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aspConf - The Virtual ASP.NET Conference

This year we're evolving mvcConf into something bigger and better. After many discussions and planning around everyone's busy schedules, we came up with aspConf - The Virtual ASP.NET Conference. As the main site states: aspConf is a virtual conference focused on one thing: showcasing the ASP.NET stack as the platform for great web applications. We've revamped the popular mvcConf conference to serve all of ASP.NET, ...

posted @ Saturday, July 14, 2012 10:24 AM | Feedback (691)

MvcConf 2– February 8th, 2011

We’re getting ready for the next version of MvcConf on Tuesday, 2/8/2011 from 8AM-5PM CST! What is MvcConf? MvcConf is a virtual conference focused on one thing: writing awesome applications on top of the ASP.Net MVC framework. Your brain will explode from taking in so much hard core technical sessions. Sounds fun eh?  This is a community event and we want the best and brightest sharing what they know. We intend to record each session and make them available online for viewing. We intend to make the videos available free of charge, depending on conference sponsorships. ...

posted @ Thursday, January 20, 2011 12:38 AM | Feedback (1932)

Fall 2010 DevConnections Wrap Up

Last week, I had the pleasure of presenting at DevConnections at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, NV. I had a total blast interacting with attendees, fellow speakers and checking out the vendor hall. The logistics for the conference were remarkable given there was approximately 2,800 people in attendance! For those of you that attended my presentations, thank you! I hope you were able to get something out of them; I had a blast presenting and interacting with you in each of them.  Also, I had a great time with the open spaces sessions. There was lots of good...

posted @ Saturday, November 6, 2010 4:03 PM | Feedback (1812)

Open Source Support Is Not Just Code

As you know, I’m the author of MVC Turbine. Since the beginning of the project, I’ve received community assistance via code patches to address some issues or add features to the project.  Also, I’ve received non-code help from the community. For example, Hugo Bonacci (@hugoware) for donated his artistic talent and created these awesome logos for the project.  These logos adorn the CodePlex site as well as the Twitter account (@mvcturbine). Most recently, I welcomed the help of Anthony from Sticker Mule to the list of contributors to the project.  Sticker Mule prints custom stickers starting at $69 for...

posted @ Thursday, August 5, 2010 11:01 PM | Feedback (833)

MvcConf 2010

Recently my good friend and fellow C4MVC junkie, Eric Hexter blogged about an event the ASP.NET MVC community is putting together called, MvcConf. What is MvcConf? MvcConf is a online conference where you can learn about real experiences creating MVC applications as well about what the future holds for creating asp.net apps based on MVC.  We have scheduled community members to present on intro and advanced topics using MVC2 and we have some Microsoft product members who will talk about some of the new stuff coming out soon. Why should I care? If you’re interested in...

posted @ Saturday, July 10, 2010 9:37 PM | Feedback (700)

MVC Turbine Resources

Recently MVC Turbine has had a lot attention, so I wanted to take the time to say “Thank You!” to those of you that have help promote it, use it, provided feed or giving it a look. Artwork In particular I wanted to say a HUGE THANKS to Hugo Bonacci (@hugoware) for donating his artistic talent and creating these awesome logos for the project. Thanks for putting up with my many draft changes and requests. The logos are awesome and I thank you for providing such a great asset to the project!   ...

posted @ Friday, July 2, 2010 12:35 AM | Feedback (803)

MVC Turbine v2.1 RTM

Last week, it was tweeted that MVC Turbine v2.1 had reached RTM. Release Notes The released bits can be downloaded from the main project site; the features it provides are (same as v2.0 RTM plus these): Instance Registration to IServiceLocator You can now add an instance of a type to the underlying container so you can address the single instance context. IServiceLocator is registered into the container ...

posted @ Tuesday, May 18, 2010 10:54 PM | Feedback (632)

ASP.beer Cancelled

That's right, the ASP.beer event during the MVP Summit 2010 has been cancelled. Why? Since there are a lot other parties going on at the same time on Tuesday night, I'm going to cancel the ASP.beer get together - http://www.nerddinner.com/1416 - at the Tap House. My intent with this get together was strictly social and meet and greet and the same can be done at other parties without making people jump through hoops to fit things into their schedule. I see it at the end is about being social and getting to know people in the list on a more personal level...

posted @ Friday, February 12, 2010 1:20 PM | Feedback (635)

MVC Turbine v2.0 for MVC2 RC2 (.NET3.5)

The MVC Turbine bits are now compiled against ASP.NET MVC 2 RC2 which runs on .NET 3.5 SP1 and Visual Studio 2008.  You can get the bits by going to the CodePlex site. Please note that this the same feature release as MVC Turbine v2.0 RTM.  The following is compiled and upgraded to work with .NET3.5 in VS2008: VS2008 Templates Runtime binaries Feature Samples Nerd Dinner Sample Okonau Sample Again, as I mentioned before, the main...

posted @ Friday, February 5, 2010 10:51 PM | Feedback (636)

MVC Turbine v2.0 for MVC2 (.NET3.5)

The MVC Turbine bits are now compiled against ASP.NET MVC 2 RC which runs on .NET 3.5 SP1 and Visual Studio 2008.  You can get the bits by going to the CodePlex site. Please note that this the same feature release as MVC Turbine v2.0 RTM.  The following is compiled and upgraded to work with .NET3.5 in VS2008: Runtime binaries Feature Samples Nerd Dinner Sample Okonau Sample Again, as I mentioned before, the main development will take place onVS2010 and...

