Chris Bowen's Blog : Boston

Launch Event in Boston on October 5 – Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Exchange 2010

cbowen — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 21:29:48 GMT

From September through November, launch events for Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Exchange 2010 are happening across the US.

Boston’s launch event will be on October 5th at the AMC Boston Common 19. (Other regional stops are NYC on October 20 and Philly on September 28.)

The event will feature content for developers and IT pros (click the tabs to switch events). Of course the content will be excellent, but as an added bonus, attendees will get a copy of Windows 7!

Developer Session (AM)

Windows 7 Track

Optimizing Your Application For Windows 7
Creating New And Exciting Users Experiences – Part 1
Creating New And Exciting Users Experiences – Part 2

Windows Server 2008 R2 Track

Windows Server 2008 R2, What’s New and What’s Changed
Windows Server 2008 R2, Build Solutions that Scale Beyond 64 Processors
Windows Server 2008 R2, Enterprise Network Solutions

IT Pro Session (PM)

Windows 7 Track

Introducing Windows 7 and the Windows Optimized Desktop
Make People Productive Anywhere with Windows 7 and the Windows Optimized Desktop
Manage Risks through Enhanced Security and Control with Windows 7 and the Windows Optimized Desktop
Streamlining Deployment of Windows 7

Windows Server 2008 R2 Track

What's in Windows Server 2008 R2 for IT Administrators: A Technical Overview Part 1
What's in Windows Server 2008 R2 for IT Administrators: A Technical Overview Part 2
New Server Deployment and Migration
Windows Server 2008 R2 Virtualization Technologies-- Saving IT Costs

Exchange 2010 Track

Introducing Exchange Server 2010
Exchange 2010 Voice Mail enabled by Unified Messaging
Exchange 2010 High Availability and Storage
Exchange 2010 Archiving and Retention

Full details and registration are on the Boston event homepage.

BarCamp Boston 4 – April 25-26

cbowen — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 19:57:02 GMT

BarCamp Boston 4 will be on April 25th and 26th, hosted at MIT’s Stata Center in Cambridge, MA [directions].

For those familiar with Code Camps, BarCamps are similar in that they’re free and organized by the community, but the schedule is more fluid/dynamic and participatory, following the “unconference” style:

“BarCamp is an unConference, organized on the fly by attendees, for attendees. There is no registration fee, but you don't just attend a BarCamp -- you can participate in discussions, demo your projects, or join into another cooperative event.”

It’s a great way to learn about what’s new and meet others in the area developer community. Take a look at last year’s BarCamp Boston 3 session grid for an idea of the kind of topics you might see.

If you can go, add your name to the registration list. It’s a free event, but your support for expenses is asked through voluntary donations.

-Chris

Announcing the F# User Group in Cambridge, MA – April 6

cbowen — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 20:36:56 GMT

Wondering why there’s a buzz around F# and functional programming, and want to know when and how they can be useful? Maybe you’ve already on board with functional programming and want to find others in the same boat?

The new F# User Group (fsug.org) is dedicated to learning and sharing practices around F# and functional programming. The inaugural meeting will be on April 6th from 6:30-8:30 PM at the Microsoft Cambridge facility (aka NERD) [directions].

From the F# User Group site:

6:30pm - 7:00pm   Introduction to F#, Rick Minerich

7:00pm - 7:15pm   Pizza

7:15pm - 8:30pm   F# Coding Dojo (pair program the solution to a problem)

Everyone (complete beginner to expert) is welcome!

Rick (blog here) is extremely knowledgeable about F# and functional programming, and the hands-on dojo component will make for a great meeting to get up to speed. You may have heard that Microsoft is making F# part of .NET and Visual Studio going forward, these meetings will help you understand why this is a good thing.

The June 1st meeting will feature a session by the well-respected technologist and excellent speaker, Richard Hale Shaw.

Sincere thanks to Michael de la Maza, Talbott Crowell and Rick Minerich for bringing a new group to the Boston area! I’m looking forward to this and future meetings!

-Chris

Beantown .NET Moves to NERD on April 2nd

cbowen — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 17:36:33 GMT

Some breaking news for .NET developers in the greater Boston area - the Beantown .NET User Group, organized by MVP Ben Day, is moving across the Charles to Microsoft’s New England Research & Development Center (NERD) in Cambridge!

