DDD Ireland: ADO.NET Data Services

I’ve blogged about DDD Ireland before but at last it is finally upon us. DDD is coming to Ireland this Saturday (3rd May 2008) for the traditional free, one day event by the community for the community. This time it’s in Galway and there’s the usual mix of familiar and new faces that seem to make these events go well. I have an offering of ADO.NET Data Services starting at 9:30am and there are many other sessions that will be well worth going to. If you can get to Galway on Saturday this you should definately make the effort.

Technorati Tags: DDD, DDD Ireland, ADO.NET Data Services

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Posted by: Guy Smith-Ferrier
Posted on: Sunday, April 27, 2008 at 8:55 PM
Categories: Events
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NxtGen Cambridge: ADO.NET Data Services

I’m delighted to say that I’m making my very first visit to the new (ish) NxtGen location of Cambridge on Tuesday night (29th April 2008) for another round of ADO.NET Data Services. If you live in or near Cambridge check out the NxtGen branch and see the community that Allister Frost and Chris Hay are building.

Technorati tags: NxtGen, ADO.NET Data Services, Allister Frost, Chris Hay

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Posted by: Guy Smith-Ferrier
Posted on: Sunday, April 27, 2008 at 8:34 PM
Categories: Events
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Happy Birthday, DotNetDevNet!

Last night saw the first birthday of The .NET Developer Network. A year ago on St. George’s Day Mike Taulty came down to Bristol for the first ever DotNetDevNet meeting and gave us A (Very Excellent) Evening Of LINQ. 13 meetings later Gary Short travels all the way from Scotland (and then travels all the way back again the next day) to deliver an equally excellent evening of Basic and Advanced Design Patterns (with an excellent "really live" demo of what a pattern is). Thanks to Mike, Gary, all of the other speakers who have given up their time this last year and in particular thanks to everyone who has turned up at events and made this activity thoroughly rewarding for me and everyone else. (And we had birthday cake too!).

And because I like stats here are a few to celebrate the last 12 months:-

  • 13 meetings
  • 8 grok talks
  • 1 C# training evening
  • 1 day of WPF training
  • 1 geek dinner
  • 1 video
  • 2 community nights
  • 2 venues
  • Over 1000 emails
  • Thousands of pounds of swag
  • 494 sign ups
  • 431 attendances
  • Highest attendance: 62
  • Lowest attendance: 22
  • 260 members
In particular I would like to thank Microsoft, the Fabulous Developer Evangelist Team and especially Clare Burgess for the great support she extends to us and everyone else in the community. Also thanks go to Rob Williams and UWE for being excellent hosts since October.

Here’s to the next year (starting with Silverlight 2.0 with Chris Hay on Tuesday 13th May 2008).

Technorati Tags: DotNetDevNet

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Posted by: Guy Smith-Ferrier
Posted on: Thursday, April 24, 2008 at 10:09 PM
Categories: Events
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DDD6 Slides

Just after the announcement of DDD7 seems like a great time to mention that the slides and materials for DDD6 are now up on the site.

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Posted by: Guy Smith-Ferrier
Posted on: Monday, April 21, 2008 at 9:23 PM
Categories: Events
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DDD7 Date Is Set

There’s been that nice pattern of every June and every November/December for a few years but 2008 will see just one DDD "South" (but obviously there’s still DDD Ireland and DDD Scotland on the 3rd May and 10th May respectively). So put the date in your diary: Saturday 22nd November 2008. No more details at the moment just make sure you sign up early - standard stuff this - stand by your browsers.

Technorati Tags: DDD, DDD7, DDD Ireland, DDD Scotland

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Posted by: Guy Smith-Ferrier
Posted on: Monday, April 21, 2008 at 7:12 PM
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MVP Summit 2008

Thursday saw the last day of my first MVP Summit. It’s been 4 days of connecting with Microsoft and other MVPs. The days are long (if you go to the parties of which there are many every night) so like most conferences when you get to the end of it you’re really glad to be going home. This one was enjoyable on another level for me though because it is the first conference I have been to for ages where I haven’t been presenting and it was a real joy to be solely on the receiving end.

The first day (Monday) included a keynote by Sean O’Driscoll (former General Manager at Microsoft). I really enjoy a good presentation and this was certainly one of them. Sean was likeable, friendly and natural and managed to use humour in exactly the right way i.e. as a means to making the presentation interesting and keeping people’s attention without it interfering with (or even worse, becoming) the content.

The highlight of the four days for me was meeting up with Joe Rohde and David Kean of the FxCop team. I write FxCop rules and I found the time I spent with Joe and David to be the most valuable 90 minutes of the whole conference. The opportunity to meet "one to one" with the people who write the products and tools you work with is truly a benefit of being an MVP.

The event night was at the Experience Music Project in Seattle next to the Space Needle. It was a pot pourri of events scattered about the building:

  • Rock Band on the Xbox 360 played in an amphitheatre to get the immersion experience. Rock Band appears to be a whole lot of fun and it is sad that it isn’t available in the UK yet
  • Karaoke with a full backing band. The backing band were fabulous and many people had a go ranging from very good to truly awful. Lorna Williamson has a fantastic voice and really nailed her song (she used to sing in a band and it showed).
  • Science Fiction museum that I found really interesting
  • Music museum that was also interesting
Today (Thursday) was the last day and it featured Steve Ballmer (CEO, Microsoft). Steve’s keynote was excellent partly because it was an excellent spectacle to witness and be entertained by for an hour but also because it is very reassuring to know that the man at the top knows how to connect with people, has a vision and appears to be clear on how to get there. Steve’s delivery was sincere (not the usual sincerity that Americans produce that Europeans find so unconvincing but the kind of sincerity that really was believable), honest and charismatic. I really do believe that companies reflect the person at the top who is setting the tone and with Steve our future appears to be in safe hands. He also took Q&A and when someone remarked that he didn’t get a reply from a US MVP he gave an open invitation for anyone who doesn’t get a reply from any employee at Microsoft to forward the email to Steve himself (steveb@microsoft.com) who would ensure that they got a response. Powerful stuff - this should really put the fear of God into all Microsoft employees who might let an email or two slip.

All in all it was an interesting experience. If you are fortunate enough to be an MVP or to become one in the next 10 months then the MVP Summit 2009 is 1-4 March 2009.

Technorati Tags: MVP Summit, Steve Ballmer, Sean O’Driscoll