posted @ Monday, February 1, 2010 11:51 PM | Feedback (618)

MVC Turbine Redux

A few days ago, I blogged a response to Rob Conery’s question entitled, Why MVC Turbine? Since then, Rob has been so kind to send me an email saying Thanks for the blog post, but…Dude, I still don’t get it. Help me reach the ‘aha!’ moment. As I told Rob, after I re-reading the blog post and the tone it had, I whole heartedly agree with him: The post did not answer his question. So Rob… My apologies, mea culpa, lo siento. I really appreciate your feedback and your assistance with developing a valid message for MVC Turbine...

posted @ Monday, January 11, 2010 11:33 PM | Feedback (621)

Injecting Your Favorite IoC Into MVC Turbine

Since the release of MVC Turbine, I’ve been getting lots of questions about the design decisions I made around the interaction with the Service Locator that ships with the plug-in.  The two main questions are: Why didn’t you use the Common Service Locator project from CodePlex? Why are we forced/constrained/etc to use generic component registration API? These questions are very valid and could be easily explained if I ever write the documentation for the project (which, I’m working on by the way). So in this post, I hope to...

posted @ Tuesday, December 15, 2009 1:39 AM | Feedback (177)

ASP.beer Seattle

Can you answer at least one of the following questions: Are you an ASP.NET or related web technology enthusiast? Are you going to be in Bellevue, WA on 2/16 for the MVP Summit? Do you live in the Seattle area? Do you like to eat/drink with fellow geeks? If you have answered at least one of these questions, come hang out with us at ASP.beer! When: Feb 16, 2009 @ 8:00 PM (PST). Where: Tap House Grill, 550 106TH AVENUE NE BELLEVUE, WA...

posted @ Sunday, December 13, 2009 8:51 PM | Feedback (706)

MVC Turbine v2.0 RTM

Well, here’s the official blog post for the tweet I did last night: I figured, I should tweet the release and have people get an early access to it, then blog the same (plus more) information here. :) What is MVC Turbine? I’ve been asked many times for the 140 char description of Turbine, so here it is for the record: MVC Turbine is a plug-in for ASP.NET MVC that has IoC baked in and auto-wires controllers, binders, view engines, http modules, etc. that reside within in your application. Thus...

posted @ Tuesday, December 1, 2009 11:58 PM | Feedback (618)

MVC Turbine

For those of you that follow me on twitter, you’ve noticed that I’ve been tweeting a lot about a new side project called MVC Turbine. MVC Turbine is a simple way to provide flow and plumbing within ASP.NET MVC applications, or as its tag line suggest, it converts flow into useful work.  A few weeks ago, I had a quick poll on twitter that asked: As you can see, from the results, 50% of the responses where “Yes, always!” which means that you’re wanting more out of your MVC application. Please, don’t get this the wrong way: I’m not saying that Phil...

posted @ Friday, September 25, 2009 1:55 PM | Feedback (280)

Etixo

As some of you already know, I blogged about my reaction to the Oxite MVC sample from the MIX Online Labs.  Also, I started blogging some of my ideas for refactoring the source to make it a bit more streamlined.  More importantly, I want use these posts as a way to share my ideas on how to use the new ASP.NET MVC framework.  Not that I am “the source” for the right implementation, but I do want to provide another insight to the problem.  Anywho… Instead of keeping my source in zip files and bits and pieces, I created a fork...

posted @ Sunday, January 11, 2009 10:59 PM | Feedback (616)

Oxite

This past weekend some discussion sprung up around a new blog engine called Oxite.  This blog engine is put out by the MIX Online team and it's used to power their blog. Now, I'm not going to rehash some of the statements made by other members of the community since there is no point in beating a dead horse.  However, if you want check them out I suggest that first see Rob Conery's thoughts on Oxite as well as Scott Koon with TLC for Oxite post. The thing I do want to point out is that the team...

posted @ Monday, December 15, 2008 10:07 PM | Feedback (614)

Microsoft ArcReady

Not sure how many of you know about this upcoming event (tomorrow) 11/06/2008!  If you're going to be around the area, please come check it out!! ArcReady Professional Patterns on the Job You're smart. You deliver. What more could your company want from you?  Why don't they come to you for the big technical decisions? Why won't they listen to your proposals? It seems like everyone has an agenda and they're doing everything they can to kill your great ideas. Join us this quarter as we focus on the soft skills that architects need to master....

posted @ Wednesday, November 5, 2008 9:27 AM | Feedback (611)

Iowa Code Camp v2!

