The Design-Time Developer : Upcoming MSDN Events

Farewell to Microsoft

jacobcy — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 22:44:00 GMT

During my three-year tenure at Microsoft, I have met many wonderful people. For those of you I have worked with along the way, I wanted to share my bittersweet news. After three amazing years at Microsoft, I will be leaving to start a new chapter in my life. While I am not writing out the possibility of returning to Microsoft in the future, now is the optimal time in my life to transition to the next phase of my career path. Thank you for joining me on my wonderful three-year roller coaster ride of challenges and opportunities – I hope that our paths will cross again in the future.

I will be moving to Equis Corporation, a real estate advisory group based in Chicago. My new opportunity will be as a transaction advisory associate with Equis. My duties will include working with business clients to identify their real estate usage and needs, work closely with my clients to evaluate the various space options and negotiate the best lease or purchase arrangements to help my clients save money. It will be a great opportunity for me to develop my customer relations and sales skills, while simultaneously having a significant impact on my clients’ businesses.

My last day at Microsoft will be 10/31/2006. Feel free to contact me via this blog if you would like to stay in touch following my transition.

Happy Coding,

Jacob Cynamon

Developer Community Champion/Partner Relations Lead

Microsoft Across America

A Geography Lesson (by way of MSDN Events), plus a chance to win a cool prize

jacobcy — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 22:05:00 GMT

I'm going out on a limb and trying something a bit radical. Those of you who know me are well aware that my title is Developer Community Champion. What you may not know is that is my public-facing title. Internally at Microsoft, I am known as a Developer Evangelist.

According to Dictionary.com, an evangelist is "One who practices evangelism, especially a Protestant preacher or missionary." Well, I'm neither a Protestant nor a missionary, but it's about time that I represented the evangelist part of who I am. I regularly speak about developer productivity by leveraging .NET development tools and techniques. Now I want you to help me spread the word about our FREE MSDN Events through a fun and educational experiment.

The goal is to determine how well-connected the developer community in the United States actually is. In our Q4 (April-June), we have 28 of the 50 states (and Washington D.C.) covered with visits from our team of Developer Community Champions. I want to see who can most rapidly "spread the word" about the events in all 28 states and Washington D.C. To that end, I have created an email template, attached, that you may utilize. It contains all of the details, but here's the gist:

1) Download the email template (see below - Geography experiment.msg).

2) Add your first name, city, state, job title and relation to the previous sender. If you are originating the email, enter "Originator".
e.g. Jacob, Chicago, IL, Developer Community Champion, Originator.

3) Choose a state from the list of MSDN Events that does not yet have a signature in your email thread.

4) Email the email to a developer that you know within one of the cities being visited by MSDN Events in the state you have selected. If you are not familiar with a city, check out Local Live to map out where your friend lives or works and verify that it is in close proximity to the MSDN Event (let's say 20 miles). Make sure that you leave me BCC'ed, so I can verify your email address and send you the prize if your social network wins.

5) Your friend will receive the email, enter their basic data, including how they know you (for privacy verification purposes) and continue the process.

6) The first email to be returned to me (jacob.cynamon@microsoft.com) with "signatures" representing all 28 states will be rewarded. As this is a geography lesson, the first recipient in each represented city will receive a copy of Microsoft Streets and Trips 2006 and the original sender will be rewarded with a copy of Streets and Trips 2006 w/ GPS.

The fine print: See Microsoft.com for the standard contest rules. All prize winners must be US residents over 18 years of age. Only the first email returned to my email address with all 28 states and Washington D.C. represented in valid signatures (i.e. complete) will win the prizes. Contest ends after the receipt of the first "complete" email or on June 30, 2006 at Midnight, whichever comes first. The list of winners, if any, will be posted to my blog, sans personally identifying information (e.g. only first name, city, state, and job title will be made available). Email addresses will only be utilized for the sake of the contest and prize eligibility verification.