This will give NERD it’s first .NET-focused user group and gives Beantown .NET plenty of room to grow.

The first meeting at NERD is on April 2nd from 6:00-8:00 (directions) and should be a fun chance to hear plenty of views and practices:

The Unit Testing Throwdown

Oddly, there seems to be almost no consensus about unit testing. Lots of developers think that unit testing is dumb. Plenty are ambivalent. Some love it. Even among those devs who are already sold on unit testing, there’s no consensus. Sure, we might agree about some of the helpful things to do like using the Repository pattern, interface-driven design, and mocking frameworks but ask 10 developers how they’d unit test something and you’ll get 30 different answers.

Well, enough with the armchair quarterbacking. It’s on! You don’t like how I write my tests? I want to know why. Come show me how you do it. Don’t like unit tests at all? Come tell us why. Got some killer technique? Got an opinion about how much logic you put in each test method? Tonight’s the night to bring out The Awesome.

The plan is to show code samples, gather around the whiteboard, and by the end (hopefully) sort out some Real-Life Best Practices for unit testing.

BTW, if you have unit testing topics that you think we should put on the agenda, email them to benday@benday.com.

See you there!

-Chris

Boston MSDN Developer Conference Summary

cbowen — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 16:42:34 GMT

Last week’s Boston MSDN Developer Conference was a resounding success! Thank you the over 450 people who attended the sold-out event to see and hear about the latest on Windows 7, Azure, and many other developer technologies.

From the keynote by Amanda Silver, 12 technical sessions, to the Community Courtyard with many great discussions, to the Lego Serious Play WomenBuild workshop (that reached capacity!), XBox gaming area, and the Partner Pavilion, there was definitely plenty for attendees to check out.

Thanks

A sincere thank you to each of the session speakers, who made the event great:

Thanks to Amanda Silver for traveling from Seattle to deliver the keynote. She, and the partners we had on stage, kicked off the day very well!

Thanks also to Roger Sessions and Steven “Doc” List for sharing their time and expertise to facilitate discussions in the Community Courtyard. Thanks also to my colleagues from the Microsoft New England Research & Development center across the river in Cambridge, who hosted a table in the Courtyard. The room was buzzing with talk throughout the day.

Last but not least, immense thanks to Bob Familiar, who for many months has been devoted to putting the entire series of MSDN Developer Conferences together. Great job!

Session Content

The core content can be downloaded from the Microsoft PDC site, but each speaker may elect to post their specific content via their blogs, linked above.

If you’re interested in the content for my sessions, “ASP.NET and jQuery” and (with Talbott Crowell) “An Introduction to Microsoft F#”, I’ve posted the content here:

ASP.NET and jQuery – This was also one of the sessions delivered as part of our “Northeast Roadshow”
Introduction to F# - The slides and other resources for F#

Thanks again to everyone!

-Chris

Boston MSDN Developer Conference Update

cbowen — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 21:11:13 GMT

The MDC Arrives on Thursday

The MSDN Developer Conference (MDC) is coming to the Sheraton Boston this Thursday, January 22nd, with a full day of cutting edge content for developers, modeled after the Professional Developers Conference (PDC).

Sold Out!

There's been an amazing response to the event, but unfortunately we've hit the limit of how many attendees we can accommodate! Registration is currently closed, but I'll update this post if we're able to expand it later.

The Schedule

We have a great lineup of speakers for the event, with a keynote and twelve sessions in three tracks. The Boston event page has the details on the speakers and times, and here's the session grid:

WomenBuild at the Boston MDC

The Boston MDC will feature two Lego SeriousPlay WomenBuild workshops (at 12:30 and 2:00). The focus is on diversity in tech, featuring a combination of workshops and talks. This is an industry-wide issue, and all attendees, men and women, are welcome to participate.

This workshop has been well received at other events. Some quotes:

“This was the best session I have ever attended at a conference”
“That was the fastest hour and a half!”
"This seminar is an eye-opening experience. I feel it’s of great value to women in technology."

Since the event is only 90 minutes, you'll have plenty of time to catch most of the day's other content as well.