That's right!  If you're free this Saturday and get to get some free content and a great way to interact with the developer community in Central and Eastern Iowa, come check out the Iowa Code Camp at the DMACC West Campus! Here's more info: Iowa .NET and CRIneta.org are hosting the second code camp to Iowa on November 8, 2008 at DMACC West inWest Des Moines. You might be asking, what's a code camp? Well, here are some of the basic ideas: Community driven High quality ...

posted @ Tuesday, November 4, 2008 8:43 PM | Feedback (680)

Not At PDC

Can't make it to the Professional Developer's Conference (PDC) in LA?  Well, we've started a new group called NotAtPDC!  Chris Love is the genious behind this movement! Here's some info from him: We are going to have live meeting sessions, links to Blogs, Podcasts and any other .NET related content featured this week. Right now we are trying to get things organized better. We will have a site live in the morning. If you want to schedule a session or something DM http://twitter.com/NotAtPDC. Chris is in the process on getting a website up to aggregate some of the content that the...

posted @ Sunday, October 26, 2008 8:33 PM | Feedback (616)

Thanks, VSLive Las Vegas and HDC Omaha '08!

For those of you that attended one or both at of my talks at VSLive Las Vegas or HDC Omaha 2008, I just want to say, thank you!  And for the VSLive folks, I do apologize for cutting my open source tools talk short by 10 minutes.  I had to jet out of the Mirage so I can make the plane back to the Midwest! As promised, I upgraded my code to run with Beta 1 of the ASP.NET MVC Framework!  So, if you want to get the latest bits go to: http://jglozano.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/presentations You will find my slide deck as well as...

posted @ Sunday, October 19, 2008 7:05 PM | Feedback (770)

VSLive! NY and HDC Minneapolis Talks

Yeah, I know...been really, really quiet here.  Reason?  Busy with work, work and life.  Going to try to get back into the "frequent blogging" mood, I promise!! Any way, for those of you that attended my talks at VSLive NY! and HDC Minneapolis, I just want to say, "Thanks!!"  The code as been updated slightly to help clarify some of the interactions between the different projects (and logic).  So, go check out the latest bits at http://jglozano.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/  Please note that the PPT deck is also in that location for you guys to get. Again, thanks for coming to...

posted @ Thursday, October 2, 2008 8:05 PM | Feedback (612)

ASPInsiders Summit 2008

Last week I attended the ASPInsiders Summit at the MS main campus in Redmond.  I must say that by Wednesday afternoon my head was ready to explode with the amount of content that I, along with another Insiders, parsed through!!  However, it was a great opportunity to provide feedback the teams that make up the ASP.NET Team. Over all, it was a great way to experience the process in which MS takes customers feedback and prioritizes features for their products.  Sure, we all build products, but I must say that we don't do it at the scale that Microsoft...

posted @ Saturday, July 26, 2008 6:18 PM | Feedback (611)

How do we define community?

During lunch on Tuesday of this past week, ScottHa raised an interesting discussion point by saying that he rarely sees MVPs that are enterprisie ... by that, MVPs that actually work for (day to day) for an enterprise).  Granted, he used to be one himself back when he worked for Corillian.  But as we looked around the group you could see that we were all trying to recollect if we knew of any other MVPs that are enterprisie.  Sadly, we didn't. Now, the point of that discussion was not say that people in the enterprise cannot be MVPs, it...

posted @ Monday, April 21, 2008 7:28 PM | Feedback (612)

MVP Summit Highlights

Well, I had a great time meeting old friends and making new ones at this year's summit.  There were so many things going on and so many people to see and talk to, that it's next to impossible to consume everything at once!  So, to keep things simple, here are of the highlights per day: Sunday Although, I was not there until late (way late), it was a lot fun hanging around the Westin's lobby and talk about how a chicken takes a dookie.  Yeah, that's right.  Keith Elder had the great intentions of recording a podcast that...

posted @ Sunday, April 20, 2008 11:08 AM | Feedback (741)

Ask An Expert Live Chat: May 1st, 2008

That's right!  We're having another ASP.NET Expert Live Chat on Thursday, May 1st, 2008 at 6 PM PST.  Here's more info on the event: Get your tough development questions answered by Microsoft MVPs, Regional Directors, and other industry experts. Community experts will be on hand to answer your .NET- and Visual Studio-related questions. No off topic questions please. Please note that questions regarding upcoming products and future product specs might not be answered. Would you like to participate as an expert? Contact Ryan Olshan at Ryan[dot]Olshan[at]strongtypes[dot]com. MSDN Online Chats - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/chats/default.aspx Chat Room...

posted @ Saturday, April 5, 2008 12:47 AM | Feedback (643)

IADNUG Meeting: Intro to ASP.NET MVC

That's right, we're having another IADNUG meeting this evening with Chris Sutton from the CR Ineta user group talking about ASP.NE MVC!  If you're free this evening, come check us out! Intro to the ASP.NET MVC Framework Chris Sutton, CRIneta.org The ASP.Net MVC Framework is a new project that the ASP.Net team is working on to give developers an alternate and potentially better way to do web development in the ASP.Net environment. Model View Controller(MVC) is a well known presentation pattern that has been used in many environments with a variety of different...

posted @ Wednesday, April 2, 2008 2:04 PM | Feedback (611)

MVP'ed for 2008

That's right, the nice people over a Microsoft decided to award me with the ASP.NET MVP award for 2008!  Just wanted to use this blog post as a Thank You! for those people involved in the program! I'm really looking forward to the MVP Summit next week and the year to come!

posted @ Wednesday, April 2, 2008 1:56 PM | Feedback (611)

RSS Bloat

I'm a huge fan of RSS because it enables me to be lazy.  How does it do that?  Well, the simple fact that I don't have to go to your site to pull content is a HUGE time saver for me.  It's nice that we have a mechanism (RSS) that allows you easily pull the content that you care about. I've been using FeedDemon for about +1 year now and I'm pretty happy with it.  I actually bought the product back then, but now you can get it for free.  The nice thing about FeedDemon is that it's just...

