Jim O'Neil's Blog : Maine

Bring a Friend, Get a Book

joneil — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT

As you know, Chris and I are in the middle of our Fall/Winter 2009 Northeast Roadshow, with four more stops scheduled for early December:

Now there’s even more incentive to attend! In addition to the WIN7 code referenced in my previous blog post, we’re incorporating a “Bring a friend, get a book” promotion for the rest of our venues (our colleagues down the East coast are doing the same, by the way). Here’s how to take advantage of the offer:

Follow the registration link above for the desired venue
For the referral code, enter the name of the friend you’re bringing along, OR if you’ve already registered, have your friend enter your name when she or he registers (see below).
When you check-in at the event, we’ll hand each of you a copy of Laurence Moroney’s Introducing Microsoft Silverlight 3.

Obligatory Fine Print:

Government employees are not eligible for promotion
Both parties must be present to win
If onsite supply runs out, books will be mailed to recipients

Northeast Roadshow: 3 Down, 4 to Go

joneil — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:52:58 GMT

Thanks to the folks in Burlington, Vermont, and Troy and Rochester, New York, for coming to the latest edition of the Northeast Roadshow last week. Given the timing (PDC this week and the Thanksgiving holiday next week), Chris and I are on a short break before we resume the series on December 3rd. There’s still room at all the remaining venues, AND we’ve got a special deal for you:

If you’re among the first seven at each venue to register with the code WIN7, we’ll hand you a copy of the MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-536) Microsoft .NET Framework Application Development Foundation, Second edition at the event!

Given what I heard just today -- and PDC hasn’t officially started yet -- we’ll have a lot to talk about at the upcoming venues (I’m already contemplating a few updates to my presentations and demos!). You can get the full agenda here, but the topics we’ll be discussing include

WCF
Model-View-ViewModel with Silverlight and Expression Blend
Avenues to get technical help on Microsoft technologies
LINQ fundamentals
ASP.NET Web Forms and Ajax

Northeast Roadshow and More!

joneil — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 04:05:00 GMT

Get those calendars out! Chris and I will be hitting the road again this September bringing you the latest and greatest developer topics from Microsoft. It’s the Northeast Roadshow: Food for Thoughts Tour, the same brand you know and love with a few twists…

We’re visiting more venues (seven in all), including a return to Albany/Troy, NY and new stops in Manchester, NH and Warwick, RI.
For four stops we’re piggybacking off of the TechNet Unleashed: Game On Tour, meaning great IT Pro content in the morning (courtesy of your IT Professional Evangelist, Dan Stolts) , followed by the developer content that is the Northeast Roadshow!

Note, TechNet Unleashed and the Northeast Roadshow are two distinct events, so if you want to attend both, be sure to sign up for each event separately. The dates, venues, and registration links are right below, followed by the Northeast Roadshow agenda and then the TechNet Unleashed agenda.

City	Date	Event	Registration Link
Manchester NH	Sep. 10	1 – 6 p.m.	Northeast Roadshow
Rochester NY	Sep. 18	10 a.m – 3:30 p.m.	Northeast Roadshow
Troy NY	Sep. 22	8:30 a.m. – noon	TechNet Unleashed
Troy NY	Sep. 22	1 – 6 p.m.	Northeast Roadshow
Waltham MA	Sep. 23	1 – 6 p.m.	Northeast Roadshow
Augusta ME	Sep. 24	8:30 a.m. – noon	TechNet Unleashed
Augusta ME	Sep. 24	1 - 6 p.m.	Northeast Roadshow
Farmington CT	Sep. 29	8:30 a.m. – noon	TechNet Unleashed
Farmington CT	Sep. 29	1 – 6 p.m.	Northeast Roadshow
~~Warwick RI~~	~~Oct. 6~~	~~8:30 a.m. - noon~~	~~TechNet Unleashed~~
~~Warwick RI~~	~~Oct. 6~~	~~1 – 6 p.m.~~	~~Northeast Roadshow~~

[Updated 8/1: Due to venue logistics, we’re unable to visit Warwick on this edition of the Roadshow, but we’re hoping to add it to next quarter’s series.]

