MSDN Ireland News : event

.NET Coffee Break - with Stephen Toub on Parallel Programming with .NET

Clare Dillon — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 12:24:00 GMT

Details of the latest .NET Coffee Break included below. It's on December 11th with Stephen Toub, Senior Program Manager on the Parallel Computing Platform team who will be broadcasting live from the US. Last one before Xmas!

Summary: Parallel Programming with .NET

With the Microsoft .NET Framework today, correctly introducing parallelism into libraries and applications is difficult, time consuming, and error-prone. However, as the hardware industry shifts towards multi-core and manycore processors, the key to high-performance applications is parallelism. The .NET Framework 4.0 offers solutions to help make writing parallel applications significantly easier. In this webcast, we explore Parallel LINQ-to-Objects (PLINQ), the Task Parallel Library (TPL), and new coordination data structures in order to provide a look at the next generation of parallel programming with .NET.

The show will be broadcast live on Wednesday 11th of December at 16:00 GMT (Irish Time!).

All the connection details to the show will be sent to you prior to the start of the webcast.

This event is free but you need to register by following this link

http://www.developers.ie/Webcasts.aspx

Cork User Group: Sharepoint on Dec 1st

Clare Dillon — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 12:58:00 GMT

And for those of you down in Cork - check out the next user group meeting on December 1st focusing on Sharepoint. You can read more details below and register here.

Date: 01 December 2008 19:00 - 21:00

Summary

Here is your chance to learn all about Sharepoint from two experienced professionals. Micheal and Martin will cover the basics of Sharepoint initially explaining what it does and how it works. They will then delve into how you can develop applications with Sharepoint covering such topics as

SharePoint Overview & Object Model
Extending SharePoint
Features and Event Receivers
Custom Workflows
InfoPath Forms Services
Web content management

Speaker(s)

Martin Fenton
	Martin is an experienced .NET and SharePoint Developer with over 5 years experience working with a range of tools and methodologies. He is currently working as a Microsoft Solutions Consultant for PM Centrix

Micheal O Sullivan
	Micheal is a SharePoint and .NET Consultant with 7 years experience. He is currently specializing in Document Management, Collaboration and Workflow Development applications, and has experience in deploying, administrating and supporting SharePoint Server in enterprise environments."

Event Invite: User Experience Options with Microsoft - a full-day seminar

Clare Dillon — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:36:00 GMT

If you've been reading alot about Silverlight, WPF and all the various flavours of the Expression tools - you might be wondering about how they all fit together, and with more mature technologies like VB6 and WinForms. Well, this is your chance to find out! A free day-long seminar with Ronan, Martha and visiting expert Max Knor will be well worth it!

Where? Microsoft EPDC2 Auditorium, Microsoft European Product Development Centre, South County Business Part, Leopardstown (Bus tranfer available from Sandyford Luas stop - leaving at 9:40am sharp!)

When? Thursday, December 11^th. 10am -5pm (Doors open 9:30)

Register here!

Event Overview:

Over the years, Microsoft has provided developers with many tools and technologies for building UIs for their applications, from VB6, WinForms to WPF and Silverlight. Come along to this free day-long seminar to get a great overview of all your options. Learn which tools to use in which situation from Microsoft technology experts Max Knor (TechEd favourite and developer from Microsoft Austria), Ronan Geraghty and Martha Rotter (developers from the Microsoft Ireland Developer and Platform Group). If you are interested in delivering excellent user experiences, either in rich clients or on the web – this seminar is for you!

Sessions:

10:00 – 11:15 The Microsoft Client Continuum

The Microsoft Client Continuum : a continuous series of client platform technologies available from Microsoft ranging from the very "rich" functionality of WPF to the greater "reach" of ASP.NET and of course Silverlight. Learn how the technologies compare and which one is the right one to use based on your needs.

11:30 – 13:00 Introducing the Windows Presentation Foundation

The Windows Presentation Foundation is a new GUI framework for desktop applications. Shipping as part of .NET 3.0 it addresses a lot of issues, Windows Forms developers have been faced with for years. With WPF, the UI is defined in an own language called XAML, whereas the code beside (event handlers,..) are written in C#. This concept allows better separation of UI and code, so that you can change the visual representation without a need to touch the corresponding code. WPF provides you with the ability to restyle all controls (even the built-in ones) and apply themes to them to create a unique user experience throughout your entire application. Besides that, you can compose controls, e.g. easily include images, buttons and other controls within lists, with the help of the new content model. Apart from visual stuff, WPF introduces a powerful data binding engine, an included command model, routed events and much more. Join this session to learn how to create your own UIs with the help of the Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML), how to apply styles, and leverage the new features of WPF!