posted @ Wednesday, March 5, 2008 8:46 AM | Feedback (619)

IADNUG Meeting: Utilizing WPF As A Business Application Platform

As you recall, we cancelled last month's UG meeting due to weather.  For this month, we're having Bryan Sampica, an ASP.NET MVP from Cedar Falls, come talk to us about WPF!  The info for the meeting is below. Hope to see you there!   Utilizing WPF as a Business Application Platform Bryan Sampica, ASI Computer Systems With the emergence of WPF and XAML as a UI framework, we've seen lots of demo's and examples on animating birds, and playing video clips. In this session we'll examine the business...

posted @ Sunday, March 2, 2008 9:04 PM | Feedback (612)

Des Moines HEROES Happen Here Launch Event

That's right, there will be a HEROES happen {here} event in Des Moines on 4/24!    Here's some info on the event: The Des Moines event will celebrate the launch of Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008. The event will bring together IT Pros and Developers to get an in-depth, up-close look at the new products and will give attendees an opportunity to meet with our Partners as well as members of the development teams who created the cutting-edge technologies. And all attendees will get a promotional pack containing all three new products....

posted @ Friday, February 22, 2008 11:14 PM | Feedback (611)

The Zen of ASP.NET MVC

Earlier today, Scott provided us with, what I think is, a pinnacle post on getting people to understand the Zen of the new ASP.NET MVC framework. Scott says, This is a not just a different tune, but a whole different band playing all new music. Not everyone will like the music, and that's why the world has more than one band. This is a Good Thing. I like to think of ASP.NET MVC as the raw, acoustic version of the more heavily produced and multi-layered ASP.NET WebForms we use today. ...

posted @ Thursday, January 24, 2008 10:53 PM | Feedback (611)

flickrNSurface: The Open Source Project

That's right, remember a while back when I blogged about FlickrNSurface?  Well, since then, I've been showing people the demo code and some of them have been wanting to know how they can get their hands on it for their own website/projects.  At that point, I thought to myself, what is the best way to share the code and any changes that I make to it?  That's when I realized I should make this into an open-source project!  What better way to share ideas and implementations with community than by allowing them to contribute directly to it! Again, I've...

posted @ Sunday, January 20, 2008 9:37 PM | Feedback (613)

Iowa Code Camp

That's right!  The University of Iowa:ITS, CRIneta and Iowa .NET user groups are joining forces to bring the first code camp to Iowa on 5/3/2008 at the University of Iowa Conference Center in Iowa City, IA!! You might be asking, what is a code camp? Well, here are some of the basic ideas: Its for and by developers Free (for attendees) All about code, not PowerPoint presentations What you present on should be available to share with people who attend Never during...

posted @ Friday, January 11, 2008 12:29 PM | Feedback (611)

IADNUG Meeting: Developing Modules with DotNetNuke

Thanks to Mitchel Sellers from IowaComputerGurus for presenting to our user group last night!  We had a pretty great turn out and some really nice swag to give away!  For those of you that were there, thanks for your support! As I mentioned during the meeting, we're going to try something a little different for distributing demo materials (code, ppts, etc.).  I've setup a iadnug, a Google Code open source project, to host our code.  (yeah, clever name I know...)  So for those of you that have SVN or TortoiseSVN installed, you can check out the code.  If you...

posted @ Thursday, January 10, 2008 1:59 PM | Feedback (611)

groop

Running a user group is not easy.  It takes quite a bit of coordination to get sponsorships, line up the venue, line up speakers, find swag, schedule the logistics and the most important, order pizza...just to name a few. At times we've been contacted by our members asking when the website will be updated with the meeting info or when will Levi send out the email blast reminder.  Well, I'm sorry to say, but we get busy with our jobs/families and we end up dropping the ball at times. Wouldn't it be nice we had a tool to...

posted @ Tuesday, January 8, 2008 11:09 PM | Feedback (611)

Coding Out Loud

Well, it's a new year which means new exciting challenges both in my personal and professional life. I wanted to use this post so I can share with you my (three) readers, what my plans are for the content for blog for the upcoming year. Theme for 2008: Simplicity That's right, simplicity. For those of you that know me personally or have worked with me, are now saying, "Simplicity, WTF?!? You?" Just kidding...well, not about the simplicity theme. ;-) Over the past year, I've learned that the "best" approach to a problem does not mean that it has to...

posted @ Thursday, January 3, 2008 11:02 PM | Feedback (667)

IADNUG Silverlight Presentation Demos

Well, it's been over a month since the I did my Silverlight presentation at the IADNUG November meeting and I've realized that I've forgotten to post my demo code.  Well, sorry about that.  For those of you that are interested, you can download it from the link below.  Sorry! Files: silverlight_presentation.zip (~20 MB - it include videos).

posted @ Saturday, December 8, 2007 11:05 PM | Feedback (623)

