Topic: Care About Your Craft – Adventures in the art of software development
Whether you are writing your application in C# or Javascript, we are always looking for continuous improvement and to take a more pragmatic approach to our craft. These are lessons learned from past applications and projects, with an influence from the Pragmatic Programmer and many mentors, that will help build a positive culture around your projects.

Speaker: Tim Wingfield
Tim has been involved in web design and development for over 10 years. For the last three years Tim has been a developer with the Business Solutions Group at Quick Solutions Inc. in Columbus, OH. Tim has a wide range of knowledge in .Net but focuses on the user interface and the user experience in ASP.Net applications. He has been involved with many successful projects for clients in health care, government, and consumer services, among others. In what time is left over, Tim enjoys coaching his sons' hockey teams, playing a little hockey himself, and traveling with his family.

If you're not already planning to attend devLink in Nashville, I would HIGHLY recommend that you consider it. It's a two day conference in Nashville (August 22 – 23) and the cost is incredibly low: $50 before July 4 and $75 after. In order to cut costs further, some of our fellow .NETters in Arkansas are considering getting a bus together and picking some of us up on the way to the conference, so if you're interested in riding that bus, let me know at cneller@mnug.net

I hope to see you there!

From Tenelle Jones at New Horizons:

I have the following .NET class coming next Monday, July 7^th, and we need more registrations for this class.  We are having a "fire sell" on this particular date in order to try and get more folks.  I know this is an older technology but if you have anyone interested I will sell it to them for $2500-$1000= $1499!  For questions regarding this class you can connect with Tenelle Jones, Sales Manager for New Horizons, 901-328-2151 or tjones@nhmemphis.com.  Thanks!

Course 2555: Developing Microsoft .NET Applications for Windows (Visual C# .NET)

Published on: 1/20/2006, Classroom Training 

This five-day, instructor-led course provides students with the skills required to build Microsoft Windows Forms applications by using the Microsoft .NET Framework. This course is a part of the Microsoft Visual C# .NET curriculum and is intended to provide C# programmers with the skills required to create Windows Forms applications by using the .NET Framework. The course will cover the major topics for Windows client application programming on the .NET Framework. These topics include: Windows Forms, GDI+, simple data access, interoperating with unmanaged code, threading and asynchronous programming issues, simple remoting, Web access, Web Services consumption, debugging, security, and deployment issues for desktop applications.

Topic: Discovering C# 3.0 and LINQ
Gain an understanding of some of the many features C# 3.0 has to offer. Learn how you can leverage Language Integrated Query (LINQ) in your applications. This presentation will demonstrate practical uses of the new C# 3.0 features along with overviews of LINQ to Objects, LINQ to SQL and LINQ to XML

Speaker: John Kellar
John Kellar is the Founder and Chairman of the devLink Technical Conference. He is a Technical Consultant with Compuware Corporation and owner of Anvil Systems in Nashville, TN. John is also a member of the Nashville .NET User Group Board of Directors and an occasional speaker at technical events. John has developed solutions in several markets including healthcare, government, financial services and manufacturing.

Topic: Windows Workflow Foundation
Mark will cover a brief introduction to workflow to explain where it fits and why you would interested in this new toy as a developer.

Windows Workflow Foundation also includes the ability to define rule driven workflows with a powerful rules engine. Mark will dig into the rules engine and explain how forward chaining works, how you can take control of rule evaluation yourself and how to use the various attributes that control how the rules engine makes its decisions. You'll also learn the secret of making dynamic changes to rules for a running workflow.

Speaker: Mark Dunn
Mark has over 20 years of experience in the disciplines of software engineering, database administration, and project management. Software that Mark developed for the radio industry is still in use today. He was a lead developer on the team that created Tapscan, a well-known Arbritron ratings analysis package that has dominated that industry for many years. He is the president of DUNN Training and Consulting, Inc. a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner based in Atlanta, GA.

For the past four years, Mark has been awarded MVP status for his contributions to the Visual Studio .Net community and he serves as Microsoft's Regional Director covering the Southeast United States. Mark also co-founded .Net Rocks, an Internet radio program for .Net developers recognized in over 80 countries and now hosted by Microsoft on the MSDN site. He is a popular speaker at conferences such as TechEd and DevConnections as well as a member of the INETA speakers bureau.

Mark is also a Microsoft Certified Trainer, Application Developer, Solution Developer for .Net, and Database Administrator.

Topic: Introduction to Test Driven Development with the ASP.NET MVC Framework
In this session, we will introduce the ASP.NET MVC Framework (MVC Framework) architecture and development style. One of the core requirements for the design of the MVC Framework is to enable effective Test Driven Development. We'll introduce the core principles and practices of Test Driven Development (TDD).

Because this is an introductory talk, we will limit our demonstration of TDD to exclude mock objects and dependency injection frameworks. This talk will focus on understanding the concepts behind the MVC Framework architecture and the practice of TDD.