Northeast Roadshow: Food for Thoughts Tour

After a long summer, you’re probably hungry for more tools and techniques to feed your development efforts. Touring the northeast this fall for the tenth Roadshow, road and code warriors Jim O’Neil and Chris Bowen have cooked up a select menu of sessions that are sure to please the heartiest of appetites. From current tools and technologies to practical insights, there is plenty to digest!

Reservations are required, so register today for a seating at these free and relaxed technology events.

You’ll see how Chris and Jim handle the heat of the demo kitchen, dish out knowledge, and pepper guests with half-baked humor, all the while being grilled by audience questions.

The Agenda – A Four Course Meal for the Mind

(Rochester attendees, note that program starts at 10 a.m.)

1:00 PM – Essential Patterns, Practically Served

Design patterns, they’re important but often presented with unappetizing formality, like getting only the oat bits from a box of marshmallow cereal. We’ll sample a small set of key patterns, but also show you how free frameworks and tools (such as Enterprise Library, Prism, Unity, Velocity, and others) put each of those patterns directly into practice – so you can too. You’ll leave with a mind full of practical technology and a healthy understanding of how to turn underlying patterns into recipes for success.

2:15 PM – 7-Up(grade) Your Applications

Refresh your existing applications by pouring in some the new features of Windows 7 via the managed-code Windows API Code Pack. We’ll quench your thirst for how to incorporate the Taskbar, jumplists, and Libraries by taking the cap off an existing Windows Forms application and adding new capabilities, all the while retaining compatibility for your XP and Vista users. We’ll have you bubbling with excitement, able to give your applications that extra pop.

3:30 PM – Silverlight Snacks that Satisfy

There’s a generous amount of delicious ingredients in Silverlight 3 and we’re going to focus deeply on some of the most enriching. We’re going beyond the standard fare in this code-heavy session to create an application that leverages the new out-of-browser and offline execution features, local and remote connections, local data storage, and more. You’ll see that Silverlight 3 applications can be fortified with features so they can go well beyond being eye candy.

4:45 PM – Chips off the .NET Block

As seasoned developers, we know there’s a mix of options on the trail to implementing requirements. From staples like value types vs. reference types, interfaces vs. classes, Strings vs. StringBuilder, to other more exotic ingredients you may have yet tried, this session will dip into ways to leverage .NET, offering a taste of the impact they have on code execution, performance, and extensibility.

5:50 PM – “Check Please!” – We’ll box any leftovers, collect your comment cards, and distribute an array of giveaways.

TechNet Unleashed: Game On Tour!

After a long summer, you’re probably ready to get your game on with some tools and techniques to speed up your IT strategy. Touring this fall, the East Region TechNet team of John Baker, Dan Stolts, Blain Barton and Yung Chou are bringing you a game plan of sessions that are sure to spike your productivity. From current tools and technologies to practical insights, there will be plenty of action for everyone!

Reservations are required, so register today for a seat at this free and fun technology event.

1st Down: Migrating Windows XP to Windows 7: Get it Done with the Microsoft Deployment Tools
You've gotten the handoff on upgrading your desktops from Windows XP™ to Windows 7™ and you know there isn't a direct upgrade path, so what’s the best strategy? This session will give you the answers and tools that will make your migration from Windows XP to Windows 7 an easy touchdown. First we’ll discuss standalone migrations using standard methodologies. Then we’ll explore large scale migrations with the Microsoft Deployment Tool Kit 2010 technologies, covering the "Lite-Touch” Installation (LTI) method leveraging User State Hard-Link Migration which will minimize network traffic and get the migration done in a timelier manner. What tools will we use? The User State Migration Tool (USMT) in the Automated Installation Toolkit (AIK) has everything you need to kick off the migration and deploy Windows 7 without a single fumble.

