The Design-Time Developer : User Group 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 couple of BIG upcoming user group events

jacobcy — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 04:06:00 GMT

I'm taking a bit of a breather from all of my event travel of the last few weeks, but I wanted to make sure that you, my loyal blog readers, have advanced notice of a couple large developer conferences coming up in October.

For those of you in the North Central area of the US, the 2006 Annual Heartland Developers Conference will be coming up in Omaha, NE on October 26 and 27 (two days!!!). There is a great collection of speakers, although it appears that anyone can get their name on the list (look at the 4th one down). Added bonus: one of the web buttons has this Charleton Heston-looking fellow, which inspires confidence in me (and strangely, the urge to pick up some automatic weapons the next time I'm at my neighborhood pawn shop).

If you don't live in North Central, don't despair - the devLink Technical Conference is drawing a great set of speakers ('yours truly' not included... this time around) on October 13 in Nashville, TN. This event is free and has lots of great prizes (scroll down to the bottom of the page) - everyone loves prizes, so check this one out :-D

They don't have a Charleton Heston look-alike, but Nashville is one fine-looking city:

Coming soon to downtown Chicago: Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office

jacobcy — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 05:59:00 GMT

The Chicago Access Users Group (CAUG) has cordially invited me to present in April at their monthly meeting! See below for the details. The meeting is open to everybody - hope to see you there :-)

Microsoft Office is more than a killer productivity suite. Pair it with development tools and it's a full-fledged SmartClient platform. This session provides a great introduction to Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office, where you'll see how code and the object model are more tightly integrated between Visual Studio and Office documents than ever before. We'll explore the wide variety of solution techniques, including data binding, using the actions pane, and writing managed add-ins for Outlook. Plus you'll see great new features such as data caching and server-side access to data in documents.

When: Thursday, April 27, 2006, 6-8 pm
Where: The Information Management Group
       200 W. Monroe St. Suite 900
       Chicago, IL 60606
       (312) 222-9400
       Location: www.imginc.com/IMG/About+IMG/chicago.htm

Heartland Developers Conference 2005 - October 12-14

jacobcy — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 18:57:00 GMT

Some friends of mine are running a pretty serious developer conference for the North Central area of the Midwest:

2 Days

..2 Technology Keynotes

..16 90-Minute Breakout Sessions

..Top Conference Presenters

..500+ Regional Developers

..2 Networking Events

..Free Wi-Fi internet access during the event

Only $75 bucks.

HDC is the largest annual, independently run regional developer event in the United States. HDC is run by developers, for developers.

Click here for the full details and to register. Centrally located in Cedar Rapids, IA, this event is a great opportunity to hear from some of the most well-known .NET speakers, including Rocky Lhotka and Rob Howard.

Homework from Rockford, IL

jacobcy — Wed, 11 May 2005 02:55:00 GMT

2 things to share:

1) Two articles to explore in more detail what we discussed in today's event:

Programming with Web Services Enhancements 2.0 - this article includes a section entitled "TCP Messaging" which explains how to set up TCP-based web services.
XML Options in Microsoft SQL Server 2005 - this article addresses the key approaches to working with XML on SQL Server 2005 and compares these different approaches. Does not sufficiently include HTTP endpoints, which are less of a hassle than SQLXML web services (i.e. no need for SQLXML library on client machine, don't require IIS, and do not introduce vulnerability from SQL statements embedded in URLs).

2) A user group is forming in Rockford, IL. I don't have all of the details to share, but for now, if you are interested in joining the ranks of membership for the Rockford, IL .NET User Group (official name TBD), email me and I will add your name and email address to the list that I will be compiling to share exclusively with the user group founders.

Regards,
Jacob

New developments at South Central Indiana .NET Users Group

jacobcy — Tue, 03 May 2005 00:00:00 GMT

My friend Eric Hammersley, who is developing the South Central Indiana .NET Users Group (SCI-NUG) to serve Bloomington, IN and its environs, has planned some upcoming events and an Office Developer Pack Giveaway.