14:00 – 15:30 Building WPF composite smart clients

Windows Presentation Foundation is a powerful framework for developing smart client applications. It provides functionalities as a rich data binding engine, styling of controls, a built-in command pattern and much more. That's great for flashy demos, but when it comes to real business applications, you are facing some problems: What if the application consists of different modules, which need to be independent? Such a modularity allows parallel development of modules and enables more flexible deployment, as additional modules can be added later, with no need to update the original parts. Other problems are the separation of data, visualization and logic or the reuse of views. Microsoft Patterns & Practices Group has collected some of these real-world problems and has built the "Composite Application Guidance for WPF" (the project formerly known as "Prism"), which provides a set of proven patterns and components. In this session you will see how to leverage the blocks of the guidance to ease the development of your own WPF composite smart clients.

15:45 – 17:00 Building Rich Internet Applications with Silverlight 2

Silverlight provides a powerful platform for building the next generation of rich interactive applications on the Internet. In this session, we take a deep look at the programming model and tools that developers and designers can leverage to build these true next-generation experiences for consumers and businesses, and demonstrate building a Rich Interactive Application (RIA) using Silverlight and Microsoft .NET. We cover how to use Microsoft Visual Studio to create applications, how to create UI using XAML markup and code, how to build a custom control and how to retrieve data from a Web service.

Event Invite: David Chappell coming to Dublin for seminar on Windows Azure

Clare Dillon — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:05:00 GMT

For those of you who haven't seen David Chappell speak before - let me assure you - it's a real treat! I am just back from TechEd in Barcelona, where I saw him deliver some of the content included below. It's a really excellent and entertaining session and I am really delighted he has agreed to come over and visit us here in Dublin for this free half-day seminar.

So, if you are interested in hearing about Windows Azure - this is one not to miss! The event is sure to fill up really quickly - so register here as soon as you can!

Where? Microsoft EPDC2 Auditorium, Microsoft European Product Development Centre, South County Business Part, Leopardstown (Bus tranfer available from Sandyford Luas stop - leaving at 9:40am sharp!)
When? Monday, December 8^th. 10am -1:30pm (Doors open 9:30)
Register here!

Description:

A half-day seminar by David Chappell to introduce Windows Azure (Microsoft’s Cloud Computing Platform): what it is and how to use it.

Cloud computing looks like the biggest change to hit our industry in many years. The advent of cheap, scalable computing power available over the Internet will affect almost everybody who works in IT. But taking advantage of this shift requires understanding this new approach and how to exploit it.

In this half-day seminar, David Chappell looks at the big picture of cloud computing, then focuses in on Microsoft’s new cloud platform technologies. The topics he’ll cover include:

A realistic look at cloud computing: Benefits and risks
The cloud context: Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Salesforce.com, and more
Microsoft’s cloud platform technologies
Using the Microsoft cloud platform: Which technologies make sense for your applications?

The goal is to provide a framework for thinking about cloud platforms, make clear what Microsoft’s cloud platform technologies can do, then offer guidance on how to make good decisions for using them.

Dublin User Group Event: Visual Studio 2010 - this Friday

Clare Dillon — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 20:42:00 GMT

For those of you who were disappointed that the Visual Studio 2010 half-day seminar is booked up - you might be able to head along to the latest Dublin User Group Event. The guys in MTUG.ie have arranged for Matt and Andy to do a condensed version of the seminar next Friday evening from 7-9pm in the Morrison Hotel in the city centre.

You can find out more and register here.

I've included the summary below - so hopefully see you there!

Where? The Morrison Hotel
When? Friday, Nov 14th - 7-9pm.

Matt Carter and Andy Fouche, from the Visual Studio team in Seattle, will be travelling directly from Barcelona to visit us here in Dublin. Come along to learn about the features of Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4.0.

Here is an overview of the sessions, including the questions that will be answered:

Understanding the code (References & Hierarchies, Sequences, Class Dependencies…): What is the application architecture? What did the tester find? What is in the code?
Harnessing the power of C++ (All the features of Visual C++ 6.0, Windows 7 support…): Do I have to give up my favorite C++ tool? What if I have a lot of code? What about the new look and feel options? What about performance and debugging?
Building Web applications (Test-Driven Development, Integrated Silverlight tools…): What about rich content? Can I use the right pattern? How do I deploy this? What about my JavaScript? What presentation code should I use?
Creating Office Business Applications (Deployment Designer, Combined Client & Server packages…): What is where in my SharePoint Server? Can I work locally? How do I use the SharePoint features? What about deployment?