2nd Down: DirectAccess™ With Windows 7: No More VPN!!
Looking for ways to save some money and enable better employee productivity on the road? Tired of being unable to VPN from certain remote locations? Then DirectAccess is the solution you’re looking for! What is DirectAccess? DirectAccess provides secure, seamless, always-on networking and represents a fundamental shift in the way network boundaries are defined and how access is managed. It provides a consistent experience regardless of location, device, or network topology. It “just works” and accommodates today’s flexible “offices” and requirements for remote connectivity. Not only does it give an “always on the corporate network” experience for end users, but it also provides administrators the ability to manage remote machines through the DirectAccess connection. That's right, if it’s connected to the Internet, it’s connected to the corporate network… SECURELY, and therefore the manageability of remote resources is greatly improved. This session will explain in detail what DirectAccess is and will demonstrate how to configure both the client and server components of DirectAccess.

3rd Down: Optimizing Your Environment with Remote Desktop Services™ and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
You’ve been successfully using Terminal Services for some time now and have enjoyed the ability to centrally manage your remote desktop environment. But there have been challenges in Terminal Services. Interference issues such as printer drivers, applications that take resources away from other users, and users wanting to remote to a desktop instead of the server. Windows Server 2008 R2 represents a paradigm shift in remote connectivity. Come and see how the next generation of terminal services, now called Remote Desktop Services (RDS), can take you to the next level. RDS has been expanded to include Hyper-V integration for deploying virtual machine-based desktops in addition to the standard session-based remote connectivity. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is an emerging desktop optimization vehicle and delivery architecture to centralize the storage, execution, and management of desktops in a data center. In this session we will examine the architecture, essential services, and user experience of RDS and VDI while walking through deployment scenarios based on business requirements.

4th Down: Score!
We’ll call it a day, collect your surveys, and you just might score one of the day’s giveaways.

Happy New Year!

joneil — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 22:36:00 GMT

Yes, you’re still recovering from Fourth of July festivities, and, no, I didn’t get too much sun over the long weekend. July 1st indeed starts a new year, a new fiscal year, at Microsoft, and with that comes some intense planning for the coming 12 months – budgets, sales quotas, annual reviews, etc. For us, the Developer Platform and Evangelism team (DPE), specifically it’s a time for planning out our various events and road shows as well as fostering community activities like code camps and ‘firestarters.’

So what’s the best way to keep on top of all these happenings during the upcoming year?

MSDN Flash – subscribe here and enter your ZIP code to get localized content from Chris Bowen and myself in the Northeast. Our colleagues in other regions likewise add their own local flair to the bi-weekly newsletter.
Community Megaphone – on my blog’s sidebar is a feed showing the events in the Northeast district, but you can visit the main site and see what’s going on around the country.
Follow your evangelists’ blogs. Well, you found mine and the rest of the members of the East region developer evangelist family are listed in my blog’s sidebar.
Get involved in a User Group. In the Northeast, we have nearly three-dozen active groups focused on various aspects of Microsoft technologies, and there’s many more independent groups focused on complementary topics like JavaScript, Web technologies, and user experience as well. There’s no better way to hear about activities than being part of those activities yourself. It’s a double-win: you stay abreast of technology, and you meet some great people in the process.

2009 Summer Northeast Roadshow

joneil — Sun, 03 May 2009 06:04:51 GMT

Chris, Bob, and I are hitting the road again in June to bring the developer and architect community another all-day, free event – this time covering topics including Windows 7, ASP.NET MVC, WPF, Silverlight, and more.

We’ll be visiting five locations across the region; just click the site link below to register.

