Ben H Blog - Keep it Simple, Then Refactor.

We all know that PDC… I mean BUILD is coming up in a couple weeks in Anaheim, California.  Microsoft is keeping all the announcements (Including a real agenda) for BUILD really close to the vest.  One thing is for sure, there will be some fallout after BUILD.  Many questions, rumors and suspicions will be debated out there in cyberspace.  What better place to get the real answers than at Microsoft Headquarters in Redmond?  VS Live in Redmond includes sessions from some of the top names in the industry, including many Microsoft Product\Program Managers.  No one knows what will come out at BUILD (Or no one can talk about it until after BUILD).  In the short time between BUILD and VS Live the speakers will undoubtedly be up to speed on what is going on in the Microsoft world.  Join us at VS Live and have access to all the speakers to get your questions answered by real world software engineers.

Early bird rates are available until Sept. 7th.  Click on the image below to register for VS Live in Redmond and get a special speaker discount.

By the way I will be presenting on HTML 5 and MEF at VS Live in Redmond.  I sincerely hope to see you there.

I know January is almost over, but to me the year is still new.  I wanted to inform everyone about all the awesome User Groups and Community events in Colorado.

One of the most exciting upcoming events is the first ever Rocky Mountain Tech Tri-Fecta on Saturday, Feb. 21.  I cannot explain how cool this event is going to be!  It’s basically an all day geek fix.  There will be sessions related to .NET development, SQL Server and Windows Server.  So, if you work with MS products or know someone who does this is the event for you.  We have tons of speakers (Scott Hanselman is coming!) from all over the country and many who work for Microsoft and have inside info you cannot get anywhere else.  If you like what you are hearing please be sure visit the www.rmtechtrifecta.com site to register for the event to reserve your spot.

Next I wanted to let people know about the South Colorado .NET User Group.  I have taken over the leadership of this group from Julie Yack.  Julie Yack, David Yack and David Milner round out the leadership team for this group.  Next Tuesday we have Kathleen Dollard coming down from Ft. Collins to talk about rethinking Object Orientation.  SHould be great!  Please check out the link above to get more details.

Here are the links to all the MS related user groups I can think of in Colorado.

Denver Visual Studio User Group

North Colorado .NET User Group

Boulder .Net User Group

Colorado Springs SQL Server User Group

Denver SQL Server User Group

Colorado Springs Windows User Group

Rocky Mountain Windows Technology User Group

Please let me know if I missed a group.

Today was another great day at the vConference.  I attended some great sessions over the course of these three days and now I'm excited to go back and watch the ones I missed on demand.  I hope everyone had as much fun as I did with the conference!

I did finally get my hosting situation figured out.  That means I can get my slides and demos out here for people to download.  I do believe that the vConference site will have this stuff posted eventually, but in case they don't here you go:

SharePoint:

Business Data Catalog Part I

Business Data Catalog part II

KeyNote - SharePoint and SilverLight

.NET:

Beginning WPF Databinding

Advanced WPF Databinding

Design Patterns

KeyNote - Data Services

KeyNote - SilverLight and Cross Domain Calls

KeyNote - LINQ vs. ADO

Day 2 of the conference was just as good as day 1.  We had great sessions all day long.  I attended a bunch of the sessions and had some great conversations with many of the attendees.  One of the issues we ran into today was the demos where not available.  I was going to post them here, but I'm having some issues with my ISV and getting the files to the server.  I will post them ASAP.

In the mean time, enjoy the rest of the conference.

The PDC is a great place to get the latest news related to Microsoft Technologies.  It's a good idea to keep up to date with what is going on in the world of Microsoft.  However, most of the stuff released and demoed there is bleeding edge stuff that won't be available for live deploys for months or even years.  That's where the SSWUG.org Virtual Conferences being held next week come in.  Three days of great content, most of which can be used in the applications you are building right now and can be deployed TODAY!!!  Four conferences are being held that include: SQL Server, SharePoint, .NET and BI.  Not only is it great content, but's it's only $100!!!  Or if you use my discount code you can get it for $90.  My discount code is:

SPVIPBH

Please use this code to save yourself $10 and go have a burrito at Chipotle on me.  Mmmmm Chipotle.......

Just wanted to let everyone know that I am lucky enough to be a presenter at this years SSWUG.org .Net Developer Virtual Conference in October.  This is a really cool idea where all the sessions are pre-recorded and on the days of the conference you can login and watch from the comfort of your ergonomically correct cubicle chair.  Maybe you can talk your boss into giving you the days off and you can watch in your PJs from your couch.  Either way you don't have to incur the time or the cost of traveling to an in-person conference.  This is a plus for those of you that are "Dungeon" coders.  You can get all the great content of the conference without leaving the "Dungeon" and being forced to socialize with other people.  That can be uncomfortable...

Seriously, there is some great content from some of the top presenters in the industry on deck for this conference.  I'm just glad I get a free login so I can attend some of the other presenters sessions.  Speaking of cost, you get all three days for just $100.  If you can't sell this to your boss you're never getting any training EVER.

Again there are some great topics and presenters so please use this link to check out the sessions and the presenters for this conference:

.NET Developer Virtual Conference

There are also 3 other Microsoft related virtual conferences scheduled for the fall.  Use this link to find out about all the conferences from SWWUG.org:

www.vconferenceonline.com

Don't let the letters "CRM" in the book title fool you, this is a book heavy on content regarding the latest .NET Framework technologies.  Microsoft Dynamics CRM version 4.0 is a great CRM tool, but it can be used for much more.  That is the purpose of this book.  To inform the developer community about the benefits CRM 4.0 gives you right out of the box along with the many customization points that allow you to turn the product into literally any line of business application you want.  Not only do you get great content in the book, but when you purchase the book you also get a base framework built on top of CRM 4.0 to get you up and running fast.  This book has tons of great real world examples of how to use Workflow, Silverlight and C#.

Being a friend and co-worker of Dave's, I've been a witness to all the hard work and long hours he put into writing this book and creating the base framework that comes with it.  I've also seen all the hard work and support given from many of Dave's friends, family and co-workers.  One person who is all three of these things to Dave is his wife Julie Yack.  She was editor and publisher on the book.  She spent many hours reading through and editing long chapters that included tons of code and examples.  Another friend and co-worker, Cathy Hardman, also put in long hours helping edit the technical content of the book.  In addition, she helped write many lines of code included in the base framework as well as contributing her talents to the book web site.

Me, I helped edit a couple of the chapters, but most of the process I watched from the sidelines.

Obviously, I recommend the book and since I know "people" I have a discount codes for purchasing the book.  Below is the URL to the book site where you can purchase the book and my discount codes.  The codes are good for $10 off.  The discount codes can only be used 20 times so please hurry.  Enjoy!

Book Site: http://www.thecrmbook.com

Discount Code (Printed Version): benblog

Discount Code (E-Book Version): benblogebook

You can also keep up with David Yack at his two bogs.  Developer Related stuff is at http://blog.davidyack.com/ and his CRM stuff is at http://crm.davidyack.com/.