In brief, following the May 24 MSDN Event at the Bloomington Convention Center, we will reconvene next door at City Grille for a .NET Pub Club, starting around 5:15 PM. Think appetizers, all the soda you can drink, and lots of geek talk about software, hardware, technology in general. You name it, we'll talk about it. It's an informal way to unwind after a workday, so I hope to see you there.

Also, the following month, Chris Mayo, the renowned Microsoft developer evangelist from Chicago, will drop in on June 16 to speak. You don't want to miss that opportunity. He's a solid speaker who can help you get your questions answered.

The full details for both events are available at the SCI-NUG website, which no longer exists, as the group has disbanded and the site has been taken over by the adult entertainment industry.

Cheers,
Jacob

I will only be in Chicago for 10 full days of April...

jacobcy — Fri, 08 Apr 2005 16:05:00 GMT

And it's all so that I can present to .NET developers (except for a little bit of personal travel, of course). Even though I can't make it to every city each month for MSDN Events, I like to make my rounds to the user groups to see friendly faces and find out what's going on in the .NET world in your neck of the woods. I have listed below the 3 user group presentations I will be giving in April. I encourage you to stop in and join me for these events.

April 12, 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM - Wisconsin .NET Users Group (WI-NUG)
Topic: Need for Speed: .NET Performance Tuning
Click here for more info

April 19, 5:30PM - 8:00 PM - Michiana Area .NET Users Group (MADNUG)
Topic: Web Services Unleashed
Click here for more info

April 21, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM - South Central Indiana .NET Users Group (SCI-NUG)
Topic: Need for Speed: .NET Performance Tuning
Click here for more info

In the mean time, what other topics are pertinent to your career? What would you like to see me present the next time I come to visit?

Calling all Northeast Wisconsin .NET developers!

jacobcy — Wed, 06 Apr 2005 22:03:00 GMT

Those of you who attended the Appleton, WI MSDN Event this past Tuesday will recall the brief discussion at the end of the day about interest in a .NET user group in the area. Since there was a group in the past, and by the show of hands there was clearly interest in re-engaging as a community, I want to support this desire.

The fellow in the audience who took the informal survey about UG interest is Doug Waterman, a .NET instructor at Fox Valley Technical College. Doug spoke with me after the event and said that he would be interested in rekindling the .NET community, but he needs your help. Like any group, a user group only succeeds with the support and involvement of the community. If you are a .NET developer in the northeast Wisconsin area, email Doug Waterman to let him know that you are interested in being a member. That way, you can stay in the loop as the group develops and you won't risk missing the first meeting :-)

Brand-spankin' new user group in my district!

jacobcy — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 21:21:00 GMT

I feel privileged to announce the newest .NET user group in the tri-state area of IL, IN, and WI:

SCI-NUG aka South Central Indiana .NET Users Group

Based in Bloomington, IN, SCI-NUG was formed by Eric Hammersley to be a forum for .NET experts and enthusiasts to share knowledge and insight with one another (full mission statement can be read here)

The opening session (read: initial meeting) will be held on Thursday, March 17 at 6:00 PM in the Monroe County Public Library Meeting Room 1C (full details here).

Two weeks before the event, I will also be in the area, presenting the quarterly Bloomington, IN MSDN Event on 3/1 at 1:00 PM, with a .NET Pub Club to follow afterward (you can think of it as a pre-UG warm-up). Eric has recommended the Upland Brewing Company as a home for the day's Pub Club - they seem to have an extensive selection of drafts (always a positive in my book), so I have made it official. Plan on swinging over to Upland after the MSDN Event to enjoy some heady libations and warm conversation.

Follow-up to 2/10 IndyNDA Presentation

jacobcy — Fri, 11 Feb 2005 07:28:00 GMT

First, a blast from the past: remember those Rold Gold pretzels about which I waxed poetic when I discovered that they maintained their crunch 2 months later. Well, I had a 3 hour drive to Indianapolis this afternoon for the UG presentation and I saw them once again in the cabinet. Not having much else snackable to take with me, I shrugged, grabbed the bag and started on my way.

[Temporary jump off-topic] My bedroom growing up was in the basement of a ranch house in DeWitt, NY. It was a finished basement and relatively clean, but potato bugs did have a habit of coming in from the cold for the winter. There was also this "basement smell" - not quite musty, but not quite fresh either.