Wednesday, June 10	Williston, Vermont
Friday, June 12	Rochester, New York
Tuesday, June 16	Waltham, Massachusetts
Thursday, June 18	Augusta, Maine
Wednesday, June 24	Farmington, Connecticut

The Agenda – Jim, Bob, and Chris in “Client Side Story”:
Tales of Browser, OS, and Application Technologies

8:00 – Bypass the ticket booth, grab a coffee and a seat (but of course you’ll only need the edge…)

8:30 – Windows 7: A “Dev Story”
“Windows 7 means never having to say you’re sorry…” There’s a lot to love in Windows 7, and in this session we’ll take a look at the foundation of any enduring relationship – compatibility. As you move on from your days with Vista, you may be surprised at how comfortable Windows 7 is; you don’t have to completely reinvent yourself (or your applications) just to get along. Of course, the newest OS on the block also brings with it the allure and excitement of new features – multi-touch, jump lists, and the scenic ribbon – and who doesn’t want to show that off! Leave your tissues at home, we promise a happy ending to this one.

9:50 – “Desperately Seeking Silverlight” – Developing with Silverlight, Today and Tomorrow
Searching the newspapers for something new to spice up the day-to-day life of your applications? Silverlight is that cool jacket your applications can wear to attract a new world of interest. In this session, we’ll take a brief look at what you can accomplish in today’s world with Silverlight 2 development using .NET and XAML for a great client experience. Then, it’s time for a sneak preview of the coming attractions of Silverlight 3, including out-of-browser support, new graphics to video options, productivity and performance improvements. We’ll also take a look at the very cool features coming in Expression Blend 3. Answer your customers’ want ads with Silverlight, and get ready for a mob of new followers!

11:10 – “Data Quest” – Pinning Down Approaches to Data Access
Your applications are growing up, and it’s time to graduate from DataReaders and DataSets. Want to get your applications in shape, but wrestling with the concepts of multiple data access options like ADO.NET, LINQ to SQL, and Entity Framework? This match session will pull you back from the lunatic fringe by going to the mat with these data technologies and helping focus a vision for your application’s data requirements

12:00 – “Nightmare on IE Street” – Adding IE8 Web Slices and Accelerators to Your Web Site
The reality is that supporting multiple browsers can be a nightmare. In this session, we will review how to handle browser compatibility and how to take advantage of IE8 Web Slices and Accelerators. A Web Slice enables users to subscribe to content directly within a Web page, without requiring a separate RSS feed file. Accelerators are contextual menu options that can quickly access applications or Web services from any Web page. Not all slicing needs to be the stuff of terror, and understanding IE8 will make your web pages a dream for your users, while striking fear into your competition.

1:00 – “20,000 Leagues under the MVC” – Diving into ASP.NET MVC
Setting sail on the web can be an uncertain proposition. Tales of peril abound of sites that have sunk and never been seen since. ASP.NET with WebForms has always been a trusty vessel, worthy of the voyage, but a new design has just left dry dock. Now officially released, ASP.NET MVC 1.0 is a new option for creating web applications that makes it easy to have fine-grained control over how pages in your web application are generated, encourages separation of concerns, and fosters testability. In this session, we’ll focus on learning to build a new site with ASP.NET MVC, while sharing advice to help you decide when to choose MVC or WebForms. MVC’s fine-grained control and implementation flexibility can be keys to navigating what can be a turbulent sea of changing requirements and market demands. Captain a site with ASP.NET MVC, and you may find that it’s not monsters under the surface, but hidden treasure instead.

2:10 – “The Coding of WPF 1 2 3” – Ribbons, Grids, Threads, and More
When the stakes are high, you don’t need to be held hostage by the old ways of doing things. Jump on the WPF train and break free of those UI bonds. In this code-heavy session, we will demonstrate the power of WPF with the new Office/Windows 7 Ribbon Control, the new WPF Grid Control, and how to leverage background threads to make your user interface scream. When having the richest client experience is a non-negotiable requirement, you can be the hero, saving the day with WPF.

3:30 – Wrap-up, giveaways, and the mad dash for the exits!

