati .NET Users Group.

Please visit http://cinnug.org/cododn for more information.

March CINNUG Meeting

JGriffin — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 15:57:00 PDT

I attended my second meeting on 03/12/08. The guest speaker for this meeting was Miguel Castro and the topic was extensibility designs and patterns. This was over my head in ways but I was able to grasp the overall concept and can see the benefit of creating your own providers, modules, plug-ins, etc. (time well spent).

Instead of connecting to a specific text file to get data you connect to the source that contains the file to retrieve the data. This gives you the ability to easily point you module to different data sources when changes are needed instead of modifying the application. Efficient!

The initial setup may be time consuming but sounds like it's well work it. For more information on this topic please visit Miguel's site. For those in the Cincinnati area interested in .NET programming can visit CINNUG for meeting dates and times.

March CincyBI Meeting

JGriffin — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 23:19:00 PDT

I attended a special interest group on 03/11/08 (first timer) on Business Intelligence. Really interested stuff. Performance Point Server 2007 was the topic and the guest speaker was Craig Utley. Now this is the way to create reports!

PPS2007 allows businesses to monitor their performance through easy-to-use Scorecards and Dashboards. The most common data source for the monitoring service is cubes. Users can view data across multiple dimensions. They can drill down or across dimensions with just a click.

The actual setup is time consuming and involves the business decision makers of the company and those with the financial background to analyze and create the plan. Your job as the programmer is to create the application and once set up the plan can easily be modified if/when necessary.

The application can handle just about any size business but is pricey, $20,000 and $195/user. This price includes 2 servers, PPS2007 and ProClarity. You publish your applications with Sharepoint. However, it was brought to our attention the next release of Performance Point Server may no longer work with the free version of Sharepoint.

My company could use some sharp looking reports and graphs to identify sales, trends, forecasting, etc. However, I don't see us purchasing PPS2007 any time in the near future. I've recently been appointed to incorporate BI into the company and I'm looking forward to the opportunity.

First ASP.NET Application

JGriffin — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:38:00 PDT

I've finally moved into the 21st century of programming. Yes, it's taking me quite a while but I've arrived. I created, with tons of help, my first ASP.NET application using C# AND I mostly understand how it works. :-)

This application selects a list of items from our web database, reads a few different directories on one of the network drives to check for a matching image, and generates several reports based on the results.

Even though I did need a lot of help to create this application I was still very exciting to be in the drivers seat with the Programmer's Ed instructor by my side. I'm really looking forward to more projects in .NET.

February CincySQL Meeting

JGriffin — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 20:35:00 PST

I attend my first SQL users group meeting on 02/26/08. This is a new users group in the Cincinnati area. I really enjoyed this meeting. So far most of my IT experience has been creating web sites but I've always considered becoming a DBA. I think I'd enjoy maintaining a database but haven't had the chance yet.

The guest speaker, Maria Stone, was also nice enough to zip up her PowerPoint presentation along with several example queries for the AdventureWorks database.

Topics covered during this meeting:

• Try – Catch
• Recursive Queries
• Temporal Data
• Ranking
• Pivot

Right now I'm just attending the meeting to get a better understanding of what SQL Server 2005 can really do. I know SQL Server 2008 has been released recently but for the company I work would not need the upgrade at this time.

There were many new things I was able to learn during the hour meeting but it also opened my mind to start to think in the direction of how to use the data versus just maintaining it.

If your using SQL and in the Cincinnati area feel free to attend these meeting on the fourth Tuesday of each month in Mason, Ohio. You can go to CincySQL for more information.

February CINNUG Meeting

JGriffin — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 19:14:00 PST

Well, I attended my first .NET user group meeting on 02/18/08. The meeting was everything I expected and more. The topic was source control. There were three panel members, Justin Kohnen, Mike Shields and Nino Benvenuti, and they discussed the various source control applications used today and the differences between them.

Overall I enjoyed the presentation and questions that were asked. I also liked the open format of the meeting. Some of the information was over my head but I learn there are different types of "checkin/checkout", the types of information to add to your source control app, and you need to backup your source control app.

The meeting itself was informative however, it allowed me to see the broader picture of the IT world. There are so many different levels, teams, environments, it was a real eye opener.

If you're into .NET programming and your near the Cincinnati area I highly recommending attending the .NET meetings once a month in Mason, Ohio. You can visit CINNUG for more information.