Looking to get more out of .NET? Check out our upcoming MSDN Events to get the productivity you seek!

jacobcy — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 19:06:00 GMT

MSDN® EVENTS

Boost Your Productivity with Visual

Studio® 2005 & the .NET Framework 2.0

New productivity enhancements in Visual Studio 2005 and the .NET Framework 2.0 mean you can spend less time coding and more time focusing on getting the job done. Learn how to build customizable web user interfaces in no time flat, see how the new language features of Visual Basic® 2005 and C# 2005 can simplify your coding, and discover how to incorporate the Application Blocks. Your project will be finished and you'll be on to your Xbox 360™ before you know it. These don’t-miss events are always free, local and live. Register today.

View Detailed Outline >>

SESSIONS INCLUDE:

- Make it Personal – Creating Customizable User Interfaces with Web Parts and ASP.NET 2.0

- Make it Simple – Language Enhancements in the .NET Framework 2.0

- Make it Powerful – Exploring the Enterprise Library for the .NET Framework 2.0

www.msdnevents.com

Upcoming MSDN Events in January-March: Smart Solutions with SmartClients

jacobcy — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 20:38:00 GMT

SmartClients combine the best elements of both Windows and web applications. But SmartClient means so much more than just a Windows Forms application. In this free half-day event, see three different SmartClient approaches in action, while leveraging what you already know about Microsoft tools and platforms. First, expand your reach by creating mobile applications that go way beyond miniature versions of your current applications. Next, take advantage of the functionality already present on your users’ desktops by creating solutions with Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005 Tools for Office that integrate seamlessly with Excel, Word and Outlook®. Finally, get ready for the future of UI development for Windows Vista™ by learning about WinFX®, XAML, and other valuable tools and technologies for this emerging platform.

Click on the link below for your city in my geography or visit MSDN Events to get all the details and reserve your seat! See you there!

1/24 Racine, WI (guest-presented by Michael Benkovich)
1/26 Downers Grove, IL (guest-presented by Michael Benkovich)
2/14 Kenosha, WI
2/16 Madison, WI
3/21 Springfield, IL
3/23 Evansville, IN
3/28 Indianapolis, IN

See you soon!

Countdown to Launch!

jacobcy — Sat, 08 Oct 2005 00:27:00 GMT

Visual Studio 2005! SQL Server 2005! BizTalk 2006! One of these things is not like the others ;-) Although the year seems a little off on BizTalk, the date is not - all three products are scheduled to launch in less than one month at Moscone West Convention Center in San Francisco on November 7, 2005. It's an exciting time, but what about for those of us not located in a close proximity to San Fran?

We've made a great effort to ensure that everyone across the US will be able to attend a launch event in their neck of the woods. In addition to the main launch in San Francisco, there will be 14 key city launches: Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Atlanta, Seattle, Dallas, Denver, Anaheim, Houston, Orlando, Minneapolis, Boston and Washington, D.C. You can register for San Francisco or any of the aforementioned cities here - the official Launch Tour 2005 site

But we didn't stop there - we're presenting 44 additional "Best of SQL Server 2005" and "Best of Visual Studio 2005" launch events, powered by the TechNet and MSDN Events teams (like yours truly here). These events are half-day, condensed events of the best content from the Visual Studio 2005/SQL Server 2005/BizTalk Server 2006 launches, with SQL Server 2005 in the morning from 8AM-12PM, and Visual Studio 2005 in the afternoon from 1-5PM. You can follow these links to reserve a seat at your local "Best of SQL Server 2005" or "Best of Visual Studio 2005" events.

If you're looking to see me personally present, you should check out one of the following "Best of Visual Studio 2005" launch events - I hope to see you there!

11/15 Madison, WI
11/17 Green Bay, WI
12/13 Milwaukee, WI (Wauwatosa)
12/15 Indianapolis, IN

Happy Coding,
Jacob

Pulled the old switcheroo

jacobcy — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 07:50:00 GMT

Those of you who know me well know that I'm very close with my family. My brothers both live in Chicago and my sister lives in Cleveland. I like to see all of them often, but it's a bit tough with my sister and her family quite a bit farther from me than my brothers are.