Visual Studio 2008 Demo Contest

Well, as I previously blogged about it, the details are done for our demo contest during the VS2008 InstallFest in Des Moines are finalized.  Here they are: Visual Studio 2008 Demo Contest! Want to show off your VS2008 or .NET 3.5 skills?  If you answered, yes, this is your opportunity to strut your stuff! During the Visual Studio 2008 InstallFest & Holiday Party on December 12, 2007 at the DMACC West Campus, we'll be having a demo contest in the auditorium.  Here's the scoop ... What do I need to...

posted @ Friday, December 7, 2007 2:42 PM | Feedback (611)

First Comment, First Serve

I am not sure how many of you out there were planning on attending the VS2008 InstallFest in Des Moines next week.  I completely neglected the fact that because I had registered for the event I would "take" a VS2008 license from the pile.  Well, I already have VS2008 (through MSDN subscription) so I don't need my free license. So if anybody wants it, be the first to comment on this post and it's yours.  Yeah, it's that simple.

posted @ Wednesday, December 5, 2007 9:16 AM | Feedback (614)

Visual Studio 2008 InstallFest Des Moines SOLD OUT!

That's right, the InstallFest event in Des Moines has SOLD OUT!  As of today, there are 13 people on the waiting list.  For all of you that signed up, thanks!  It is because of you that this event will be a success!  Also, if you're interested, you should sign up to do a demo during the event! Those of you on the waiting list, you will be notified of an open spot if someone on the main list cancels.  So if you're on the main list but can't make it, please cancel so somebody on the waiting list can...

posted @ Thursday, November 29, 2007 8:53 AM | Feedback (612)

VS2008 InstallFest - Des Moines - Strut Your Stuff

Alright, earlier this evening I blogged about the Visual Studio 2008 InstallFest that our Des Moines .NET UG is hosting on December 12th, 2007.  If you're interested in coming, please sign up!!  If you would like to ensure a copy of VS2008, it is REALLY IMPORTANT that you sign up at http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032360733&Culture=en-US Now the contest info!  Have you been playing around with VS2008 beta1/beta2/RC1 or .NET 3.5 for a while?  If you answered yes, then I recommend you strut your stuff by coming up with a 10-15 minute presentation you can share with the group during the InstallFest! What do I need to...

posted @ Tuesday, November 27, 2007 7:47 PM | Feedback (612)

Visual Studio InstallFest – Des Moines

Everyone in the Des Moines, sign up for this great event our UG is hosting in conjunction with Microsoft!  We're also planning on having a presentation contest to see who can show off the best features VS2008.  More to come on this, so stay tuned!! Visual Studio InstallFest - Des Moines Event Registration: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032360733... ATTENTION DEVELOPERS! Are you ready to be one of the first to get their hands on Visual Studio 2008 when it RTMs?  Join Microsoft and the Iowa DNUG for a Visual Studio 2008 InstallFest and Holiday Party on December 12th, 2007 at the Des Moines Area Community College!...

posted @ Tuesday, November 27, 2007 4:20 PM | Feedback (611)

Twitter: My Mini-blog

I was looking at my blog posts numbers and I must say, they're pretty sad.  In the past three months, I've had 15 posts...For those of you that are regular readers, thanks for sticking around.  Honestly, I've been pretty busy with my workout routine and with my new job, that I've had little time to do interesting blog posts.  Don't worry, I have some really good posts that I need to finish up and publish. Another reason, which is a little less obvious, is that twitter is taking up most of my "random" blog posts.  If you follow my tweets,...

posted @ Sunday, November 4, 2007 9:35 PM | Feedback (611)

IADNUG Meeting: Building Rich Web Experiences using Silverlight

On Wednesday, November 7th, I will be presenting about Silverlight to our user group in Des Moines.  Here's the info: Abstract: This is an overview presentation of the feature set that both Silverlight v1.0 and v1.1 have to offer to developers. We will also cover some of the current tools available for both designers and developers to create Silverlight applications. What is Silverlight? Microsoft® Silverlight™ is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web.  Silverlight offers a flexible programming model that supports AJAX, VB, C#,...

posted @ Sunday, November 4, 2007 9:14 PM | Feedback (613)

Tulsa TechFest: Unable To Present

I would like to apologize for those who wanted to attend my presentation on Software Factories at Tulsa TechFest, but unfortunately due to technical difficulties, I missed my stand-by flight into Tulsa.  When I spoke with the nice people at American Airlines they couldn't guarantee me making into Tulsa into sometime late this evening. However, for those of you wanting my slides, you can download them from the link at the bottom of this post.  Also, as I mentioned on my HDC post, I will be doing a webcast series on the Software Factories on Code To Live.

posted @ Friday, October 19, 2007 2:17 PM | Feedback (611)

MS Popfly and Yahoo Pipes Comparison

Yesterday, Microsoft announced the opening of Popfly beta to public use.  One of the first things that I thought about Popfly is how are other people out there (both technical and non-technical) are going to use it.  I've been looking at Yahoo! Pipes for a while and thought it was a pretty cool way to gather information.  To me the one thing it lacked was the presentation of the information (what good is the info if I can't get to it effectively?).  So last night I decided to do a little video that compares both Popfly and Yahoo! Pipes trying to "solve" the same...

posted @ Friday, October 19, 2007 1:52 PM | Feedback (612)

