Is This Thing On?

Call for Speakers for Houston TechFest 2009, Sept. 26, 2009

From Mike:

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The 2009 Houston TechFest will be on Saturday Sept. 26.
They are looking for speakers on a range of topics on .Net.  If you would like to speak please send Michael Steinberg an email with an abstract of the topic you are interested in presenting.  Please send the abstract, a bio (including picture), and your shirt size to Speakers@HoustonTechFest.com.  Feel free to share this information with any others speakers you know who might be interested in presenting.  If you know someone who would like to be a sponsor have them email me at sponsors@houstontechfest.com.

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From Me:

Folks we are looking to make this TechFest one of the biggest ever.  We need your help to make it happen.  Make sure to help out any way you can by speaking and/or helping with sponsorship.  As the premiere free event in Houston, this is an opportunity for us to come together and just be techs for a day.  If you think you know someone who wants to sponsor this thing in some way, ANY way make sure to let Mike know so we can get them on the sponsor list.

SharePoint Saturday - Dallas - July 25th!!!

Join SharePoint architects, developers, and other professionals that work with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for the first ever SharePoint Saturday Dallas.  SharePoint Saturday is an educational, informative & lively day filled with sessions from respected SharePoint professionals & MVPs, covering a wide variety of SharePoint-orientated topics.  SharePoint Saturday is FREE, open to the public and is your local chance to immerse yourself in SharePoint. 

The agenda is broken into 3 tracks (Business, IT Pro, and Developer).  Everyone from end users to administrators to developers will find something of interest for them at this special event.  There will be lots of prize giveaways, and lunch will be provided.

To register: http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/dallas

RemoteWipe Configuration Service Provider

For the more security-oriented people out there here is some interesting information on how to remotely wipe mobile devices:

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The RemoteWipe Configuration Service Provider enables mobile operators to remotely wipe a device. RemoteWipe Configuration Service Provider will make the data stored in memory, storage cards, and hard disks difficult to recover if the device is remotely wiped after being lost or stolen.

The RemoteWipe Configuration Service Provider can be managed over both Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) Client Provisioning (formerly WAP Client Provisioning) and Open Mobile Alliance Device Management (OMA DM) protocols. Enterprise IT Professionals can update these settings by using the Exchange Server and ActiveSync.

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http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb737595.aspx

MSDN Webcast: Getting a Development Job in the Current Economy -- Open Question Forum Today @ 1pm Pacific!!!

This is final webcast in our series on getting a development job. Be sure to bring your questions and let our professional recruiters give their opinions on what you should do in your job search. The format is an open question and answer session in which we answer as many questions as we have time for.

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032418008&Culture=en-US

GoogleTV Beta Hoax

Thanks to Asit for sending this one to me.  This is hilarious! 

MSDN Webcast: Getting a Development Job in the Current Economy -- Social Networking Today @ 1pm Pacific!!

To Facebook or not to Facebook? Does using Facebook influence your chances of getting a job? What are the best ways to take advantage of social networks to increase your chances of landing that new position? Hang out with our recruiters and find out in part 4 of 5 in our series. In this webcast, we tell you what social networks to join and what to avoid to help you get a development job.

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032418005&EventCategory=4&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

MSDN Webcast: Getting a Development Job in the Current Economy -- Interview Tips Today @ 1pm Pacific

Okay, so you made it through the job interview. Congratulations! Now what? You still need to get past the one or more interviews that stand in between you and that great developer position.

Join us for Part 3 of 5 in this webcast series and hear from actual recruiters on what they look for in potential employees and how get through the interview process.

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032418002&EventCategory=4&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

MSDN Webcast: Getting a Development Job in the Current Economy -- Resume Building TODAY @ 1:00PM Pacific Time

Want to hear it straight from a recruiter?   we continue our series on getting a development job, and we explain how to build your resume to get an edge on the competition in this economy. What are the key things you need to know to distinguish your resume from all of the others in a heap of resumes? Come talk to an actual recruiter who can show you how to design your resume properly, so you can get the developer job you want.

Attendee Registration URL:

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032417999&Culture=en-US

Dynamic conditions: How to achieve multiple "OR" conditions with LINQ?

This question came up from Teresa B. a while back:

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I am trying to split a string to come up with multiple where statements that are OR’d together.  [...] 

I get results with the where clauses  and'd not or'd (sp?)