Well, I saw an opportunity to visit and I'm taking it. Instead of presenting the MSDN Event in Indianapolis in October, I traded events with my colleague and friend Bill Steele. Turns out that it's a win-win situation - I get to visit my sister compliments of Microsoft (sort of) and Bill now has two events that week so close to where he lives that he can drive to both of them the morning of the event. I took a negotation course in college and our arrangement, my friends, is what is known as "integrative bargaining". For those who like analogies, instead of trying to take as big a piece of metaphorical pie (mmm, pie!) as we could, we ended up creating a larger pie to share. :-D

So now, those of you who are developing .NET apps out in Cleveland and Columbus, it will be an honor and a privilege to present the MSDN Events to you in the first week of October.

Upcoming MSDN Events in August and September

jacobcy — Fri, 08 Jul 2005 18:54:00 GMT

Following our brief event hiatus in July, we're coming back with even more great content - the focus this time around is ASP.NET 2.0. We're presenting 3 sessions over the half-day event to explore UI, Data Access, and Performance techniques with the new ASP.NET 2.0. See below for event cities where I will be presenting - I can't wait to see you soon!

Developing Compelling User Interfaces with Ease in ASP.NET 2.0

ASP.NET 2.0 takes Web UIs to a whole new level with a fresh set of rich controls and IDE features. In this session, you'll learn how to:

Establish a common look & feel using Master Pages
"Skin" your site with Themes
Manage the navigation of your site through site maps and navigation controls

Data Access with ADO.NET 2.0 and ASP.NET 2.0

ADO.NET 2.0 drastically lessens the effort required to access data from your ASP.NET 2.0 Web application, freeing you to focus on what matters most – implementing your business logic – and introduces new objects, controls and techniques. This session illustrates how to:

Work with declarative data sources
Utilize data binding
Pass parameters to data sources without code
Bind to hierarchical data
Bind to business objects
Use typed DataSets and TableAdapters

Building High Performance Applications with ASP.NET 2.0

In this session, we'll explore the many improvements in ASP.NET 2.0 that will help you get maximum performance from your web sites, including:

Configuring page output caching
Caching a data source
SQL cache invalidation
Using post cache substitution
Using client callbacks from your ASP.NET page

Event Cities and Dates

Click on the city name to get quick access to the registration page. As always, our MSDN Events are completely free, so "treat" a friend to this great training opportunity. All events are scheduled from 1-5PM local time. For the full city schedule, please visit the MSDN Events website.

Saint Louis, MO - 8/2/2005
Peoria, IL - 8/4/2005
Milwaukee, WI - 8/9/2005
Schaumburg, IL - 8/11/2005

MSDN Events Spring Series Coming in a Few Short Weeks!

jacobcy — Fri, 11 Mar 2005 22:22:00 GMT

The next round of MSDN content is fully baked and on its way in April, May and June to a theater, hotel, or convention center in your area of the U.S. We will once again have 3 solid topics (cities in my district and dates follow below):

Web Services Unleashed

Certainly XML Web Services are the bedrock of a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), but are you really getting the most out of them? Whether you're new to Web Services or a seasoned SOAP expert, you'll find something useful in this session. We'll cover:

Creating and consuming a basic web service
Calling a web service asynchronously
Using web services in a distributed architecture
Implementing a web service authentication scheme
Interoperability considerations
Web service security using WSE 2.0

Universal Data Access with SQL Server 2005™

Each new release of SQL Server introduces powerful new technologies for accessing your data. In this session we will look at two such technologies that will make the upcoming SQL Server 2005™ a universal data access platform for your organization. You will learn about:

Creating HTTP endpoints in SQL Server 2005™
Securing the HTTP endpoints
Consuming the HTTP endpoints from Visual Studio
Controlling the rendering of a Reporting Services report using URL parameters

Publishing Applications Using ClickOnce

"ClickOnce" sounds like a dream, but it will be a reality with the 2.0 release of the .NET Framework. In this session we'll show you aspects of ClickOnce from basic application publishing to security considerations to working with the API. This session will introduce key features of ClickOnce Deployment:

Configuring your application for ClickOnce publication
Using the Publishing wizard
Incorporating code access security using the ClickOnce bootstrapper
Using the System.Deployment namespace