Software Factories at Heartland Developer Conference

First, to all of you that attended my HDC presentation on Software Factories, THANK YOU!  I hope that as promised, the "Ah, Ha!" factor was high.  Also, I would like to apologize for the issues I ran into with the VPC and the demos.  I had tried the demo before with only two VS2005 instances running and had no issues with it...Apparently, four instances of VS2005 running concurrently is too much for VPC. Right after my presentation, I confirmed with Steve Loethen, a co-host of Code To Live, about coming up with the webcast series on Software Factories. I still to work out...

posted @ Thursday, October 18, 2007 8:01 PM | Feedback (613)

Microsoft Releases Popfly Public Beta

Today Microsoft is announcing that Popfly will be going into public beta.  So for those you that had requested to sign up for the beta, no worries!  You can automatically login without a hassle! (Pretty sweet, huh?) And for those of you that haven't signed up or don't know anything about it, just to go http://popfly.com and login with Passport. Here's a brief description of what Popfly: It's a Silverlight 1.0 application to create a really slick UI that allows you to use drag-and-drop tools to build some cool things.  It also includes support for Vista Sidebar and Live Gadgets.  For those...

posted @ Thursday, October 18, 2007 6:45 PM | Feedback (564)

Pre HDC: Omaha Geek Dinner

So, I'll be in Omaha at around 6 PM on Wednesday, so I was wondering who's up for dinner (a geeky one at that)? Fellow speaker and MVP, Tim Rayburn, asked the same question earlier last week. I thought about doing dinner then going to the pre-conference party and hangin' out.  If you're interested in joining me and Tim, either post a comment or email me at javier-at-lozanotek-dot-com  (replace the -at- and -dot- accordingly... ;-) ).  

posted @ Monday, October 15, 2007 11:20 AM | Feedback (583)

Source Code for .NET Framework Libraries Released

That's right, you heard it!  Scott Guthrie and Scott Hanselman have both talked about it (Scott even has a podcast on it).  Microsoft will release the source code & debug symbols for debugging purposes for the following .NET libraries under the Microsoft Reference License (MS-RL): Base Class Libraries ASP.NET Windows Forms ADO.NET XML WPF They plan on adding more libraries in the months to come, such as WCF, Workflow, LINQ. I'm not sure about you, but this IS HUGE!  Way to go, MS!  Taking...

posted @ Wednesday, October 3, 2007 12:35 PM | Feedback (611)

Halo 3 Pre-Release Party In Chicago

Once again, Dave Bost, has blogged about a Halo3 pre-release party the MS Evangelism Team in Chicago is hosting on September 24th, 2007...for those of you paying attention that's a day before the Halo3 release date.  If you're interested in attending, SPACE IS LIMITED, check out Dave's post on the matter. ...Now, if I only had an XBOX 360...or even better, if I only had the TIME to play an XBOX 360...yeah, that would be nice! ;-)

posted @ Thursday, September 13, 2007 8:35 AM | Feedback (612)

SilverlightCamp In Chicago

Dave Bost, DE for IL, IN, WI and former golfing partner, invited me through Facebook to the SilverlightDevCamp in Chicago, IL.  For those of you in the area or interested in attending this FR-EE event, here's the info from Dave's blog post: On Friday, September 28th and Saturday, September 29th, Clarity Consulting will host a Silverlight DevCamp at their offices in the Loop. This is a great opportunity for people interested in Silverlight to come together and hack out an application or two. DevCamps are similar to BarCamps in that it’s a casual gathering of like minded individuals. BarCamps tend...

posted @ Tuesday, September 11, 2007 11:43 AM | Feedback (613)

IronRuby on RubyForge

That's right, John Lam has his team have put the latest release of IronRuby out on RubyForge (this took place on 8/31/07). Fellow rubydoes.net blogger, Aaron Junod, has a great post on getting IronRuby from RubyForge with TortoiseSVN. I'm personally looking forward to this evening's coding "festivities" as I try to integrate some code into the project.  Good times!

posted @ Saturday, September 1, 2007 11:39 AM | Feedback (611)

Live ASP.NET Chat

Just a reminder about the live ASP.NET "ask an expert" chat this Thursday, the 23rd of August at 7 PM CDT (5 PM PDT).  Come join the fun.  Here are the links. Main announcement - http://community.strongcoders.com/blogs/ryan/archive/2007/07/24/august-23-2007-ask-an-expert-live-chat.aspx Prize announcement - http://community.strongcoders.com/blogs/ryan/archive/2007/07/26/august-23-2007-ask-an-expert-live-chat-prizes.aspx Chat experts - http://community.strongcoders.com/blogs/ryan/archive/2007/07/30/august-23-2007-ask-an-expert-live-chat-experts.aspx

posted @ Monday, August 20, 2007 10:14 PM | Feedback (546)

Ask An Expert Live Chat On August 23, 2007

That's right, if you have a question that needs answering come check out our "Ask An Expert" live chat on August 23rd, 2007 at 5 PM PDT.  Please note that this chat is not being hosted by Microsoft and as such questions regarding upcoming products and future product specs may not be answered. To see the main announcement, check out Ryan's blog for the info.  Also there seems to be a prize give away for this chat! How cool?!  Here's the list of experts involved in the chat.  It's quite the line up! Calendar: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/chats/default.aspx ICS: http://www.microsoft.com/communities/chats/vcs/07_0823_msdn_aspnet.ics Hope to see...

posted @ Tuesday, July 31, 2007 9:03 AM | Feedback (611)

Great IADNUG Meeting Last Night

I don't know about you but I think we had a great turn out for last night IADNUG meeting on Regular Expressions.  Jon von Gillern did an excellent job tackling the topic.  I particularly liked the demo presentation-style he used to demonstrate the harder parts of the presentation.  Thanks Jon for taking the time to step up in front of the group and share your finds.  That's what we're all about!  Sharing and community!  Also, thank you to all of you that signed up for the event through ClickToAttend.  Like we mentioned during the meeting, we're in the process of trying...

posted @ Thursday, July 12, 2007 1:39 PM | Feedback (611)

Heartland Developer Conference, I'll be there. Will you?