Northeast Roadshow Update

joneil — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 18:13:08 GMT

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but unfortunately we need to cancel the Albany venue on the upcoming Northeast Roadshow series. For those of you that signed up, we will be providing our materials on-line and preparing screencasts as well post-show. I realize that’s a small consolation, and I’ll miss catching up with the folks there, but this is one of those developments that has come down from ‘on high.’ Of course, we welcome you to join us in Burlington or Rochester… not exactly around the corner, but hey “Road Trip!”

There’s spots at all of the remaining shows open, here’s the schedule and links to registration. Hope to see you on the road.

Burlington, VT	KnowledgeWave 30 Community Drive Suite 5 South Burlington, VT	Tue., March 10	register now!
Rochester, NY	Rochester Institute of Technology Golisano Auditorium Rochester, NY	Thur., March 12	register now!
Hartford, CT	The Hartford Wallace Stevens Theater 690 Asylum Avenue Hartford, CT	Wed., March 18	register now!
Augusta, ME	Central Maine Commerce Center Florian Hall 45 Commerce Drive Augusta, ME	Thur., March 19	register now!
Waltham, MA	Microsoft Office 201 Jones Road Suite 600 Waltham, MA	Mon., March 23	register now!

Northeast Roadshow – March Madness Edition

joneil — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 13:53:00 GMT

~~Updated 12 noon, Feb. 16th – Albany venue added!!!~~

Updated 10 a.m., Mar 6th – Albany venue cancelled :(

It's that time again, we're packing up the Griswold-mobile, stocking up on jerky, and refreshing our Starbucks cards for another swing through the Northeast District.

The Northeast Roadshow is an all-day, free event focusing on delivering information you can use as a .NET developer and providing insights on where Microsoft is heading with technologies like cloud computing.

I’m also happy to announce the “Return of Bob.” Yes, the team is back together: Chris Bowen, Bob Familiar, and I will be taking our unique blend of technical content and wit back on the road beginning on March 10th.

The Where: Roadshow Venues

Burlington, VT	KnowledgeWave 30 Community Drive Suite 5 South Burlington, VT	Tue., March 10	register now!
~~Albany, NY~~	Autotask 26 Tech Valley Drive East Greenbush, NY	~~Wed., March 11~~	~~register now!~~
Rochester, NY	Rochester Institute of Technology Golisano Auditorium Rochester, NY	Thur., March 12	register now!
Hartford, CT	The Hartford Wallace Stevens Theater 690 Asylum Avenue Hartford, CT	Wed., March 18	register now!
Augusta, ME	Central Maine Commerce Center Florian Hall 45 Commerce Drive Augusta, ME	Thur., March 19	register now!
Waltham, MA	Microsoft Office 201 Jones Road Suite 600 Waltham, MA	Mon., March 23	register now!

N.B., our Burlington and Hartford sites have changed for this tour.

The What: Roadshow Agenda

8:00 AM – Registration

8:30 AM – "Top Dev": Effective .NET Developer Practices

Aiming to be the top gun that your colleagues turn to when things get intense? Of course you are, but it's not always easy locking onto the practices and tools that can help. We'll zero in on the essential maneuvers: ways to write effective .NET code, analysis and measurement tools, the latest tech from the Patterns & Practices group, testing, Visual Studio techniques, and more. Of course, we don't have a cool 80's soundtrack or motorcycles and jets to ride around the room, but we think helping you avoid the danger zone where other projects crash and burn is a decent substitute.

9:50 AM – Head in the Cloud, Feet on the Ground: An Introduction to Windows Azure

Don't get the blues wondering what cloud computing has to offer, join us as we look toward Windows Azure, Microsoft’s operating system for the cloud, providing a set of core capabilities for hosting scalable web applications and services. The Azure Services Platform builds on that, offering SQL and .NET Services to cloud applications. This session will introduce the concepts of cloud computing and Windows Azure, but keep things grounded by demonstrating porting applications that leverage ASP.NET, WCF, and SQL Server to the Azure environment. By the end of this session, your understanding of cloud computing will soar to new heights!