The cities we will visit in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin are as follows:

4/5 - Appleton, WI (.NET Pub Club to follow immediately after the Appleton event, location TBA)

4/7 - Madison, WI

4/26 - Muncie, IN (presented by visiting DCC Susan Wisowaty)

4/28 - Schaumburg, IL (presented by visiting DCC Susan Wisowaty)

5/10 - Rockford, IL (.NET Pub Club to follow immediately after the Rockford event, location TBA)

5/12 - Milwaukee, WI

5/24 - Bloomington, IN

5/26 - Indianapolis, IN

6/21 - Peoria, IL (presented by visiting DCC Susan Wisowaty)

6/23 - Madison, WI (presented by visiting DCC Susan Wisowaty)

Calling all Indy developers

jacobcy — Wed, 02 Mar 2005 23:49:00 GMT

Howdy,

I'm going to be presenting an MSDN Event tomorrow in Indianapolis (AMC Clearwater Crossing 12) to present on Advanced WinForms, Troubleshooting ASP.NET Apps, and Visual Studio Team System. Afterward (around 5:15), I plan to stick around at the nearby Lone Star Steakhouse (3902 E 82nd St) for a .NET Pub Club. Come to the MSDN Event and then join me for an opportunity to casually talk .NET over appetizers and drinks*, my treat.

Regards,
Jacob

* Drinks must be "soft", as my manager is not cool with me buying pitchers of beer for customers. :-(

Hey Chicago! Check out the January 27 .NET Pub Club

jacobcy — Thu, 27 Jan 2005 01:01:00 GMT

Whether or not you are able to attend the January 27 MSDN Event in Chicago (details available here), come join us after the event for some good eats and good conversation. We'll be having an informal .NET gathering at 5:30 PM, immediately following the MSDN Event. The location of the .NET Pub Club will be "Fat Willy's Rib Shack" on Schubert St., just north of the AMC Theater on Western (2600 N. Western). I'll provide the food and (soft) drinks, and we can relax and talk shop.

Let me know if you can make it by emailing me or replying to this blog post. Hope to see you there!

Jacob

Upcoming MSDN Events in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin (January/February/March)

jacobcy — Mon, 20 Dec 2004 18:06:00 GMT

Attend a free MSDN Event in your home town and you'll learn more about Windows and Web development, as well as the upcoming Visual Studio Team System! This event will come to you live during the months of January, February and March. Visit MSDN Events to register, or click the quick link below for your area. Events run from 1:00 to 5:00 P.M. local time.

•	WinForms - Produce, Extend, Enhance Are you really using the .NET Framework to the fullest in your Windows Forms applications? This session will school you in several powerful aspects of WinForms development that you may not already know. By using new techniques and best practices, you'll gain more control over the user interfaces you create and save valuable time when developing your applications. You'll learn advanced techniques for designing and producing interesting, creative, and functional UIs, as well as customizing and extending WinForms controls. You'll also delve into advanced data binding and dynamic UI creation.
•	ASP.NET - Fixing that Last Bug in Your Web App There is life - and work - beyond File \| New Web Site. Knowing how to design and write an ASP.NET web application is only the first part of creating a real, production solution - you also need to know how to troubleshoot it when problems emerge. In this forensics session you'll learn best practices for how to effectively troubleshoot an ASP.NET application - for both Web Forms and ASMX Web Services. You see techniques for debugging, working with tracing, and using event logs. We'll discuss error handling and trapping, as well as use of System.Diagnostics.Trace and ASP.NET's trace facility. You'll build global and local error handlers, and learn how your application can effectively recover from errors.
•	Visual Studio Team System - A Technical Tour Visual Studio Team System aims to solve the problems facing every enterprise-level team and helps increase the predictability of success. Team System extends Visual Studio from simply a tool for writing and debugging .NET code into a set of deeply integrated tools that support the complete software development lifecycle. All formal roles are called out from manager to architect, developer and tester. This session will detail an end-to-end lifecycle scenario that not only demonstrates major components of Team System, but also illustrates the value of having a customizable integrated process in breaking down information silos and providing friction-free flow of data between team roles.

