Hey Denver!  Our friends at IT Boot Camps have two sets of accelerated trainings coming up that you will want to check out.  This is just a subset of courses offered, ones that focus on developers. 

Team Foundation Server 2010 Administration

This 2-day accelerated program covers all the material that targets achieving the MCTS: Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010, Administration certification (Exam 70-512).

This program is designed for knowledge and skills on installing, configuring and maintaining Visual Studio 2010 Team Foundation Server.  It is intended for candidates who install, configure, and manage a Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2010 implementation. Candidates typically work in an enterprise development organization that provides process automation services by using TFS.

This $950 course (even cheaper if you belong to one of the local user groups!) includes:

• Microsoft Certified Trainer
• Microsoft Certified Curriculum
• Measure Up Practice Tests
• Prometric Certification Exam Vouchers (one extra if needed)
• Breakfast & Lunch (onsite in building)
• Snacks & Refreshments
• After hours - lab time (individual attention)

The currently-scheduled dates for this training are: February 17 – 18 and March 17 - 18

For more information, visit the course’s home page on IT Boot Camp’s site, or email info@itbootcamps.com.

Visual Studio Boot Camps

Visual Studio, and .NET development in general is a broad and deep topic.  IT Boot Camps is providing four separate curriculums in this area:

Visual Studio Windows Applications 2010

Exam Targeted:  70-511: TS: Windows Applications Development with Microsoft .NET Framework 4

Course Material:  10262A: Developing Windows Applications with Microsoft Visual Studio 2010

Curriculum:

1. Windows Client Application Design
2. Introduction to Visual Studio 2010 and WPF
3. Designing and Developing a User Interface
4. Taking Control of the User Interface
5. Testing, Unit Testing and Debugging
6. Sample Data Binding and Validation
7. Data Binding to Collections
8. Enhancing UI Responsiveness
9. Integrating Localization and User Assistance Features
10. WPF 2D Graphics, Multimedia and Printing
11. Control Customization
12. Attached Properties and Behaviors in WPF
13. Animations in WPF
14. Application State, Settings and Lifecycle
15. Configure and Deploy Windows Client Applications

Visual Studio Web Applications 2010

Exam Targeted:  70-511: TS: Windows Applications Development with Microsoft .NET Framework 4

Course Material:  10264A: Developing Web Applications with Microsoft Visual Studio 2010

Curriculum:

1. Designing a Web Application
2. Developing MVC Models
3. Developing MVC Controllers
4. Developing MVC Views
5. Designing for Discoverability
6. Writing Server-Side Code for Web  Forms
7. Optimizing Data Management for Web Forms
8. Ensuring Quality by Debugging, Unit Testing, and Refactoring
9. Securing a Web Application
10. Applying Master Pages and CSSs
11. Developing Client-Side Scripts and Services
12. Advanced AJAX in a Web Application
13. Deploying a Web Application

Visual Studio Service Communications 2010

Exam Targeted:  70-513: TS: Windows Communication Foundation Development with Microsoft .NET Framework 4

Course Material:  10263A: Developing Windows Communication Foundation Solutions with Microsoft Visual Studio 2010

Curriculum:

1. Service Oriented Architecture
2. Getting Started with WCF Development
3. Hosting WCF Services
4. Defining and Implementing WCF Contracts
5. Endpoints and Behaviors
6. Testing and Troubleshooting
7. Security
8. Advanced Topics

Visual Studio Data Access 2010

Exam Targeted:  70-516: TS: Accessing Data with Microsoft .NET Framework 4

Course Material:  10265A: Developing Data Access Solutions with Microsoft Visual Studio 2010

Curriculum:

1. Designing a Web Application
2. Developing MVC Models
3. Developing MVC Controllers
4. Developing MVC Views
5. Designing for Discoverability
6. Writing Server-Side Code for Web  Forms
7. Optimizing Data Management for Web Forms
8. Ensuring Quality by Debugging, Unit Testing, and Refactoring
9. Securing a Web Application
10. Applying Master Pages and CSSs
11. Developing Client-Side Scripts and Services
12. Advanced AJAX in a Web Application
13. Deploying a Web Application

Additional Great Opportunities

IT Boot Camps has courses covering a wide range of topics, but here are a couple more developer-focused ones you may want to look at:

Silverlight 4: Application Development

Exam Targeted:  70-506: TS: Silverlight 4, Development

Course Material: 

• 10553A: Fundamentals of XAML and Expression Blend
• 10554A: Developing Rich Internet Applications using Microsoft Silverlight 4

This accelerated program will take 8 days of information and offer it in a 4 day format.  Candidates for this program are developers who create and maintain rich interactive applications (RIA) using Silverlight 4.  Candidates may have additional experience with previous Silverlight versions.