11:10 AM – Top Things Developers Should Know About SQL Server

Data is every developer's friend. The kind of friend that follows everywhere we go, tells embarrassing jokes, knocks on our door late and stays overnight, eating everything in the kitchen. Okay, so sometimes data can be unruly and we just can't delete it, but SQL Server is here to help. In this turbo session, we'll run through the key things developers should know about programming with SQL Server to not only keep data in line, but to get it off the couch and put it to work.

12:00 PM – "Workin' 9 to (12 then 1 to) 5" - A Lunchtime Look at XNA Development

We've got a day full of proper corporate day job type content, so we'll take a break from all of that at lunchtime to talk about games - your games. XNA is a free game development platform based on .NET that helps to make developing 2D and 3D games for Windows, XBOX 360, and the Zune easy. We'll introduce XNA, show you around the XNA world, then create a simple 2D game from scratch to give you a feel for the mechanics of XNA. So grab some food and join us to learn how you can put those same C# skills that pay the bills by day to creating your own games by night (or lunch.)

1:00 PM – Understanding the Buzz Around F#

You're comfortable with your .NET language of choice, but there's been quite a bit of buzz about the new F# language, and we'll explain why. F# is a typed functional programming language for the Microsoft .NET Framework that also features Visual Studio integration. It can make challenging tasks easier by combining functional programming with imperative and dynamic concepts along with the runtime, libraries, tools, and object model of .NET. We’ll also see how F# can tame the complexity of parallel and asynchronous I/O programming. Come and see what this new "first class" .NET language (available as a CTP now and to ship as part of Visual Studio 2010) can offer your development projects, and join in the buzz.

2:00 PM – At Your Break(ing) Point?: .NET Debugging Techniques

Are F5 and F9 the extent of your debugging repertoire? Not any longer! We’ll get your bug squashing chops in shape with this practical look at documented (and undocumented) features of the Visual Studio Debugger. So you don’t write buggy code? We’ll show you how to debug ours by incorporating the .NET Reference source in your projects. And we’ll cap it off with a teaser of some ultra-cool debugging features coming in Visual Studio 2010. If we’ve done our job, you’ll leave this session *wanting* to write bad code just to try this stuff out!

3:30 PM– Wrapup, Giveaways, and Bon Voyage!

Another Roadshow Gone By

joneil — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 23:55:54 GMT

As I write this post, I'm looking out the window at the first ~~two~~ four inches of what promises to be a bona-fide Winter storm - a fitting end to the 2008 Winter Northeast Roadshow series. As always, it was great to see familiar faces, as well as a number of new ones. We experienced a significant up tick in attendance in Albany and Augusta, as well as a great showing at our last (and new) location in Nashua, New Hampshire. We're already planning our content for the next series - after all, what else do Chris and I have to talk about during all those hours on the road together!

We'd really like to thank those of you who attended for taking an entire day out of your busy schedule to join us. And we especially want to thank our hosts at the various venues who make the Roadshow possible:

Cheryl McLean at the Golisano Auditorium, RIT, in Rochester, New York.
Vermont Technical College in Williston, Vermont.
Donna Bonacquisti at Autotask in East Greenbush, New York.
John Gagnon for going above and beyond the call in filling the Florian Auditorium in Augusta, Maine!
Gen Baudin at Daniel Webster College for both providing the venue and running point on site for us.

So lastly, before I put on my kerchief and settle in for my long winter's nap, I wanted to provide links to the materials that I presented (or co-presented), namely

Using Services in Windows Workflow (SkyDrive link)

http://msdn.com/wf
http://msdn.com/wf/future
http://endpoint.tv

Adventures in Silverlight Data Access (SkyDrive link)

http://silverlight.net
http://msdn.com/silverlight
http://msdn.com/wcf
http://msdn.com/wcf/rest
http://msdn.com/data

Lunch in the Labs: A Look at Tools & Tech from Microsoft Research (SkyDrive link)

http://research.microsoft.com
http://research.microsoft.com/techfest

Both the slides and the completed demos are available on my SkyDrive via the links above. And I've included some other relevant links as well; most of these were included on our newsletter handout at the various events.