That's right, I received word from Phil Wolfe earlier this week that I've been accepted to be a speaker (this is my third year!) for the Heartland Developer Conference in Omaha, NE on Oct. 18-19th.  If you check out the speakers page, you won't see my info there but I'm sure it's coming.  For those of you that like my presentations,  here's a list of topics I've been kicking around: .NET Tooling for Oracle - There's some applications out there that need talk with Oracle.  How do I make things as easily as possible to get my work done?...

posted @ Friday, June 15, 2007 11:43 AM | Feedback (613)

Party With Palermo TechEd '07 Edition

Man, Jeff is going all overboard with the planning for the Party with Palermo series (dude, you should quit your job and become a professional party planner!).  As you can see, he even has a badge for the party! If you have the time, check out the party's website and RSVP so we know who's all coming!  I hope to see a lot of fellow MVPs there!  I know it's going to be a blast!

posted @ Wednesday, May 23, 2007 9:56 PM | Feedback (611)

Support for Subversion on CodePlex

From the looks of it (via Phil Haack), CodePlex will be supporting SVN (both svn.exe and TortoiseSVN) for all of their projects.  Here's the converstaion Jim Newkirk and Phil had: Haacked wrote Mon at 8:24 PM So I can download svn.exe from http://subversion.tigris.org/ and manage my CodePlex source code repository, yes? So are you rolling out Subversion? Or a Subversion facade into TFS? Anything you can reveal? :) jimnewkirk wrote Mon at 7:41 PM To clarify: it's our intention to support the functionality of the command-line Subversion client as well as TortoiseSVN. jimnewkirk wrote Mon at 7:40 PM Phil,...

posted @ Tuesday, May 22, 2007 9:13 AM | Feedback (611)

ArcReady: Des Moines, Iowa

I would like to thank Denny, our breadth AE, for doing a great job at our first ArcReady event last Friday in Des Moines.  During the event, Denny mentioned that Des Moines will be a regular stop on the quaterly ArcReady visits.  If you would like to attend, please post your email on this post (through comments) and I'll make sure that Denny gets you added to the list.  Also, after the event, we held our first ArcCouncil event.  ArcCouncil is an open forum were we discuss various topics dealing with software development.  For example, the meeting started by...

posted @ Monday, May 21, 2007 11:11 PM | Feedback (612)

MVP Summit Pictures

I just bumped into these pictures on Flickr of the MVP Summit.  Looks like Jeffrey Palermo and Noah Coad had a ton of them to put on this Flickr group! If we want to see the blast we all had, go check them out!

posted @ Saturday, April 21, 2007 11:39 AM | Feedback (613)

Attend Our TechEd BOF: User Groups! User Groups! User Groups!

I'm fortunate enough to co-moderate this session along with Chris Pels, Chris Wallace, Greg Low and Bob Coppedge!  The "how-to start|run|keep-going" user group topic was submitted by all of us as a potential BOF session so we all decided to team up and get a bigger crowd going. Also, seems like Jeffrey Palermo and James Kovacs have theirs selected as well!  I had the pleasure of hanging out with these guys during the MVP Summit and all had a blast! Oh yeah, from the sounds of it, there will be another Party With Palermo TechEd 2007 in the works.  If...

posted @ Saturday, April 21, 2007 11:25 AM | Feedback (611)

Third ASP.NET MVP Expert Chat: April 19th, 11:30 PST

That's right, we're at it again!  We're signed up to answer your ASP.NET related questions for two hours on April 19th at 11:30 PST (1:30 CST). The chat format is as follows:  You post your questions and the panel of experts answers them.  We're using the Microsoft Chat Software (MVP’s only, sorry!) to grab questions and answer them.  The first chat did not have this software working well and was kind of chaotic (MSN Messenger & Conference Call).  The software is now working, so it should be a very smooth flow of questions and answers.  We're still doing the conference call so that when...

posted @ Thursday, April 12, 2007 9:33 AM | Feedback (612)

IADNUG: Community Serving Community

First I would like to personally thank Evan Hennis for having the courage to step to the podium and present WPF to the IADNUG.  Also, for those of you that attended, I will like to apologize for the technical difficulties we had with the projector and demos.  I'm very glad that at least we could get one laptop to work (although, it was hard to read at times). Also, if any of you out there are interested in presenting to the UG on any topic, please let me know!  I would like to start a community serving community series for the...

posted @ Thursday, April 5, 2007 2:52 PM | Feedback (655)

MVP'ed Again...