Windows Azure Professional Developer

This class is designed for .NET developers with Web application experience that are exploring developing new applications or porting existing applications to Windows Azure.

After completing this course, students will be able to:

• Understand cloud computing in its various forms and how Windows Azure fits in the cloud computing space.
• Learn why organizations want to run applications in the Azure cloud.
• Understand the architecture of Azure.
• Explore the Azure SDK and DevFabric development environment.
• See how to develop applications for Azure and how that varies from "normal" .NET application development.
• Write and deploy a ASP.NET Web application (Web Role) to Azure.
• Explore Azure storage capability.
• Learn how to create and deploy background computational applications (Worker Role) in Azure.
• Explore SQL Azure capability.

* Remember that there are discounts for user group members!

WHEW!  Don’t know where to start?  Contact IT Boot Camps for more information.

I receive a lot of email each week from you asking very specific, and valuable questions.  It’s my hope that a newsletter like this will help me communicate important announcements, tips/tricks, and other items to help you and your team ultimately be more successful!  Whenever I post a new newsletter, I will send email notifications to those of you who would like to be contacted.  If you don’t want to receive email notifications, just let me know!

Announcements

First of all, Happy New Year!  I hope everyone enjoyed there holidays, and that the chaos of work allowed you to do so!

We have a new member on our team!  Michael Palermo (http://www.palermo4.com/) is our newest Developer Evangelist based in Phoenix.  I encourage you to say hello the next time you see him at a local event.

When you get a chance, check out Visual Studio 2010 SP1 Beta.  It includes all sorts of cool stuff like Unit Testing against .NET 3.5, SharePoint, IIS Express, etc.

There’s a new book out covering the Build engine in 2010.  Take a look on Amazon here.

Have you confused yourself when trying to customize a build in TFS 2010?  The new TFS Build Activities reference on MSDN should help!

Events & Training

There are still seats available for the remaining Build & Brew events around the West!  Contact me if you’d like an invitation!  Remaining venues/dates are:

The Rocky Mountain Tech Trifecta is back for V3.0 on Saturday, March 5th!  Check out the website and register to go – oh, and it’s FREE!

This month’s Denver VS UG’s meeting features our own Ricardo Villalobos presenting, “Designing, Building, and Deploying Windows Azure Applications using Visual Studio 2010".  Don’t miss it!

Final Thoughts

December was a little slower due to the holidays, so there’s not as much to report in this current installment of the newsletter.  Send me your questions and ideas for February’s!

Using the Visual Studio 2010 ALM Tools to Improve Your Software Lifecycle Management

Live Roadshow!

Come join Microsoft and Notion Solutions as we present the latest tools and techniques for managing your software process to attain quality software using Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 and the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) tools provided with this release.  These new tools provide significant value beyond what is available with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008.

This roadshow covers the following topics:

Overview of Visual Studio 2010 ALM Tools for Managing Your Software Lifecycle

(9:00-11:00am)

This is an overview of Visual Studio 2010 and ALM tools and highlights the difference between Visual Studio Team System 2005/2008 and the new Visual Studio 2010, including the new Team Foundation Server features, the new modeling and debugging tools, as well as the latest in capabilities for managing and performing testing.

Using Team Foundation Server 2010 for Non-Windows Development

(11:00-12:00pm)

This is an overview of the best practices for utilizing Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2010 and Microsoft Visual Studio Team Explorer Everywhere for development activities beyond Microsoft and the Windows platform. This presentation will shows development teams using mixed and non-Microsoft platforms how to effectively leverage TFS 2010 to adopt work item tracking, version control, and automated build and test technologies.

Improving Software Quality with Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Test & Lab Tools

(1:00-3:30pm)

This is an overview of the Visual Studio 2010 and the Visual Studio Test Professional 2010 testing tools, including using the new Microsoft Test Manager 2010 to manage your testing and using test automation to automate your UI testing. The use of Microsoft Visual Studio Lab Management 2010 will be discussed as a means of automating the creation of virtual environments for testing purposes. See how the Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 testing and lab tools can help streamlining your entire testing lifecycle.

Summary and Q&A

(3:30-4:00pm)

TIME:   9:00 am-4:00 pm (local time)

For questions or more information, please feel free to contact us at info@notionsolutions.com or by calling 972-607-4830