Look for information on Chris' presentations on his blog post, and he's kindly provided individual links for each of the Microsoft Research presentations as well... (yeah, I'm a slacker!)

On the Road With Chris and Jim

joneil — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 18:05:47 GMT

Chris and I in Williston, Vermont, on the first leg of our Winter Roadshow.... emphasis on Winter as you can see from the photo taken as we headed out from our hotel to the first venue in Rochester.

We've got four more shows coming up over the next two weeks (including our new venue in Nashua), so if you haven't signed up yet, there's still space at all of them. You'll get some great information on the trinity of WPF, WCF, and WF, as well as some ASP.NET AJAX, jQuery, and Silverlight thrown in for good measure. Hope to see you there!

Farmington, CT	Tuesday, December 9th
Waltham, MA	Monday, December 15th
Augusta, ME	Tuesday, December 16th
Nashua, NH	Thursday, December 18th

Northeast Roadshow - Winter Edition

joneil — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 06:47:06 GMT

Whoa! It seems like I've just finished my laundry from our last outing, and now Chris and I are heading back out for the Winter Roadshow. We're brewing up a new slate of content for you, including jQuery and ASP.NET 3.5 AJAX, WPF, WF, Silverlight and WCF/REST, and even some interesting things from Microsoft Research!

We're returning to the same six cities we visited in the fall (register via the city links below); there's a few new venues in the mix so make sure you read the fine print.

Rochester, NY	Tuesday, December 2nd
Albany, NY	Wednesday, December 3rd
Burlington, VT	Thursday, December 4th
Farmington, CT	Tuesday, December 9th
Waltham, MA	Monday, December 15th
Augusta, ME	Tuesday, December 16th

THE AGENDA (N.B. Rochester starts 30 minutes earlier.)

8:30

Registrate, Caffeinate, Situate

9:00

Morning TechUpdate

Before we dive into the sessions, we’ll take some time to update you on the latest news, tools and technology from the developer world.

9:15

Turbo Boosting for Web Developers: Using jQuery and ASP.NET 3.5 AJAX

Like things that help you go faster? Of course! That’s why we’re focusing this session on the powerful set of features that jQuery and ASP.NET 3.5 offer web developers. We’ll get up to speed with jQuery, a popular open source JavaScript library with powerful features, a concise syntax with chained commands, but at the same time is fully extensible via a plugin-based architecture. Microsoft will be distributing jQuery (as-is) with Visual Studio going forward, and offers IntelliSense support for jQuery as well. We’ll complement that with a look at the latest in ASP.NET 3.5 AJAX with Visual Studio 2008 to provide extra code-writing acceleration along the way. Like hitting “Boost” in your favorite racing game, jQuery and ASP.NET 3.5 AJAX will have you speeding toward great rich internet applications in no time!

10:45

Workflow Foundation (WF) Steals the Show

As Shakespeare put it, “All the world’s a stage”, and WPF and WCF love to bask in the limelight, but now it’s time for their cousin, Windows Workflow Foundation, to assume the leading role. We’ll go beyond the usual introductory demos to show that, despite lacking a third letter in its acronym, WF is a very powerful environment for building robust and scalable applications that capture complex and real-world business processes. From dashing good looks (a visual designer which you can even host in your own applications) to dazzling abilities such as new options for integration with WCF (both as a service provider and consumer), resumable programmable activities as building blocks, and built-in services for persistence, transactions, scheduling and tracking, WF is a standout performer for any application. We’ll have Hamlet saying, “The Workflow’s the thing!”

