Click Here To Download Demo Zip File
It was another good turnout and the Jimmy Johns sandwiches provided by Graym and TEKSystems were awesome. The facilities at the OTC were also outstanding. Thanks to everyone that supports our group and thanks to the attendees as well.
]]>Ben Hoelting – Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) Level 2 – Intro To Design Patterns
At last month’s meeting Erik Lane did a back to basics talk regarding Object-Oriented Programming. His examples were well thought out and got his points across, but they were not a complete solution. They were not intended to be.
Join us this month and we will build on the foundation from last months meeting to build an end to end solution. If you did not make it last month, don’t fret we will start with a review and build from there. After that quick review we will get into Design Patterns and how they use OOP to solve some common software application problems. We will start with some backend Design Patterns like the singleton, strategy, factory and provider patterns. Then we will transition into the common Design Patterns for the frontend. We will discuss MVP, MVC and MVVM. The demos will incorporate OOP and Design Patterns to provide an end to end solution. We hope to see you there.
Ben Hoelting : C# MVP and Senior Software Developer at Colorado Technology Consultants, Inc. Graduated from Colorado State University in 1997 with a BS in Computer Information Systems and a Minor in Computer Science. Ben joined the IT industry in 1996 as an intern and has worked with .NET since its inception back in 2002. Worked for the Gates Corporation (formally the Gates Rubber Company) from 2000 – 2005. He left Gates to pursue a consulting career. Currently he works for Colorado Technology Consultants, Inc. in Colorado Springs. His most recent projects include a Silverlight line of business application that uses the ADO.NET Entity Framework to access the backend data store. He also still supports and adds features to a Windows forms Smart Client that requires offline support, an ASP.NET tracking system for the floral industry and a Microsoft CRM customization using ASP.NET. Ben is also a MCP, certified in both CRM Customizations and .NET Framework Application Development. Finally, Ben is very involved in the local .NET community and is the leader of the South Colorado .NET User Group. His blog is at http://www.benhblog.com and his twitter stream is at http://twitter.com/benhnet.
I was also informed about an event happening in Denver on Oct. 26th. Markus Egger is doing a two part session for the Denver Visual Studio User Group. Part one is on the State of .NET Technologies. Part two, which is at the the normal time the Denver group meets, is on “Building Reusable Web Components with Silverlight”. Get more details here.
Other than that we will see you in November.
]]>Erik Lane – Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) and You
If we are a .NET programmer then this must mean we are object-oriented (OO) programmers, right? For the most part that is true because .NET languages like C# and VB.NET are OO but are we taking full advantage of object-oriented programming (OOP) or just writing procedural code with objects? As programmers, we can create good OO designs in .NET but to do it we need a solid grasp of OO concepts and principles. Do you know enough OO lingo to pass an interview but not real sure how it applies when you open up Visual Studio and start writing code? Have you been slinging code for years but sometimes forget the simpler solution and over complicate things?
In this back to basics talk, we will get knee deep into core OO basics like abstraction, encapsulation, inheritance, polymorphism and then jump into a few OO principles like encapsulate what varies, program to an interface and not an implementation, and one of my favorites...tell don't ask. Please come expecting to see lots of code and get this whole OOP thing into context. Nothing will be too basic so bring a co-worker or beginner as we all try and nail down these core concepts.
Erik Lane is a senior developer for Ciena Corporation and works remote from his home in Monument. He is a MCTS in .NET 2.0 and hold a Bachelor's Degree in CIS. He has been writing software since 1998, .NET since 2003, and still remembers when he finally wrapped his brain around the concept of object-oriented programming. Erik is a father to four and a husband to one. He is a veteran of the USAF and enjoys baseball, golf, camping, hiking, and writing code. His blog is at http://blog.eriklane.com and his twitter stream is at http://twitter.com/eriklane.
The food from Robert Half was terrific as well. We had pasta, salad and breadsticks. Jason Moyer from Robert Half also gave some great resume writing tips as well as a quick update on the economic status in the IT market.
Below is a link to Jeff's slides and demos from the meeting. The demo is a quick Winform app that will migrate a current SQL or Access DB to SQL Azure. His original demo was in VS 2010 Beta only. I converted to VS 2008 and included it in the zip file below. I also added support for a couple more datatypes. Anyway, you need to setup your SQl Azure account to use. So, go to the Azure site for that first and then fire up this demo to get yout DB out there. Here is the zip that has the slides and the Demos:
Enjoy!