Speaker(s)

Matt Carter
	Matt Carter is Group Product Manager for Microsoft’s Visual Studio Professional Tools team, which is responsible for product management of Microsoft’s core developer tools. Matt’s group is responsible for the product planning and management for current and upcoming versions of Visual Studio, as well as Visual Studio Tools for Applications (VSTA) and Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO). Matt has worked with Microsoft developers for 15 years at Microsoft Press, Microsoft Learning, and MSDN Magazine, and in the community as a publisher of print and online developer information resources. Prior to that, Matt built back-office and desktop applications that connected airline mainframe systems to Windows desktops for the travel industry.

Andy Fouché
	Andy Fouché is the PR Manager for the Developer Division, Server and Tools Business. He is responsible for external and internal communications regarding Visual Studio, the .NET Framework, Silverlight, Commerce Server, Parallel Computing, and other developer tools and technologies.

Event: LINQ to SQL in Cork

martharotter — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 16:57:02 GMT

Just wanted to give you a heads-up on an upcoming, free event in Cork. Sidar Ok, who is a senior .NET developer in DeCare Systems, will be speaking in Cork on Monday, 22 September at 19:00 on the topic of LINQ to SQL.

The presentation will discuss the ORM concepts in the favour of LINQ to SQL, and it aims to give a deep insight of the various benefits one can get in daily development. There will be core coding demos throughout the event.

About Sidar: Along with his work at DeCare, Sidar is also a regular blogger and contributor to many Open Source projects and MSDN forums. He holds an MCPD.NET, ASP.NET 3.5 Certified Specialist, and lately developed two live enterprise applications which are live now with LINQ to SQL. He will be sharing his thoughts and experiences on this.

You can find Sidar’s blog on: http://www.sidarok.com, and specifically his posts about LINQ to SQL are here: http://sidarok.com/web/blog/content/category/linq.

The event will be at the Imperial Hotel in Cork. For more information or to register, please click here. For further information on the Cork Microsoft User Group, visit http://www.cork.mtug.ie/.

Event: Virtual Earth Live in Dublin!

martharotter — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 15:20:00 GMT

It’s no secret here in Ireland that Virtual Earth has been getting a lot of exciting new developments and investment lately. With all the new Birds Eye View maps, 3D enhancements and models and sophisticated APIs for developers, there’s little wonder lots of companies are building their web applications on top of Virtual Earth.

On October 16th from 9:00 - 17:00, Virtual Earth experts show you just how easy it is to track your company’s assets, find customers, manage mobile sales forces and make sure that customers find you before they find your competitor!

The Virtual Earth event is free and located in the Microsoft Building 2 Auditorium in the South County Business Park in Leopardstown.

Click here for registration and to find out more about the event.

Agenda:
08:30 - 09:30 Registration open

09:30 – 09.35 Welcome - Jennifer Forsythe
09.35 – 10.30 Microsoft Mapping Platforms overview – Jennifer Forsythe

10:30 - 10.50 Tea/ Coffee Break

10:50 - 11:20 Partner presentation - BizMaps
11.20 - 11.50 Customer presentation - TBC
11:50 - 12:50 Lunch

12:50 - 13:20 TBC
13.20 – 14.05 Virtual Earth Deep Dive – Johannes Kebeck

14.05 – 14.25 Tea/ Coffee Break

14.25 – 14.55 VE Pricing – Jennifer Forsythe
14.55 – 15.40 Virtual Earth Deep Dive – Johannes Kebeck
15.40 – 16.00 Q&A Session

See you there!

Click here to be invited to Virtual Earth events and webcasts!

Click here to find out about forthcoming Virtual Earth events!

IT @ Cork's Technology in Business Conference - Wed, 28th Nov

Clare Dillon — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 14:05:00 GMT

IT @ Cork's annual Technology in Business Conference continues to be one of my favourite events in Ireland's IT calendar. At last year's event I heard the brilliant Charles Handy speak - and he remains one of the most inspriational speakers I have ever heard. This year the line up looks just as good - so I am very much looking forward to attending. You can check out the full conference details here. We here in MS Ireland are absolutely delighted to be able to support such a high-quality local conference.

Some of the speakers are included below - quite a line-up! The theme is all about Innovation this year - and with topics like "Innovate or Die: the choice is yours" to "Deafeating the Orthodoxy: Birthing Innovation in Companies" - I'm expecting to be rivetted to my seat! Hopefully we'll see you there!

Speakers:Graham Whitehead BT Futurologist (UK) ; Dr. Tony Murphy Gartner Consulting, Vice President (IRL) ; Neil Holloway Microsoft, Vice President Bus Strategy. (UK) ; Prof. Hans Rosling Karolinska Institutet. (SWE) ; David Hemler Best Buy for Business, President. (USA) ; Charles Garvey CEO, NitroSell (IRL) ; Jennifer Mowat BT Online, Director. (UK) ; Anthony Williams Co-author Wikinomics (CAN)