I found this…

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/linqprojectgeneral/thread/925b245d-5529-4a64-8cd4-4bc83ee6fe7a/

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After some digging, it appears the link she gave is one possible correct answer if you can't have add-ins and have to so pure code.  I dug around and agreed this was the best way for now.  Teresa later pinged a mutual friend, Zeeshan, and he suggested this:

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/01/07/dynamic-linq-part-1-using-the-linq-dynamic-query-library.aspx

Which is certainly a better solution IMHO.  So, in the end, the solution really depends on how you prefer to approach the problem.

Free C# and VB Coding Standards Reference Documents

A while back my good friend Clint Edmonson made some of his documents available to folks.  Here is some info:

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Over the years, I've had the pleasure (and sometimes pain) of being involved in writing and maintaining the internal coding standards documents for nearly every company I've ever worked for. I present to you the latest incarnations of my efforts: a zip file containing C# and VB.NET editions of my reference coding standards. I certainly don't expect everyone to agree with my standards but I hope by posting these, you can get a head start towards documenting your own. Grab them. Customize them. Share with your friends.

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http://www.notsotrivial.net/blog/post/2008/12/Holiday-Goodie-Bag-Free-C-and-VB-Coding-Standards-Reference-Documents.aspx

Random Coolness: Snicker's Snacklish

You have to try this one, very cool campaign for Snickers.

http://www.snacklish.com/

Register For Dallas TechFest, Win a Mac Mini!!!! Friday, June 19, 2009

YOU haven't registered for the TechFest?  Seriously?  Why not!?!  Do it!  Do it now or people will laugh at your feeble technical skills because you missed out on some serious goodness.  Here is what Tim Rayburn has to say about the event:

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No, you read that correctly.  If you follow the link below and register for Dallas TechFest 2009 between now and June 14th, 2009 you will be entered into a drawing to win a Mac Mini.  We've got lots of space around, so spread around the code to all your friends. Oh, and you'll also be getting $20 off the full ticket price on top of that.

Why tell your friends?  Because if your friends tell us on their registration that you referred them, then you get an entry into the drawing as well.  So spread the word on Twitter, your blog, your company's internal list, or anywhere else you think there are folks who would want to go to Dallas TechFest.

http://tinyurl.com/WinAMacMini

But wait ... you're telling me I'm losing out because I registered early?  Not at all!

Nope, we're giving away another Mac Mini as well, as a special thank you to all those who registered early.

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http://timrayburn.net/blog/register-for-dallas-techfest-win-a-mac-mini/

Get Your Azure Moving!!! .NET Dojo Azure Sessions with J Sawyer on June 19th in Houston and June 26th in Austin!

Windows Azure is the cloud services operating system that serves as the development, service hosting, and service management environment for the Azure Services Platform. Windows Azure provides you on-demand compute & storage to host, scale, and manage Web applications and services on the Internet in Microsoft data centers.

In this Dojo, we'll dig into how to work with Windows Azure to build applications that run in the cloud ... using the skills you have and the tools that you are familiar with. We'll introduce the key concepts in lecture and then immediately apply those concepts in hands on labs. At the end of the Dojo, you'll be able to create applications to leverage this platform and its functionality, including tables, blobs, queues and, of course, web sites.

Attendees will be expected to bring their own laptops with the prerequisites (below) to participate in the hands-on labs.

Prerequisites:

· Visual Studio 2008 Professional  (Trial OK)

· Visual Studio 2008 SP1

· Sql Server Express (2005 or 2008)

· Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio March 2009 CTP

· KB967631: Update for Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Debugger

Register Here:

Houston - June 19th

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032417335&Culture=en-US

Austin - June 26th

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032417334&Culture=en-US

Bing Maps SDK? Oh Yeah!

Neighbor, how long has it been since you had a big, think steaming bowl of Bing Maps goodness?  Well, that's too long!  You need to check out the Bing Maps SDKhere and get some geo love:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd877180.aspx

(many thanks to several folks who emailed me with the new info for Bing Maps, especially egcarter.  You rock!)

[ Wolf Brand Chili Commercial removed from YouTube so I deleted it from this post as well since I can't find it now :( ]

Walking the Dog :)

I recently found a new place to walk and took my dog Lily for a loooooong walk...

It looks desolate until you look to the right and see this...

All those white dots are Heron.  Needless to say Lily wanted to see if she could scare the birds :P