Video and Audio on MDC

Want to catch a glimpse of what's in store for you? Andy Erickson put together this great video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHOW_y_nym8

Also, Jeff Brand has published a podcast episode featuring interviews with speakers at the Minneapolis MSDN DevCon event.

See you in Boston!

-Chris

Special Boston Event: Roger Sessions on Enterprise Architecture, January 21st

cbowen — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 19:26:44 GMT

The New England chapter of the International Association of Software Architects (IASA) will be hosting Roger Sessions on January 21st at the Sheraton Boston at 39 Dalton Street. He will be speaking on "Simple Architectures for Complex Enterprises".

The event is free, with registration here:

http://iasane.eventbrite.com

This is a great opportunity to hear from one of the industry's best!

In addition, Roger will be facilitating discussions at the MSDN Developer Conference the following day (January 22nd), also at the Sheraton.

Simple Architectures for Complex Enterprises

It is common to hear of massive IT failures; projects that are over budget, late, poorly aligned to business needs, or all of the above. Often, the resulting losses are in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The cause is almost always the same: uncontrolled complexity. The solution to complexity is simple — or more specifically, simplicity.

We need to understand what makes systems simple with as much critical reasoning as we do what makes systems fast, secure, or reliable. This talk is about the mathematical models of complexity and the methodologies needed to control it. Complexity is the most insidious problem facing IT architects. Control it, or it will bury you! This talk will be thought provoking and open new areas for exploration.

Roger Sessions is a well known speaker and presenter in the field of high-end enterprise architectures. He is the author of seven books, dozens of articles, and many white papers. He is well known as the inventor of the SIP methodology, a new approach to managing complexity in enterprise and IT architectures. Roger writes and publishes the ObjectWatch Newsletter, a widely read and highly regarded newsletter on high-end enterprise software technologies. He is the Editor in Chief of Perspectives of the International Association of Software Architects, an IASA Fellow, and a Microsoft MVP in Architecture.

Register

Thanks to Bob Familiar for coordinating this!

-Chris

Free SQL Server 2008 Event in Boston on November 12th

cbowen — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 18:55:10 GMT

Looking for the latest on SQL Server 2008? Join Adam Machanic for a free event on November 12th in Boston where he'll spend the morning (8-12) sharing many details of SQL Server 2008:

Learn more about SQL Server 2008 and the new enhanced capabilities of the product. We’ll be exploring security and database management, how to best manage your data, and what’s new in business intelligence with SQL Server 2008. Don’t miss this half day event that will give you a better understanding of what SQL 2008 has to offer and how you can best put it to use at your company.

Adam is a recognized leader in the SQL Server community, helping with user groups, speaking at conferences, and running an informative blog. This looks to be a worthwhile event!

Register here

-Chris

Announcing the MSDN Developer Conference Series (Boston on January 22nd!)

cbowen — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 22:59:24 GMT

MSDN Developer Conference

A fantastic series of one-day conferences is coming, bringing the latest technology from Microsoft to 11 cities across the US. The MSDN Developer Conference features 12 sessions in three tracks:

Cloud Services

Use Windows Azure, Live Mesh, and more to create apps that bridge the gaps between PC, Web, and phone
Client and Presentation

See the state of the art and future plans for ASP.NET 4.0, WPF, and Silverlight
Tools, Languages and Framework

Learn about Visual Studio 2010, Language Futures, Oslo, and Parallel Programming

Think of this as the greatest hits of PDC coming to you.

A full day of content for $99. And of course some nice giveaways as well.

Boston's Turn

As one of the 11 cities in the series, our local event in the northeast will be in Boston on January 22nd at the Sheraton Boston Hotel. I'm the "city lead" for Boston, so let me know if you have any questions.

Speakers currently scheduled to present in Boston include:

Register today before the seats are gone!

The Sessions

The day will feature a keynote, along with the following sessions:

Cloud Services	Client and Presentation	Tools, Languages, and Framework
Lap Around Cloud Services	Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) Roadmap	The Future of Managed Languages: F#, C#, and Visual Basic
Developing and Deploying Your First Cloud Services	Developing Data-Centric Applications Using WPF	A Lap Around "Oslo"
A Lap Around the Live Framework and Mesh Services	Building Business-Focused Applications Using Silverlight 2	Microsoft Visual Studio Team System: A Lap Around VSTS 2010
Developing Applications Using Data Services	ASP.NET 4.0 Roadmap	Parallel Programming for Managed Code Developers

Online Community

Find our tag cloud under #MSDNDevCon and join in the buzz!