Thanks to the MVP Award Team and my lead Steve Dybing for recognizing me for another as a ASP/ASP.NET MVP.  I'm thinking of a lot of good content to present/create this up-coming MVP year. Once again,  thanks!

posted @ Sunday, April 1, 2007 10:58 AM | Feedback (611)

TechEd 2007 Birds of a Feather Session: How To Start A .NET User Group

That's, right I've summitted the How to Start A .NET User Group BoF session.  Last year, Nick, Eric, Levi and I were moderators for this same session and had a great turn out (10+)! If you have time, you should vote for it so it can make it for the final cut! Voting Link: https://www.msteched.com/BOF/voting.aspx Here is it's bio: How To Start a .NET User Group This BOF session will be a round table for anyone interested in starting and maintaining an active .NET user group within their local community. We'll share common success and challenges that attendees have experienced. Audience: Developer

posted @ Saturday, March 17, 2007 9:47 PM | Feedback (613)

Thanks, Paul Sheriff!

I would like to thank Paul Sheriff for taking the time to speak to our user group.  He did an excellent job on presenting an intro to OOP. In case you were not there, he has offered a free eBook for our UG members.  Go here, to get it. Once again, thanks Paul!

posted @ Wednesday, March 7, 2007 9:49 PM | Feedback (614)

CRINETA Presentation: Applied .NET 2.0 Programming

That's right, on Monday March 5th, I will be presenting for the Cedar Rapids .NET User Group about .NET 2.0 programming.  Here's the info: Applied .NET 2.0 Programming Are you tired of the same old boring "collection demos" for generics?  Ever wondered how anonymous delegates really work?  Tired of playing with System.Xml clasess to a grip of your .config file?  Or how about adding basic transaction support to common .NET types?  In this session I will show you how you can take some of the new features of the .NET Framework 2.0, (Generics, Anonymous Delegates, Configuration, and Transactions) and apply them to your current development with minimal...

posted @ Friday, March 2, 2007 11:20 AM | Feedback (612)

Architecture: Why Use Workflow Foundation?

I was asked today if there's a metric for determining whether an business application should use Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) or roll its own workflow plumbing.  Here's my extended answer... As far as a metric of qualification, I can't say there is one (or that I have found one).  Besides deciding whether or not to  use a technology (or any type of plumbing) as an aide for development can't be (and shouldn't be meausered) by a number.  It's not the number of lines of code, methods, classes, assemblies, etc. that decide whether or not you should use workflow.  It all comes down to...

posted @ Monday, February 26, 2007 9:44 PM | Feedback (649)

ASP.NET MVP Chat Tonight!

By the way, I posted about this chat a while back.... but if you don't recall and are free tonight from 7-8 PM CST (8-9 PM EST, 5-6 PM West Coast Time), come check out our ASP.NET MVP Public Chat!  Check out the line-up of MVPs that are ready to answer your ASP.NET questions! You can join the chat by going to the MSDN Chat Center.

posted @ Friday, February 16, 2007 12:46 PM | Feedback (624)

8 ASP.NET Webcasts

PluralSight's own Fritz Onion will hosting 8 ASP.NET webcasts next week.  If you're interested in checkin them out, you can register here.

posted @ Wednesday, February 14, 2007 5:18 PM | Feedback (611)

IADNUG: Billy Hollis on Smart Clients

Last night, we had the privelege of having Billy Hollis present about Smart Client design at our monthly UG meeting.  We were able to book Billy through our membership with INETA. The presentation was pretty good since he covered alot of spects of smart client design, development and deployment.  The crowd was somewhat interactive and over all had a good time. Thanks Billy for talking to our group!

posted @ Thursday, February 8, 2007 11:47 AM | Feedback (617)

ASP.NET MVP Live Chat Feb 16th, 2007

I'm proud to announce that I will helping out on the first ASP.NET MVP Live Chat on Feb 16th, 2007 from 8:00 - 9:00 PM EST!  If you have any questions, regarding ASP.NET development, come and join the free live chat!  Check out the info below (from community.strongcoders.com) Join the Strong Coders Community, Scott Guthrie, General Manager, Microsoft Developer Division, and Microsoft MVPs for the continuation of the 1st MVP Live Chat on Friday, February 16, 2007 from 8:00pm-9:00pm EST. Get your tough questions answered by experts. No question is too hard. The chat will take place on MSDN Chats. See details...

posted @ Sunday, February 4, 2007 10:59 AM | Feedback (611)

Vista Launch: Minneapolis

On Wednesday, I headed up north to help out at the Minneapolis Vista Launch key city event (KCE).  One of my tasks was to help people by answering questions, showing them demos at the "Vista Trial Area."  Surprisingly, I was also able to answer a couple of development related questions in regards to WPF, Gadgets and running Visual Studio on Vista. Another nice thing about the event is that I got to talk and hang out with Jeff, Mike and Farhan.  Also, I made a new MVP friend with Bill Smith (Windows 2003 MVP and a Mac guy!!).  The cool...

posted @ Friday, February 2, 2007 7:22 PM | Feedback (612)

LightBox.NET Source Code

FYI.  I've created a CodePlex project or LightBox.NET.  To find the latest source, please go check it out there! Someone asked if I would post the source code for LightBox.NET.  Well, here it is.  Enjoy!  If you have any ideas for extending it, please let me know!

posted @ Wednesday, May 10, 2006 10:56 PM | Feedback (628)