Speaker: Alan Stevens
Alan Stevens is a passionate and experienced software developer living in Knoxville, TN. Alan has had a lifelong love affair with technologies of all sorts. Alan regularly speaks at industry conferences and user groups. Alan is the President of the East Tennessee .NET Users Group. When Alan is not playing with his kids, enjoying a fine cigar, singing or playing his acoustic guitar, he occasionally updates his blog at http://netcave.org.

See the following message from Ravi Nangunoori:

I would like to share community news with users of your group. I launched a multimedia content website www.dotnetvideos.net. I have over 100+ videos on the site right now with an additional 200+ videos in the pipeline ready to be added. Just added 11 more videos today. Many more videos are in the pipeline. I created this website as a community 'give back'. Every registered user of my website will receive a FREE 6-month subscription to asp.net PRO magazine. I would appreciate it, if you can announce the launch to the members of your blog readers or a .net user group you are associated with or any other .net developers. You may be instrumental in making your blog readers or visitors to receive a premier asp.netPRO magazine.

Please look at Scott Mitchell's (www.4guysfromrolla.com creator) comments on his website about www.dotnetvideos.net at http://scottonwriting.net/sowblog/posts/13074.aspx

If any of your user group members interested in contributing visual articles to my website, please drop an e-mail.

Topic: Reach End-Users with Next Generation Web Applications
Visual Studio 2008 enables developers and IT operators to dramatically reduce the amount of time, effort and code required to develop and deploy real-world Web applications. ASP.NET 3.5, Visual Studio 2008 and IIS 7 each provide much improved administration and management support, on top of dramatically improved performance. Also covered is support for ASP.NET AJAX, JavaScript enhancements, rich support for CSS standards and rapid development of data-bound Web pages.

Speaker: Jeff Blankenburg
Jeff Blankenburg is a Developer Evangelist for the Microsoft Corporation. Over the past 10 years, Jeff has successfully implemented his technology expertise in numerous industries including retail, education, and healthcare. Jeff has exceptional proficiency in user-interface design, Web Standards, and web application development. He is a contributor to the O'Reilly title Windows Developer Power Tools on the subject of code validation services. Jeff is also an organizer of the CodeMash conference. Jeff holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio.

Topic: Implementing Scrum and Team Foundation Server: A Semi-Practical Guide
Both Scrum and Team Foundation Server have received a large amount of attention the last few years and it is hard to separate the theoretical rhetoric from practical guidance. This presentation demonstrates the practical lessons learned from implementing both for a new .NET software development department. The focus will be on working with TFS and Scrum on a daily basis with real world examples of both successes and failures. Specific topics to be covered include:

• Overview of Scrum
• Overview of TFS
• Walk through of implementing Scrum and other agile concepts using TFS and VSTS.
• Demos of the Conchango Scrum plug-in for TFS, extending TFS with new templates, taking advantage of the TFS/Excel integration, and more.

Speaker: Tommy Norman
Tommy Norman is a Systems Architect for Compuware Corporation with over 15 years experience in the Information Technology industry. His primary focus has been designing and building line of business applications with ASP.NET, smart client, and mobile solutions. Tommy remains very active in the developer community as past president and current board member of the Nashville .NET User Group, one of the original co-founders of the devLink Technical Conference, and as a frequent speaker for area user groups and technology organizations. When he is not working, Tommy enjoys guitar, music, and keeping up with his 4 (soon to be 5) children. You can find more information at his blog.

If you signup and mention that you were referred by the Memphis .NET User Group, you'll receive a $600 discount on this 5 day SharePoint training.

When: Feb. 18-22, 2008 (5-day ILT course with extended labs)

Price: $2995-$600= $2395

Location:
New Horizons Memphis
4775 American Way
Memphis, TN 38118

Course Description:
This 5-day course explores the development opportunities with Microsoft's most recent release of SharePoint 2007. The first half of the course focuses on Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS) where you will learn how develop fundamental WSS building blocks such as Features, application pages, site pages, Web Parts, custom list types, site columns, content types, custom workflows and site definitions. The second half of the course focuses on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS). You will learn how to assemble and configure business solutions by using and extending the portal and web content management features of MOSS as well as other server-side services such as the Business Data Catalog, Forms Services, Excel Services and Report Center.

Prerequisites:
Attendees should have professional development experience with Visual Studio 2005, the .NET framework and ASP.NET as well as familiarity with Microsoft Office products such as Word and Excel. It is also recommended (but not required) that attendees have a background with the previous version of Windows SharePoint Services V2 and have experience working directly with XML files in Visual Studio 2005.

Register Today - Limited Seating!