Registration

Registration is open, and a nice deal at $99.

If Boston isn't near you, there are 10 other cities hosting a MSDN Dev Con event, so take a look and register for a city near you:

Date	City
12/9/08	Houston, TX
12/11/08	Orlando, FL
12/16/08	Atlanta, GA
1/13/09	Chicago, IL
1/13/09	Minneapolis, MN
1/16/09	Washington, DC
1/20/09	New York, NY
1/22/09	Boston, MA
1/22/09	Detroit, MI
1/26/09	Dallas, TX
2/19/09	San Francisco, CA

A big thanks goes to our own Bob Familiar, who is spearheading the work to create these events across the US! (This is also the reason why he's had to temporarily step aside from our Northeast Roadshows.)

I'm absolutely looking forward to this and hope to see many of you in Boston!

-Chris

Get Your Hands on a Surface at the Sheraton Boston

cbowen — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:12:08 GMT

If you're in or passing through the Boston area and have yet to see a Microsoft Surface machine in action, you can swing by the Boston Sheraton hotel for a chance to interact with one. Boston is one of five Sheratons to feature a Surface as a guide to the local area.

I had a chance to ~~play with~~ research the capabilities of one while at Mix08 this spring and can say that the cool factor is extremely high with these. You can interact via touching the table top, putting objects on top of it (that it then recognizes and responds to), and it can communicate wirelessly with devices that support that (such as phones, cameras, etc.)

In the picture at right, you can see a picture someone took of our group at MIX that was transferred to the Surface by placing the camera on the table top and selecting the picture from the camera with a flick of a finger.

Of course, the Surface team has plenty to say on the matter:

The Surface machine is in the lobby of:

    The Sheraton Boston Hotel
    39 Dalton St.
    Boston, MA
    [One-click directions]

I haven't made it out to the Sheraton just yet, but if you go, please let me know what you think!

-Chris

P.S. This has been getting plenty of attention in the media. Here's a sampling of what I found:

Boston.com

Travel and Tourism News

HotelChatter

Mobility Site

MediaPost Marketing Daily

SeattlePI

ZDNet - Mary-Jo Foley

Fourth Ignite Boston Event on September 11

cbowen — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 18:34:35 GMT

My friends at O'Reilly passed along word that another Ignite Boston is coming on September 11th. I went to the last one (some pictures below), and it was a blast! A great chance to hear about a wide variety of topics and chat with fellow New England techies.

Here are the details:

The Fourth Ignite Boston will be on Thursday, September 11, from 6 to 10pm at the Hooley House, one block from Faneuil Hall in Boston, MA. This is a larger venue, so the acoustics will be better than our last event and there will be room to sit, stand and mingle.

From 6:00-6:45 pm, mingle and talk tech with your fellow FOOs (Friends of O'Reilly), alpha geeks, and techies from the greater Boston area.

After the mingling and social stuff, we'll have a couple of special keynote presentations to kick off our Ignite talks. Then, on to guest speakers who'll catch you up on the cool, new, innovative stuff going on in technology today. Don't blink or you'll miss their lightning-fast, five-minute presentations. During intermissions, get a cold beer and chat with speakers, sponsors, and O'Reilly's own editors. Join us Thursday, September 11th, for a fun, energetic evening of talking, learning, collaborating and drinking!

Check out the events and activities of our previous Ignite events. RSVP if you plan to attend by emailing IgniteBoston at oreilly dot com. This will also enter you in a contest to win $300 worth of O'Reilly books of your choosing. You must be present to win. There will likely be other items like tee-shirts and other promo items for those who alert us ahead that they plan to attend.

Ignite is a user-generated event. If you're interested in speaking, then submit a proposal for consideration.

Presentations must:

Be no longer than 5 minutes

Be on an innovative topic (no sales pitches, please!)

Be viewable on a PC [a MacBook Pro with Powerpoint and Keynote, and PDF] with standard AV equipment

Did we mention, no Sales Pitches.

For anyone that's never been to Ignite, you may find it useful to see a talk or two. Here's a few good examples from Ignite Boston 3.