[Back to the pretzel story] When I took the first handful of preztels, everything seemed fine. Another 5 months of compounded aging had very little effect on these pretzels. As I continued to consume the pretzels, I suddenly had thoughts of my childhood. I didn't immediately understand why, until I noticed that the aftertaste from the pretzels was now the very same "basement smell" I had grown up with. Needless to say, I still finished all of the pretzels - despite the somewhat unpleasant aftertaste, they *did* still keep their crunch quite well.

In a couple hours I had made it to Indy, but not after passing a truck with the traditional "We hire safe drivers - call 800-XXX-XXXX for comments" with the entire latter portion painted over. One would think that this driver was either a) not a very accurate painter or possibly b) not, in fact, a very safe driver. I was somewhat nervous being in his vicinity, so I gunned my engine and sped past him.

I was presenting my "Need For Speed - Windows Forms Performance Tuning" session (available as an on-demand webcast) and the UG members became very animated and interactive, asking lots of questions and discussing different approaches to testing and optimizing performance. I got to see some folks who had previously attended my MSDN Events in the area and invited everyone else to my upcoming event in March. As promised, I have included links to additional information below, including the code we discussed in the session (available within the 2 articles).

This session was adapted from

How To: Use CLR Profiler
How To: Time Managed Code Using QueryPerformanceCounter and QueryPerformanceFrequency

Both of these articles are part of the 'patterns and practices' guide: Improving .NET Application Performance

I want to take a moment to thank Brad Jones for inviting me to present, the entire IndyNDA board for putting together such a cohesive user group, and all of the folks who came to my session tonight. I had a great time and hope to present again for you all soon!

Happy Coding,
Jacob

PS On the way back, due to my unforeseen pretzel shortage, when I stopped for gas, I also picked up some of those delicious Twizzler Cherry Nibs. You know the ones I'm talking about - the Twizzlers that look like factory rejects, but taste "oh, so delicious".

WI .NET UG Deeper in .NET Event Coming in March 2005

jacobcy — Tue, 09 Nov 2004 00:13:00 GMT

The Wisconsin .NET Users Group is planning their third annual full-day .NET event, packed with some of the top speakers around, including Scott Guthrie, Rob Howard, Rocky Lhotka, Jason Beres, and Chris Mayo. Visit the WI .NET UG site to learn more and register - selected details follow:

This is our 3rd annual day-long event and it will be our best ever. In 2003, we held our first event and had 220 people attend. It was incredible to feel the excitement as many people in our community were first introduced to .NET. Then, in 2004, we held our second annual event and had 260 people attend. Again, the enthusiasm of attendees, the brilliance of our speakers, and the support of our sponsors enabled us to exceed expectations on all counts. Now, with our 2005 event on the horizon, the bar of expectations has been set even higher.

Deeper in .NET 2005! is going to blow your wildest expectations away!

We have the best combination of our group's all-time favorite speakers along with new speakers that hail from high places in Redmond. It's simply amazing to think of the experience we're in for on March 5, 2005. We'll keep updating this page as more information is finalized. We're confident you'll continue to be amazed as you see how things unfold for this event, however, we want to give you a sneak peek at the best-of-the-best speakers who will be presenting...

For more info, surf here - http://www.wi-ineta.org/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabid=41

PS I'm not very versed in HTML - where can I go to learn how to effectively frame the image, like in Word?

CNUG Day of .NET and .NET Job Fair

jacobcy — Tue, 19 Oct 2004 03:58:00 GMT

Chicago .NET Users Group is hosting a Day of .NET on October 30th in Palatine, IL. RSVP online by noon on October 27th.

For more information and to RSVP, visit http://www.cnug.org/index.html.

The Chicago .NET Users Group invites you to attend the 5th Annual Day of .NET conference on October 30^th. There will be 3 tracks featured, several industry leading .NET experts presenting, as well as a .NET Job Fair.

A Day of .NET is for you if ...

You're a beginner or a veteran developer
Looking for a component, tool, or an expert .NET consultant to accelerate your .NET development effort
Looking for a new position or recruiting .NET talent
Have a nagging question about a project
Want to walk away with a cool raffle like a PocketPC