Contact New Horizons Memphis to Reserve Your Spot: 901-375-1766

Schedule:

1. Roadmap to SharePoint 2007 Development

2. Developing Features

3. SharePoint Architecture

4. Pages and Design

5. Master Pages and Site Branding

6. Web Part Development

7. AJAX Web Parts

8. Lists and Content Types

9. Document Libraries

10. Creating and Testing Site Definitions

11. Forms Services with InfoPath 2007

12. Developing SharePoint Workflows with Visual Studio

13. Extending Portal and Search in SharePoint Server

14. Web Content Management

15. The Business Data Catalog (BDC)

16. Excel Services and Report Center

17. Application Security

18. Creating Office Business Applications (OBA)

Topic: IIS 7
IIS7 is the most flexible, extensible and customizable Web server on the planet. This session presents a tour of IIS7 and demonstrates the many benefits it offers developers. Learn about the end-to-end extensibility model in IIS7, which was used by the IIS product team to build all of the features in IIS7. In addition we will look at how we can performance tune slow JavaScript code.

Speaker: Ron Cundiff
Ron drinks Red Bull like Homer Simpson swigs beer, so get set for a well-caffeinated presentation. Ron loves challenges, tight deadlines and boosting productivity, but dislikes status meetings, slow drivers and waiting for downloads. Could there be a pattern here? Ron began his programming career at the tender age of 10, when he decided his Commodore 64 games weren't quite cutting it. He then downloaded technical info from BBS and wrote his own games using sprite graphics. Before joining Microsoft in 2002, Ron designed and implemented a global online commodities exchange system for an ISV. He has also held management and technical leadership positions with a Microsoft partner. His certifications include MCSD, MCSE, MCDBA, MCP+I+SB - and he's working on extending the list. Ron has led 56 MSDN events to date and participated in over 20 user group meetings throughout Kansas, Missouri and Tennessee. Ron lives in Memphis with his wife, Lisa, and his children, Kayla and Ryan. No word if their Dad has passed on his passion for the Kansas City Chiefs. http://blogs.msdn.com/ron_cundiff

If you have not done so, head on over to the Memphis Day of .NET website to check out the tentative schedule and sign up. We've got a great list of speakers, and we're looking forward to a great turn out. Space is limited, so sign up today!

COST: Free!
FOOD: Breakfast & Lunch
WHEN: November 10, 8:00 AM – 4:30 PM
WHERE: University of Memphis – FedEx Institute of Technology (directions & parking will be posted on the Memphis Day of .NET website)
WHAT: See the Day of .NET Agenda

The Memphis .Net Users Group will be hosting a .Net Code Camp on Saturday, November 10th from 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.  It will be held at the FedEx Institude of Technology building located on the campus of the University of Memphis.  One of the cool features of this building is a state of the art 190 seat tiered amphitheater boasting the second largest implementation of digital congress units outside the United Nations.  It is called The Zone!  Our opening Key Note Presentation will be made in this room.

The Zone

Breakfast and Lunch will be provided by our sponsor Robert Half Technology.  Door prizes will be awarded following the last session.

We are currently lining up speakers and formulating an agenda.  Tentatively, there will be 10 breakout sessions plus the keynote speech.

So what are you waiting for?  Register now!

Campus Map

Topic: Overview of Visual Studio 2008
We'll take a look around Visual Studio 2008 to see what the new version can offer you as a developer. We'll touch on IDE features such as JavaScript intellisense and enhanced debugging as well as support for new language features in .NET 3.5. You'll walk away with a high-level understanding of why you might be interested in upgrading to the next version of Visual Studio – even if you're planning on sticking with .NET 2.0 for now.

Speaker: Colin Neller
Colin Neller is a software engineer with Memphis-based ServiceU Corporation, a service provider offering online event-related services to a variety of organizations. He has a variety of development experience ranging from deep integration with Microsoft's WebBrowser control (P/Invoke & COM Interop) to business application design and implementation using Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX. Colin is an enthusiastic supporter of the .NET community and enjoys learning and sharing new technologies.

Topic: Connected Consumer Experience for Mobile Scenarios
You've heard all these terms – ESB, SOA, SaaS. We'll explore these as well as talk about a more practical approach called S+S. To do this, we'll look at a solution architecture that we all can relate to – bringing our digital life into the car. If you own either one of these, this presentation is for you.

Speaker: Jon Box
Jon Box is an architect for Microsoft and works with customers to utilize Microsoft technologies to build impactful solutions. Jon has been programming professionally since 1985. In that time, he has worked in a variety of environments and languages that include Cobol, Assembler, Clipper, C, C++ (Borland, ATL, MFC, Win32, COM/DCOM), VB5/VB6, VB.NET, and C#.

Before joining Microsoft in 2006, Jon was in the Microsoft partner community starting in 2000, right before the birth of .NET. In that period, Jon had a variety of responsibilities including developer, consultant, instructor, project manager, managing consultant, and General Manager. Jon has been active in the community including presenting at TechEd, presenting a variety of MSDN Webcasts, writing magazine articles for .NET Developers Journal, writing whitepapers on MSDN, co-authored a book on the Compact Framework, and co-founded the Memphis .NET User Group. Jon also attained MCP, MCSD, MCT certifications – as well a member of the Regional Directors program, MVP program, and INETA Speakers Bureau. For more thoughts from Jon, see his blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/jonbox.