Thanks to O'Reilly for bringing these events to our area!

Hope to see you there,

Chris

Giving Two User Group Talks on XNA This Week!

cbowen — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 22:10:12 GMT

Some coincidental scheduling has given me a chance to speak with both the Boston .NET and Beantown .NET user groups this week, both on XNA!

You'll have two chances to get up to speed on how to create games easily for Windows, XBox 360, and the Zune using XNA and .NET.

The Boston .NET meeting is on Wednesday (7/9) in Waltham and the Beantown .NET meeting is on Thursday (7/10) on State St. in Boston, both are from 6-8 PM.

If you're interested in the Beantown .NET meeting, send an RSVP email as indicated on the group's site. (I expect we'll also head across the street for a beer after that meeting.)

Here's the description for both sessions:

"Introduction to Game Development with XNA"

Summer is upon us, so what better excuse to break away from the norm and discuss games? This meeting is for people who enjoy games, and have always wanted to know more about how they’re made… and maybe how to make their own.

XNA is a game development platform based on the .NET Framework that helps to make it easy to develop games for Windows, Xbox, and now the Zune as well. Using the free XNA Game Studio, you can use those same C# skills that pay the bills by day for creating your own games by night (or really whenever you'd like.)

We'll introduce XNA, show you around the XNA world, then create a simple 2D game from scratch to give you a feel for game mechanics and the architecture of XNA.

This session requires no game development experience, only a passion for coding and for games!

I encourage students to attend and also parents to bring sons and daughters who are interested in gaming and programming.

Hope to see you one of these evenings!

-Chris

P.S. If you're unable to make these meetings or are already up to speed on XNA, you can come to the next meeting of the Boston XNA Developers Group on July 23rd in Waltham.

BarCamp Boston 3 Announced

cbowen — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 20:34:03 GMT

The next BarCamp for the Boston area has just been announced. BarCampBoston 3 will be on May 17th and 18th at Matignon High School in Cambridge, MA.

What is BarCamp?

BarCamp [Wikipedia description] is what's called an "unconference" event focusing on technology, tools, and practices. Though ideas can be proposed at any time, there's no preset-in-stone session schedule. Instead, attendees write session topics and post them to a grid of rooms and times throughout the day.

First time at a BarCamp? Read this guide.

How do I attend?

You could just show up, but even better, add yourself to the registration list so it's easier for the planners. There's no cost to attend, but donations are happily accepted.

Hope to see you there!

-Chris

Speaking on Enterprise Library at Beantown .NET UG on 10/4

cbowen — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 01:23:17 GMT

I'll be in Boston tomorrow night (10/4), giving a talk about the Patterns & Practices group and Enterprise Library for the Beantown .NET User Group. If you're in the Boston area and are interested in learning about how Enterprise Library can help with your development efforts, drop by for a listen!

The meeting runs from 6-8:00 PM.

More details and directions are at http://www.beantowndotnet.org

See you there!

-Chris

Technorati tags: .NET, User Groups, Events, Boston

ReMix '07 Conference in Boston, October 8-9

cbowen — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 18:16:15 GMT

Here's one more reason it's good to be in New England. Based on the concept of Mix '07 in Las Vegas, ReMix '07 Boston will be on October 8th and 9th at the Hyatt Regency Cambridge. The conference, for web developers and designers, will have a keynote from Brad Abrams and will have multiple tracks of sessions on topics like AJAX, Virtual Earth, .Net 3.0/3.5, Expression and Visual Studio.

The northeast is well-represented in the sessions, with Fritz Onion, Richard Hale Shaw, Julie Lerman and Andy Beaulieu scheduled to give talks. I'm joining in the fun and giving a session on Monday about VS2008 and ASP.NET AJAX development.

ReMix already has a pretty low price ($299), but if you can make it to one of our Bob & Chris' MSDN Roadshow events from September 10-20, we'll give you a pass to attend for free!

Even if you can't attend the Roadshow, I have a code I can pass along to you, my blog-reading audience, that will take $100 off the price. Go to www.remix07boston.com and register with the code "RM07INTB" for $199.

Look me up if you're there!
-Chris

Technorati tags: Boston, Cambridge, Events, Massachusetts, Mix, Roadshow