12:00

Lunch in the Lab: A Look at Tools & Tech from Microsoft Research

Grab some lunch, get out your Bunsen burners and microscopes, and join us as we don lab coats and take a tour of the latest and greatest tools and technology from Microsoft Research. From developer tools that you can use today like CHESS and Pex, future tech like DryadLINQ, to the just plain cool of AutoCollage, Boku, and SecondLight, there’s a lot for us to experiment on. We promise not to set anything on fire in this lab, well, unless you ask nicely…

1:00

Deeper into Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) has a rich set of features to create visually appealing, high-performance applications on the .NET Framework with declarative markup. And perhaps you’ve seen the “hello world” demos and get the general idea. But you say “Great! What else can I do with it?” Funny you should ask, because that’s exactly what this session is about. After a brief introduction to WPF, we’ll dive into the host of new features that .NET 3.5 Service Pack 1 has brought – enhanced 3D capabilities, Visual Studio designer improvements, and more. We’ll cover important WPF topics such as interoperability with WinForms and achieving reuse via resources, templates, and user controls. Finally, we’ll round out the talk by showing the new WPF Toolkit, including new WPF controls like Calendar, DatePicker, and DataGrid. Now, aren’t you glad you asked?

2:30

Adventures in Data with Silverlight, WCF REST, and ADO.NET Data Services

You’ve heard that REST is the talk of the town (well, the really geeky part of town) these days, but what does it mean to you, someone who needs to get work DONE? Get ready to improve your Silverlight skills, because this session features a practical, code-based focus on the use of the new WCF REST Starter Kit, ADO.NET Data Services (formerly Astoria), and databinding techniques to tap the power of RESTful services. A from-scratch implementation will be created, using Silverlight to build a data-centric application covering concepts such as the WebClient and HTTPWebRequest objects, syndication formats, cross domain policy, and data binding in XAML.

3:50

Wrapup, Evals, and Giveaways

Free stuff.. does it get any better?

A huge thanks goes to the companies and organizations who volunteer their space for the Roadshow visits!

This time, we return to two venues that have been great hosts for previous Roadshows. In Rochester, NY, we again descend upon Rochester Institute of Technology's Golisano Auditorium. In Burlington, VT (well, Williston, actually), we return to Vermont Technical College.

In the Albany, NY area, Autotask has graciously offered their meeting facilities for the event.

Last, but by no means least, thanks to great support by the developer community in Maine (and a 100% packed room last time!), we're running the Roadshow in the much larger Florian Auditorium at the Central Maine Commerce Center.

Caching in ASP.NET Dynamic Data

joneil — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 05:12:19 GMT

One question that came up at my presentation to the Maine Bytes user group this week centered around the degree to which Dynamic Data will leverage ASP.NET caching. Given that the UI of a Dynamic Data site more or less comprises a small set of page and control templates, and it's often just the data that changes as you navigate, it would seem to be a great opportunity to cache the presentation markup. On the other hand, the on-the-fly nature of the page generation led me to suspect that there may not be much opportunity after all. At the time I didn't have as definitive an answer as I'd like... so I went to the source of all that is right and good -- engineering!

As explained to me, since the default templates are all wrapped in an AJAX UpdatePanel, the pages are pretty much going be re-rendered on every postback. If you use a tool like Fiddler, you can see empirically that this indeed is the case. Now some of the ways to avoid this is to move to more of an AJAX approach where client-processing can be leveraged more effectively, and that's a direction that the Dynamic Data team may look at as the feature matures. In the meantime, since it's ultimately just ASP.NET Web Forms under the covers, caching techniques and strategies that are appropriate for traditional, non-Dynamic Data ASP.NET sites would still be applicable here.

Now another aspect of caching is that of the data model and its attributes. The model *is* cached when registered via the MetaModel.RegisterContext method in the Application_Start event. That's great in terms of performance, given how frequently the model is consulted as the site pages are generated; however, a drawback (perhaps affecting just more advanced scenarios) is that you can't modify the model dynamically (such as by using a custom metadata provider) because the cache is not refreshed once initialized. Check out Marcin's post on that topic.