•	January 4 - Racine, WI
•	January 6 - Madison, WI
•	January 25 - Muncie, IN
•	January 27 - Chicago, IL
•	February 15 - Kenosha, WI
•	February 17 - Milwaukee, WI
•	March 1 - Bloomington, IN
•	March 3 - Indianapolis, IN

Upcoming MSDN Events Online in November (our webcasts)

jacobcy — Tue, 02 Nov 2004 22:19:00 GMT

The August pilot of my “test-prep” webcast on preparing for your next MCAD/MCSD exams went very well, so, due to popular demand, I am re-presenting it next week.

Preparing for the MCAD or MCSD exams

And remember, as always, that the webcasts will be available for on-demand viewing within 72 hours of the live session. For other upcoming webcasts, check out MSDN Webcasts.

Happy Coding,

Jacob

Upcoming MSDN Events in IL, IN, and WI (October, November, December)

jacobcy — Fri, 10 Sep 2004 16:32:00 GMT

This demo-packed event will offer valuable insight into object-oriented programming fundamentals in Visual Basic® .NET, programming with MapPoint® Web Services, ASP.NET 1.1 Web applications, plus ASP.NET 2.0’s new Membership and Personalization features.

Object Oriented Programming Fundamentals in VB .NET: Learn the fundamentals of Object Oriented Programming (OOP) with the features of Visual Basic .NET. In this session, we’ll demonstrate how Visual Basic .NET provides support for all four of the key tenets behind the OOP paradigm – abstraction, encapsulation, inheritance and polymorphism - leading to code that is easier to test, maintain, extend and reuse.
Programming with MapPoint Web Services: See what location intelligence and graphics the MapPoint Web services can bring to your applications. Sometimes, all it takes is a map to quickly and most effectively communicate your message. With this hosted, programmable XML Web service, you won’t believe how easy it will be to add high-quality maps, driving directions, proximity searches, distance calculations, points of interest and other useful location-based information to your own Web sites and applications.
Optimizing ASP.NET 1.1 Web Applications: Explore how to build high-performance Web applications running on Windows Server^TM 2003. In this session, we’ll examine how to monitor and stress test Web applications - the two essential aspects of profiling performance. We’ll then demonstrate optimizations for key performance considerations like data access, server controls and caching.
Membership & Personalization: Discover the new Membership and Personalization features in ASP.NET 2.0. The new Membership services and security controls will provide your Web site with secure user authentication and protect its contents from anonymous users with a minimum of coding on your part. Personalization will allow your Web site users to have a customized view of its content based upon their previous configuration selections and settings.

Click on your city to sign up now or visit MSDN Events for a city in your area!

Events run from 1:00 - 5:00 P.M. local time. I hope to see you soon!

Happy Coding,
Jacob

MSDN Events Online in September (my webcasts)

jacobcy — Wed, 08 Sep 2004 21:12:00 GMT

I wanted to let you all know that I will be presenting 2 webcasts in September (and 1 at the very beginning of October).

If you can't attend my live events, check out my “mirrors”. I am sneak-previewing some of the October-December MSDN Events content for my loyal blog readers.

And remember, as always, that the webcasts will be available for on-demand viewing within 72 hours of the live session. For other upcoming webcasts, check out MSDN Webcasts.

Happy Coding,

Jacob

MSDN Events Online in August (my webcasts)

jacobcy — Sat, 31 Jul 2004 19:19:00 GMT

I wanted to let you all know that I will be presenting 4 webcasts in August:

If you can't attend my live events, check out my “mirrors”. I am presenting the first quarter content as webcasts for my developer audience that I don't have the privilege of visiting in Q1.

I am also piloting a “test-prep” webcast on preparing for your next MCAD/MCSD exam.

Preparing for the MCAD or MCSD exams

And remember, as always, that the webcasts will be available for on-demand viewing within 72 hours of the live session. For other upcoming webcasts, check out MSDN Webcasts.

Happy Coding,

Jacob