Ben
]]>Jeff Certain – Introduction to the Azure Services Platform
At the last Professional Developer's Conference (PDC), Microsoft announced their cloud computing initiative – the Azure Services Platform. This platform provides the Windows Azure cloud services operating system with a growing list of service offerings, including .NET services, and SQL Services. Come and discuss this with Jeff as he provides an overview of the basics of cloud computing using the Azure Services Platform, including the overall architecture and the development tools integrated into Visual Studio. We’ll discuss considerations for deployment, including geographic affinity. Jeff will also demonstrate a variety of cloud-based storage techniques, including both Azure local storage and deployment of relational data to SQL Services. We’ll finish with a demonstration of integrating the Parallel Extensions libraries with Azure to develop scalable, high-throughput applications. Learn about how the Azure Services Platform provides many capabilities to anyone ranging from web developers and hobbyists, to corporate developers and software makers – something you, your customers and users will appreciate.
Jeff Certain is a Microsoft MVP in VB.net and a software architect at Colorado Customware, a mid-sized ISV providing computer-assisted mass appraisal (CAMA) and land records management (LRM) solutions to county governments throughout the U.S. He has written for Visual Studio Magazine and has spoken at VS Live on parallel computing. Jeff is also involved in the technical community, leading the Northern Colorado .NET Special Interest Group and the Northern Colorado Software Architects group.
We wanted to let everyone know that next month’s meeting has been moved to the second Tuesday of the month Sept 8th. We are also back to evening meetings that start at 5:30 PM. If that isn’t enough we are also switching the meeting location to the Olympic Training Center located off of Boulder and Union in Colorado Springs. We will provide more details in a week or two. We just wanted to let you know that there are some changes coming so pay attention to the emails and site updates this month!!!
There are a couple other things from the meeting that need to be mentioned. First, there is another MSDN event coming to Colorado Springs on Sept 1st. Here are the details:
Follow this link to get more details on the topics and to register for the event. These events are provided free of charge by Microsoft so let's register and attend to ensure Rob continues to bring these highly beneficial events to our area.
Next, the Yack's have done it again! They have written and published a book. This is a jumpstart book for Silverlight designed to get someone that has never used Silverlight up and running quickly. As usual they are giving members of out group a special code to get the book for a discount. Here are the details:
Follow this link to get more details on the content of the book as well as order the book using the discount code.
Have a great day and please check back for updates related to next month's meeting.
]]>Steven Lange – Team Foundation Server: Today & Tomorrow
Team Foundation Server (TFS) is a pretty big tool, and it’s only getting bigger! In this session, we’ll explore the basics of what TFS does, including version control, work item tracking, automated build, process guidance, and reporting. We’ll also look at some of the major improvements in the pipe for TFS 2010, including build workflow, hierarchical work items, and branch visualization. Join us and discover that TFS goes way beyond simple source control and can speed up your development process.
Steven Lange is a Developer Technology Specialist for Microsoft based in the Denver, CO area. He is an original holder of this role, and has been at Microsoft since 2005. Steve has been working in the fields of software configuration management, requirements management, and application lifecycle management since 1999. As a Developer Technology Specialist, Steve serves as a field expert for Microsoft’s high-end development and application lifecycle management tools, specifically Visual Studio Team System and Team Foundation Server.
We'd also like to thank Matt Bates from TEKSystems for supplying the food and EMC\Configuresoft for letting us use the space. We really appreciate thier support.
We have finally got around to getting some social networking stuff in place. So, please join the Facebook group here and follow our Twitter handle here.
]]>Joe Mayo – New Features of C# 4.0
Come learn the new features of C# 4.0 and VS 2010 that can make you more productive in getting your job done. C# 4.0 introduces new features such as Dynamic Types, Optional Parameters, better COM-Interop, and Co-Variance/Contra-Variance support. This presentation will explain each of these features and how they can make your programming tasks easier. You'll also learn about new features of VS 2010 that support the C# code-focused development paradigm.
Joe Mayo is an author of muliple books, including C# 3.0 Unleashed/Sams and LINQ Programming/McGraw-Hill. He operates Mayo Software, where he writes custom software for customers using Microsoft .NET technology. Joe is also a Microsoft Visual C# MVP.
On Twitter: http://twitter.com/JoeMayo